Caged Wolf (Tarot Witches Book 1)

by SM Reine

  CONTENTS

  Caged Wolf

  Copyright

  About

  The Devil

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  Dear Readers

  CAGED WOLF

  The Tarot Witches

  SM Reine

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This book is sold DRM-free so that it can be enjoyed in any way the reader sees fit. Please keep all links and attributions intact when sharing. All rights reserved.

  Copyright © SM Reine 2014

  Published by Red Iris Books

  1180 Selmi Drive, Suite 102

  Reno, NV 89512

  OTHER SERIES BY SM REINE

  Seasons of the Moon

  The Cain Chronicles

  The Descent Series

  The Ascension Series

  Preternatural Affairs

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  About Caged Wolf

  WARNING: This sexy, violent paranormal novel contains werewolf bondage, motorcycle bondage, knotting, shapeshifter sex, and a shotgun named Little Bo Peep. Adult readers only! You’ve been warned…

  The biker gangs passing through Lobo Norte don’t scare Ofelia anymore. All those men are the same: scarred, homeless, and broken…just like Ofelia. They’ve become a blur of forgettable faces watching her strip. She takes off her clothes, takes their money, and wipes them from her memory instantly.

  But Trouble is different. A biker with a wolf tattoo and tortured eyes, he sees beyond Ofelia’s tough disguise to a more fragile woman within. She’s drawn to him like she’s never been drawn to a man before—at least, not since she survived hideous torture at the hands of her ex-boyfriend that left her scarred physically and emotionally. She can’t forget Trouble. And she definitely can’t push him away.

  There’s magic between them that neither understands. But maybe if Ofelia and Trouble can find the truth, they can release each other from the chains that bind them to Lobo Norte, to the Fang Brothers biker gang, and to the dark secrets in their pasts…

  The Devil (XV)

  The fifteenth card of a tarot deck’s major arcana, The Devil represents hedonism, obsession, and temptation. His arrogance is as intoxicating as it is deadly. Those drawn to his magnetic personality will become entangled in his pursuit of earthly pleasures.

  He is bound in chains with no lock: the ties that hold him are those of his own making. Though The Devil is surely in bondage, freedom always lies within his reach…if only he will allow himself to take it.

  I

  Folks didn’t come to Lobo Norte because they wanted to. Our town was a pit stop in a nowhere-place in the desert, neither Mexican nor American, marked on no map and unreachable by normal means. Any normal person unlucky enough to stumble upon us was likely to never leave again. For those who came deliberately, we were the last chance to get gas before crossing the border into the United States. Or the first place to get whores and drugs before crossing into Mexico.

  When the Fang Brothers blasted into my town, I could tell that they weren’t there for gas. That only left one other option.

  The door to my bar swung open, and there they were: three men, each of them tall and broad, each of them encased in leather and denim.

  The first one was grizzled and gray. His vest had “Big Papa” etched into the breast with white thread. Big Papa didn’t have a right eye and he didn’t try to hide the scarred, empty socket.

  The one on the left, with a goatee and wicked eyes the color of the playa, had a vest that said “Mad Dog.” Both radiated intimidation. It would have been enough to make any other twenty-two-year-old girl drop everything and run.

  But I wasn’t any other twenty-two-year-old girl, and the third guy—the one on the right, hanging back a little from the others—had my cowboy boots glued to the floor.

  He was a full inch taller than Big Papa. His square jaw was shadowed with faint stubble, same length as the dusky brush of hair on his head. He’d shaved maybe a week earlier, and judging by the glistening sweat on his collarbones, that was how long it had been since he had showered, too. His skin was dusty and sunburned. A man who had been on the road for months—maybe his whole life.

  The stubble made me wonder what the hair on the rest of his body would look like, if there was any at all. My gaze made its way up his fitted jeans and tasseled chaps to the shirt that hugged every line of his abs.

  It took me a moment to meet his eyes, and once I did, I realized with a jolt of shock that he was watching me just as hard as I was watching him.

  This guy’s vest only said “Trouble.”

  I believed him.

  The way my body instantly reacted to his stare—that was definitely trouble. Sprawled on the pool table with my ankles hooked over his shoulders kind of trouble. My stomach clenched low and hard, making heat pool between my thighs.

  I reached under the shelf, grabbed the shotgun, and set it on the bar where all three of them would be able to see.

  “What can I get you boys to drink?” I asked in English. Pleasant, nonthreatening. I let my shotgun, Little Bo Peep, do all the real talking.

  Big Papa hefted his girth onto the stool in front of me. He was in good shape for a guy his age. Burly. Looked like he knew hard work in fields or factories, judging by the breadth of his arms and the scars on his palms. “Tequila,” he said. I grabbed three shot glasses, and he said, “Two’s enough.” He spoke Spanish like a Mexican. Not like I’d have mistaken them for tourists in the first place.

  Two shots of tequila. It wasn’t a strange request, even at three in the afternoon.

  I pushed the shots across the bar and shifted gears into Spanish-speaking mode. It didn’t come as easily to me as English, but I was more or less fluent after my months in Lobo Norte. “Cash or tab?” I asked, trying like hell not to look over at Trouble. What I was really trying to ask was, How long will you be here?

