2. Orion
CHAPTER 2
Orion
“U ther Vanderbilt is dead,” Kodiak said from his spot at the head of the table. As the alpha shifter and president of the Helena chapter of the Royal Bastards MC, he sat at the helm of our business and pack dealings. “Rumor has it, his entire ranch staff has abandoned the family after our little show.”
The rest of the motorcycle club whooped and clapped around us. Even I had to admit, giving those privileged fuckers a scare felt good. They’d been trying to buy up the Bastard territory for decades, going so far as to lease the area surrounding us in a desperate attempt to squeeze us out. It hadn’t worked, and as long as we had the support from the rest of the RBMC globally, they wouldn’t be able to.
“I talked to Jameson earlier this morning,” Kodiak continued, glancing at me to his right. As president of the National Chapter, Jameson oversaw all of our holdings. We wouldn’t have been able to put our next phase of plans into motion without his consent. Since he was on board, we were moving ahead. “Vanderbilt stocks are in a free fall. They’re at their most vulnerable. Now is the time for a coordinated attack.”
“What did you have in mind?” Lycan said. Our road captain knew these Montana mountains better than anyone. If we were going to put an ambush in place, he’d be the best person to coordinate it.
Kodiak straightened his shoulders and ran his hands over his bald scalp, glancing down at the map in front of us. “They won’t be able to maintain this land with no one to work it. We’ve got the funds to secure our southern border.” He pointed to a spot just below the edge of our territory, right where Vanderbilt land butted up against Royal Bastard territory and ran parallel to the area controlled by the Bloody Scorpions. “We can steal it out from under them and cut a new deal with the banks.”
If there were anyone the Bastards hated more than the Vanderbilts, it was the fucking Scorpions. Not every chapter of the RBMC was like us, and not every chapter of the Scorpions was like them. There was a reason we’d taken up residence in Big Sky country. The rest of the world didn’t know our kind existed, and we liked to keep it that way.
Every full moon, we escaped to the heart of our property to give over to the gift that had been handed down to us through the generations. Tons of legends and stories had been written about werewolves, but none had ever really hit the mark. Yes, we had to turn when the moon grew to its fullest. No, we couldn’t help it. But we weren’t slaves to our baser natures; we didn’t lose our sense of identity when it happened. It was more like we coexisted with our feral selves. And humans couldn’t be turned into a shifter. One was born a shifter, or they weren’t. End of story.
The RBMC Helena chapter was one of the only shifter safe havens left in the US, especially since our existence had to remain a secret from the rest of the world. It was forbidden to tell anyone that wasn’t afflicted themselves, and if Kodiak found out someone had, he’d be well within his rights to kill that shifter immediately.
The Scorpions, on the other hand, were bloodsucking leeches. Unlike the myths about vampires, they rode in the daylight and they weren’t afraid of crucifixes. But the stories did get one thing straight—we wolves lived to tear their hearts out with our teeth.
Just thinking about it made my canines tingle.
The Scorpions cared about nothing except blood, money, and power. They treated their women like shit, keeping an outdated (and disgusting) approach to motorcycle clubs—old ladies were meant to be used and abused until they were turned, and that was to say nothing of the way they treated their hang-arounds. Might as well say blood bags or vamp junkies. Those poor souls lived to feed the Scorpion vampires and prayed to be made into one. Most died before they ever were.
It was just another reason why we made it our personal mission to protect Helena from those motherfuckers. If they got into town, they’d turn this place into a blood-soaked wasteland, just like they did to Silverton and Crystal Acres.
“And what about the eastern border?” Our sergeant at arms, Moose, pulled on a cigarette and glanced down at the plans with dark. skeptical eyes. “If we’re busy fucking around down south, won’t that leave us open to the side?”
“I’m hoping the mountain range will keep us protected,” Ruby said. Kodiak’s sister was almost as dominant as he was, and for that reason, she held a primary spot on his council. As enforcers, she and Serpent kept everyone in the pack in line. Ranked just below the alpha, me, and Moose, no one would fuck with her, not if they wanted to keep their head attached to their bodies.
“Won’t that renew the war?” Moose asked.
“If it does, we’re ready for that, too,” Serpent joked, giving the sarge a playful wink. He barely cracked a smile for anything, but whatever made him grin had to be horrendous and downright deadly. There was a reason the stoic enforcer had been nicknamed after a venomous snake. I’d seen him do things to people with poisons that haunted my nightmares, even despite his claws and teeth.
“We’ve been loading up on arms,” Ruby added. “Not to mention the tricks Serp has up his sleeve.”
Lycan leaned his head back and howled, causing the others to join in. I shifted in my seat, watching my oldest friends in the world as they processed this new plan. It could work, even if it was risky. When he was alive, Uther Vanderbilt had the whole of the Montana government in his pocket. He blamed the Bastards for killing his wife (which we didn’t do), and as retribution, he’d sent assassins in during a full moon, killing off damn near half our numbers.
