Right about now would be a great time for someone to figure out he was awake.
He didn’t know how much longer he could count on his voice. Shifting to bear from wasn’t exactly heaven on the vocal chords, especially when he couldn’t reach those notes as a human. An attempt to clear his throat mostly wound up with him in a hellish amount of pain. After he was free, his boys were going to get an earful for this.
“Hey, I see you’re awake,” said a voice above him. “It’s about time. You’ve been out for a good hour. The shift back to being a human must have taken more out of you than normal.”
Tate. If Silas couldn’t go by the tone, he could tell by the shiny blue shitkickers on the man’s feet. Tate was the only member of the Brotherhood who looked like he shopped at a store for metrosexual goth wannabes. The man was a badass, but someone needed to help him out with a proper biker makeover.
“What happened? Explain. Now.”
“You were out like a light for most of the questioning over the panther barbeque. We ended up shoving some clothes on you. Oh and yeah, we chained you to the bike and towed it to get you home. It was either that, or throw you in Norton’s side-car, and we know how much you hate that shit. Made sense at the time.” Tate kicked a cloud of dirt, and some of it rolled up into Silas’s nasal cavity.
“And none of you geniuses figured to unchain me now that we’re back at the clubhouse? That would have been too much trouble?”
Tate snorted, shuffling around in what sounded like his pocket, and seconds later Silas smelled smoke. The fucker was taking a smoke instead of finding the key to these chains. “You were asleep. Must have been an intense shift. We figured you needed to sleep it off.”
“On the back of my ride?” He shook his head. “Just pass me one of those if you’re not going to untie me.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Give me a sec.”
Silas grumbled but let his brother have a moment. A few seconds later he found the padlock and did the honors.
“There. You’re free. Roam like the wind.”
“Fucking smartass.” Silas propped himself up and climbed off the bike, adjusting to standing again. His mind went to his cute little guest. “Did anyone check on Sabrina since we got back?” He leaned against his bike for a second, clutching his stomach as it growled in protest. “Oh, and please tell me someone restocked the kitchen.”
Tate dug in his pants pocket again and handed Silas a granola bar. “We’ll get you a steak once you prove you can walk again.”
Silas ripped into the package and shoved the dinky bar into his mouth. It tasted like chemically coated plastic after being in bear form. The only thing that would sate his hunger now was medium rare, a little bloody, and of the cow variety.
“This won’t cut it.”
Tate walked back to his bike and returned with a resealable plastic bag full of beef jerky. “This should help.”
“You didn’t answer my first question, Tate,” Silas huffed, ripping open the bag and shoving pieces of the dried meat into his mouth.
The other man swore under his breath and rubbed the back of his neck with a deep exhale. “Oh. That.”
“Where is she? Talk.”
“You cute little human chew toy went off with your mother on some kind of girls-only gig. It has to be some weird, ritualistic bonding shit.” Tate blew out a plume of smoke and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t get it, but they seemed excited.”
Yeah, that didn’t ring any warning bells or anything.
“And you let them leave?” Silas glared at him, but all he got back for his trouble was an impish smile. The man was impossible to intimidate. Tate wasn’t afraid of things, because things were afraid of him. Of course, it made being pissed off at him utterly useless.
Silas took a test step away from the comfort of his bike. The world wobbled a little bit, but he managed to navigate a straight line. One problem down and about eight more to go, and then maybe he could chill with his feet up and an ice cold six-pack of beer. Fuck, who was he kidding?
“You told us to keep an eye on the broad, not handcuff her to the bed. Now that I’d be willing to do, even without your orders.” Tate made a couple hip thrusts and mimicked some ass-smacking, then he threw his cigarette butt to the ground. “She’s one of the most perfect specimens I’ve seen walk into our perverted little establishment. I wouldn’t mind getting a chance to corrupt the shit out of her for an hour or two.”
