by Violet Blaze
Before I can get to the stone wall near the end, a man is coming around the corner dressed in a blue denim jacket and jeans.
I pause and Loren catches up to me, waiting for the guy to make his way over to us.
“Hey,” Loren says, nodding his head at the man.
“You got the money?” he asks and my friend reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. When he opens it wide, I see there's a hell of a lot of cash in there and my skin gets tight. A few seconds later, there's the sound of more footsteps and two other guys appear from around the corner.
“What the hell—” Loren starts, but it's too late because the first guy has a gun in his hand, the barrel pointed straight at my head. Behind me, Rayna gasps and Tom swears under his breath. There's the sound of shuffling as the two other guys flank their buddy and one grabs me by my upper arm, digging his fingers into the bruises that Glacier left. Unlike Glacier, this man knows what he's doing and he means it.
“Give us the fucking cash,” the first guy says as his accomplice yanks me roughly forward.
“Just let her go, okay?” Loren says, and I can hear his voice shaking with anger as he glances my way, his dark brown eyes flashing with violence. “We don't want any trouble, man.”
“Give him the cash, Loren,” I say, because I'm afraid of what my friend will do to protect me. But the thing is, I don't need any protecting. I can take care of myself. “Do it,” I snap and Loren pulls the wad of green from his wallet, tossing it at the guy with the gun. Bills fall all over the place, fluttering to the ground like green leaves.
“Now get,” the man with the gun says as his buddy starts to collect the cash.
“Let. Her. Go,” Loren growls, but the guy holding my arm just squeezes harder, making me grit my teeth as his thumb digs deep into my flesh.
“I said get,” he snaps and Loren moves to take a step forward, rage and fury burning in his gaze. That's when I make my move, lifting my knee and hitting the man holding me right in the balls. It's about three times as effective on this guy as it was on Nevaeh, and he releases me, stumbling back with a snarl of curses.
The gun swings in my direction and Loren charges, knocking into the man and sending them both crashing to the ground. A stray shot goes off, pinging off the stone walls around us, making Rayna and Aletha scream. Before I can even take a step forward, there it is again, a burst of color in the darkness.
Glacier steps from the shadows and within the span of a breath, he's yanking Loren off the man with the gun and tossing him aside, using his boot to pin the man's gun arm to the dirty ground.
“Get your friends and get out of here,” he tells me coolly, his blue eyes locking onto my face and stealing my breath away. I don't move as fast as I should, catching a violent flicker in Glacier's eyes as he slams his weight onto the man's arm, this disturbing cracking sound echoing around the alley.
I tear my gaze away from his, scrambling over to Loren and pulling him to his feet.
“Get the others and get out of here,” I say as Loren clings onto me and makes me grit my teeth.
“Not without you,” he snaps as I jerk my arms from his grip and point at the Alpha Wolves logo on the back of Glacier's cut.
“This is club business,” I whisper and Loren's known me long enough to know what that means. If my friends see anything they're not supposed to … “Get out of here; I'll be fine. I'm sure my dad will be here in a minute.”
That's a complete lie. At least, I think it is. I'm not sure why Glacier's here—whether it's because of me or whether this really is club business—but it doesn't matter. He can take these three men with his eyes closed. That, and I know he'd never hurt me.
The bruises on my arms ache in protest, but I don't have time to argue with myself—or with Loren. I shove him back as hard as I can and he stumbles, giving me this wary look that tells me I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do later.
“Call me as soon as your dad gets here,” he says. “I won't be far.”
And then he turns and pounds down the pavement towards the others, leaving me to spin and watch as Glacier clocks one man in the face, swinging his crossbow from its position on his back. He flips it right over his shoulder, loads it by cocking it with his arms (which is really hard to do), and looses a bolt into the third man's neck.
Blood bubbles from his throat as the thug that grabbed me stumbles back and collapses against the wall at the end of the alley.
