by Callie Rose
Drifter fashion.
I use the keycard to swipe my way into a room at the end of the motel’s single-story row, then kick open the metal door and flick the light switch on the wall inside. A dull, amber bulb in a ridiculous gold sconce illuminates a room that has seen a lot better days than this one.
Venturing inside, I drop my bag in an armchair hulking in the corner and blow out an irritated breath. Flat blue carpet stained by God knows what. Rust stains in the bathroom sink, mildew on the shower curtain. Watercolor beach portraits, like I want to be reminded that I’m landlocked in the fucking desert.
“The Four Seasons, it is not,” I mutter, then shove my wallet in my back pocket with the key card and head out.
My ass is still chafed from my eight hour ride, so not even an ounce of me wants to straddle my bike again to go searching for sustenance. Luckily, the motel is centrally located, and I can see a large strip mall dotted by free-standing restaurants across the street and down a side road behind a thicket of evergreens. So I shove my fingers in the pockets of my blue jeans and set off for the crosswalk.
The strip mall is a happening place. The O’Charley’s parking lot overflows with giant pickups and tiny electric coupes, which is as New Mexico as it can get. Rednecks and hippies living semi-harmoniously. There’s a barbecue joint next door with a dozen people waiting on the patio. The idea of smoked ribs makes my mouth water, but if the crowd outside is any indication, it would be way too long of a wait.
I cross the lot, immediately shutting down the idea of grabbing fast food from either of the boxy chain restaurants, because I really want a drink. The strip mall behind the food places holds the usual bric-a-brac of small town America—a cheap grocery, a local hardware store, a math tutoring clinic, and a Big Lots. But at the very end of the row is the quintessential corner bar.
My kind of place.
I speed walk across the main thoroughfare before some douche in a lifted truck can mow me down, then hop up on the sidewalk, making my way for Joe’s Bar and Grill.
The front door is open to the evening air, spilling the mouthwatering scent of fried food and beer into the lot. I bypass a large group standing around just inside the doors, all of them with glasses in hand, then weave through a sea of high top tables to get to the bar.
The bar’s magnificent—dark, heavy wood that’s as aged as a fine wine. The same rich wood lines the wall behind the bar, planks intersected by mirrors and shelves holding rows and rows of liquor. It gives the whole area a kind of rustic, pirate ship feel.
I’m not even seated on one of the high-backed stools before the bartender comes to greet me. He’s a tall, lanky man with limbs that seem too stretched for his body and a head full of thick gray hair. His name tag declares him “Joe.” The owner, maybe.
He tosses a white rag over his shoulder and gives me a lopsided smile that seems more genuine than I’m used to. “You look like a whiskey girl.”
Just the word whiskey sends fury racing through me.
It’s an immediate, visceral reaction. If my anger could manifest as flames, Joe the bartender would spontaneously combust.
“I don’t drink piss water,” I bite out, trying to temper the chill in my voice. It’s not his fault I hate whiskey. All he sees is a leather jacket, tight jeans, and a face that’s a little harder than most girls. Girls like me usually do drink whiskey. “Gin and tonic. Top shelf.”
Joe raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on my rudeness. His voice is even and pleasant as he says, “You got it.”
As he walks away, I shove my hands back through my long dark hair and castigate myself for being an ass to the man who’s going to serve me dinner. It was seriously uncalled for. My grudge against Kian has nothing to do with Joe and his attempts at conversation. If the old man decides to spit in my burger, I probably deserve it.
Joe returns a moment later with my glass, and I order one of the specials written on the blackboard above the bar. He enters my order in his computer then goes to wait on the next customer, leaving me to my solitude.
There’s no denying that Joe’s Bar and Grill is popular. The place is packed for dinner, and an even bigger crowd is chilling out on the side patio under a haze of cigarette smoke. Joe has tiny little twenty-somethings in crop tops and short aprons serving tables, and the two teen boys bussing tables look like they could be his kids. Or grandkids. Just another family-owned bar. Just another small town.