One minute Silas was taking his time walking around his bike, and the next, Tate was underneath him and Silas’s hands were wrapped around the man’s junk, squeezing as if he was going to rip it off and feed it to coyotes. Tate was whimpering, clawing at the ground. A detached part of him surveyed his brother, his face twisted with pain as Silas gave another experimental tug. Evidently the beast wasn’t done in the driver’s seat.
“If you value your body parts you won’t speak like that about her again.” Fuck, he didn’t even recognize his own voice.
“Shit, boss! Okay. I’m done. Just let me go and I’ll do whatever you want.” In a vague part of his brain, Silas acknowledged that the beast enjoyed seeing this level of subservience from Tate.
“Good.”
He released the guy’s balls and stood up. The world didn’t wobble this time, and his stomach didn’t have a fit. He was getting somewhere.
Tate got up after a second and brushed off the desert dust while he rearranged his groin area. He called out to one of the twisted claws hanging around the front of the clubhouse. “Hey. Get your fine ass inside and grill up a couple of steaks.”
“So no one knows exactly where Sabrina went with Cindy? The two of them together, away from this compound? That can’t end well.”
“Mamma C said they were going back to the girl’s condo to pick up a few more things.”
“Back to the condo where she was tranqued? Fuck. I should have been more specific.”
“Damn straight! This is the first I’m hearing that your girl was attacked.”
Silas shook his head and ran a grimy hand down his face. Christ, he needed a shower. That was going to have to go to the end of a ridiculous list. The second he had that thought, his bear growled. It wanted Sabrina bumped up to the top of the list. The problem was that right now, everything was a priority.
“Did we get anything from the panther you grilled? Literally?” How he’d forgotten to ask about that in the first place weighed on his shoulders. He was dropping the ball big time. Too many distractions and not enough time. He glanced over at Tate again, who was grunting in pain again.
“Sorry about your balls, man.”
“Yeah. I deserved it.”
“Fuck right.”
Tate’s face shifted into a twisted grin. “Plus, I kind of enjoyed it. It’s been a while since they’ve been rearranged. That little Dominican mistress I’ve been hitting up is booked solid lately—”
“Okay stop talking. You need to keep that kinda shit to yourself. Tell me what the panther said.”
That sobered him up real quick. “Yeah, boss. He admitted the bombing wasn’t just for giggles. It was a hired hit.”
Silas blew out a breath, scrubbing his hands through his grit-coated hair. “Fuck!”
“That about sums it up.”
“Did he say who hired them?”
“No. He didn’t know. We need to find their president or someone from their inner circle.”
“Dammit.”
“I’ll keep an eye on the place while you go get your girl, Si.”
“She’s not my girl,” Silas growled, clenching his fists as his blood pressure skyrocketed.
Tate’s eyes went wide. He backed off quick as hell. “Sure, whatever you say.”
“Yes. Get some eyes out here to keep watch. I’ll call with a status when I’m on my way back.”
“Sure. No problem.”
“And next time she wants out of the MC, call me first.”
“She’s under lock and key. Got it.”<
br />
With a roll of his shoulders and a wince, he got ready to mount his bike again. Thankfully this ride would be on his ass and not his stomach.
Silas took the first few steps out of the elevator onto the plush condo carpet, and rolled his eyes. Whatever the women were up to, it wasn’t going to be roses. He sensed high-stakes drama, as big as a damn piano falling on his face. With a short huff, he flicked off his sunglasses and winced at the indoor lighting. Only one door before Sabrina’s apartment, if he remembered correctly. Giovanni’s door.
There was a sharp, quick short circuit in his brain. A memory flashed, but he couldn’t quite reach it. He stopped mid-stride in the middle of the hallway holding his temples as a massive sweeping migraine ached down to his bones. What the ever-loving fuck was happening to him? He hadn’t reacted this badly to a transition since his first one out of high school for his first full moon.
With a shake of his head, he shed the pain. There was something he was supposed to remember, if only he could grasp it the right way. Ah, yes. There was Sabrina’s door number, 2102. He got slammed with a mental assault of her in that tiny, skintight red dress as she glided down the damn hallway. Fuck, what he wouldn’t do to her in that little number. He needed more time to sate himself inside her sweet, tight pussy.
