KEEPING YOU: Howlers Motorcycle Club 1: A Werewolf Shifter Paranormal Motorcycle Club Romance

by Devane, Lauren

  Torn, I slumped back against the pillow. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. Even if I never breathed a word to anyone—and I knew now that I wouldn’t—they would sooner kill me than take the risk.

  “Just think about it. Please.” She reached out to hug me and I tentatively put my arms around her, returning the embrace before she stood and left, her citrusy perfume lingering in the room.

  Part of me agreed with her. I liked it here. I liked the clubhouse and the mountain air and the people like Madison who’d treated me with kindness. I felt safe—if I didn’t consider the fact that some of them wanted me dead so that I couldn’t ruin their lives.

  If I’d left the first day, I’d have gone straight to the police or the Army or someone with big guns and solid fences. But now I had a better understanding of what the Howlers lived for, and it seemed almost noble. For family, Michael would insist I stay, but also that I not be harmed because of what Sam felt for me. For family, Sam would fall in with Mike’s choice and keep me here, even if he was willing to let me go. Family first. Family always.

  How could I argue with that?

  I thought of family as Sam bounded to the door, used the key to open the lock and entered. Any space he was in seemed smaller—and not just because of his massive frame.

  “Do you want to have pizza tonight?” He asked. “One of the pups is turning 16 and Reid is making a bunch of pizza.”

  “Sure,” I said. He smiled at me and started talking about what we could do that night. Did I want to go to the party and should we look for a new bed now that there were two of us? He talked like us staying together was a foregone conclusion.

  But I just didn’t know.

  Eight

  The next morning, Sam asked if I knew how to make orange cinnamon rolls. “Mom used to make them when I was a pup,” he explained. I got to work, pulling a blue mixing bowl from the cabinet and yanking down ingredients from the stocked cupboard.

  “Where are your parents now?” I poured what was needed into the bowl and gave it a good stir, making sure the liquids were absorbed to make the dough.

  “They live with another pack out near the ocean. Lots of us retire there. Every summer there’s a bike week where thousands of different motorcycle clubs show up to shoot the shit.” I worked the dough with my hands while he grabbed the milk from the fridge and finished off the carton, tossing it out with a thud. “I’ll take you some day. They’ll like you.”

  I looked at him askance. Salty air, white-capped water and miles of beach stores sounded like Heaven, but I didn’t see it as a future for us. I’d have been long gone if I had a choice in the matter. Even if I was his mate, that meant nothing to me—I mean, my life was still out there to be lived, right? No woman would be willing to give up everything I had at home for a man.

  Even if that man is sexy and smart and smells really good. Even if he’s funny and fast and has the cutest wolfish grin I’ve ever seen. Not enough.

  “What are your parents?” He asked, and I scowled.

  “They died when I was little. Car accident.” Saying the words brought me back to the night of my own accident. The feeling of panic that had taken me over when I saw the flames. I shuddered, and Sam cocked his head in my direction, then turned from the window.

  “Those smell really good,” he said, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. His scent helped settle my nerves. My heart started beating faster at the contact with his big, hard body. Could he feel it? Seemed likely, given his natural advantages.

  “They will be,” I said, dipping my finger into the icing I was mixing and holding it up for him to taste. He licked the gloop from my finger with his long, pink tongue.

  “It’s good, but not as sweet as you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Flattery will not get these rolls on the table faster.”

  “Hey.” His puppy-dog expression made my chest feel funny, like a slight ache. His eyes were so beautiful and his morning hair was too cute for words. I wanted to leave the rolls in the pan and go to him, take him in my arms. But I couldn’t. Today was Sarah’s birthday and I wasn’t there with her. “I’d never flatter you just for food. You’re my mate.”

  “I’m glad that a chemical reaction makes you think I smell better than the best breakfast food ever.” He opened his mouth for what would have been a witty rejoinder, but the words never made it out.

  Someone outside was screaming. “Help. Please, anyone. Madison! Mike!”

