The Stricken swarm over me. I try and fight them off but there’s too many, and in seconds my arms are pinned behind my head.
“How we gunna fuck him how we gunna do it, boss?” Red says.
“Lift his legs back to his fucking ears,” Blunt says as he pulls out his wart-covered cock and begins rubbing himself. I blink through the blood and fear and pain, trying to clear the hellish vision of a half-man half-boar leering down at me, his mottled brown and green hide glowing orange in the firelight as he strokes himself hard and it takes every scrap of strength I have not to start begging at pleading the sick motherfucker for mercy—
“Don’t cover the pretty boy’s mouth,” Blunt says. “I want to hear my pretty bitch scream.”
Blunt’s still looming over me when I notice an odd red dot glowing on his forehead.
I grin. Close my eyes. Get a hold on my animal.
I’m weak as all fuck but he’s still with me, howling for black blood.
I take a breath.
Gather my strength for a fucking massacre.
One of Blunt’s crew sees the red dot hovering on him and manages to scream, “Blunt someone’s on you with a sco—”
Boom.
The rifle sounds.
And just like that everything changes.
Blunt’s fast for such a heavy fuck; he manages to duck fast enough the bullet only tears off the top half of his head. Heavy calibre. Something made to kill big game, from the size of the hole in Blunt’s head.
Blunt doesn’t go down, but he looks stunned. He stands there, cock out, the top half of his head missing, then reaches up and gingerly pokes his thick index finger into the wound.
“Fucking bitches,” he gasps.
Then the parking lot lights up with glowing white headlights and two-dozen Harleys thunder and roar as they’re throttled hard and one of the Stricken holding my arms has his face blown off and boom! boom! and everything happens in a blur, so fast my mind can’t keep up, all I know is I want to murder these motherfuckers, my animal’s sprinting full speed for the kill while the Harleys plough into the Satan’s Spawn and now I know what this is, it’s a good old-fashioned biker brawl, because the creatures leaping from their Harley’s and onto the Stricken are wearing straight-up Pureblood Predator cuts.
My MC.
Didn’t give up on me.
Tracked me right the fuck down.
I howl and rip the heart out of the Stricken holding me while Blunt makes a hideous bleating scream and staggers forward, a foot-long curving blade in his meaty hand and just as he lifts the blade overhead to slam it through my chest something huge crashes into him, a mountain of six-inch fangs and rippling muscle and golden-brown fur, and the sight makes me fucking howl in triumph because I know that moving mountain, it’s my old animal blood-brother Blue, one of the founding members of the Pureblood Predator MC and possibly the most bad-ass motherfucker to ever wear a cut.
Second to me, of course.
A blast of heat makes me wince and roll to the side. I’m dead center in a war zone, and to my left there’s the dreadlocked rasta Tate, a joint hanging loose from his lips, raising hell with a fifty-foot arc of flame from a flame-thrower that looks like it last saw action during the Second World War, and then Nash is at my side, helping me to my feet while Blue and the boar-Prez Blunt smash at one another.
“You shoulda waited a second,” I say, my voice garbled from my shattered jaw. “I was just about to murder the pig. Now Blue’s gunna steal my kill.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nash says with his hyena grin. “The fucker looked terrified.”
Nash stuffs a sawed-off shotgun in my hands and it’s kill-time with the twin barrels smoking and the kickback slamming into my shoulder and the Stricken motherfuckers screaming and dying, their blood running like a black river under the red moon as my MC, over two-dozen strong, settle in for the slaughter.
Tate blasts the flame-thrower, lighting three Stricken on fire. They drop to the ground, rolling around, trying to put out the flames and my crew leaps on them and finishes them off.
I see the ape-asshole Red making a run for it, raise the shotgun and blow a hole through his back. He staggers to the ground, crawls forward, and when run over and flip him on his back and plunge my hand through his chest I smile and say, “Who’s getting fucked now?”
The taste of Red’s heart draws my wolf right to the surface, snarling and snapping his jaws. My shadow-hunters are back, hanging out near the edge of the desert, and I send all three out searching for the sick fucking doctor from the basement feeding room.