Another excruciating whip of pain made a dent in his skull. He staggered forward, trying to catch his breath. What was with this mental shift? It was as if his brain wanted to keep him from putting pieces of a puzzle together.
“Seriously?” He held himself upright by holding on to the wall, hoping to remain in a position that wasn’t on his knees. God, he hoped he didn’t have to start carrying around a bottle of painkillers like a damn pre-transition cub pansy.
He managed to make it to the door, and thought about knocking until he heard Sabrina scream. All thoughts of his pain flew out the window. Silas jacked the door open wide, his heart thumping out of his chest. His eyes flicked across the trashed living room. It was a disaster area. Pillows were shredded, magazines were on the floor, vases were broken. Even her couch was overturned among shards of glass. There was another shrill scream and his mother started cursing like a sailor.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, his beast woke up and roared within him. As he shifted, he wondered in a disturbingly detached way if he’d be able to come back from this one.
19
Sabrina
Sabrina wrenched her forearm out of the stranger’s grip and stomped down hard on the top of his foot. He howled in pain, but his hands still pawed at her waist.
“Stop moving!” The man kept shouting, and every time she got away, he dragged her back into his arms, brandishing a hypodermic needle filled with unknown liquid. All she knew was she wasn’t going to stop moving long enough for him to get that toxin into her veins. He’d have to knock her out the old fashioned way.
She hardly had time to shoot a glance at Cindy, who was taking on three other mysteriously suited men looking like FBI rejects. They’d showed up the second she and Cindy got inside the front door of her condo unit, and shoved the ladies inside. The bastards had probably been staking out the place all this time. Just the idea of them sleeping in hallways outside her place made her skin crawl almost as much as getting darted outside her own home the evening before.
He snatched her around the waist and hauled her up off the ground. Using her legs on the wall outside the bathroom, she pivoted sharply and sent him off balance, right through the open bathroom door. His stumble put him right where she wanted him, with a confined space around her, walls and random items to use as leverage and weapons, and his syringe-waving hand close enough for her to reach. She swatted it out of his hand and the needle broke when it hit the granite floor. By the expression on his face, he wasn’t expecting that move.
Well, he was going to love this one. As her attacker regained his balance with her back pressed against his chest, Sabrina tilted her head forward then swiftly head-butted backward, getting him in the nose and forehead with the back of her skull. His howl of agony gave her a bone-deep satisfaction. The adrenaline rush also didn’t hurt. He cupped his nose with one hand to stop the blood from gushing down his face. She tugged her body out of his grasp. Refusing to let him recover, she kneed him in the groin next, and pitched him into her bathtub. She wasn’t done yet, though. There were still three goons crowding Cindy. Granted, she was holding her own quite well.
One of them pulled out a gun, and Sabrina’s world narrowed into a heartbeat of time.
“Shit,” she breathed out and watched Cindy pivot to face her attacker, who pressed the weapon to the center of her forehead.
“Enough!” The gun-toting prick shouted. “You bitches need to shut up and stay down or I will take you out.” He met Sabrina’s narrowed gaze. He wasn’t bluffing. She could tell from the half-crazed yet disciplined expression on his face. This man had to be ex-military. “I only need one of you alive, so if you don’t want your friend’s brains blown out all over the walls, you need to start cooperating.”
Without a word she nodded blankly and threw up her hands. A painful groan came from the bathtub behind her. The guy she took out was already starting to recover. What other options did they have? She was pretty confident Silas would never forgive her if she got his mother shot and killed.
“Okay, I’m cooperating, see? Please move the gun away from her face.”
“You don’t get to give me orders, princess.” He shoved the weapon harder into Silas’s mother’s forehead, pushing her back a step.
Sabrina swallowed hard, fingers curling into aching, helpless fists. “What do you want from me?” Her voice only shook a little bit, and her spine straightened a bit more because of it.
“Sit in the corner. My friend here is going to get your wrists nice and tied up, understand?”
“Okay.”
“Good, now keep your mouth shut.”
