by Evelyn Glass
“Shit,” George muttered. “No wonder she’s mad as hell.”
“Now you’re suddenly smart?” Dawn challenged. The bearded man bared his teeth when all eyes turned to the redhead.
“And what did Daddy do?” Nicole asked. “Put me away like a leper! And it was never my fault.”
Reese relaxed under her fists, and the boy let her land a few more punches when her hair spilled across his chest, and she wept wildly. Not one Alpha moved, the men barely seemed to breathe as Reese extended the one arm that he could get free and wrapped it around her neck. Letting her cry for a few moments, he finally managed to push his fingers under her chin so that he could meet her eyes.
“I know that,” Reese said. “I get it. And so I’m sorry, okay?”
Nicole sighed heavily and helped her brother to sit up. A fresh beam of moonlight hit their faces, and Dawn suddenly took note of the fact that they shared the same face. Every line, every angle was like they were looking into a mirror. If Reese donned a crimson wig or Nicole took the knife to her long hair, the perfect picture would be complete. How could either one of them hate the sight of their own face staring back under the night sky? The air seemed to still with possibilities, as Nicole gingerly curved her fingers around Reese’s hand.
“And I’m here to get back what’s mine,” she said.
“Don’t you mean ours?” Reese asked.
They seemed in sync as Reese helped his sister to her feet, and Dawn started to relax as Reese threw his arms around her heaving back. Reese looked smaller at his sister’s side, and Dawn couldn’t help but think it was best for the girl to be back in the fold. Because if anyone other than Cade was going to get the job done with the right combination of rage and skill, it was the girl who lingered in the shadows. The one that so many had forgotten. Maybe making her the leper was their late father’s final, fatal move. What Alpha wouldn’t go to the mat now that they had seen her damaged flesh?
“Now you say it! Because it’s convenient.”
“Because he wants to put her off!”
The unknown Alpha broke ranks. Pulling her up by her hair, he roughly turned Nicole into the trees, and George followed suit.
“Hey!” Reese screamed. “Hold the fuck up.”
The boy hurried forward and stumbled. Dawn and Cade exchanged a quick glance, and they moved as one to help the redhead as the other Alpha grabbed both sides of her face.
“We all worked and waited too damn long and hard for you to come in here dressed like the whore you are to ruin this now.”
“Brian!” Reese screamed. “Don’t try it! My word is—”
“Need to get your head back on straight,” Brian said. “Old ladies don’t dictate policy. Especially these skirts.”
Reese started to backtrack, and Nicole cringed as she shook her head.
“Don’t listen to it!” the girl screamed. “We… we’re talking. Like after all this time.”
“Talk is cheap,” Brian said.
If Dawn had the blade in her hand, she would have slashed into his back and felt no guilt at the sight of his blood spilling to the grass. As it was she could do nothing but slam her fists into his body in the small hope of getting him away from Nicole.
“Let me take care of this,” Cade said. He pressed Dawn behind his back and nearly had Brian in a headlock when a shot from an unseen gun filled the air.
“What the hell was that?” George asked.
All eyes turned to Lenny with a smoking piece in his hand. As Dawn narrowed her eyes, she thought that he looked taller, and he ignored the grumbling Alphas at his back as he managed to push the barrel of the gun into the back of George’s wide head.
“Leave her alone,” Lenny said. “If… if you wouldn’t mind.”
“If I wouldn’t… what is that?” George asked. “That supposed to make me run scared or something?”
“I---”
“Lousy call,” Brian scoffed. “Should have picked a better champion or whatever. If that’s what you think he’s supposed to be.”
Lenny’s lip quivered, but he fixed his eyes into a hard stare again and started to cock the trigger when Dawn looked between the Alphas’ collective faces. Everyone wanting something, everyone with an agenda. And not one of them, Cade included, had any way of knowing which way the wind would turn when the other shoe dropped. Because the Panthers would come. And the club had nothing close to protection outside of their own ranks. Even Mona would only be able to hold a charge off for so long, and if they kept clawing at one another like rats after the last scrap of food in an almost barren dumpster, they would tear the flesh from each other’s bones before the other crew even had to think about pouncing.
Quite a story. But I don’t want to be the last one standing to tell it…
“Now be quiet!” Dawn cried. “All of you.”
Cade tried to silence her when she swiped her hand across the line of his lips.
“That includes you,” she said. “Since you can’t behave like grownups, I’m taking the floor.”
“Who do you think you are?”
Both George and Nicole seemed surprised by the sound of their voices ringing out in unison, but they appeared to savor the camaraderie for all of a second when Dawn moved to Reese and fought to keep from trembling under his hazel gaze.
