by Moxie North
The sequence of events happened quickly after that. The Jack Daniel’s he’d been drinking gave the fists flying at him a slow motion, movie-like effect. The delay in pain from the punches allowed the bikers to get the upper hand on him.
Inside his wolf was telling him that he could take these guys. His wolf wanted to fight and defend them against the pummeling they were taking. Maverick was barely blocking the blows. The pain felt like something. The absence of feeling that he’d been working on for so long had left him numb. Now he felt the pain and adrenaline and he was reveling in it.
The hits stopped abruptly and he peered through swollen lids to see a large man tossing the bikers off of him. He heard growling and was sure it wasn’t human. The man was tall, near six and a half feet. He had short-cropped hair that was a dirty blond. His face, although young, had lines from lots of sun and wind. There was also the distinct smell of shifter on him. He was a wolf.
“Well, you must be a masochist or just plain stupid.” The voice was close to him and he tried to focus on the large man leaning over him.
“Both,” he mumbled, realizing his lip was split. He knew he’d be healed up in a few short hours and the pain would disappear with the numbness returning. His wolf was grateful for it; the man not as much. The pain he knew how to deal with.
Growing up shifter meant any normal bumps, bruises, or even breaks healed quickly. Sure they hurt like hell, but the pain was fleeting. When Maverick’s Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb, he’d been knocked unconscious when the truck rolled. His left leg had been caught under what was once the front of the vehicle. When his eyes finally opened, he saw medics hooking up an IV to his arm and assessing the damage to his leg. He could feel his ribs were busted, there was a knot on his head that felt like it was the size of a football, but oddly, there was no pain in his leg at all.
His ears were still ringing from the explosion, which made his wolf unable to find his bearings. The distraction kept him from hearing what the medics were saying to him. He had to focus on their mouths to be able to understand what they were saying to him.
“Soldier, do you understand?”
“What?” Maverick could feel that he had yelled by the strain in his throat. He could taste the smoke and diesel in the air, as well as the remnants of the chemical used in the explosive.
“Soldier, your leg is trapped and we need to evacuate you now. There are more hostiles inbound and we aren’t safe here. We have to amputate because we can’t get this heap of metal off you. We are going to give you something for the pain, then we have to move.” The young man leaning over him looked like one of the young pups from his pack. Too young to be dealing in blood and gore on a battlefield.
“No, just wait,” he struggled to get the words out. They had to wait. If they moved the truck his leg would heal. There was no coming back if they cut it off.
“Sorry, man. We can’t wait. This has to happen or we all die.”
Maverick saw a needle heading towards his IV, and then everything went black. Even as the darkness stole over him he could hear his animal howling in his head.
Looking back on it, there were so many things that went wrong that day. Circumstances that he had no control over. Events that forever changed his life and his future. He’d never believed in luck before that day. He’d believed in the fates. He believed the universe had a plan for him and all he had to do was trust in that. After Afghanistan, he decided there were no fates, no grand plan. Luck he now believed in, bad luck especially. Karma... that was another thing he was sure about. He must have really fucked up in a previous life, or this was the universe balancing out what he’d done during his tours while serving his country. Because the only luck he had was bad, and karma was out to get him.
Chapter 2
“Mav, why the hell don’t you sit down and relax a bit?”
The voice brought him back from his dark memories. Cluck, a brother that was in his late sixties, called out from across the room. There was a young woman sitting on his lap and Mav knew that girl would probably spend the evening with Cluck. Being a shifter meant Cluck didn’t look sixty or act it. The woman would be well taken care of if she stuck with him.
“Because I can’t trust you assholes to behave. I need to be able to jump at a moment’s notice. I sit down and it will take me three more seconds to break you up and avoid broken bones that will get you in trouble with Deacon.”
“You sound more like a babysitter than a Sergeant at Arms.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Mav muttered to himself
There were some nights that Maverick just wanted to be at home, in the quiet without any distractions. It was also the only time he really felt terrible about his life, so he never was happy with any of his choices. Loud smoky parties usually kept his mind on other things. He spent his time at home keeping busy. If he wasn’t there he was in the thick of it with the club, running shipments or coverage for Deacon. Anything to avoid sitting at home thinking about what he couldn’t have.
The guys always gave him a hard time for being so quiet. They called him moody and bitchy. He didn’t deny any of this. The fact was that he had plenty of reasons to be sullen. As did most of the guys in the club. Everyone had a story, a tale to tell about what led them to Redemption MC. He wasn’t unique or special. He was a lost wolf like the rest of them. With the losses in his life, he’d been able to lock most of those feelings away. He could pull them out and think about them when he wanted to, then tuck them back away. There was one thing he never let himself think about, the one thing that was the hardest to get over—not having a mate.
As the evening went on, the music got louder, the laughter brighter, and the stench of spilled beer overwhelming.