  Cash meant they would be gone soon. They’d get some blow from Johnny, top off the gas tanks, fuck a girl or three at the Coyote Ranch, be gone by dawn.

  Big Papa said, “We’ll open a tab.”

  He tossed back one shot of tequila. Mad Dog downed the other. Trouble hung back, thumbs hooked in his pockets, the muscle in his jaw working as if he wanted to say something but didn’t dare. It wasn’t restraint holding him back. I could see in the bulge of the veins on his tattooed forearms that he was fighting hard against himself on the inside, way down in the dark places where nobody could see. His bones and flesh were only a cage for his fury.

  “More,” said Big Papa.

  I refilled the shot glasses.

  Mad Dog took his shot and ambled around the bar, looking around at my pride and joy—the place that had sheltered and employed me since I was twenty years old, back when I was still healing the wounds that now left my shoulders and neck a twisted mess of white scar tissue.

  The bar wasn’t much. Our pool table was upholstered with patchy red velvet. Its broken leg was propped up by a piece of slate. The TV had been bootlegging football games since the seventies. The scattered tables were clean, but mismatched.

  Our usual clientele didn’t care about fancy things. They only cared about the strippe
r’s pole affixed to the bar, the shelves of alcohol I had behind me, and the main feature of the back room.

  The biker leaned against the door and lifted a black eyebrow. “When’s the next fight?”

  He was looking at the cage hidden behind the curtain: twelve feet by twelve feet of wicked iron enclosing a concrete platform with an old bell on one side. It was stained from years of monthly bloodshed.

  That cage was the only reason we had any kind of economy in Lobo Norte. Men came to us for the cage fights. Johnny’s drugs and the Ranch girls had followed to service those men. Gloria and Johnny and I lived a good life off of those weekends. A modest life, but good.

  “Tomorrow night,” I said, and pointed at the chalkboard advertising our fight nights. There was a signup sheet next to it.

  “Prizes?”

  “Five hundred dollars to enter. Winner takes all.” There were usually at least five or six guys chomping at the bit to climb into our cage. It was good money for those willing to risk it, and the liquor sales were even better.

  “Steep,” Mad Dog said. Unlike Big Papa, he didn’t sound or look Mexican. The back of his vest said Fang Brothers, just like the others’ did, but none of them looked to be related. Brothers in soul but not in blood.

  “It’s worth it,” I said.

  Mad Dog squinted at the signup sheet. During his moment of distraction, my eyes traveled back to Trouble. He was quiet and still. But even though he hadn’t budged, it felt like he was shouting my name, demanding my attention.

  Trouble wasn’t interested in the cage match. His gaze was fixed to Big Papa’s back.

  “We need a motel,” Big Papa said to me. “Where do you think we should stay?”

  Far, far away from here. These weren’t the roughest men that had ever crossed my doorstep, but their quiet intensity had the hair on the back of my neck standing. They hadn’t even threatened me and my adrenaline was twisting to dizzying heights.

  But I didn’t want Trouble to leave. I wanted him to look at me again. I wanted him to speak.

  “There’s only one motel in Lobo Norte,” my lips said as my finger lifted and pointed to the east. “They have three rooms at The Lodge.” Most people didn’t bother staying at The Lodge when they visited. Most people didn’t have a stomach for that many scorpions and the smell of fifty years’ worth of tobacco stink. They slept under the stars, propped against their motorcycles, or in a hooker’s bed.

  That was part of the reason the Coyote Ranch girls made so much more money than I did. Guys would pay a premium to sleep on soft pillows and softer tits after long weeks on the road. But Johnny told me he didn’t take scarred whores. I wasn’t welcome at the Ranch. I’d turn off the customers.

  Fine by me. I did well enough in the bar, and I didn’t have to put up with Johnny’s bullshit. It was worth it.

  “Another,” Mad Dog said, dropping his shot glass back onto the counter. Big Papa agreed by pushing his glass toward me as well.

  I refilled them. “And what do you want?” I asked Trouble. The words were out of my mouth before I could think to stop them.

  His eyes locked onto mine, then drifted. He took a long minute to look me over. The boots gave me an extra two inches, so he could see everything from the waist up from behind the bar—the way I kept my hair in finger-width braids all down my scalp, the way my curves tried to bust out of my tank top. I wondered if he could tell that my nipples hardened under his stare. I didn’t dare look down to find out.

  It felt like his gaze might burn away my clothes, leaving me naked and vulnerable with only Little Bo Peep to save me.

  I knew what I was doing with the shotgun. I’d killed my fair share of starving coyotes in the dry months. But just standing in my bar, my home territory, and sharing the oxygen with Trouble made me forget every self-defense I knew. Like I’d just found myself alone in the wilderness with a predator.

  Trouble’s lips parted. There were sins hiding on his tongue, just waiting to be spilled.

  It was Mad Dog who said, “He doesn’t want anything.”