  Without a word to me, Sam flew out the door. Fear nestled in my chest; it was a great black bloom against my heart, which suddenly felt so cold. Of all the things that could make a grown man scream with such ferocity, none of them made me comfortable.

  I could smell the sweet rolls, the icing, and the cool mountain air. I ignored the things on the counter and moved toward the door. Three riders had come in on Harleys that were carelessly pushed aside—something I’d never seen a Howlers do. One man was on his back, arms splayed out. The dirt around him was drinking in his rich, red blood that poured from the lacerations on the front of his chest. As I watched, a man in road armor ran out of the clubhouse with the same kind of syringe that Madison had used when the club member was uncontrollably shifting. Reaching the man, he dropped to his knees and plunged the needle into the prone man’s chest.

  Flying upstairs, I grabbed the first aid kit I’d seen Sam store. Almost as an afterthought, I went to the fridge and pulled out the solution I’d made. If there was nothing else anyone could do, maybe it could help prevent the injured man from bleeding out in the dirt.

  I raced across the grass, dirt caking on the soles of my feet. When I got close, blood joined the dirt on my skin, but I didn’t care. I knelt next to him and assessed his injuries.

  “Where the fuck is Madison?” One of the men growled.

  “With Mike. We called and they’re coming back, but it’s going to be an hour.”

  “He needs to go to a hospital.” I shut my mouth quickly when one of the men turned to me and bared his teeth.

  “You don’t belong here.” His words came out as a bellow and the whites of his eyes were shot through with red. “Get the fuck away from him.”

  “We can’t take him to the hospital, Ellie,” Sam said in a sorrow-soaked voice. “It’s one of our rules. Our internal organs aren’t exactly the same.”

  “I might be able to help,” I said. “I work with severely injured people.”

  “Are you a doctor?” The other man next to Sam looked at me. I could see a spark of hope in his dark eyes.

  “No, I’m sorry.” His face fell. “I do have some medical training though. But…I’ve been working on a solution that can help slow internal bleeding and stimulate certain hormones to keep the patient alive. It also prevents infection. But the sooner it’s administered, the higher the chances that it will work.” I pulled the cold flask from the kit I’d carried out. “I need saline or even water to use to mix it and then rubber tubing and a line so that I can give it to him intravenously.”

  The man who’d yelled at me spun on his heel, heading toward Madison’s clinic. I pushed back the open sides of the leather jacket and looked at the injuries more closely. With shaking hands, I picked dirt, debris and cloth from them.

  “What happened?” Sam asked the remaining man.

  “Fucking Jagger and his pack. We were running some product down to the mainline and they ambushed us. They must’ve found Matt out. Took our shit and fucked him up.”

  “I want his fucking head,” Sam roared. I turned to look at him and felt a bolt of fear rock me. His teeth gleamed like sharp knives. The rage had taken him. As I watched, his shoulders wracked with spasms and gray fur appeared on the backs of his hands.

  “Sam,” I said sharply. His eyes met mine. “I can’t help him if I have to hide in the house because your wolf comes out.” He nodded, closed his eyes and began breathing deeply, his chest rising and falling. When his eyes opened, the hair that had sprouted on his skin was gon
e.

  The other man looked at him incredulously. “She’s… She can… I didn’t know, man. Congratulations.” He thinks I’m his mate.

  “Thank you,” Sam said solemnly. I realized he was accepting congratulations on something that was not a foregone conclusion and winced.

  “Has Mike scheduled an inspection for her yet?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Part of me wanted to say that I had no intention of allowing anyone to inspect me, but the angry man returned and handed me the items I’d asked for. My patient was still breathing, but the sound was shallow and wet. “Hold his arm,” I ordered and Sam knelt next to me in the blood to do what I’d asked.

  I added a few drops of the mixture into the bag of saline. “Wolf anatomy and drugs interact differently,” Sam said. “Use a higher strength than you would for a human.”

