Atticus wasn’t the only one with questions. Wyatt held the answers, and she’d only needle them out if they saw each other again.
Wyatt growled and ran a hand down his face. “I work tomorrow.”
“Then the day after. Seven?”
“Fuck. You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“It’s been thirteen years and the only contact you’ve had is catching him lurking around the back of a bar. This is the least you can do.”
“Fine. Seven, day after tomorrow.” He shook his head. “Don’t act surprised when this blows up in your face.”
Alanna paused halfway out the door. “Don’t act surprised when you like him.”
Chapter 5
He had a son.
Wyatt tightened the nut to the bolt with absent cranks of his wrench. He couldn’t be a father. Not in the mental capacity, anyway. He was too rough. Too wild.
The physical process worked all too well. He’d left a trail of willing females in the towns the Vagabonds swept through.
He’d also felt and drank away the deep, incurable sense of nothing that came after. He never spent a night with them, always choosing to find a hole to hate himself in peace.
His wolf prowled through him. The beast’s agitation tensed Wyatt’s shoulders and clawed through his limbs with the need to see one face.
Alanna. Shit. He could still smell her over the oil and metal of working on his motorcycle. Being in the same room as her again uncovered a trove of memories he’d wanted to stay buried. They weren’t to be turned over, touched, thought about. Not when years and sins stood between them.
His wolf ignored everything he wanted and flashed sendings though his head so fast Wyatt could barely pick one from another. Memories or wishes of his inner beast, each one showed Alanna with a smile so big it crinkled the corners of her eyes.
Mate.
Wyatt growled and waved a hand through the air. Not his. Not anymore. He’d left that possibility behind long, long ago with the first body he dropped. Others had followed and dirtied his hands even more.
He wasn’t father material.
Then there was that dinner plan? Were they supposed to gather around the table and swap stories like he hadn’t been running with a motorcycle club for the last decade? Surely he could put the boy on the straight and narrow with tales of selling whatever wasn’t bolted to the floor when they cleaned out a place.
A father? Him? The boy was better off thinking he was dead. He needed to stay away.
His wolf growled at the idea of avoiding Alanna or Atticus.
Metal groaned and complained. Wyatt jerked himself out of his thoughts with a shake of his head and frowned at the bent wrench in his hand. At least he hadn’t stripped anything on his motorcycle.
The quiet putter of wheels turning chain reached his ears and he lifted his head. His nearest neighbors were junkyard dogs, so he doubted a pint-sized bicycle gang circled his home.
Wyatt stood, wiping his hands on a cloth as the noise carried a single bike into his lot. Atticus flashed a triumphant, cocky grin before letting his ride fall to the ground.
“How the fu—” Wyatt cut off with a wince. Shit, he wasn’t supposed to curse around kids. Noelle was instilling the habit in the entire pack. She’d frown so hard if she knew he’d broken the rule created for her pup, Sienna.
“How did you find me?” he asked instead, keeping the growl out of his voice. He lived on the edge of town for a reason, above an old auto shop he tricked out for his own needs. The place was an upgrade from the shack he’d borrowed when Jensen dug in his heels about staying in the shitheap town, but definitely wasn’t fit for visitors. He liked his space.
Atticus pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to him. His name, number, and address were scribbled down on a corner torn off what looked like a bill of some sorts. “I got it from the office before you caught me.”
Little punk.
Well, Alanna said he was more like Wyatt than herself.
Resourceful, though. He had to give him credit.
He squinted at the sky and then back at Atticus. Bright as fuck was usually the time for school or daycare or some shit. “Are you supposed to be roaming the streets this time of day?”
Atticus ducked his eyes, then met his look with a challenge. “No.”
What was he supposed to do? Call his mother? Drop him off back home? His old man would have belted him and ordered him out of sight.
Wyatt grimaced. Violence was out. Never did him a lick of good and he assumed Atticus would shrug off the punishment with the same internalized hatred. He couldn’t imagine doing that to his pup.
