by Sky Winters
“Not,” Moose said, pushing past her and out the door. He followed the sound of Ali’s footsteps, but she was already locked in her room.
“Go away,” she yelled at him through the door.
“Ali, this is not what it looked like,” he told her.
“Just leave me alone,” she replied.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
He went back to his room to remove Harley, but she was already gone. He would deal with Ali when she cooled down and he could talk to her. Right now, he had to let Aspen know about Harley before she figured out why they might be looking at her tattoo. He made his way down to Aspen’s room and told him he had found out who their rat was.
“Alright, let’s get this out of the way then,” Aspen told him, motioning for him to follow.
It didn’t seem that Harley had caught on at all. She was right back in the kitchen chatting with the other women when they walked in. She turned to see them, her lips curling up into a sickening smile.
“Get rid of your little girlfriend so we can get back to our unfinished business?” she said, cupping her breasts brazenly.
“Stop acting like a whore, Harley,” Aspen barked at her.
Her hands dropped, and her gaze shifted toward Aspen, the smile now replaced by a genuine look of hurt. Then her brows furrowed together in an angry bundle that made her look like the hag that lived beneath her bombshell exterior.
“That wasn’t very nice,” she muttered.
“You know what else isn’t nice? Having to ask the decent women in this club impolite questions about their bodies in order to identify which of them is the whore I had to watch fucking a Dire Wolf on the video his wife gave us. That isn’t nice at all.”
Her eyes grew wide as she realized why he had wanted to see the tattoo. There was a hint of fear and then defiance again.
“I can fuck whoever I want to fuck,” she spat back.
“True. What you cannot do is live under this roof and associate with our club when you are feeding information to the Dire Wolves.”
“You act like you are so good! You killed him! You killed all of them!”
“We killed them because they attacked us on the road. You called and told them we were rolling so they could attack us. My daughter was in labor with only the second baby to be born into this clan in the last fifty years. You’ve been telling your little boy toy whatever he wanted to know while you were over there riding and sucking your way into what? What exactly was in this for you?”
“I love him. He was going to leave his ugly old wife for me. I’m younger. I’m hotter.”
The other women had shrunk away from her, horrified by what they were hearing. She still stood with her head held high, just as stubborn as ever.
“We took you in when you had nowhere to go, Harley. We ignored your bad behavior even when some of the other women here complained that you kept making moves on their mates. We protected you. How do you justify selling us out?”
“I . . . I didn’t feel wanted here. I deserve to be wanted like everyone else,” she stuttered.
“Get out of this clubhouse, Harley. I’ll have one of the guys take you wherever you want to go, but I’ll be keeping an eye on you. If I hear you’ve been talking any shit about this club or anyone in it, I mean even to just say you don’t care for us, I will personally end you. Do you understand? You have one chance to fuck off and keep your mouth shut. Don’t make me regret giving you that chance,” Aspen yelled at her.
He was furious. Nothing got under Aspen’s skin like disloyalty. He could forgive a lot of things, but that was a deal breaker for him. It was pretty well known by everyone that had ever been near him. Even Harley seemed to be aware of it as she ran past him from the kitchen. He was out the door behind her as she attempted to go to her room for her things. Everyone in the lobby stopped what they were doing as his voice roared through the building.
“NOOO!”
She stopped in her tracks, cowering now. She didn’t move as she waited to hear what he would say next.
“You don’t get to keep anything that was given to you by this club. You came to this club with nothing but the clothes on your back and you are leaving the same way. Be glad you’re still breathing. Now, get the fuck out!” he barked. Turning toward the room, he found one of the oldest men there, a pensioner named Hank who she would have no chance of conning. “Hank, take my car and get this piece of shit as far away from my sight as possible. I don’t care where she wants to go. Just take her there and leave her.”
“But Aspen, how will I get by? I don’t have any money or anything,” she dared to plead.
“Not my problem. You, however, are going to have some major problems if you don’t get out of here in the next ten seconds.”
Harley ran for the front door, knowing she had pushed her limits to the max. Hank shuffled over to Aspen and took his keys, following her out the door. Everyone was frozen in place, still looking at Aspen expectantly.
“I’m sorry for the outburst, people. For those of you who don’t understand, Harley has been in the bed with the Dire Wolves for months now, telling her married lover whatever he wanted to know about us. It is important that we know the consequences of choices like hers. If she weren’t a woman, she’d not be walking out of here of her own accord.”
Without another word, he left the room, walking down the hallway toward his private living quarters. Now that Aspen’s anger was passed, Moose would have to go face Ali again and try to explain what she saw in his room earlier. It wouldn’t be easy. Walking down the hall, he had a sinking feeling. Her door was open and her pack was gone. She was gone. His stomach began to tie itself in knots.
“Anyone see Ali leave?” he asked the people still gathered in the lobby, most of them whispering among themselves.
“Yeah, man. A cab picked her up about ten minutes ago,” Carter replied.
“To go where?” he asked.
“No idea. I just heard her on the house phone there calling them.”
“Fucking great,” he said, storming off.
