Viper (Nighthawks MC Book 1)

by C. J. Pinard

  Book 1

  Nighthawks Series

  Pinard House Publishing, LLC

  Copyright © 2021 C.J. Pinard & Pinard House Publishing, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Art By: Kellie Dennis @ Book Cover By Design

  Copyediting: Amabel Daniels

  DEDICATION:

  This is for Christie (C.M.) Owens-Cunningham. For the inspiration you gave me to be a better writer and to never stop putting my stories on paper, even when I wanted to give up. May your words forever live on, and may we all try to find our way in a world where you no longer dwell. I hope to see you one day again in paradise, my friend. Fly high, sweet girl. You’re deeply missed.

  NIGHTHAWKS MC SERIES

  Viper

  Coming soon:

  Shadow

  Phoenix

  The Face

  Venom

  Chapter 1

  Heat of the Night

  Hot Louisiana wind whipped me in the face as I flew down the highway. A glance up told me the moon was full and we’d probably be very busy tonight.

  Damn werewolves.

  I steered my Harley toward the water, needing to be alone and think before the night started. I had big news for my men, and I had to contemplate how to tell them. Shadow could hold down the clubhouse while I mulled over my decision.

  I reached Cross Lake fairly quickly and parked my bike in the lot. Patting my pants to ensure my knife was in my pocket and my revolver tucked in tight, I strolled toward the dock and stopped at the edge, where it stretched out onto the lake. The water was very still, like a sheet of glass, the moon a perfectly round white ball reflected on its surface. I briefly wondered what Cross Lake looked like first thing in the morning with the orange sun rising behind it. I hadn’t lived here the last time I’d seen a sunrise. No, I’d been in California, where I was born and raised. I don’t remember my last sunrise, but I do remember my last sunset. It was in 1987.

  “Sweet swells today, dude!”

  I grinned and high-fived my best friend Andy. We’d graduated high school together twelve years prior and pretty much had been living as beach bums since. We surfed, worked menial jobs, and practically never left Huntington Beach. As we sat in nothing but swim trunks with our surfboards by our sides, we reminisced about how awesome the waves had been that day, watching the large, orange ball sink below the Pacific Ocean’s horizon.

  I flicked my sand-splattered blond hair to the side. It had been permanently bleached by the sun—even though, by then, a few gray hairs had begun popping through. We sat in silence until the dark descended and a blanket of stars began to break through the dark-navy sky.

  Andy got up and brushed sand from his shorts. “Okay, man. Gotta get ready for work. Spring break bitches gonna keep us busy tonight!”

  I chuckled. Andy tended bar at a local nightclub. “Have fun.”

  “Stop by if you’re not busy,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder before shuffling off in the sand to head to his car, his surfboard under his arm.

  The sound of an approaching motorcycle bolted me out of my memory, and I turned my head to see one of my club members come rumbling up on his Harley. He killed the engine and dismounted his bike before heading toward me.

  I furrowed my brow, my hands on my hips. “This better be a fucking emergency.”

  He shrugged and grinned at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses he never took off. “Eh, sort of.”

  I sighed and looked out at the water, wondering how he’d found me. This was my so-called happy place and now I would have to find a new one. “What is it, Kovah?”

  “This lake is a good place to unwind. A buddy of mine likes to come fishing out here when he wants to be alone.”

  “I know the feeling,” I replied dryly. “How did you find me, anyway?”

  Kovah lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “Eh, I have my ways.”

  “You’re an annoying ass, you know that?” I replied.

  “Well, we’ve got a wolf on the loose near the clubhouse.” He looked up at the full moon. “I told the guys to inform you, but they said you weren’t there. You didn’t answer your cell, so I tracked you down.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and swore. “It’s off.” I powered it back on and re-pocketed it.

  “I figured. Anyway, Venom won’t let me kill him. He was mid-shift when we got the call. It was cute, him trying to bark orders at me from inside his cage.”

  I sighed and ran a hand down my face. “Fucking wolf. Should have never let one in the Nighthawks. Should have kept it vampires-only.”

  “And one human-vampire hybrid,” Kovah added, throwing me a cheesy smile that looked so out of place against his dark hair and sleeves of tattoos.

  I chuckled and turned my head to look out over the water. “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you the night I found you sleazing around my clubhouse.”

  “You almost wrecked my baby though. Good thing my buddy’s a bike mechanic or I would have sent you the bill.”

  I raked a hand through my hair. “Apprehend the wolf, lock him up, and I’ll be back shortly. If Venom has an issue, he can take it up with me.”

  “Ten-four.” Kovah saluted me like an idiot and then got back on his bike and left.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket to see I’d missed three calls and five texts while it had been off. I had a love-hate relationship with this damn device. I looked up over the calmness of the lake and wanted to throw the phone into it and never have to deal with one again. I remembered what it was like to not be burdened with having to be on call all the time, but as the leader of the Nighthawks, I had a responsibility to my men. To my team. And that meant always being available for emergencies. Which seemed like we had one every fucking day.