He canted his head. His cub—because he took after Alanna in the animal department—stood right in front of him. Atticus wasn’t some strange neighbor kid intent on bothering his afternoon. The boy was his flesh and blood.
“Your secret is safe with me,” he said with a shrug. “If you help me put my bike back together and promise you won’t sneak out again.”
He was supposed to bond with the boy, right?
His wolf sank down, feeling pleased.
Atticus eyed the parts laid neatly on the ground. “Did you have an accident?”
“No. Just babying her with a tune-up. That’s your first lesson. Treat your ride right and maybe you can avoid an accident.” He put another part into place and pointed to the wrench. “Hand me that.”
They worked in silence punctuated with the occasional order to bring a tool or part. For once in his life, he was at a loss for words. With Jensen and Ellis, he could talk shit and throw back some drinks. He didn’t know how to relate to a kid, even a young hooligan like Atticus.
Still, something needed to be said. He could smell the frustration building in Atticus and his own wolf took to prowling through him again.
This was a bad idea. He should have packed the boy off as soon as he arrived, then disappeared from Redwater an hour after.
“What brought you out here today?” Wyatt asked with a grimace. The question sounded even lamer than in his head.
“I don’t know. Just bored, I guess.”
And curious. Despite the uninterested bravado, Atticus’s eyes darted around the shop, over the parts and tools, and landed on Wyatt before bouncing around again.
“Mom says you’re coming for dinner tomorrow.”
Wyatt grunted. He hadn’t entirely agreed. He should have known she’d spin the lack of a definitive no into a solid yes.
Atticus leaned against the side of the garage and watched him quietly for a long two minutes before launching into another question. “Do I have grandparents?”
Wyatt grimaced again. Last thing he wanted to do was take a trip down memory lane. “Nope, those shitbirds passed about seven years ago. No aunts or uncles, either. I was an only child.”
“So there’s no one on your side?”
“I had an uncle—he would have been your great-uncle, I suppose—in New Mexico. I spent a summer with him once. Learned to ride horses, went swimming in a big lake almost daily.” For the longest time, it’d been his happiest memory. Then he’d learned the reason he went to stay with his uncle was because his father had been popped for some theft or forgery or something demanding sixty days of his freedom in the local jail and his mother disappeared, probably on some bender.
“It’s the same on my mom’s side, but I don’t believe her. There are people around town that won’t talk to us, which is fine.” He scuffed his boot against the ground in a slow-motion kick, then muttered, “I don’t want to talk to old people, either.”
Wyatt made a noncommittal noise. The situation was messy as hell. Alanna had her reasons not to tell him about her side of the family, especially after what he’d learned the previous night.
His inner animal surged to life and growled. The urge to fight and bleed the enemy returned with a vengeance. Harris topped the list of those needing to meet his teeth.
Motherfucker. Wyatt had his own reasons to hat
e the asshole, but he’d left Alanna on her own. Her own father cut her out when she needed her family.
Just like he was prepared to cut them both out?
Wyatt swallowed back his growl. His reasons were different. He wanted to keep the two safe, not punish them for loving the wrong person. They were too good for all his dirt.
Irritation continued to flare in Atticus’s scent. He pushed off the wall where he leaned and started to pace.
Out of the corner of his eye, Wyatt saw him reach into his back pocket to pull out a butterfly knife.
Sweet fuck. Alanna wasn’t joking about the kid getting into trouble. He’d had one, sure. But he’d stolen it off his old man while he snored in front of the television. Wyatt doubted Alanna left blades laying about.
He narrowed his eyes as the boy flicked the latch. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“Of course I do,” Atticus answered with a roll of his eyes.
The real answer was no. Atticus’s sloppy handling was going to get himself cut. Wyatt doubted Alanna would let him come back if he went home bleeding like a stuck pig.
Shit. As if she’d let him come back, period.
As if he should come back.