“I am…” Dawn started. She found it hard to finish the thought as the spotlight of the moon rained down on her face. Cade slightly shook his head, and she knew in that instant that the truth would do anything but set her free. But there were variations. Ways to the spin the story.
And the best old ladies made their men look good…
“This has nothing to do with Cade” she said. “I know what happens in Plainfield.”
“How is that?” Reese asked. Dawn felt Cade hovering, but she reached behind her back and lightly touched his arm as she plowed forward with her story.
“Live in a place long enough, and you learn the score,” Dawn said. “And the Panthers think they have it all figured out. From what I hear, they even have the cops in their back pocket.”
“Dawn...”
She had already said too much, but Dawn couldn’t take the words back.
“Does that make you a plant or something?” Reese challenged. Cade curled closer, and Dawn finally accepted the feel of his fingers.
“It… it makes me someone who keeps her eyes and ears open,” Dawn continued. “And what’s the big plan now?”
“We’re taking it all in,” George said. “And why do you keep popping up?”
“She’s just a bit of fun or whatever,” Cade said. It stung, and her eyes fluttered shut. Dawn made out Brian’s voice saying that they just needed to take a deep breath, that all was not lost, that the Alphas were still on the verge of getting their own back and then some.
“In pieces?” Dawn asked. “From where I stand, you’re doing the Panthers’ heavy lifting for them. And all they have to do is swoop in and bury the bodies if you boys and girls can’t play nice.”
George laughed uproariously and slapped Reese’s back as he caught his ear.
“Boss, Cade obviously don’t got his priorities straight,” he started. “He brings these bitches here to put us in our place. Or maybe… maybe he’s just going soft.”
“Watch what you say, you fucking—”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, will you just drop it?!” Dawn cried.
Cade stepped back at the force in her voice, and Dawn smiled softly as she reached for Nicole’s hand and pressed it into the palm of her brother.
“What are you doing?” Nicole asked.
“You’ve made a first step” Dawn said. “Let that loom large. Fight to the death for the throne when this is all over if it’s what you think you’re destined to do. But from where I stand—”
“Which is still on the outside trying to cut in,” George sneered.
Cade raised his fist to strike when Lenny lowered the butt of his gun to the back of the man’s head, and George fell to
the ground. His moans put Dawn’s mind at ease. This was far from their last night on earth, and she turned to Nicole and gently patted her cheek.
“You… you didn’t work this hard to give it all up with one throw,” Dawn said. “Now be smart. Keep him talking. Divvy it up when it’s all said and done. But don’t blow the play now.”
Nicole arched her eyebrow, and Dawn held her breath. Any of them could turn on a dime and decide that she was nothing but the enemy, and then even Cade might not be enough to protect her. But if they were smart, if they were supposed to be the crew to best their rivals, then maybe they would see some sense in what she was trying to say.
“Never thought Cade would go for a brazen bitch,” Nicole said. “But you do make a kind of sense.”
She spit into the palm of her hand and offered her fingers to her brother.
“So we keep up the peace talks?” she asked. “At least for the night?”
“And after?”
Reese nodded and took her hand. Their fingers melded together, and the siblings shook slowly and agreed to try to talk it out until their birthright was back in place.
“We are gonna revisit this,” Reese started. “But maybe… maybe Cade’s girl has a point.”
George started to protest when Reese waved him off and stepped back towards his men and their bikes.
“Let’s grab a drink first,” Reese said. “Christ knows I need one.”
George snarled as he followed after him, and Dawn watched as Nicole grazed her fingers against Lenny’s cheek and smiled.
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy,” he said with a clumsy shrug of his shoulders. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Nicole said. “I even missed you a little.”
“Just a little?” Lenny teased. “Thought you said that I was your big man.”
“In all the right places,” Nicole said. “Ride back with me.”
All of the other Alphas had pushed away as Nicole settled into the crook of Lenny’s arm. He let her take the lead , and Dawn felt a twinge of jealousy, only accentuated by the sight of Lenny kissing her fingers as he brought his hand close to her face.
“Side by side,” Lenny said. “Feels good to me.”
Nicole was ready to push off with Lenny, when she looked back and narrowed her eyes.
“You two coming?” she asked. “Kind of your show in a way, Dawn.”
Maybe it was; it sounded like something. And Dawn nodded her assent, as her spine stiffened under Cade’s touch.
“Right behind you,” she said. “I want to help.”
“But I only need her,” Lenny said.