The men started to break off, heading off to their private cabins—or for those that were still in the bunkhouses—a quiet spot in the woods to have their dalliances. With humans in the camp for the night the pack would keep their animals quiet in order not to scare off the ladies.
When the last few stragglers were getting helped to their rooms, Deacon gave him a nod that told him he could go. The probies were on clean-up duty and Mav was happy to head home.
He stepped out into the cool night air and filled his lungs, replacing the stale smoke and beer smell with pine needles and crisp damp air. It was a clear night, and he could see the stars shining brightly in the night sky. They were far enough out in the country that there were no city lights to wash out the stars. The coolness on his face made him want to shift and let his animal out to run. It was already after two in the morning and he needed to be back at the camp early in the day. That meant his wolf would have to wait.
Flexing his leg, he tested the swelling in his prosthetic to see how long he had before it needed to come off. He could still feel his leg from the knee down. All he had to do was wiggle his non-existent toes to know that the connections to his brain were still there. Muscle memory was an amazing thing. There was nothing below his knee but titanium and plastic now, but there were times he could swear his toes ached and he needed to stretch the arch of his foot. There were also the nights that he lay awake in pain because his foot felt like it was being crushed. The nerves remembered what his mind couldn’t. It had been years, but the sensations never left him.
Maverick shook off the urge to rub his leg and turned to the row of motorcycles. He walked down the line of bikes until he reached the end. Everyone knew the end spot was his. If they saw Maverick’s bike they knew not to box him in. He’d perfected getting on and off his bike with his leg. It wasn’t something most people would even notice, except that he got on from the right side, swinging his leg over the seat tilted away from him.
One of the members had offered to move his kickstand so it went the other way. He’d declined. He didn’t want anything to make someone question why he had his bike set up that way, or if there was something about him that was different. Yes, it was partly his pride, but it was also because he didn’t want to show any sig
n of weakness. His position in the pack and the club relied on the fact he was able to handle himself and protect his pack.
He did have a shifter adjustment made to his bike by Cluck. Cluck was their master mechanic. He’d had studied big diesel repair and worked on semi-trucks. Bikes were his hobby and gave him the job he needed in the club. Cluck was happy to figure out a way for Maverick to be able to shift without moving his ankle joint, which he’d been doing up until he met Deacon. Now it was easy for him to shift up and down as he rode. It was an illusion of normality that he worked hard to keep. Maverick got on and off his bike with a practiced ease that hid the fact it was a carefully calculated move to keep all the weight on his remaining leg.
Maverick swung his leg over the seat of his black Harley-Davidson Dyna Glide sport and started it up. The low ride on the bike helped him with his balance and still looked bad ass. Lucky for him.
His ride home was oddly quiet compared to most bikes, just the rumble of his motor echoing off into the distance. A lot of guys would alter the exhaust on their bikes to reduce the back pressure and add more horsepower, creating the traditional Harley rumble. Mav found the noise irritating due to the damage to his eardrums. The extra horses weren’t worth the noise. The healing ability of a shifter had never come into question for him until his injuries. He’d never known anyone that had a catastrophic injury. Broken bones, cuts, even a gunshot once, but they all healed. Apparently when your animal had to extend themselves to keep you alive, there were things that couldn’t be fixed.
Mav knew there was no growing back limbs. What was gone was gone. But it was the lingering effects that took him by surprise. The original hearing loss he’d suffered after the accident had healed. Now he was left with the occasional ringing in his ears. The phantom limb might never go away. He knew he couldn’t grow his leg back, but the pain that still lingered made him angry. Hadn’t he suffered enough? Mav wasn’t one to whine and moan, but nothing made him feel less like a shifter than when he had to resort to painkillers to get to sleep. It was a guarantee that he’d spend the next day looking for some ass to kick to release the pent-up anger.
It took about ten minutes to get to his house. He pulled up to the garage that was behind the main house and rolled his bike into the dark interior, parking it next to his ruby-red Ford truck. Leaving the garage and closing the door behind him, he looked up at the two-story house that was one of the few things he was proud of. It was a Victorian-style house, built by a former well-to-do Port May merchant. It had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a parlor and sitting room up front and a kitchen that took up the back half of the first floor. The house had been well maintained up until a few years before Mav bought it.
Sitting vacant it had become the local hangout for the town hooligans. Once he bought it he focused a lot of his time and energy on returning the house to its former glory. The kids had mostly done cosmetic damage to it, so he just had a lot of cleaning to do. He painted the house a dark blue with white trim and replaced all the delicate scrollwork trim along the deck and the gingerbread details of the gables. The heart of the house was still there. It reminded him of himself. A little battered, but it still had good bones.
It was a sanctuary away from the club and from the constant noise. He entered his house through the side door and stepped into his kitchen. After flipping on the lights, he hung his keys on the small hook by the door. A place for everything and everything in its place was ingrained in him from his military days.
The kitchen had the original cabinets and replica fixtures, but the rest was all modern. Mav wasn’t about to try and cook on a hundred-year-old stove. Crossing the large kitchen, he opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He twisted off the cap and drained the contents as he stood in the light of the open fridge.