Just another day.
After so many years, I feel like I should be used to this level of monotony. Even moving from place to place every week, every two weeks, nothing changes. Every place looks the same. Every bar feels the same, every server the same, every bartender another guy just like Joe. Even my solitude is a never-ending feeling of sameness.
I don’t even feel like a whole person anymore. Like I’ve faded into the wallpaper. I’m a fucking tumbleweed blowing through the desert on a Ducati. Half the time, I feel like I’m a ghost in any room, no matter how crowded it is. Separate from this world but living in it all the same.
As I bring my glass to my lips for another drink, I feel a presence at my side. A man leans in, wedging his body between me and my neighbor. Young, dark hair, dark eyes—a low rent Tom Cruise in his heyday. His elbow slides onto the bar, and his smarmy grin is leveled on me.
Dammit.
“Something’s wrong with my eyes,” he says, “because I can’t take them off you.”
I snort into my glass. “Oh, baby. That’s just fucking awful. Get out of here.”
Smarmy guy straightens and glares at me. “Well, fuck you too. Bitch.”
As he huffs off like a teenage girl throwing a temper tantrum, I give his back a little flippant wave with my middle finger and then return to nursing my drink.
I’m invisible, until I’m not. And no man has been able to cut through this veneer since…
No. Fuck that. I’m not thinking about that tonight.
I toss back the last of my drink as Joe sets my plate in front of me.
He palms my glass. “Another?”
“Please,” I say, hoping the forced smile takes away the fact that my first words to him were pissy. “And ketchup.”
I slather my steak fries in Heinz and make quick work on my burger. It’s average bar fare, which is to say it’s delicious. When Joe comes to take away my empty plate, I order a fresh drink. Three’s the limit. I’ll wash down dinner with this one then head back to the motel for some shut eye.
Last drink in hand, I pass Joe a fifty dollar bill, and he sidles off to make change at the register.
The ice clinks in my glass as I sip it, and I swish the licorice sweetness around in my mouth. It’s the one thing that reminds me of home. Nights beneath the Montana stars, sipping gin while murdering Ridge in poker. Dinners at his house, laughing and bantering with the four alphas of the pack, sharing secrets with his mate Sable, the closest I ever had to a sister. She’ll have had her baby by now. Maybe even more than one.
A pang hits me. Fuck, I miss them.
Suddenly, the back of my neck prickles.
I freeze, my glass still pressed to my lips. Electricity dances across my skin, sending tingles zinging along my spine.
No.
It can’t be.
Setting the glass down on the countertop, I sit up straighter and study the bar in the tiny reflections behind the bottles ahead of me. But the room’s too dim, and too many people are moving around for me to make out anything more than swinging arms and moving bodies.
So I take a deep breath and swivel my chair enough to see the open front door.
And as I do, the domino falls.
It’s Kian.
Chapter 5
Motherfucker.
Of all the fucking bars in all the fucking cities in this country, Kian has to walk into this one when I least expect him. I’m three drinks in, filled to the brim with a burger and fries, and half-dead from traveling all day.
Things just got really complicated.
He’s standing in the doorway, his gaze sweeping the bar for an open table. I’m transported back to Keggers in Montana, watching him walk into my life like a human wrecking ball. Here he is, doing the exact same thing in an obscure hole in the wall in middle-of-nowhere New Mexico like nothing’s changed.
Things have changed though. In the three years since I last saw him, he’s gotten harder, both in his face and in his sinewy, muscular body. His hair’s longer with a hint of curl at the tips, like he’s forgotten to get a trim. He still has broad shoulders and an imposing height as he looms in the doorway—a demon in black jeans. He’s got more tattoos, too, swirling up both sides of his neck and down to his wrists on either arm.
The sight of those tattoos makes my body respond. I remember my fingers pale against that black ink. My lips trailing up the curlicues across his abdomen, my tongue ringing his nipple.
