Taken By The Tiger

by Terra Wolf

  “Why? What are you going to do?” she said and I ran a hand through my hair.

  “You don’t need to think about that. Just tell me who he is.”

  “Yes, I do need to think about it, Daredevil. This is my ex-boyfriend we’re talking about. Not some random guy on the road!” I heard the stress in her voice, although she was speaking in a hushed voice. She didn’t want her friend to hear us arguing.

  “To me, he is a random guy. A bastard who laid his hand on you. And it’s time that I dealt with it,” I growled into the phone, clutching it tightly to my ear.

  “Dealt with it how, Daredevil? I don’t want you to kill him. I don’t want blood on your hands,” she said and a whimper entered her voice. I was silent for several moments and then she let out a gasping cry.

  “There’s already blood on your hands, isn’t there? You’ve killed people before. This is normal for you!” she was sobbing as she spoke and the sound of her cries was driving me nuts. I wanted to break the phone, I wanted to burn my bike, I wanted to punch someone. Anything to make her stop crying!

  “Melody, stop, please, just don’t cry,” my voice had dropped by several decibels. I couldn’t stand another moment of hearing her cry. I would have smashed the glasses of the side mirrors if she didn’t. Her sobbing grew softer, and then she sniffed and I imagined her wiping her small nose with the back of her hand. I clenched my fists, hating myself for making her cry.

  She hadn’t completely stopped, or she couldn’t stop and either way, I could still hear her sobbing.

  “Melody. Stop crying or you’ll make me come over there!” I growled deeply and her sobbing grew softer.

  “Okay, I’m not crying anymore,” she said and I breathed in deeply.

  “I don’t care what you think of me, Melody. This is what my life is and I’ll understand if you don’t want to be with me, but I want to fix this for you,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm as I spoke to her. She sniffed again and then her breathing became more even.

  “Maxwell Salzburg. That’s his name,” she said and I pressed my eyes close. She had told me his name. I didn’t know what she was thinking. What she thought of me or if she still wanted to be with me, but this Maxwell Salzburg was a dead motherfucker.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  There were a few seconds of silence between us.

  “I’m afraid of what he’ll do if he finds me again, Daredevil,” she said and I gritted my teeth. This was exactly what I didn’t want her to feel.

  “I’ll take care of him,” I said.

  “What if he hurts my friend? What if he hurts Nina?” there was raw fear dripping from her voice and now I was glad that I had pried his name out of her. She was trying to be prideful and pretending to be strong earlier. The truth was that she was scared.

  “I will make sure he never comes near you, Melody. I promise,” I said and she sniffed again.

  “Okay.”

  “I have to go now, you should get some rest,” I said and stopped myself from saying more. There were other things bubbling at the tip of my tongue. I was afraid of blurting something out that she didn’t want to hear, that I should not have been telling her. Not now. Not when she was going through this.

  “Goodnight, Daredevil,” she said in a quiet voice and I hung up. The white noise of the cut call was loud in my ear. I had forced myself to hang up. I wanted to keep listening to her voice but there were other things that needed to be done first.

  Maxwell Salzburg needed to be taken care of.

  Whatever Melody thought I was going to do to that bastard, I was going to do ten times worse. He would regret every word he ever said to her. Regret that he ever met her. I could feel my blood boiling. I was going to erupt. Finding him wouldn’t be hard, we had connections in the police department. And once I found him, he would have nowhere to escape.

  “Daredevil!” Jordan’s high-pitched voice cut through the silence of the night. I turned to see him staggering off his bike. I hadn’t even heard him come up to the bar, I was completely fixated with Melody and our conversation.

  “Jordan?” I rushed towards him and now that his face came into view in the dark, I saw that he was beat up. There was blood coursing down his face, his forehead was split open. I grabbed him by the shoulders, just when he was about to stagger to the ground.

  “What happened to you man?” I was yelling at him, while he tried to keep his eyes open. His clothes looked tattered and dusty and I looked over him to make sure there were no stab or gunshot wounds. He was just beaten up. He had got into a fucking fight!