Silas’s mother started to ask a question, and a crack echoed out when the man’s open palm whipped across Cindy’s cheek. Sabrina couldn’t keep her panic in check. Words tumbled out of her mouth but none of them made any sense. Another man snatched her up by the hair until she was forced to stand. She let out a surprised scream from the way he nearly wrenched her arm out of its socket after she’d finally gotten to her feet.
One second she was staring into the eyes of this violent bully, and the next, there was blood splattering across her face, hot and thick. He crumpled to the floor.
“Shit!”
She jumped back a few feet and tripped on the bathroom rug, and in her effort not to hit the porcelain tub or granite floor, she over-corrected and spilled forward onto her stomach across the unconscious body of her attacker. There was no time to register the shock that cocooned her brain. Her eyes jerked up at the fearsome roar that shook through her apartment.
A bear.
A full-size bear on all fours.
A big brown bear outside the door of her bathroom.
Her mouth opened but no sound fell out. She scrambled backward on trembling arms and legs, crab-walking into the wall and curling into a small ball. The bear took out the other two men with paws half-closed and what seemed like restrained aggression, then it ambled forward into the bathroom and swatted the last man backward until his head hit the shower wall. He dropped like a fly. All their attackers were now on her condo unit floor in crumpled unconscious heaps. It was so much to process all at once, she struggled to make sense of the picture. Her brain couldn’t put the one bear-sized illogical piece of the puzzle anywhere to make the image stick. She blinked over and over again, and was suddenly aware of Cindy, standing beside the bathroom door, stroking the wild animal’s long snout and whispering to it in soothing tones.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
There had to be another explanation.
Yet there wasn’t one. There wasn’t a traveling circus in the condo complex, and Silas’s mother seemed terribly familiar with the garg
antuan creature. Sabrina grasped her knees to her chest and sniffled, wiping her nose with the palm of her hand. She couldn’t think past the possibility that kept circling in her skull.
That was Silas.
Somehow, some way, the man she’d slept with last night could turn into a bear. Except that wasn’t logically possible.
Was it?
“Wh-wh-a-t…” she stuttered, voice shaky because she wasn’t sure she wanted to draw the animal’s attention in her direction.
“Sabrina, meet my son, Silas.” Cindy glanced down at the animal with a glazed look of pride dotting the apples of her cheeks and making her eyes sparkle.
Sabrina drew in a shaky breath, and then another. Yes, she needed to breathe, and maybe to ignore all the wounded men twisting around on her floor, and the bear now standing beside Cindy in the middle of the hallway of her apartment. This used to be a somewhat safe place to be. She’d never look at it the same way again. Jesus, she could never move back here again. A tiny sob squeezed past her throat. Hot, stinging tears pushed at the backs of her eyelids. Now was not the time for a freak-out, but what the hell else could she do to ignore the idea that Silas was that big brown grizzly bear?
Cindy spoke to her bear son. “We can’t let her go just yet, Silas. She knows about us now. We have to hang on to her until we’re sure we can trust her to keep our secrets, but trust is going to be awfully hard with this little princess. I don’t think she can ever gain our trust, son. Do you?”
Sabrina didn’t know what the woman was expecting to get back in response from a bear, but it lowered its head and nudged her shoulder with a weird chuffing noise. It had seemed so vicious before, but now it was weak, swaying on all fours. She glanced down at her palms. Where did all this blood come from? It made her stomach roll with horror. Thankfully she hadn’t eaten for several hours because in no time she leaned over and was seeing stars, dry heaving and choking on nothing but air and her own revulsion.
Her head took a while to get back in the game again, and during that time she was recovering, she noticed that Cindy was still speaking to the bear, now resting in the hallway with a paw stretched out in the doorway of the bathroom floor. Sabrina pulled herself together, but sounds continued to float past her ears, not making any sense. Cindy’s words were so muffled she might as well have been speaking gibberish. Slowly, by taking deeper breaths and focusing with all her will, the words filtered through her shock.
Outlaw MC Bear Page 10