Chapter Eight
His gut told him he should go after her, but where would he go to look? She couldn’t have gone very far with so little money or was there something he didn’t know. The thought of her out there hitching, alone and vulnerable, or sleeping out in the woods was unbearable. He paced back and forth for a while, finally deciding he would hate himself if he didn’t find her. What if she was hurt? Or what if she simply went away and he never saw her again.
Jumping on his bike, he headed for the main hub of the cab service she had called. He knew a guy down there that could probably help him out. He didn’t waste any time in getting inside to see what he could find out.
“Is Carl here today?” he asked the woman at the front desk.
“Yeah,” she said, smacking gum heavily as she spoke. Turning around, she yelled toward the back, “Hey, Carl. You gotta visitor.”
Carl came lumbering out, his heavy frame somewhat askew from the prosthetic leg he had worn since their days in high school when he had taken a drunken tumble over the falls. It had been Moose who had gotten him out, using his more agile wolf form to navigate the steep incline and pull him back up to safety. Carl had been hurt but alert. At first, terrified of the large wolf that had a hold of him and then shocked to learn that his friend was a shifter, that shifters even existed.
It was a secret he would take to his grave, but it had bound them in a way that was steadfast, no matter how much time went by between seeing one another. It had been that accident that had taken Carl’s left leg. The injuries had seemed repairable, but then gangrene had set in and amputation became his only hope. Carl, a promising athlete, had been devastated. He worked here at the cab company as a dispatcher these days, one of many jobs he had floated in and out of over the years.
“Moose! Good to see you, man. What’s shakin’?”
“Not much. I need some quick help. Can we talk in private?”
“Sur
e. Sure. Come on in to my office.”
Carl’s office was little more than a radio hub and a phone console sitting on an old table with a chair parked in front of it. His computer lay open on the table, a video game on pause was visible on the screen.
“One of your cabs picked up a woman from the clubhouse this morning. I need to know where she went.”
“You know I am not supposed to do that, Moose.”
“I know, but I need to find her, and I don’t know where to start looking. She’s got a ripped side thanks to another pack and I need to make sure she is okay.”
Carl pursed his lips and pondered this for a moment before speaking. Finally, he shrugged and went over to the hand-written log on his desk. Running his finger down the list, he looked for a pickup from the Silver Wolves MC and tapped it.
“John took her to the women’s shelter.”
“Damn it,” Moose grumbled.
The thought of her in the shelter was unnerving. It was a miserable place filled with despair, by all accounts, but it made sense that she would go there until she could make sure her wound was all better.
“I take it she means something to you?” Carl said.
“Yes. Yes, she does. Thanks for your help, Carl, I need to get going, but we’ll get together soon.”
“Absolutely, we will,” Carl replied with a wry smile.
It was what they always said but never did. Neither of them could bear the memory of that day at the falls and it hung between them like a great big elephant in whatever room they shared. They would always be close in spirit, but most likely never in presence and each was okay with that.
Moose made his way to the shelter, stopping at the guard gate to announce that he was there to pick someone up. The guard called down to the area where the women resided and asked for Ali, but came back and said there was no one by that name there. It occurred to Moose that she would have had to show them identification to get in and might have been forced to use the name he had seen on her license. He asked the guard to try that, but was told no one by that name either.
“Come on, man. She just came in here today. A cab dropped her off earlier.”
“Look. Either she isn’t here, or she doesn’t want you to know she’s here. Either way, you can’t come in.”
“Fuck,” Moose muttered.
“Nice,” the guard replied.
Moose ignored him and turned his bike around, driving up the road just far enough to be out of sight and parking in a nearby church parking lot. He looked carefully around as he got off the bike and ducked beneath the car shelter that stood over the entrance to the currently closed church. He stripped off his clothes and stuck them behind a large planter before shifting and darting across the parking lot toward the woods that ran along one side of the fenced in shelter area. There was a hole in the old fencing there. He squeezed through it and made his way quickly across the parking lot into a small alley that ran between sections of the shelter and the church it was attached to on one side.
It was hard to see in the windows, but after a little bit of moving about, he was able to get a good view of the women’s area. There was no sign of her. He looked everywhere that she might be and saw nothing of her. A group of women approached him and he slid back off into the bushes, out of their sight, watching as they made their way toward the exit to the street. He ran back toward the church and shifted, putting his clothes back on and making his way down the sidewalk toward where they were approaching.
“Excuse me,” he said to them.
The trio stopped and looked at him uncertainly. He knew he was likely to get nothing from them. Women in shelters tended to be wary of strange men for reasons he could really not blame them, but they might be his only hope in getting to her. He flashed them a warm smile and spoke in what he hoped was a convincing tone.
“I’m looking for a woman. Her name is Ali or Alison. She’s hurt and in danger. I was told she came here in a cab today, but the guard wouldn’t let me see her.”
One of them, a woman with a large scar that ran the length of her face from forehead, across her nose and down across one corner of her lips squinted her eyes at him. The other two said nothing.
“If we knew her and I’m not saying we do, the last person we would tell she was here is a man. If she wanted you to know she was here, she would have told you.”