After the previous alpha died, Uther had cut a tentative truce with Kodiak, predicated on the fact the Vanderbilts wouldn’t do any further business with the Scorpions. They stayed out of our way, and we stayed out of theirs. Now that the patriarch was dead, his slimy idiot of a son had stepped in to take his place.
I knew enough about Percival Vanderbilt to know his father’s cool head for business had skipped right over him. Liam and Guinevere were a different story, but that wasn’t who the shareholders had given the power to, and now all of us braced for the fallout, even if that meant bloodshed.
“The drive-by at the funeral was enough to shake them,” our tail gunner, Larentia, added. She had eyes like a hawk and better aim than anyone else on the council. “Let’s see what they do next.”
“I agree,” I said. “Nothing is going to happen over the winter, not while everyone is bracing for a storm.”
“Speaking of which,” Kodiak said, shifting gears. “We need three volunteers to head up to the Fiver Cabin. The guys up there now are switching out rotation.”
A collective groan came from the entire MC and the room went silent. The RBMC owned three thousand acres outside of Helena that we’d maintained for decades. We raised cattle, bred horses, and culled sheep—enough to launder the funds we got from other activities. Being located in the dead center of the country made us a prime stopping spot for anyone that wanted to run guns or drugs, and being this close to Canada gave us an advantage for international trade. Just because we turned furry one night out of the month didn’t mean we weren’t an MC in every other sense. Millions of dollars passed through our hands every year, but with that came the hard work of keeping the ranch held together.
The Fiver Cabin sat at the top of our property, at the highest altitude. We occasionally moved the cattle and horses through there, but this year, we were letting the sheep have the barn. Three men could run it, though four or five was better. It was never unoccupied when we housed animals at the Fiver, and the four Bastards that were there now had been there since the last moon. Now that the weather stations were predicting a blizzard to dump six feet of snow in the next two days, whoever volunteered to go next would be stuck up there for the foreseeable future.
It was a hard fucking job, but if it didn’t get done, it could demolish a big chunk of our income. Not to mention the fact we preferred to shift together. Wolves were pack animals after all, and my inner beast protested the thought of being separated from Kodiak and the others for the upcoming moon. But I was the second for a reason. The strongest members of the pack protected the rest from the worst parts of this life.
“I’ll go,” I said.
“You always go,” Kodiak added, clapping my shoulder and smiling. If there were anyone in this world I would consider my best friend, it would be this grizzly motherfucker in front of me. We’d been born into the pack together and raised by the shifters that came before us. He’d had the scent of an alpha ever since he was a pup, and the only other shifter our age who came close was me. We’d been best friends ever since.
“I’m the veep,” I said. “It’s my job to do the shitty jobs no one else wants to do.”
That made everyone chuckle.
“Sign me up,” Lycan said, shooting me a wink and a smile.
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Great. Stuck in that tiny house with your ass for the next few weeks. Make sure your emergency contact is up to date.”
Lycan had been given his road name because he got around like a bitch in heat. Men, women, enbies, it didn’t fucking matter. He liked what he liked, and no one else in the MC gave a shit where he stuck his dick. He loved to party, and three weeks stuck with him in the cabin meant we’d play as hard as we worked. He and Larentia were twins, and where he’d gotten the more jovial side of the family gene, she’d gotten the angrier and meaner side. But that was what they said about wolves—the males had one brain cell to share between them while the females did all the work.
“That means I’m in, too,” Poe said. The quiet brother had been our secondary tail gunner since he joined a few years ago. Tall, dark, and mysterious, he rarely talked about his past. But he and Lycan had formed a bond immediately, and now, they’d barely be separated from each other. I’d say it reminded me of my own friendship with Kodiak, but we were strictly platonic, and those two liked to share whoever passed through their beds…sometimes even each other. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the two of them had been mated, but they didn’t wear each other’s scents, so if it was going to happen, it hadn’t happened yet.
“Thank you,” Kodiak said. “One last thing. I need someone to head out west and meet up with Saddle from the Washington chapter for an exchange.” A few other brothers raised their hands, and once the business was settled, Kodiak announced the end of church. “Try to be back by the full moon, yeah?”
The council of Kodiak’s most trusted advisers howled in response, the thrill of the upcoming shift humming in the tension surrounding us. It was only ten days until then, and the closer the moon got to its full brightness, the more our beasts rode the surface. Even this far out, my wolf raked its claws against its cage inside my mind, desperate for the chance to run free.
“All right, you Bastards,” Kodiak said, bringing me back to the present. “It’s one of the last nights we’ll be here together, so have fun. Don’t get into too much trouble.”
“Yeah,” Ruby cut in. “Don’t make me have to bang your heads together after I get wrecked. It’ll be worse for you if you do.”