  Seriously. Tonight of all nights?

  “I’m okay. Just a scratch,” he said, smiling as I wrapped his arm around my shoulder and helped him towards the bar. Jordan was limping but at least he was able to walk.

  I kicked the door open, and the loud music and chatter of the rest of the club enveloped us. Jordan was dangling from my shoulder, trying to keep himself propped up. Some of the guys stopped what they were doing and looked at us. I could see Hunter at a table with Lewis and the others, and he looked over and met my eye.

  “Someone call my mother. He needs stitches!” I barked on top of my lungs.

  Maxwell Salzburg had one more night to live, because lucky for him, my MC always came first.

  Chapter 22

  Daredevil

  “I feel alive!” Jordan shook his head wildly, while Mom stood in front of him, with a needle and thread in her hand. She was losing patience but her motherly feelings towards the members of the MC was shining through. Ace was sitting behind Jordan, trying to keep his head still while she stitched the wound on his forehead.

  Jordan reached for the shot of whisky Big D had placed beside him on the counter. He tipped his head back and chugged it down.

  “Wooohooo!” he cheered, his eyes wild with the pain and the drugging effects of the whisky. This was his third shot.

  “Be still or I tell Big D to hold the drinks!” Mom snapped at him.

  “You need to get stitched up brother,” Ace tried to pacify him but Jordan snapped his fingers in the air again, trying to get Big D’s attention. I could see Dad and Lewis in the background talking.

  “Hold still, Jordan!” I barked at him and he smiled toothily at me. Ace held down his shoulders while Mom brought the needle to his eyebrows.

  “I’ll tell ya, this is going to hurt,” she said and pierced his skin with the needle. Jordan clenched his jaws and I saw him gripping the edge of the counter, but he wasn’t going to scream. No matter how painful this was.

  “What happened?” Hunter had appeared behind him now and Jordan tried to crane his neck to see.

  Mom smacked his cheek, as hard as she used to smack mine when I was a kid and Jordan looked back at her apologetically.

  “They jumped me,” he said.

  “Who?” Hunter asked him, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Claws. I was at The Pussycats, collecting the dues from Mac,” he said, in a more sobered down voice now. I could see that he was reliving the moment.

  “Dues? Our dues?” Hunter asked and Jordan nodded his head. His movement made Mom flick her hand on his cheek again, and he held still.

  “Were you alone?”

  “I was at the back, leaving. Mac had just handed me the dough,” Jordan said, his eyelids fluttering with pain while Mom dug the needle into his skin again. He gritted his teeth to stop from crying out and Hunter exchanged looks with me.

  “How many of them were there?”

  “Three. Those three from the warehouse. They shifted, right in the club. I didn’t have a chance to let the panther out or I would have had them. But I was drunk and you know I’m no good shifting when I am,” Jordan said, looking at me now and I clenched my jaw with rage. Ace was shaking his head behind Jordan. I knew what he was thinking. We should have popped them when we had the chance. But we didn’t have a chance. We were outnumbered!

  “There. You’ll be good as new in a few da
ys,” Mom said, stepping away from Jordan now to admire her handiwork. Jordan reached for another shot of whisky in reaction and downed it and smacked his lips.

  “Didn’t feel a thing,” he said and Beasty let out a bellowing laugh.

  “You might want to wipe the tears from your cheeks first, brother. It’s ruining your makeup,” he said and Ace laughed too. Jordan was still smiling.

  “Come back to me in seven days, Jordan. Those stitches need to be removed before they start messing with your skin,” Mom said and wiped her hands with a rag.

  I watched as she patted Hunter’s shoulder and threw me a look and nodded her head. No matter how much she disapproved of our lifestyle, she was always going to be there for the pride. I smiled at her reassuringly, but she was straight faced. She didn’t find the situation as amusing as Jordan did.

  “I’ll see you at home,” she said and Dad leaned in to plant a quick kiss on her cheek and then slapped her behind when she walked away from him. I rolled my eyes and looked away.