But it’s the boar named Blunt I really want to kill.
He’s the one I have to kill, if I have any hope of regaining my MC’s respect.
The boar Prez is facing off against the towering Kodiak grizzly Blue.
I run over, put my hand on Blue’s giant shoulder. Blue gives me a look like ‘you sure, boss?’ and when I nod and hand Nash the shotgun and Blue takes a few steps back, giving me this kill.
Blunt laughs, reaches down, picks up Red’s spiked brass knuckles and squares to me, grinning through the horns bristling from his snout. He’s got bleeding claw marks across his chest, but his head wound is already healed, and seeing how fast he heals makes me realize how strong he must be and I wonder, just for a second, if I’m up for the task of murdering him, and if anything will kill me it’s that creeping, poisonous doubt.
No room for doubt now.
No second guessing.
There’s only this single moment.
A death challenge. Alpha against alpha.
“Pretty bitch Prez come back for more, huh?” Blunt says, smashing the spiked knuckles into his cupped hand. “What’s a matter, pretty boy? Miss me already? Miss this big cock?”
My MC gathers in a loose circle around me and Blunt.
“This pig motherfucker kills me, you let him go,” I say to Nash.
Blunt’s eyes gleam.
Things shift around inside me, bones mending, bullet wounds healing.
I feel…strong. Fast. Like I could take down an army of ugly Stricken pig’s like Blunt. I feel…fucking unstoppable, and then I remember the Skinwalker and what she said I was. There’s a part of me that wants her to be right. The age-old dream of power. But what if—
The One We Answer To.
The fucking top dog.
Am I the apex alpha not only of my biker MC but all the surviving Purebloods across the globe?
Blunt charges, stops, steps back. Testing me.
Searching for weakness.
The only injury that hasn’t healed is the fucking acid burn on my hip from when the doctor threw that orange powder on my shadow-wolf, and that’s a problem, because it’s gunna slow me down, and the only way to kill a huge fucker like Blunt will be to out move him.
Blunt’s beady little eyes study me. He’s big, but he’s not an idiot. He sees me limping left and comes in quick for that side, swinging the brass knuckles in a wide arc. I lean back, wincing against the pain in my hip.
The knuckles whistle inches from my face.
Blunt’s more than twice my size. He only needs to hit me once to knock me down, and then he’s on me and I’m dead. I need to keep my distance.
Strike, move, strike, move.
It’s the only strategy I have.
And the problem is…my enemy knows it.
Blunt takes a step away. We circle around one another, feinting, scenting for weakness. Then the fucker runs at me, a full-on charge, and I sidestep quick and lash out with my claws, catching him just below the ribs. His eyes widen in pain, but for a split second we’re close, and faster than I’d hoped Blunt reaches his free hand down, snags my wrist and then he’s pulling me toward his razor-sharp horns. I plant my right foot and wrench my torso to the side, trying to lever my wrist free before he gores me. His grip slips in the blood and sweat on my wrist and I leap backward and the knuckles land a glancing blow on my chest.
My MC grumbles. Fuck them.
“C’mere, you chickenshit pretty boy,” Blunt sneers, clearly pissed he missed that opportunity.
He’s getting impatient. Good.
This time I move in, faking a right cross, which would be suicide if it actually connected because no single punch of mine is going to drop this fucking monster. But Blunt takes the bait, staggers to the side to avoid the punch, off balance, and I drop and sweep a kick along the ground, catching him in the calf, snapping his ankle. The boar Prez bellows in pain, then drops an elbow that connects with my head so hard there’s a flash of white light and I think it’s over, I’m blinking, trying to stay conscious and I sense the killing blow more than I see it, the spiked knuckles falling straight for my temple, Blunt putting all his weight behind the punch, leaning way too deep into it, and right before the knuckles end me I fling myself to the side—
Blunt’s weight carries him into the dirt and then I’m on his back, stabbing my claws into his neck while he bellows and thrashes beneath me. I drop my fangs and latch onto his spine, the muscles and tendons in my neck straining as I grind my fangs through skin and flesh and bone, shaking my head back and forth like a mad dog, desperate to pierce his vertebrae and sink my teeth into the vulnerable thread of my kill’s spinal nerve, black blood filling my mouth, me snarling and snapping and sinking my claws into Blunt’s skull, the white of his spine visible where I’m chewing at him, the boar-giant bucking and writhing beneath me, trying to flip over, and for a second he actually gets his knees under him and lifts me into the air and that’s all it takes, there’s a horrible ripping sound as my teeth pull from his neck and then I’m sailing backward, certain I’m dead.