  His voice broke the spell between Trouble and me. Mad Dog hadn’t drunk the second shot of tequila. He grabbed Trouble by the collar and jerked him toward the door. Trouble was still staring at me even as his companion dragged him outside—until the very last moment, when the door swung shut and stole away my view.

  My heart was suddenly hammering. Sweat rolled down the nape of my neck, disappeared under my shirt. I rubbed my thumb over Bo Peep’s stock.

  Big Papa didn’t look behind him at the younger men. He drank the orphaned shot of tequila. Rolled the empty glass between his meaty forefinger and thumb. I realized that his eye socket was scarred with four parallel lines, the top of which began near his eyebrow and sliced toward his ear. It looked like he had lost a fight against a bear. “You look like a good girl. I’ll give you advice. Free of charge.”

  Not many people mistook me for a good girl in Lobo Norte. Good people didn’t live here. Especially not good people with so many scars.

  “I’m the bartender,” I said. “I give the advice.”

  A hard look from Big Papa. I knew I shouldn’t have been poking at him, but I was giddy, like I’d just survived another assault.

  “Stay inside tonight, girl,” he said.

  Big Papa unhitched himself from the bar. Strolled outside. When the door swung open, I got a glimpse of burning desert, glistening motorcycles, and harsh midday.

  Just hours until sundown. Those hours suddenly didn’t seem long enough.

  It was hot enough that the bottle of tequila was sweating, but I shivered.

  II

  Gloria relieved me an hour after the Fang Brothers left. She was five feet of attitude on six-inch stilettos. She didn’t wear the shoes for the height or for vanity. I’d seen her jam those heels into the nuts of drunken men twice her body mass and make them beg for mama.

  She took one look at the shotgun on the bar and said, “You’ve already met them.”

  Them. The Fang Brothers.

  I was a little embarrassed to be caught petting the gun. I should have put her away, but it felt comforting to have my hand on Bo Peep. “What about them?”

  “They just checked into The Lodge,” she said, rolling herself behind the bar. She wore a tight skirt, coin belt, tube top. Gloria embraced her generous curves and didn’t fear showing them off. Any man who tried to touch her would pay in blood, and they frequently tried to touch her—the kind of guys who came to our bar didn’t think much of personal space.

  I asked her the question that I had been dying to ask Big Papa. “How long?”

  “Get this, Ofelia,” she said, slapping my butt to get me out from behind the bar. I sheepishly tucked the shotgun under my arm and gave her room. “An entire month.”

  A month? In a transient town like ours, that was practically like putting down roots. “They must need a lot of blow.”

  Gloria snorted, grabbed a rag, started wiping down the bar. “Just wait. They’re the first, but their friends will be here soon, and then more will follow. They’ll spend the whole month making trouble. Not of the drug kind. More like the kind that leads to pain and blood. Don’t go near them.”

  All of this was said casually, as though it were no big deal for men to come to our little town and make pain and blood happen. I guess it wasn’t a big deal. Our world was filled with darkness, demons, and a million other evils that go bump in the night. You could never hope to escape pain and blood—but you could profit off of it.

  That was why we had the cage, after all.

  It strange for Gloria to warn me off of the Fang Brother, though. She didn’t warn me off of anyone. It made me wonder which kind of evil they were. Considering the way the sight of them had filled me with fear, I didn’t think they were mere mortals.

  “Are they that bad?” I asked.

  “I don’t want you dancing as long as the Fang Brothers are in town.”

  That sounded like a lot of lost tips. “We’ll s
ee.”

  Gloria shot me a look. She didn’t appreciate backtalk. Her hand twitched on the bar, and I could imagine her whopping me upside the head all too easily because she had done it a thousand times before. She loved to cuff me like I was her wayward daughter.

  I was getting smarter. I’d moved out of her reach before responding.

  “I mean it,” she said with shocking gentleness. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll lie low until they’re gone.”

  She meant well. I managed a smile for her.

  But I couldn’t get Trouble out of my head, with his stubbled jaw and his wide shoulders and the way that he had looked at me. I didn’t want to lie low to avoid him. I wanted to lie low with him. I wanted him behind the bar under the desert sunset, naked and panting, dripping sweat onto the planes of my stomach as he worked himself inside of me.

  The image I conjured was clear. Very clear. Warmth flushed over my cheeks and I fanned myself with a hand. “I’m going to nap before my shift tonight.”

  Gloria’s eyes were sharp. “Don’t worry about it. I have your shift.”

  “You just want to have my tips.”

  The world erupted around me. I’d made the mistake of walking too close to her while heading for the back door—her meaty hand had connected with the back of my head and sent me staggering. “Don’t talk back!” she snapped, and she cursed me out in Spanish as I shoved through the door to the heat outside, still reeling.

  Gloria had been right about the Fang Brothers. Once my vision cleared and I could actually count the motorcycles, I saw that there were no longer three hogs parked outside the bar. There were six. Big Papa’s friends had arrived on beasts of sleek chrome and glistening cherry with giant tires that smelled like melting rubber in the hundred-degree summer. The men were nowhere in sight. If they were anything like most visitors to Lobo Norte, they would be at the Coyote Ranch by now.