Glacier bends down slowly, like he's not in any sort of a hurry, picking up the discarded gun and slipping it into the waistband of his jeans. The man he punched has just turned away, taken off back in the direction he came. Glacier watches him round the corner and then cocks his crossbow again, using a bolt from the quiver at his hip.
Before I can even take a breath, he shoots the man lying on the ground in cold blood, removing his foot and stepping back as I stand there, frozen in place, heart thumping wildly.
“Don't move,” he warns me, his voice sending chills down my spine as he tosses a look my way that's cold hell. I don't have the breath to answer, so I just stand there and stare at his back, at the image of a snarling wolf's face and the words Alpha Wolves, Trinidad, CA. On either side of the vest two more patches sit, advertising 1%er and MC like a warning.
I don't have to walk around the corner to know that the last man is going to die, too.
It only lasts a minute, but it's long enough for my vision to get spotty and my heart to beat so fast I feel like I'm going to pass out. I should never have touched the pot or the alcohol. All it does is make me feel crazy.
“I've got three of them, boss,” Glacier says, his voice icy and smooth as he reappears with a bloody crossbow bolt in his hip quiver, his phone pressed to his ear. “In the alley behind Sea Salt,” he says, referencing the name of the market. Whatever his boss, Lyric's husband, Royal McBride, has to say, it's probably not good because Glacier's face gets even colder before he hangs up, pausing just inches away from the head of the dead man lying at my feet. “I told you to go with your friends,” he says, and I have to really fight not to take a step away from him.
“If you knew me at all,” I say as I feel my body start to quiver with unused adrenaline, “then you'd know I don't take orders well.”
Glacier just stands there staring at me, dressed in a ribbed tank in powder blue, his black leather vest hung over his muscular shoulders, his tattoos and piercings obvious even in the weak light of the alley. Behind me, the abandoned police scanner crackles, but it's about a domestic abuse call somewhere across town. Apparently, nobody heard that stray shot. I have a hard time believing we're that lucky.
Glacier's eyes search me, destroy me, tear me apart from the inside out.
Without another word, he reaches down and yanks the bolt from the dead man's chest as I glance away and suck in a long, slow breath. A few seconds later, he does the same to the last body and then walks past me with calm, even strides.
His energy when he passes by … it's anything but calm.
I turn and follow his path as he puts his crossbow on his back and picks up first one case of beer and then the other, tossing them into the dumpster with the sound of breaking glass. The paper bag with the whiskey in it goes next and then he grabs the police scanner, stares at it for a moment and then gives me a look that says he knows where it came from.
I don't care. Let him stare at me like that. He's not going to tell anybody about this.
“Your boyfriend is a stupid motherfucker,” Glacier says, his voice this long, cool ribbon of ice that wraps around me and makes me shiver again.
“Loren is …” I don't even feel like protesting as I stare back at Glacier, imagine him on that couch with that groupie. Fuck him. Never in my life have I seen him flirt with, kiss, or fuck a groupie and then a few weeks after we have sex, there he is in broad daylight about to get his cock sucked by one? I hate him. “He was trying to help.”
I tear my gaze away from Glacier, using every last ounc
e of strength I have, and then bend down to start picking up a few loose bills. The rest of the money is in the third man's pocket and there's no way I'm going over to dig through a corpse's jeans.
“We need to get out of here,” Glacier says, coming up to stand beside me as I rise to my feet, our bodies too close, way too close. My breath hitches and before I can stop him, he's reaching down and taking my chin in his fingers. His grip is hard, but not hard enough to bruise, not this time.
My heart thunders and pounds, my nostrils flaring at the sharp scent of blood. It fills the alley, burns the back of my throat.
Glacier's pupils are big and dark, dilated across his ice blue eyes. His tongue flicks out, teases one of his lip rings. He's bleeding violence and sex into the air, and I don't think he even knows about the latter part of that equation. Has he always been like this? Or did I do this? Wake up this hidden part of him? It'd be arrogant to think that.
But I want it to be true so damn badly.
“Tell me what his kiss tastes like,” Glacier breathes as I try to step back and end up with my body pressed into the wall. I should be terrified right now, but … I'm just not.