  I stared at the lake and blew out a breath. Emergencies I brought on myself and my men. I’d chosen the life of a hunter and now had a couple dozen other hunters by my side. Mostly a band of misfits who’d found a place to belong by joining the Nighthawks. Supernatural creatures with nowhere to go after becoming what they now were.

  A low growl from behind me bolted me from my thoughts. My silver knife was in my hand faster than I could blink as I spun around. A large gray wolf paced back and forth twenty feet from me, blocking my exit to the parking lot.

  I narrowed my eyes at the beast. “What do you want?”

  Of course, it didn’t answer me since they couldn’t speak aloud in their wolf form. It could understand me, though. That much I knew. It just stared at me as it prowled.

  I waved my knife as I walked closer to it. “Are you lost? Or do you have a death wish?”

  As I saw now that it was a male, he stopped at my warning and seemed to narrow his eyes at me.

  “Shoo,” I said, getting more annoyed with each passing minute. “You’re going to get out of my way, and I’m gonna get on my bike and go. We’ll both leave here unscathed and alive. Deal?”

  I didn’t want to kill the creature, since we only did that when we caught them threatening or harming humans or us, but I wasn’t going to let this fucker hurt me, either.

  The wolf didn’t move so I shrugged. “All right, man. If this is the hill you wanna
die on…”

  I threw the dagger toward his torso to scare him, and it missed by centimeters as he bounded out of the way at the last second, bolting away into the night. At least he wasn’t going to be a problem to me now. I used vampire speed to bolt to my bike, picking up my beloved knife on the way. The thing was not only made of pure silver, it had sentimental value as well.

  I tucked the knife into the leg pocket of my trousers and got on my bike. Before taking off, I looked around and saw that everything was quiet. Normally those bastards traveled in packs, so I wondered if this one was just lost.

  Stupid fucking wolves.

  Chapter 2

  Den of Vipers

  I smelled the wolf blood the minute I killed the engine.

  Our clubhouse sat in the middle of the warehouse district in downtown Shreveport, and I had never regretted the decision to establish it here. It was deathly quiet at night so we could hear if anyone or anything approached. I’d bought the entire building and had used a fictitious LLC to keep the locals out of my business. As far as they knew, we simply manufactured motorcycle parts and repaired bikes here, nothing more, nothing less. And it wasn’t a complete fabrication, we did work on our bikes here, we just got the parts from somewhere else. The back end of the clubhouse had a full mechanic’s shop. I was never interested in learning how to repair them, but we had a couple of guys and one girl who were pros. In their spare time, they bought and flipped bikes for profit.

  Wrinkling my nose at the stench of wolf blood, I plugged the code into the door and went inside. The familiar beeping sound echoed throughout the space, indicating someone had come through the door. A little added security never hurt.

  I stalked through the main open space of the warehouse and looked around. The upstairs catwalk area was clear and quiet, but straight ahead, where we kept three cages we referred to as cells, I saw Phoenix, Shadow, Face, and Kovah standing in front of one of two occupied ones. A large brown wolf lay panting on the cement floor, blood leaking from its left hind quarter.

  I could still smell the gunpowder. “You shot it?” I asked as I approached.

  Shadow lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “It was either him or me.”

  I stared at the creature and it stared back at me.

  “Isn’t it supposed to shift back into a human when it’s hurt?” Face asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Phoenix answered. “Only if they’re dying. Otherwise, he’s stuck like that until the moon goes away and morning comes.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Are we just going to let him bleed out like that?”

  Kovah chuckled. “You gonna go in there and tend to his wound? It’s not like he can do it himself if we throw him some medical supplies. No opposable thumbs.” He wiggled both his thumbs and grinned.

  “Well, at least sedate the fucker. Then maybe we can see what we’re working with when morning comes,” I said.

  “On it,” Shadow said, heading toward the offices where we kept a small armory of weapons and other supplies.

  The wolf woofed once at me. Then, the other wolf in the cage next to it also woofed.

  I looked at Venom in his wolf form. “You can tell me what he said when morning comes. Now be a good little Nighthawk and go to sleep.”

  He woofed again and I just shook my head. I hated having to lock him up every full moon, but he understood. He seemed to have a handle on his wolf in that form, but he was fairly new to the club and I didn’t trust him fully yet. In my experience, werewolves were unpredictable and dangerous—even in their human form. I’d taken a chance on Venom because he’d proved himself by saving Phoenix’s life. Plus, having a wolf in the club could be to our advantage. For instance, right now. Wolves had a telepathy of sorts, the way they communicated in their beast form.

  A pop and then a yelp caught my attention as I watched the dart enter the brown wolf’s neck area. He whimpered a few times and then went quiet, lying on its side. It looked dead but I could see its stomach rising and falling as it slept.

  “Fuckin’ wolves,” Shadow said, slowly entering the cell to tie a bandage around the now sleeping wolf’s leg.

  He was rewarded by an angry bark from Venom.

  I looked at Phoenix and Kovah. “Get him some food and water. We’re not savages.”

  They headed toward the kitchen area and I looked at Shadow. “What happened?”