There wasn’t even the tick of a clock in his house. He liked it that way. The complete silence was soothing to him. It helped to counter the nightmares and loss that always haunted him at night.
Finishing his drink, he tossed it into the recycling container before heading upstairs. He’d thought about taking one of the front rooms as his bedroom, but he’d be damned if he’d let a flight of stairs keep him from living normally.
The time he spent in rehab learning to walk again was not going to be wasted by him wimping out and acting in any way other than how he used to be.
Making it up to his room, he sat down on his bed. Covered in a gray down comforter, the bed also contained a half dozen full-size pillows. He wasn’t some chick; it was just after sleeping on hard cots or even the ground, he appreciated a nice soft bed and an excess of pillows. It wasn’t like anyone besides himself had been in this room since he moved in. There was no one to see how he lived, not even his brothers. Deacon had been to his house, but only to the first floor.
Any other club members that came by knocked on the door then went back to their bikes to wait for him. The aura of stay the fuck away radiated off the building.
Mav kicked off his one boot, then unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them halfway down before sitting on the bed again. He’d been on his feet all day and the flesh around the top of his socket was sore and a little swollen.
The field medics had cut off his foot just above the ankle but with the lack of blood flow and further damage the doctors decided to amputate even more until he had just a small stump below his knee. When the doctors told him they wanted to cut more off he’d been indifferent. He was now a three-legged wolf and he couldn’t see how it would matter how much of a leg he had left. Knowing that he was permanently disabled made him think they should have just taken the whole thing off.
Through his rehab he’d done everything they’d asked of him without complaint. The staff thought he was a model patient. They would use him as an example whenever someone was being reluctant. He wasn’t enthusiastic about his therapy; he just wanted out. He worked hard so he could leave.
The Army had notified his parents when he was wounded and gave them updates while he was unable to speak due to medication. When he could finally make the calls himself, he lied to them about the extent of his injuries and told them there was no reason for them to visit. As a shifter it was more important to keep his secret, and his parents understood that.
He also started lying to them from the beginning that he was already healed and had to keep up the charade of being injured. Truth was, his injuries were so extensive that he was healing fast—but not shifter fast. So as his body healed, Mav had to keep up the pain and recovery process for the medical staff. That wasn’t too hard, seeing as he was in pain and was healing slowly.
His family accepted his story because it made sense. He told them he was going to take some time before coming home to see them. He was still in the hospital while he was distracting his family with his lies and had no idea what he was going to do once he left.
Going home didn’t seem like an option. That was something he and his wolf were in complete agreement on. His family would still love him and welcome him home with open arms. But what would he be coming home to? Stares, whispers, pity? In the shifter world having an injury like his was not like in the human world. It wasn’t just the fact that he had a metal and plastic leg. It was that when he did shift his animal was impaired. His wolf did just fine after Maverick had shifted a few times. His animal adapted to not having the lower portion of his leg, running as fast as he ever had.
Maverick truly felt this was the one reason he didn’t go mad after returning stateside—being able to maintain part of his previous life in the form of his wolf. After a few years he’d found the club and then his home. He loved the house, the area in which it sat, the lack of neighbors, and that it backed up to the woods, giving his animal plenty of room to roam.
There were nights that Maverick would stay shifted and sleep outside. It soothed both of the souls inside him to be able to tune out and let the beast inside control their future, even if it was temporary.
Mav peeled off the foam sock he wo
re over his stump. He rubbed down the skin and got ready for bed. Finally lying back against his multiple pillows he took a number of deep breaths, and hoped the dreams would stay away for at least a few hours.
Chapter 3
“I don’t care if you just got back. You’re going to run this load because I’m telling you to.”
Deacon Kane was standing tall and his hands were on his hips. He towered over the man in front of him by a good six inches.
Maverick leaned against a stool with his arms and legs crossed trying to keep his smirk under control.
The man in question, Skid, had just come from a run delivering a load of Rochon lumber. Now Deacon wanted him out running a load of dubious pharmaceuticals. Mav was supposed to be running point and coverage for the man. If anyone should be bitching it was him. The weather looked like it was about to rain at any moment. Maverick would be on the back of his bike while Skid would be warm and toasty in the box van.
“Alpha, I’m fucking tired. Why can’t one of the probies do it?”
“Because this is too important, and those idiots would tell the truth if they got pulled over by the police. You at least know how to lie.”
“I’ll put that on my resume.”
Maverick let a snort slip out and looked away. The waves of dominance coming off Deacon would make a lesser wolf crawl and whimper. Skid was not at the top of the pack, but he wasn’t at the bottom either. He wasn’t cowering, but that was because Deacon wasn’t giving him the full extent of his authority.
“Quit bitchin’ and let’s go. I don’t want to get caught in the rain.” Maverick pushed away from the wall and started toward the door.