  “I can’t guarantee this will work. It’s experimental.”

  “If you poison him, I’ll fucking behead you.” This from the quiet man. I winced and started shaking. Sam used his free hand to rub my back as I added more of the solution into the bag.

  “Shut the fuck up Justin. Sorry, Ellie. He’s Matt’s brother and he’s not getting you’re trying to help or that I will cut his fucking throat if he touches you.”

  Though the thought of my head being removed from my shoulders was terrifying, I knew I couldn’t let the man die without doing everything possible to save him. Shaking the bag to mix its contents, I pushed the needle into his vein and started the IV on a fast drip. We watched the liquid slide down the tube and into him.

  I don’t know whether it was wistful thinking or my imagination, but Matt’s body relaxed a few minutes later and his breathing evened out. The blood that had been seeping from his wounds was less. When I was convinced he wouldn’t bleed out in the attempt, I asked the men to move him to the clinic so we could set up the IV on a hook and start monitoring his vitals.

  While the men went outside to pick up the bikes and reassure some of the onlookers, I stayed with Matt. His blood-covered skin was sticky with the mess, so I used some towels and warm water to clean the worst of it, then gently sponged off his face. His heart rate and blood pressure looked promising, not like some of the results we saw in early animal tests with the pill version of the drug I’d created. It made me confident that I’d gotten it right. He moaned, and I reached out to take his hand.

  Sometime later, Madison came through the doors, her face strained with panic and worry. “How is he?” She asked, hanging up her coat and coming to stand by his bed.

  “I think he’s stable,” I said. “I tried to clean him up. I don’t—there may be internal damage and he probably needs a transfusion.”

  “Justin said you gave him something.” I explained to her about my work and the active mechanisms of the medicine I’d designed. She sighed, then bent to examine his wounds.

  When she pulled back, her face was grave. “If you hadn’t been there, he’d be dead.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, looking at the tiled floor of the clinic.

  “No, he’d be gone. These wounds are serious.” Her voice broke on the word, but she clenched her fists and pulled it together. “Thank you. You saved my brother. Thank you.”

  Someone behind us cleared his throat and we both spun around at the intrusion. It was Michael, his jacket with the presidential patch still over his shoulders after the ride he’d taken with his wife.

  “You didn’t leave,” he said, studying me.

  “I’m not allowed to.”

  “Justin told me that you could have gotten out. Everyone was distracted by Matt. Why didn’t you take your chance to go?”

  “I couldn’t leave someone bleeding on the ground if I could help him.”

  “But he’s a wolf.” Michael’s gaze sharpened, piercing me. “Why do you care?”

  “He’s a person, too.” Sam stepped into the clinic behind Michael and I felt everything in me soften. “And maybe I was scared of all of you at first, but I’m not anymore. I don’t want any of you hurt.”

  Michael sighed, his face etched with strain. “You can go.”

  “What?”

  “You saved my brother. I owe you. If you want to leave the compound, to return to your normal life, you may. But remember this: you can’t ever tell anyone about us.”

  I nodded, my eyes filling with tears as the weight of the day and the thought of seeing Sarah again overwhelmed me. “Thank you,” I said, nodding to blink back the moisture that blurred my vision. “Thank you so much.”

  “I’ll take you back to the city,” Michael said. “Go get anything you need and I’ll be out front in ten minutes.”

  Sam’s expression had slammed shut; I couldn’t see anything from him or get a handle on what he was thinking.

  “So you’re going to leave?” He said. “I thought—.”

  “I have a life. I have a best friend who probably thinks I’m dead.”

  “You can’t go,” he said, standing taller in front of the door. “I won’t let you.” His fist flew out and smashed into the plaster wall. He pulled back and hit it again. Fur began sprouting from his skin, but Madison stepped between us.

  “I’m going to inject you with something to knock you out if you can’t get it together,” she said, her eyes filled with sorrow.