  He jutted his bearded chin toward the creature. “I went to take the fuckin’ trash out and this mutt attacked me. Jumped out from behind the dumpster. Thank fuck I had my piece on me.” He patted his right hip where the pistol hid under his leather jacket.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” I said. “They don’t usually attack us, because they know if they bite us it’s not going to taste very good.”

  That was an understatement. It downright burned their tongues and throats.

  “I dragged it in here and the guys helped me throw it in there.”

  I looked at the trail of smeared blood leading from the front door to the cell. “Well, these things are getting braver. I was at the lake earlier and one seemed to appear out of nowhere. It didn’t attack but just kind of stared at me. I had to throw my knife at it to get it to move along. I hate that we can’t communicate with them while they’re like this.”

  “At least it’s only once a month that we have to deal with them,” Kovah said, opening Venom’s cell door and setting down two big bowls. The wolf immediately dug into the raw steak, making disgusting slurping and snorting sounds as Kovah closed the cell door and thew the bolt closed at the top of the cage.

  “Get that blood cleaned up and let’s meet for church,” I said, jutting a thumb toward the red smears as I headed to my office.

  “On it,” Phoenix replied, heading toward the kitchen.

  Before I reached my office, I stopped and popped my head into the mechanic’s shop. There were two bikes up on lifts and another lay in pieces on the ground.

  Dash turned his head when he heard the door open. “Hey ’sup, boss?”

  I hated when they called me that, but I couldn’t get them to stop, so I mostly just ignored it. “Anything going on?” I asked.

  He shook his head, his long ponytail sliding along his T-shirt as he turned back to the bike he was working on. The pieces were on a red cloth spread out on the metal table. He looked like he was putting together a metal jigsaw puzzle. “Nothin’,” he replied.

  “Church in five,” I said, looking at the other two, a man and a woman, sitting around drinking coffee.

  I left the shop and made a pitstop for my office before heading to the chapel. It was actually more like a bar, but it was the only place in the warehouse that could seat us all for church, so it had been dubbed the ‘chapel.’ The fact that fully stocked bars took up the length of two walls, and the irony wasn’t lost on me.

  Seeing that most of the group was already seated, I headed toward one of the bars and pulled out a wine bottle before yanking the cork out. I lifted a glass and poured the bottle’s thick, bloody contents into a glass. I put the bottle back and headed to the front of the room.

  After a sip, I set the glass down on the podium and opened up my notebook I’d retrieved from my office. Face told me he could put an app on my cell phone where I could take notes, but I preferred hand-writing them. Technology, not my favorite thing.

  I pounded the gavel, and the room went quiet. Before I spoke, I looked out at the group of vampires who made up the Nighthawks and felt a little bit of pride for the men and women who had chosen to follow me and help me keep the streets of Shreveport relatively clean. I hoped the bombshell I was about to drop on them would be taken well.

  Clearing my throat unnecessarily, I thanked them for being here, and then said, “I have some news.” You could hear a pin drop now as they all stared at me in rapt attention. “I’ve decided to move our main operation to New Orleans.”

  Whispers and murmurs sounded throughout the room, a few hands in the air like school children wanting to be called on
.

  I held my hand up. “Let me finish. All your questions will be answered.” I took a gulp of my bloody cocktail and set the glass down. “The move will take place over the next six months. This clubhouse will stay here, and I’ll be asking for three volunteers to stay behind to run it, and to monitor the activity in Shreveport. I’ve already secured a location twice this size for a fix shop, offices, an armory, living quarters, and detention cells. There’s an adjacent bar-nightclub I’ve purchased for extra income. I’m upping our recruiting efforts for more vamps to help us run the new place, as the dozen or so of us won’t be enough. I want to emphasize that recruiting means willing participants. I will not, under any circumstances, tolerate turning any humans against their will. We will accept both men and women, as long as they can pass the initiation process. All prospects will go through me. My lieutenants already know about these plans and they will be my right-hand men in completing this transition.”

  Without raising his hand, Dash asked, “Can I ask why?”

  I nodded. “The answer is simple: The supernatural crime rate is quadruple there than it is here. Plus, the Rebel Riders already take care of most of it here in Shreveport.”

  A fairly new member of our club, Jewel, snorted. “Those old coots. Humans. They won’t last long.”

  I glared at her. “Yes, but for now, they take care of business. They’re also recruiting younger members.”

  “Don’t underestimate them,” Kovah added. “They kick ass.” He grinned, his sunglasses reflecting the lights from the ceiling. He took a swig from his beer. Lucky bastard was a human-vampire hybrid and could not only go out in the sun, but could catch a good buzz from booze. I hadn’t been drunk since 1987.

  Chapter 3

  Heartache Tonight

  Huntington Beach, California – 1987

  The crash of waves in my ears was deafening as I sat and watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. My buddy Andy and I had been surfing most of the day and I was pretty exhausted. He’d left to go get ready for his job bartending at a local rowdy bar on the beach. I too worked a menial job in a surf shop, usually a few days a week so I could make my half of the rent I shared with another guy who I rarely saw. I realized at thirty years old I should probably grow up and get a real job, or even try to go to college, but I just didn’t care that much, to be honest. All I wanted to do was surf and party, and I had my deceased parents’ inheritance I was draining to do it.