Lenny kissed her, and they rode off, seemingly contented. She wished that the unlikely couple could find a way to make it work, no matter what happened. A small part of her thought that they could, and even as she delighted in the idea, her soul sank to the pit of her stomach.
“Wish I had come across you a long time ago.”
Cade tried to take her into his arms, his lips parting in anticipation of her kiss. Dawn nearly met his mouth, longing for the feel of his tongue swirling around hers.
“Dawn, I—”
“No, Cade”
Her voice was weak, and she hated the sound as she held him back and softly shook her head.
“You just made me next to nothing in their eyes,” she said.
“I… I would have beat them to a fucking pulp.”
“But not when I had a plan of action,” she said, cutting him off. “Lenny is… he seems happy to… to just be with Nicole through whatever.”
“Crazy kids,” Cade said. “But kind of cute if you—”
“But you? Not so much. Not like this.”
She tried to turn away from him, once again trying her luck under the force of her feet and nothing else when Cade brought her back to his chest and held her close.
“Don’t,” Dawn protested. “I—”
“You’re really gonna hate on me for looking after you?” he asked. “Nicole’s been planning this show for years. You just—”
“I what, Cade?”
His eyes crinkled as the corners of his lips curled into a small smile, and he touched the small of her back as he breathed into her flushed face.
“Kind of still a new player,” he said. “But I’m happy to ride with you again if you’ll have me.”
Cade seemed in earnest, and Dawn started to forget her anger as she wrapped her arms around his waist and stared up into his eyes.
“I think I… I know I want something else first.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“What are you up to?” he asked.
“I could ask you the same question.” Her lips were light and wanting against his mouth, and Cade started to sink into her kiss when she gripped the sides of his face and stared at him hard. It wouldn’t work, it would never last. But having him so close for so long with what felt like an infinite amount of testosterone swirling all around them had turned her mind inside out. She needed him again, and a part of her hated herself for being that weak. But his arms wound around her back, and Dawn started to fall into his touch. She felt that he would turn in the direction of brothers. Take her fast and head back into the fray with his dick flapping in the wind so that he could reclaim his stake in the action. Maybe there was no way to stop that. But Dawn was not about to go down without a fight.
“I want this, Cade.”
Dawn slammed her small fist into his face, and she gave no thought to holding him as he wheeled back and stumbled about the grass. She heard Cade fall yet still felt him crawling closer. The largest part of her heart wanted to pull him close and bathe his neck with a series of sweet kisses. But that would only make him think that he was in the right, that she should do nothing but move back into his arms and act as if nothing was wrong. So many things were. And Dawn kept trying to move away when his fingers curled around her ankle. Dawn stayed standing as she turned her head and looked down at him.
“I told you what I wanted,” she hissed. “Why shouldn’t I get in on the all the breaking and brawling?”
“Sounds sweet,” he said. “Any way you want it, Dawn.”
Kicking him away, Dawn broke free of his hold and looked down to see his body go limp as he slowly lifted his hands.
“Too much too soon?” he asked. “Sorry. Maybe we can work on that.”
Not in his character, and she wondered if he was truly contrite or just looking for a final chance to get between her legs.
“Oh I bet we can,” Dawn said. “Like this?” She fell forward and kissed him. Her tongue was desperate around his and her fingers slipped slowly to his hard ass. Even through his denim, Cade’s cock was already pounding, and she swiftly steadied his face in her hands.
“Now you’re making like putty,” Dawn said.
“What you want, right? To take control.”
“So you can get off in the end,” she said. “I want… maybe I need it more like this.”
Dawn pulled at his hair and saw him wince even as his eyes sparkled.
“Never knew you had it in you,” he said. “Maybe I should have brought you around sooner.”
“Maybe you should have done a lot of other things.”
“Like this?”
Cade kissed her neck, and his tongue burrowed into her skin. Dawn let him lay his tracks and moaned for more when she heard the roar of the Alphas’ bikes growing dull in the distance.
“So it’s just us now?” Dawn asked.
“Sounds good to me.”
He tried to claim her mouth again, and Dawn granted him the feel of her lips. His taste was still sweet, and Dawn tried to tell herself that she could just be with him and let the rest of it slide. He would take her, slick and sweet with just a dash of spice, and…
…and what then? Rock her world and promise more of the same? Or tell her to hightail it back to Mona’s? Because she was trouble, and Cade had his crew to think about when push came to shove.
“Once more with a bang,” she said. “Do me
fast and hard, and let’s forget anything that might come after.”
Cade’s fingers tangled around her hair as he sighed into her cheek. He started to wind his legs around her waist, and Dawn mirrored his moves as she peered into his eyes.