  “Sam.” Michael’s voice was like a gunshot in the quiet clinic. “Stand aside. We won’t keep her here by force. I promised she could leave.”

  “She’s my mate.”

  “Then you understand that your primary objective is to make her happy. If she can’t be happy here with you, then let her go.”

  Sam’s body shook, but he obeyed his alpha, his president, and stepped aside, looking away from all of us. I wanted to argue that I could be happy with him, that he did make me happy, but I wanted my life, too. It can down to a single fact: I couldn’t let Sarah think I was dead and I might never get this chance again. So I bowed my head and walked by Sam, out into the compound.

  There was nothing I needed. Sam never came out. Ten minutes later, Michael walked out and gestured for me to follow him. “Are you sure you want to leave?” He asked.

  “I care for Sam.” Do I love him? “But there are other people I care about, too.”

  Accepting my answer with a nod, he handed me an extra helmet. I climbed onto the rumbling bike behind him and without any more words between us, we left the compound.

  Nine

  Sam

  “Fuck you!” I roared at Michael, hitting the clubhouse wall to keep from wiping the father-knows-best expression off his smug face. The asshole is only two years older than me. “You didn’t have the right to tell my mate to leave.”

  For the last week I’d been stalking around the compound, avoiding this confrontation. Only a direct order to come to the clubhouse had pulled me from my rage long enough to get me to meet with Mike.

  “I had every right. And what did you do? You stood there and didn’t even try to convince her to stay.” Mike sat down and stared at me. “I’d have thrown myself in front of Madison and begged. In the fucking dirt, brother. And she’s not even my damned mate. If the man in you couldn’t stand up, the wolf sure as fuck should have.”

  He didn’t get it. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “It would have been disrespectful to you.” Michael wasn’t only owed respect as the President of the Howlers and as my alpha, but because he was good man when he wasn’t a sanctimonious piece of shit.

  “I said you couldn’t stop her.”

  “So?”

  “I never said you couldn’t go after her.” His lips curved up as he studied my suddenly animated face. “Can’t force her, but you can curl up at the foot of her bed and refuse to leave if you want. Just make sure you’re here for the monthly meetings if it takes you that long to convince her to come home.”

  “She won’t come. There are ties that bind her to the outside world.”

  “She doesn’t
have to come back as a prisoner.” He sighed. “We need more ties to the outside world. If I hadn’t cut us off, maybe I’d have known more about what Jagger was planning. Your mate can be the first stone we use to build a bridge. Tell her she’s free to come and go as she pleases, as long as she respects our rules about exposure.”

  “What about my duties here? It’ll be awhile before Matt is on his feet.”

  “We’re patching in Jeremy at the next meeting,” he said. “Unless you have objections.”

  “None.” Jeremy was a good man, a strong wolf and had fulfilled all his duties as a prospect with pride.

  “Then he can deal can help me with the grunt work around here. We aren’t leaving the compound as a group until we decide how to deal with Jagger.”

  “Don’t make any moves without me.”

  “Just leave your phone on,” he said. “Now go get your woman.”

  I was out the door and on my way almost before he’d finished speaking.

  Ten

  “Never do that to me again.” Sarah’s eyes were red-rimmed and her posture was stiff. I’d been home more than a week and she still couldn’t look at me without breaking into tears.

  I’d explained that I’d hit my head when my car crashed and hadn’t been able to find my way out of the woods for weeks. I’d expected a barrage of questions, but the police seemed content to let me go on with my business and work on finding someone who did need help—some woman who’d gone missing two towns over. To my surprise, there’d been no search parties in the state park. Jeremy had told them I’d gone to Running Hills, not Green Lake.

  “I’m sorry,” he said my first day back at work. “I didn’t pay attention to where you were going.”

  “Why would I have gone to Running Hills? I told you Green Lake.”

  “I thought you said Green Lake was played out and you wouldn’t be able to find more samples there. A few weeks ago, you said that.” I had no recollection of saying anything like it, but I nodded and left the lab.