  “This needs to end,” Ace was wiping his bloodied hands on a rag now and he stood up from his chair. Some of the guys had already started a match with Jordan, they were downing whisky shots and bets were being placed. Ace and Beasty came up to Hunter and me and Lewis joined in.

  “Yeah, this needs to be handled,” Lewis said and my father was nodding his head.

  “Kill any Claw member you find on our territory,” he said, after a moment silence. Ace and I exchanged looks.

  “Is that an order?” Beasty asked.

  Hunter stared at him and then nodded his head again.

  “Yes, do it,” he said and then turned from us and walked away, Lewis close on his heels.

  Ace, Beasty and I stared at Jordan downing shots at the counter, jostling the other guys.

  “We need to put the bastard to sleep,” Ace said and I shook my head.

  “Justine has pumped enough pills in him. We don’t have to make him do anything,” Beasty said.

  We watched Jordan for a few minutes longer, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Hunter had given us the order, shoot on sight. This was the beginning of a war, which meant that anything could happen.

  Jordan’s eyelids were beginning to droop as he held up another shot glass to his lips.

  “Should he be mixing alcohol with the pills?” Ace asked and Beasty shrugged his shoulders.

  “If this doesn’t kill him, something else will,” he said and we looked at each other. He was right. War with the Claws meant that any of us could die, but we had our orders and we had to carry them out.

  Jordan’s head bobbed once and then he crashed, face forward on the counter and a loud Whoa erupted around us.

  “C’mon. Bed time for you, little man,” Beasty said and grabbed Jordan and put him over his shoulder. He carried him upstairs to the bunk room where he deposited him for the night.

  xxx

  We were on our bikes. Ace, Beasty and I were out to scan the territory. It was the middle of the night, but my mind was buzzing. Too much had happened in one night. The Claws had just beaten up one of our brothers, on our territory.

  There would have to be consequences.

  “I’ll go north,” Beasty called out to us over the sound of our roaring engines and I nodded my head in agreement. Ace and I rode south. We were not going to give those weasels an opportunity to shake down or rob a business again. And we were definitely not going to give them an opportunity to beat up any of us again. This was going to end and we were going to win.

  Gripping my bike tightly, Ace and I rode together, our eyes scanning every road and every corner that we rode past. I tried not to think of Melody and her ex, that would have to wait another day. At least she was safe for now. But it was difficult to separate the two feelings. My rage against her ex was fueled even more by what had happened to Jordan; even though the two things were not connected. If the Claws hadn’t messed with Jordan, Maxwell Salzburg would have been dead by now.

  I was riding with Ace beside me and the sound of a gunshot alerted us.

  “It came from the north!” Ace roared out and we both made a U-turn in unison, picking up speed. The gunshot had come from the direction that Beasty had gone. Another shot was fired and we rode even faster.

  In the distance, we could see Beasty, standing on the pavement. He was clutching his shoulder, while his Harley lay flat on the ground. He had jumped off his bike at some point.

  His free hand was pointed straight at the head of a Claws member. The guy was pressed up against a run down brick wall, with his hands up while Beasty stood in front of him. This was quickly becoming a common occurrence and I suppressed a smile.

  Ace and I jumped off our bikes.

  “You hurt, man?” Ace yelled at Beasty, while I slipped my gun out of my jeans. We joined Beasty, pointing our guns at the asshole against the wall.

  “Just my shoulder,” Beasty grunted, and there was blood streaming from where he was clutching it with his other hand. I could see that arm shaking a little, and I met his eyes and tipped my head.

  “We got this,” I said and Beasty lowered his gun.

  I stepped towards the guy, who was snarling at us. He looked like a caged wolf, but he was outnumbered now, so he couldn’t really pull anything.

  There was a backpack lying on the ground beside him.

  “What’s in that?” I growled at him and kicked the backpack with my feet. It felt heavy, like it was filled with something metallic.

  The guy said nothing and I heard Ace click his gun, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. I crouched down and unzipped the backpack.

  It was full of guns. I exchanged looks with Ace and Beasty.