God, I can still taste the salt on his skin. The hot, wild, intoxicating taste of him.
His eyes, though, they haven’t changed. His eyes are that same endless brown ringed by gold and framed by dark lashes. The same eyes that stared so lovingly into mine as he claimed me.
As he ruined me, heart and soul.
I’ve been dreaming of those eyes every night since we stumbled into his hotel room in a flurry of groping hands and hot kisses.
I want to stare into them forever—
—and jam my knife into both pupils.
Otherwise, he’s still Kian. He’s still exactly as I remember him.
Then he catches sight of me.
Time stands still. The bar disappears. No more drunk, shouting partiers. No more clinking dishes and raucous laughter. Just me and Kian and this vast ocean of hurt and need and absolute fucking fury.
I can’t breathe. I cling to the back of the chair, my head whirling, my lust and anger meshing until I can’t delineate between the two emotions. There he is like some dark god three years after he tore my soul from my body and left me to drown in the blood.
I want to fuck him.
I want to kill him.
While my heart’s doing its damnedest to escape the confines of my rib cage, Kian’s expression doesn’t even change. But he recognizes me. I can see it. I can feel it.
After a split second of eye contact, he turns away and makes his way across the bar to a small, empty booth, where he sits with his back to me.
Clearly, he intends to ignore my presence.
Pain ripples through me, his rejection of our bond like a knife slicing deep into old wounds. That old agony opens up, fresh as ever and ten times as hurtful. Isn’t absence supposed to make the heart grow fonder?
But as hurt as I am, as cut as I feel, anger is right on its heels.
Fuck. This. Asshole.
If he wants to play this game, he’s going to do it to my face.
I surge to my feet and snatch my drink off the bar, ice ringing against the glass as I whirl away from Joe’s questioning gaze. The bartender’s returned with my change, but I leave him standing there. I don’t care about change.
I care about ending this shit once and for all.
Stalking across the room, I keep my eyes trained on Kian’s bowed head as he reads the menu and imagine shoving the whole thing up his ass.
By the time I reach his booth, my heart’s ready to give out. But I clench my jaw and slide onto the bench across from him, ready to stare him down with enough heat to melt his insides.
Kian drops the top of his menu and peers at me, his expression stoic and unreadable. I hate it. I hate the way he looks at me like he doesn’t even know me. So impassively, like I mean nothing to him after what we shared.
I just have to remind myself he means nothing to me either. My only goal from the moment I left home was to track him down and stop him. There’s nothing else for me here, and there never has been.
At least the strong stench of stale beer and body odor is covering up his whiskey and woodsmoke scent. One less temptation to throw me off track.
Slouching casually against the booth seat, I grip my glass in one hand and go for my best bored voice. “You’re a hard man to find.”
Kian raises an eyebrow, then lifts the menu back up to peruse the selections. “You didn’t find me.”
I reach out and slam my palm into the laminated paper, knocking it to the table.
“What the hell are you?” I snap.
He purses his lips for a moment, the first sign of emotion I’ve seen on his face. “I’m a shif—”
“Bullshit,” I cut in before he even finishes speaking. “You’re not a shifter. You’re more than that.”
Joe appears next to the table and slides my change across the sticky surface. He glances between me and Kian, then raises an eyebrow at me. “You forgot your change.”
“Thanks,” I say and peel off a ten for him.
With one last suspicious glance between us, Joe leaves us to the rising tension.
Kian leans forward, lacing his fingers on the table top. With his elbows out and his chest so fucking broad to begin with, the position makes him loom, makes his body take up all the space in the little alcove. His voice comes out gruff, dark, and dangerous. “You’re going to presume to tell me what I am?”
“Yeah,” I bite out, then swallow my heartbeat in my throat. “You’re a feral shifter.”