“That's a weird thing to ask, Saint,” I say and there's this visible shudder in his body, like the sound of his given name shakes him to the core. My hands are shaking as I reach up and push his hand away from my face, hating myself for having this strong of a reaction in … in an alley with bodies. “I want out of here,” I tell him and he grits his teeth hard, turning away from me suddenly.
I don't ask questions, just follow after his long strides around the corner and down to the street where his bike waits.
Glacier's bike.
It's the same one he taught me to ride on two years ago, when he showed me an unexpected and completely random burst of kindness, defied the laws of his club for me. I never understood why, but since then, I've been drawn to him like a moth to flame, one that's willing to sacrifice everything—including her wings—to stay wrapped in that heat.
“Get on the fucking bike,” Glacier snaps at me, practically throwing his helmet into my hands. There's a passenger seat suctioned to the back with rear foot pegs, something I didn't expect to see. Glacier doesn't regularly carry anyone around on his bike, so why is this here? I didn't see it there earlier.
My heart starts to race.
Did he pick somebody up, somebody like that redhead from earlier?
I slide the helmet onto my head as he swings his leg over the orange and black bike. It's just brimming with old-school charm, a nod to the past in one sleek, sexy little package. I can't help it; as soon as I see Glacier sitting on that bike, I'm completely wet. Or maybe I got wet the moment I saw him?
My sex clenches painfully tight, bringing up a small gasp from my throat that gets lost inside the helmet, echoing around in my own ears. Glacier grips the handlebars with knuckles so tight, it looks like his tattoos could come loose and pop off. He kick-starts his bike with a cold, blank expression taking over his face, letting himself drop even further into the dark pit of his demons.
I step up close, pulse pounding, and straddle the seat attached to the rear wheel, sweat pooling on my lower back as I wrap my arms around Glacier's muscular body, slide my throbbing sex across the leather surface. I press myself as tightly as I can against him and breathe out, long and low and heavy.
“Fuck.”
I can hear Glacier cursing even over the sweet, growling purr of his bike. When I lay my head against the patches on his back, something pulls together inside of me, some sort of strange protective urge towards this monster of a man. I just watched him kill three men in less than three minutes and here I am, clinging to him and thinking that he somehow needs me.
Something about Glacier … no, something about Saint makes me want to protect him, cradle him close, care for him. A man as dangerous as this? It's ridiculous. The bruises on my arm throb and burn and ache as we pull away from the curb and zip forward, down the wet, quiet streets of Trinidad.
The rain starts up, spattering against the shield on my borrowed helmet, plastering Saint's beautiful blonde hair to his head, turning his tattoos neon as little droplets cling, hold, fly away in the wind.
My wet skin stings as we take corners sharp, and I lean my body along with Glacier's, trying to keep the ride smooth and easy.
God, I am such a club daughter.
The feel of the bike, the sound of it, the smell of Glacier's leather cut, all of it twists together inside my brain, mixes with happy memories, sad ones, angry ones. My whole life is wrapped up in the Alpha Wolves and now, so is my heart.
I know right away where Glacier's going—towards my place.
That must mean he's aware that both my parents are gone—Mom at the bar, Dad at the clubhouse. Neither of them will be home until late tonight, practically tomorrow morning.
I swallow hard and try to stay calm, reminding myself that the first thing I need to do when I get home is call Loren and let him know that everything's okay. He really did try to help me, as stupid as that move was.
Glacier's bike zips through town and up the hill towards my house, tires spinning through the wet gravel as we fly up the drive and come to a skidding stop in front of the garage door.
He doesn't bother to kill the engine, just stops the bike and waits there, like he expects me to just get off and leave.
I don't.
Instead, I lift my legs up and wrap them around his body before I reach up and remove the helmet, tossing it unceremoniously into the gravel. My palms slide up Glacier's back to his shoulders, rain pouring down on our heads as I feel him up with my fingers, digging my nails into the rock-hard flesh and waiting for a reaction, any reaction at all.