Blunt and I stand at the same time. Face one another.
Black blood spurts from the wound at the back of Blunt’s neck.
He makes to run at me. Lifts his left leg. His eyes widen.
Something’s wrong.
He stares at his right leg in shock.
He can’t feel it.
Blunt lifts his massive head and looses a long, rage-filled bellow.
The right side of his face doesn’t move.
Something important got severed.
A nerve connecting the right side of his body to his brain.
“You want me to make this quick?” I snarl, baring my fangs.
Blunt ignores me, tries to swing the knuckles. They arc limp through the air, then settle at his side. He spits and smashes his left hand into his right, insane with anger.
I should kill him now.
A few more seconds and the nerve might heal up, but I say, “Nod if you want me to make this quick.”
“I had your bare white ass in the air, pretty boy,” Blunt sneers. “Remember that.”
I grin. Talk doesn’t mean shit.
Neither does the past.
Survival is all that matters.
Blunt stands motionless as I run at him, and at the last moment he opens his jaws and leans forward, hoping I’m aiming for his throat, hoping to get some part of me between his teeth.
But I’m not aiming for his throat.
I slide low and slip may claws across his thigh, almost gently, like a lover’s caress, and am rewarded by the hiss of his femoral artery sprouting black blood.
Blunt slams his left hand over the wound.
Looks at me.
Knows he’s a goner.
Spits and stumbles and snarls, struggling to remain standing.
Blood wells up through Blunt’s fingers, spills onto the dirt, and in two breaths he’s face-first on the ground.
I pounce on the Stricken Prez’s back, close my jaws over his injured neck, crunch through his spine and rip his massive head from his shoulders.
My MC cheers as I stand and lift Blunt’s ugly boar’s head into the sky.
My shadow-wolves howl in the distance.
They’ve picked up the good doctor’s scent.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LILY
“DID YOU LOVE him?” Mia says.
We’re standing in the gleaming suburban kitchen. Bickering like a couple of jilted housewives…except for the two dead bikers in the front entryway and the fact Shiori keeps grossing Mia out by letting yellow wasps slip from her mouth.
“The New World Order?” I ask, noting Mia’s use of the past tense to ask about Aaron. “Bunch of fascist pricks, Mia. Thought you were all about freedom? Liberty? The open road?”
“Did you love him?” Mia hisses. “I need to know.”
“Why? What does it matter? He’s fucking dead.”
Mia’s violet-green eyes flicker, and for a second I see the hurt and sadness hidden beneath that slippery snake skin. Then the grief is gone, replaced by Mia’s usual anger and bitchiness, and she says: “Yeah, you little cunt cop. He is dead. Because of you. But it still matters…to me.”
So he’s dead.
Or at least Mia believes so.
I dig my fingernails into the kitchen countertop and count to ten. I feel like crumpling into a ball and wailing. But I don’t have the luxury…there’s a pack here depending on me to get them the fuck out of this mess.
I guess I never thought…the crazy motherfucker would die. Aaron of the Mountain River. He just felt so strong, you know? Even after my creature arrived. Aaron always felt…invincible.
But yeah.
He was hurting inside. Like all of us.
And he sure wasn’t invincible.
I’d hoped he’d lived through what I did. Hoped he was still out there, stirring shit up. Hunting Stricken. We need a force like Aaron. Something quick and sharp and determined to hunt out the sickness and filth and perversion in the world.