He couldn’t be a father. He was too wild. Too fucked in the head. Hell, the tigers would probably hang him from a tree and skin him alive if Harris gave the order. Put that down in Atticus’s memory book under the ‘things that sent me to therapy’ page.
And yet, his wolf hadn’t tried to snatch control since the kid turned up. He’d kept his temper, too.
The knife landed with a clatter on its side.
Wyatt grabbed it before Atticus, flipped it closed, and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll hold on to this for safekeeping.”
Atticus scowled. “I won’t get better if I can’t practice.”
“How about I teach you something useful? Let’s see your laces.”
Atticus fisted his hands in his jeans and held out a foot. Little punk wore black boots.
“Nice baby shitkickers,” he drawled with amusement. The boy smelled pleased and Wyatt shook his head. “That’s your next lesson. Always wear something with laces. Better to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Atticus trailed after him into the open garage.
Wyatt dug around a toolbox until he found what he needed. “Take a seat on the ground and hold out your wrists.”
Atticus huffed like he’d been asked to perform the hardest task in the world, but took a seat anyways. “What are you doing?”
“I told you.” Wyatt zipped the plastic tie tight around the boy’s wrists. “Teaching you something useful.”
Atticus strained against the weak cuffs with a sneer. “I’m a shifter. I can just break these.”
“What if you’re pumped full of silver?”
Wyatt’s wolf lunged forward at the potential threat to the boy. As much as Wyatt wanted the kid to stay safe, he was a shifter in a world with people who’d hate him simply for that fact. Even with supernaturals out and proud and gaining rights by the day, asshole hunters still existed. Asshole shifters existed. Assholes in general existed.
Better to be prepared for anything.
Except... that required him to stay.
Skies above, he hated the awful feeling in his chest. He didn’t know which way to turn, which would cause more damage. If he even deserved a shot at making someone else happy.
He cleared the growl from his throat and shoved his dumb fuck wolf to the back of his head. He couldn’t stay.
Could he?
“You’re going to untie your boots, unlace a couple loops to give yourself some room if needed. Now thread one lace through the plastic. It helps if you let the lace dangle off your shoe.” Wyatt nodded as Atticus glanced up. “That’s it. Now tie your laces together.”
“Really? This just seems like some horrible prank old people pulled because they had nothing better to do.”
“I’m not old,” he scoffed.
“Yeah, okay,” Atticus rolled his eyes.
Wyatt thought briefly of slapping on some real silver, hauling him back home, and leaving him on the doorstep for Alanna to find. “Got a knot? Good. Now stick out your legs and make like you’re peddling a bicycle.”
The plastic zip tie bit into Atticus’s wrists before snapping. “Hey! That worked!” His eyes widened with surprise. “How did you learn that?”
Wyatt opened his mouth and closed it before spilling the story of his initiation into the Vagabonds, a blood deal gone bad, and a turf war between two wolf packs. Alanna definitely wouldn’t like that story told.
“Someone old taught me.” He jerked his chin to the street. “Get out of here. I need to clean up for work and you probably need to sneak back through your window or something.”
Atticus dangled keys as he picked up his bicycle. “I can use the door. She won’t be home for another hour.” He mounted the bike, hesitated, then twisted back around. “You’ll be there tomorrow?”
The hope on his face stabbed Wyatt through the chest. Fuck. He needed to get out of Redwater, needed to put miles between him and Alanna, needed to keep his paws off the little family before he ruined them.
“Yeah, kid,” he said instead. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter 6
Wyatt was in a good mood when he pushed through the doors of Dark Horse. The visit with Atticus buoyed him in a suspiciously pleasant way.
He seemed like a good kid, despite all the arrogance and attitude. Alanna had been right about those being in abundance.
Hell, he remembered what it felt like coming off the squeaks of puberty and seemingly sprouting inches overnight. He’d felt powerful. The world had been at his fingertips. And anyone attempting to knock him back clearly didn’t know a damn thing they were talking about.
Maybe the last hadn’t changed.
His beast paced through his mind with jaws hanging wide in a grin and a sense of smugness running from snout to tail.