“Please, I know what you must think, but I promise you I don’t mean her any harm.”
“I’ve heard men say that before. The one that gave me this scar said it right before he hit me with a tire iron. Now, get out of our way and fuck off away from here. You’ve no business hanging out in front of a women’s shelter stalking someone who is obviously hiding from you.”
Moose felt like a piece of shit. That must be what they thought of him. He couldn’t be mad about it, but it didn’t help him at all. He nodded and turned to walk back toward his bike. It was only then that he heard one of the women calling out to him.
“Mister. Hey, Mister.”
He turned to see the meekest looking of the three approaching him, while the other two stood with their arms folded over their chests. She looked around at them quickly and the scarred one shrugged and wave her arms at her as if to tell her to get on with things.
“Yes?”
“I saw her, I think. She ain’t at the shelter. The cab came while we were out in the yard having a smoke. She got out, but then another car pulled up and she got in it.”
“I don’t understand. She came to the shelter but then got into someone else’s car? Can you describe the woman?”
The woman described her perfectly and then said something that chilled him to the bone.
“I don’t think she got in the car by choice. That’s why I’m telling you. One of the men got out and was saying something to her. I couldn’t hear, but then he grabbed her by the arm and pushed her into the car and got in behind her. They squealed off after that.”
“What did the car look like?”
“I can’t tell ya. It was black. Fancy. Like one of them cars you see important folk ridin’ in.”
“Like a sedan?”
“Yeah. Sedan. That’s what they call ‘um. I don’t know what kind, though. Just black and fancy.”
“Thank you. You’ve been a big help. Here. Let me give you something for your help,” he said, pulling out his wallet. He pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to her. She looked at it.
“It’s too much,” she said.
“No. You take it and buy you and your two friends something nice. I’m sure you all deserve something and you’ve no idea how much I appreciate your help. I’ve got to go, but I really appreciate it.”
Moose turned and ran for his bike. He had no idea who had taken Ali, but there was no doubt she was in trouble. Usually, men with enough money to own a big dark sedan stayed in nice hotels unless they were just passing through. Hopefully, these hadn’t made it out of town just yet. He headed toward the most likely places, the line of hotels that sat on one side of town. Once again, he shifted and made his way quietly through parking lots, stopping to sniff at cars that fit the description the young woman at the shelter had given him.
After more than a few dozen vehicles, it seemed pretty hopeless. There was no guarantee she was even here. He needed help. He was going to have to get some of the guys from the pack to come and see if they could sniff her out. He began making his way through a final row of cars when a nearby elevator door opened and two men spilled out. They were followed by another man and he was pulling someone through the doors behind him – a woman. Ali!
“Let me go. I told you I would get your money to you.”
“Yeah, but you were supposed to already have done that and you didn’t. Instead, you ran. I had to track you down. Now, you are coming back with me and I’ll get my money out of you on the black market.”
Moose saw red at the thought of them selling her like some sort of Jersey cow at the stock yard. He leapt from behind the car and
pounced directly onto the man speaking, knocking him to the ground. Ali ran, taking cover behind a nearby car. Moose was on the man before he could get up, ripping at him with his powerful teeth as he screamed and cursed.
Suddenly, Moose found himself flying backward. He hit a car and bounced back, shaking his head to clear it. His vision was a little fuzzy, but he was able to make out the forms of two large wolves in front of him. Who were they and where had they come from? He realized the two men were missing and there were shredded suits on the ground. Shifters, but only the bodyguards, it seemed. The man was struggling to get to his feet and yelling at them to kill him.
Moose squared off against the two of them. They were big, but he was bigger. He lunged forward and grabbed one by the throat, tearing at it with all his might until the wolf was lying to one side, seemingly dead. There was no time to check right now, as the other was still coming toward him. To his other side, he was dimly aware of the first man getting to his feet and moving toward Ali, who was not cowering next to what appeared to be some sort of maintenance truck parked in the garage.
The wolf came at him, grabbing one leg and attempting to twist it, break it. He was just quick enough to pull free before he could jerk it sideways, but the teeth dug deeply into it. It hurt like a son of a bitch. Before the wolf could regain its footing from skidding sideways on the missed attempt, Moose returned the favor, quickly crunching onto his back leg and popping it to one side. The wolf howled and dragged himself behind a car, but Moose wasn’t letting up. He finished him off and made a beeline for the other man, who was close to pinning Ali against the wall behind the truck.
“Come one paw closer and I’ll put a hole in her head so big you could drive this truck through it,” he growled.
Moose saw the glint of the Glock in his hand and the fear in Ali’s eyes. He debated whether he could get to the man before he could pull the trigger. He didn’t understand what was happening here other than Ali apparently owed the man some money and seemed to employ shifters as his protection detail. He was still processing his options when he caught sight of Ali bringing her arm up. The man was still focused on him and never saw the blow coming as she clocked him with a large metal pipe that must have come from the back of the work truck. He went flying sideways, blood spurting from his head. His eyes were wide open, but he was seeing nothing anymore. Moose shifted, oblivious to anyone that might see him standing bare in the middle of the garage or his aching leg.