“Get off,” he says, his voice deep and dark and cold, like the unseen depths of the navy sea. Fuck. I want to crash through all that blackness with a ray of sunshine and see what I find down there.
“Make me,” I say.
Glacier smashes his boot into the kickstand and kills the engine, shoving my legs off of his, causing me to lose my balance so that I almost tumble off the back of the motorcycle, clinging to the leather of his cut for support.
Before I've fully got myself together, he stands up and I go with him, stumbling and slipping in a puddle, his tattooed fingers curling around my wrist at the last moment, yanking our bodies together.
I can hardly even register what's happening between us when his lips touch mine, hot and fervent and wild. His kiss hurts, like he either has no fucking clue what he's doing or he just doesn't care. One hand wraps my wet hair in a firm grip, holding me in place as Glacier kisses me like I belong to him, the metal of his lip rings digging into my skin.
My body surrenders immediately, giving itself up to his rough touch, the blazing flame of his mouth. His tongue slicks across mine, scalds and burns and brands. His left hand grabs my hip, curling under my hoodie, fingers digging into the bare skin above my jeans.
My breath comes in fits and spurts, gasping pants against his mouth as Glacier drinks me in, his mouth tasting of rain and dark starless skies. Every molecule in my body reaches forward, presses into his, desperate to meld into this man. I want to take him inside of me, hold him tight, soothe his body with my own.
In this moment, I know it's not Saint that's kissing me. No, this is definitely Glacier, and he is cold and cruel and awful.
And I want him anyway.
When he releases me abruptly, stepping back and leaving me shivering in the ice cold rain, my eyes snap open and I stare at him in shock.
He lifts a single tattooed hand up to his mouth, shoving his knuckles across his lips like he's trying to erase the memory of our kiss. I stare at the purple lotus on the back of his hand, the grinning skull in the center of it. I'm beautiful, but deadly. Stay away. That's what his tattoos say, all of them.
He walks over to the helmet, picks it up, starts to put it on.
“My parents won't be home all night,” I tell him, knowing exactly what I
'm going, slightly terrified at the prospect, but desperately thrilled at the same time. He pauses and looks over at me.
“Your parents?” he asks, still cool and calm as a cucumber. I hate that. I want to see the real man beneath the mask. Or even the funny, silly, smiling mask he puts on for the brothers most of the time. Why does he turn off those things when he's around me? “I'm practically twice your age, Serenity. Why don't you call your boyfriend?”
There it is, that sharp, dangerous edge, like a blade's being pressed to my throat.
All around us, the forest drips with rainwater, puddles pooling on leaves, catching on needles, draining off in a cacophony of sound. My house is buried up on a hill, nestled in trees so thick they block out the moonlight all around us, leaving Glacier and I standing in a single, solitary pool of silver.
“Maybe I will?” I ask and then I spin away, shaking with rage and frustration, dialing up Loren and not caring that my phone's getting soaked.
“Oh my God, Serenity, where the hell are you?”
“Back at my place,” I start and then, “do you want to come over?”
The phone slides from my hand and I whirl around, facing Glacier as he hits the end call button with his thumb.
“Do you think I didn't see?” he asks, still acting creepy and cold as hell. “You kissing that … that fucking boy.”
“You sure do have a lot of fucking nerve,” I tell him, loving this moment and feeling guilty for that. There must be something wrong with me that I would like this so much. I know it's wrong, everything about this is wrong.
But goddamn, it feels right. Beyond right. Brilliant and white-hot.
“You fucked him?” he asks, his voice quivering with rage. Vibrant, wild, terrifying rage.
“So? How many groupies have you fucked since … since …”
I can't even make myself say it.
“None,” he says, pausing as my phone rings. Glacier glances at the screen, his blue eyes flashing dark, and then he tosses it right into a puddle near his boots. I watch it sink into the muddy water, the screen flicking, flashing, going dark. I don't even care. I look back up at Glacier.