His good mood chilled when he wondered what Alanna had told Atticus about where he’d been all these years and how soon it’d blow back in his face.
His wolf growled and curled up in a ball.
Wolf tempered from his peppy hopefulness, Wyatt threw himself into serving drinks and ignoring Jensen’s digs for information. One task was harder than the other.
“So that woman and kid last night—” Jensen began in the first lull of the night.
“Not talking about it.” Wyatt dodged his alpha’s doe eyes and sappy grin. On such a big man, they were freaky.
And he certainly didn’t wear them himself.
“The kid was somewhat polite. So I know he can’t be yours.”
“Fuck off.” Wyatt shoved past Jensen, catching him in the shoulder.
Jensen spun out, hand slapping over the contact point in exaggerated injury. And he still pressed on.
“She the reason you never wanted to come back to this place?”
Wyatt growled as he passed another beer across the bar and whipped around. He shoved his hair out of his eyes and glared at Jensen. “Her father tried to kill me by framing me for murder and getting an execution order put on me. So yeah, little touchy about coming back here.”
Jensen regarded him coolly for a long second before cocking his head to the side. “I mean, wouldn’t be a full day unless someone wanted you dead.”
“Fuck off,” Wyatt said again. This time, amusement bled into the words.
Jensen slid a peace offering shot of tequila his way. Wyatt swallowed it back and slashed his eyes away from the man. Even with orders called over the pumping music, he could feel his alpha’s attention on him, doe eyes and all.
Wyatt winced in their next lull and heaved out the words that hung heavy around his shoulders. “I’m not going to be good for them. I’m just going to bring them grief.”
Jensen shrugged. “I thought the same thing about Noelle and Sienna. Now, look at me.”
Obnoxiously happy and giddy as a s
choolgirl to have someone cool sitting at his lunch table.
In sharp contrast, he’d been bad for so long, Wyatt wasn’t sure how to be good. Fuck, running with the Vagabonds had been riding from one shitshow to another, and that was before the entire pack slid headfirst into crazy. Viho Valdana had been a shit alpha determined to drag everyone with him into his death-spiral.
It’d been an easy choice to follow Jensen when the man split their former pack. Wyatt didn’t even hate Jensen’s rule. Even if the fucker set them up in Redwater.
“Yeah, but you were the one to snap out of the bad. You actively broke away from it. Me? I would have gone along for the ride until I died.”
Jensen shook his head. “If that was true, you’d have joined Bryce and the others when they pledged to the Slayers. You didn’t. You fought to free this town from their hold.”
“Maybe I just wanted to see the fireworks,” he muttered.
The door to the back swung open and Noelle poked her head out. On the nights they didn’t have a sitter, the couple made their different schedules work with dinner in the back and reading a story to their little girl before Noelle drove her home to put her to bed. It was… cute.
Jensen’s face lit up at the sight of his mate and Wyatt felt a pang somewhere deep in his middle. The feeling bounced around and echoed through his empty chest, making him feel like he was a husk propped up and acting like a living thing.
The only thing that made his heart beat again was Alanna’s face swimming to the front of his mind. His wolf howled for her; his body wanted her. Sweet fuck, his hand still tingled where she’d touched him and his dick twitched with all the dirty, delicious thoughts he’d had when he threw himself into his bed at the end of the night.
And all his sins kept them apart.
“People change, Wyatt,” Jensen said. “Good, bad, or just neutral, the years change us all.”
“Change, sure. Inevitable. I’ll agree with you on that.” Wyatt shoved his hair back with a growl coiling out of his middle. What had the years changed him into? Someone with a broken moral compass, definitely. Someone who shouldn’t be trusted, admired, loved. Role model was entirely out of the question, unless the kid was supposed to gain sticky fingers and a wealth of curses. “All those crimes, all that dirt? Those don’t wash away so cleanly. Those stain forever.”
Tequila and Tigers: Book Two: Shifters and Sins Page 4