I tighten my jaw and steel my will.
There’ll be time to grieve later.
“You gunna hand us over to them?” I ask, nodding at the two corpses by the front door. “Chain us to that flatbed?”
“Haven’t decided,” Mia says in an offhand way that makes me believe her. “I got guys stationed all around this place. They have orders to light it up unless I walk out the front door in ten minutes.”
“Skins?” Shiori says with withering disdain.
“They’ve gotten pretty good at killing freaks like us,” Mia says.
I raise an eyebrow. “Is that what we are now? Freaks?”
“That’s what we always were, dearie,” Mia answers as she opens a cupboard, finds a glass, pours herself some water. “Freaks and monsters and demons and ghouls. The Skins have feared us since they stood upright. Turns out they were right to.”
“You could help us,” I say quietly.
“Help you?” Mia nearly chokes on her water. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“You got your own crew,” I say. “That’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?”
Mia hurls the glass at the wall, missing me by inches. “Do not question my loyalty to Aaron Arud, new girl. You know nothing about anything.”
But I know by how quick she is to defend herself that I’ve struck a nerve. I decide to take a different approach. “He might be alive, you know. He might be out there.”
“So what if he is?”
“You abandoned him. If this is your loyalty I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.”
“He ran from me,” Mia shrieks. “Your fire freed him, okay? Melted his collar. He went full wolf. Wild as all fuck. Didn’t even recognize me. Snarled and charged when I approached. I watched him run into the woods…” Mia looks at her hands like she wishes she’d done something different, they says, “I stayed loyal when the fucker whored with you. Even after he took you as his bloodmate. I stayed loyal when he—”
“Broke your heart.”
“Yes! I stayed true to the pack! Followed him, even though he wasn’t worth shit. Saved him at your rich prick boyfriend’s house. And even after you tried to kill him…when I approached him…he didn’t want me.”
She’s fighting back tears.
“I’m sorry, Mia,”
I say, and I mean it. “I didn’t want for this to happen. Any of it. I wish I’d never went into that fucking biker bar. I wish me and Aaron had never met.”
The last part is a lie. I’m glad I had the time I did with Aaron.
Even if it all went to shit.
Those few moments together were all-the-way worth it.
“I don’t want your fucking apologies,” Mia says. “Especially when you’re full of shit. You love him. I scent it! So don’t fucking lie and tell me you regret meeting him—”
“I do love him,” I say. “But a part of me…fuck yes. I regret meeting him. Look at us! All this…” I wave my hand in a wide circle, “…fucking madness is because of me and Aaron. If he hadn’t marked me she wouldn’t have woken, and then she wouldn’t have called her brother Vuk, and then none of this—”
“Yeah,” Mia whispers. “I’ve thought about that too. How a single event can set off a huge chain. Rekindle an ancient war. End a world.”
Mia slides across the kitchen, heading for the door.
“What do you want?” I yell after her.
“Nothing. Fuck it,” she says, waving her hand at me in dismissal. “You’re right. The New World Order are a bunch of fascist pricks. Meathead preppers and survivalists and rednecks and racists. All jacked up with kill-thrill. Thinking they’re gunna carve themselves a new nation from the wreckage of this one. Can you imagine? A nation ruled by those assholes?” Mia shudders. “Too fucking lazy and stupid to succeed when there was actual competition, but now they have all the guns and think they’re hot shit.”
Mia spits, looses a bitter laugh, plants a boot on the shoulder of one of the dead men and says, “They’re all dead anyway. Walking dead men. All the Skins are. Some will last a few years longer than others, and most of the ones that do will wish they died now, in the early days.”
“So what then?” I ask, pressing, knowing she’s here for a reason.
Mia’s voice grows cold. “We’re dead too, you know. The Purebloods. The Fallen can’t be stopped. Not by whatever the fuck you are. Not by anyone. So I’m finally riding just for me, you know? For what I want. To put a few more of those black-hearted motherfuckers in the ground before I die.” Mia’s voice sharpens to a razor edge. “To settle a few scores.”
The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) Page 13