  “You thought you could ride through our territory, with a bag full of guns?” I barked at him, and the guy spat at my face. My tiger roared, and I let it out. I could feel my hands turning into the claws I knew. But before the change could take over me completely I grabbed his collar and then punched my knuckles into his jaw. He shuddered, but took the punch well. When I stood up, he was wiping blood from his nose.

  “Who said it’s yours?” I heard him say, as I pulled the backpack up and swung it over my shoulder. There had to be at least a dozen of them in there!

  I turned to him, shook my head and then turned back towards my bike. This was not going to end well for him.

  “Gonna go deposit these at the club. Beasty, go back and get stitched up. Call my mother,” I said and then thumped him on his back. “Damn she’s gonna be pissed, two shots in one night.”

  With the backpack on my shoulders, I jumped back on my bike and revved up the engine. When Ace and I exchanged looks, I nodded my head.

  With my helmet back on, and my engine roaring, I rode away, back in the direction of The Shifter Shack; but I heard the sound of the gun fire crisp and clear in the air. Two birds had just been killed with one stone. Hunter’s orders had been carried out, and Ace had just got his way.

  What do they say about love and war? Anything is fair…

  Chapter 23

  Melody

  I hadn’t seen Daredevil all day and since speaking to him over the phone the previous night, I was anxious to see him again.

  I worked my shift, my fingers tingling every time the doors of the bar burst open. Daredevil hadn’t returned, even when it was time for me to leave.

  “Have a good night, kid,” Hunter called out to me, while he ate a massive burger at his table by the window. I smiled at him, as I walked out and just when I pushed open the door, my nose bumped into Daredevil’s expansive chest. I gasped with surprise, and looked up to find him staring down at me, a glimmer of a grin on his face, his cheeks dimpled, his jaws chiseled and sharp.

  “Ready to go?” he said and I crinkled my brows at him.

  “Yeah, I was just leaving for Nina’s place,” I said and he reached for the books in my hands. I was hoping to get a chance to study a little tonight, but the bar had kept me busy.

  “I’ve made you some spaghe
tti. It’s back in my apartment,” Daredevil said, tucking the books under his armpit. My eyes widened, and I could feel my cheeks burning. This guy was just full of surprises. I wouldn’t have expected him to be able to boil water if he had to. How had he pulled off a spaghetti dinner?

  “With meatballs?” I asked, arching an eyebrow suspiciously at him.

  “The works,” he said and we smiled at each other. Without waiting for a response, Daredevil turned to walk back towards his bike and I followed him.

  “I have my entrance exam tomorrow,” I said and Daredevil stopped in his tracks, his eyes were searching my face. He was looking at me again, in that way he did so that I felt naked under his stare.

  “I’ll take you,” he said and I licked my lips. I wondered if he could tell that I was nervous about it.

  “I haven’t had much time to study,” I said, blushing again and Daredevil stepped towards me, looking over my body with his dangerous blue eyes.

  “Have I kept you busy?” he asked and I bit down on my lip.

  “Kinda,” I said and embarrassedly tucked a few strands of hair behind my ears. How was he able to make me so weak around him? Why couldn’t I resist him?

  “You’ll be fine, princess,” he said, in a deep but kind voice and when I heard that word, princess, I felt my stomach cramp up. He’d used that term, over and over again when we had sex. And now for the first time, he was using it in a regular conversation. I was afraid of my knees visibly wobbling.

  “I haven’t studied nearly as hard as I should have. I really need to pass the exam,” I said and Daredevil reached out and moved my fringe away, clearing my forehead. It was such a tender moment, and he surprised me again. I would have agreed to anything.

  “You will pass the exam, Melody. Tonight, I need you,” he said and his eyes darkened. A storminess had taken over his blue eyes and his mouth was set in a firm line. My heart dropped to my stomach.

  “What happened today? Where were you?” I said, using his name for the first time. His fingers lingered on my face, he stroked my cheek with his thumb and I could feel the goosebumps erupting all over my arms.