A server arrives then, interrupting us again, and I consider screaming at her to go away so I can interrogate Kian in peace. But her bubbly energy displaces the tension hovering over the table. She’s ridiculously young with a round face, huge eyes, and breasts that her little crop top can hardly contain. Her name tag says Brandee.
Kian doesn’t even look at her. His thunderous gaze remains trained on me as the words “feral shifter” hover in the air between us.
“Hiya!” Brandee chirps, pen poised over a little pad. “Can I start you off with a drink?”
Before Kian can speak, I shoot him a vicious smile, holding his gaze while I speak to the waitress. “He’ll have a happy hour whiskey. Cheapest you’ve got.”
“Coming right up!” she promises with a smile, then bounces away with her ponytail swinging.
A muscle ticks in Kian’s jaw, and his eyes glitter like aged gold coins. “Do you know what feral means?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Wild. Untamed.”
He nods as if that explains everything, then leans back, nearly mimicking my “pretending to be unbothered and casual” pose. He gestures to my glass. “Gin and tonic. Your tastes haven’t changed.”
“This conversation isn’t about me.”
“Oh, I think it is,” Kian murmurs. “Who told you I was a feral shifter?”
“A witch.”
“Hmm. What else did this witch tell you?”
I take a sip of my gin to calm my nerves. This version of Kian grates on me. The low, even tones. The disinterest. The way he almost seems to be talking down to me, like I’m a child who’s gotten a wild notion and he’s the grown up trying to make sense of my naïveté.
Where’s the man who looked at me like an equal? The mysterious, sexy man with the knowing smile?
Whatever. It just makes it easier for me to do what I came to do.
“This witch,” Kian prompts. “What did she tell you?”
“You’re going to destroy the world, and it’s my job to stop you.”
“And you believe her.”
“Knowing what I know about you? Fuck yes, I believe her.”
He tilts his head. “What do you know about me?”
I freeze, realizing I might have said too much. What I know about him is that he met his mate, bonded with her, then walked away like she was trash.
Any shifter capable of that isn’t a shifter at all. But quite frankly, I don’t want to go down that road. There’s nothing to discuss.
“Just what she told me,” I say coolly. “That you’ll destroy the world.”
Brandee bounces back up like an excitable poodle and deposits a short glass on t
he table in front of Kian. “You folks eating?”
“That will be all,” he says without looking away from me.
“O-kaaay,” the bubbly server says, drawing out the syllables. “Just wave me down if you need me.”
In her absence, Kian picks up the glass and sniffs it, then makes a face before setting it back down, untouched. A small, petty part of me fills with glee.
Score one for Amora.
Kian sighs into his glass. “You have no idea what you’re messing with.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
He raises his golden-ringed gaze to meet mine. “You should’ve taken the hint when I left you three years ago.”
His words slice deep, and an ache spreads through me, chilling me from the inside.
There it is. The elephant in the room. The source of the tension so thick between us.
He knew what was between us just like I did that night. He knows what he turned his back on.
I stare him down, every cell in my body on fire with loathing. Gritting my teeth, I promise myself that I will stop him. No matter what it takes.
An explosion of glass and liquid next to our table startles me out of my vengeful thoughts. I jolt away from the splatter of alcohol and turn to find Brandee standing over an entire tray of shattered glasses, her big eyes shiny with unshed tears.
“I’m so sorry!” she squeaks. “The glass didn’t hit you, did it? It just slipped right out of my hands! I should have dried them off...”
I catch a blur of black out of the corner of my eye and realize Kian’s on the move.
“Fuck!” I leap to my feet to follow him.
Glass crunches beneath my boots as I run through Brandee’s mess. I slip on a puddle of sharp-smelling alcohol and catch myself on the back of a chair, then launch forward on Kian’s heels. He weaves through the crowd of bar patrons like he’s made of water, while I slam into three different guys roughly the size and shape of small mountains. Each blow sets me a few seconds behind, so that by the time I burst through the open front doors, he’s gained a lead.