I watched my found-siblings file out of the meeting room to the front area where the old ladies, MC princesses, and hang-arounds waited to party with the rest of us. When Kodiak didn’t immediately go with them, I raised my eyebrows at my best friend.
“Something on your mind, brother?” he asked.
“How you doing?” I drummed my fingers on the wooden table bearing the Bastards crest, the symbol of our combined strength across this country and the rest of the world. All of the Helena chapter was connected to Kodiak through the pack bond, a preternatural tether that hummed just below the surface of my skin. Through it, I could sense the all of them, but since he was alpha and I was his second, not to mention his best friend, I noticed Kodiak more keenly than the others.
Today he felt like shit.
Kodiak smiled, crinkling the umber skin near his eyes. At six five and two hundred and fifty pounds, he’d gotten his nickname because he was the biggest and baddest motherfucker in Helena. In his wolf form, he was nearly as big as a Kodiak bear, and ten times stronger. He’d fought the old alpha for the top spot, and though it nearly killed him, the pack followed him because of that strength. He was a juggernaut: once he got going, nothing could stand in his way. The only person in the pack that could take him on and last more than a few minutes was me.
“Living the dream,” he said, but I smelled the sickly scent of anxiety pouring off him.
“Don’t lie to me,” I said. “I know you better than that.”
He ran his hands over his forehead and sighed. “Don’t ever have daughters.”
I barked out a laugh. He’d had two kids right out of high school with his girlfriend, Kendra, who later passed away in a tragic car accident we believed had been caused by the Scorpions. He’d been raising them on his own since then. The eldest had just turned eighteen and the youngest would turn sixteen at the end of the month. I could only imagine the chaos in that house, even with Ruby stepping in to help. It would be a few years until they each went through their transition, and the closer that got, the more they’d act out.
“Ginny wants to go to college in Hawaii, and Henny’s dating three boys at the same time.”
That made me chuckle harder because it reminded me of him at their age. “Do the three boys know about each other?”
Kodiak shook his head and sighed. “Man, I don’t even want to know.”
I patted his shoulder and gave it a reaffirming squeeze. “You’re a good wolf, Kodiak, and an even better father.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, and it was only when he let his guard down like this that I saw the weariness in his eyes, the bags that hung under them, and the stress that pulled at his wrinkles.
“Your girls love you, and I’d kill anyone who said you didn’t do the best you could. They know that. It’s all they need.” I tried to smile against the twinge in my heart that reminded me their mother was gone, that my own parents were gone, that we’d lost so many people in this war against those fucking bloodsucking demons.
“Thank you for always being there for them,” he said. “I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”
“Please,” I said, giving him a playful shove. “You wouldn’t have been able to keep me away.” I loved those girls like my own daughters, like the nieces I’d never have being an only child.
“Alpha,” came the voice from the doorway. “I’d like to give an update, if I could.”
Kodiak and I glanced over to Morwyn, the pack healer. She had a special connection with Kodiak, one that existed outside the normal hierarchy. She could draw on the entire power of the pack if she needed to heal our family, and she was the only one that could order him around. When it came to an emergency, Kodiak deferred to her.
“Sure, Morwyn.” Kodiak nodded toward the front of the clubhouse. “Go get some pussy, Ry. It’s gonna be a long couple of weeks in that cabin with Lycan and Poe.”
“Fuck, don’t remind me.” I pushed to my feet and gave Kodiak’s shoulder one last clap before stalking out to the main area where the revelry had already started. Lycan and Poe sat at the back with Serpent and Moose, hang-arounds in their laps, beers in their hands. A few of the MC princesses stood over by the bar, pouring a round of tequila shots for Lycan’s sister. They held the glasses up and shouted a cheers to the Royal Bastards and the pack’s continued health before shooting them back.
If it had been any other night and if I’d had nothing else going on in the morning, I would have stayed to see what kind of trouble I’d get into. One of the hang-arounds had been eyeing me all day, and I ached to slip my dick into someone warm and wet, especially since I didn’t know how long it would be until I could do it again.
But the Fiver Cabin needed a ton of work to keep running, and I’d have to get up early as hell tomorrow to make sure we got there before the snow blocked the roads. Once that happened, there’d be no getting back down until the weather cleared. That could be anywhere from a week to a couple of months. Luckily for me, I liked Lycan and Poe enough to tolerate them for that long, and they liked each other enough to leave me alone.
* * *
The snow had already started in the higher elevations by the time I got to the three-bedroom log cabin up in the mountains. Lycan and Poe would probably show up sometime in the late morning, but I wanted to get here to check everything out beforehand.
The brothers that had been here before us kindly left a fresh stack of firewood on the porch, and I stomped my boots on the mat before opening the door to go inside. A few secondhand couches sat in the living room to my left and a small dining room table occupied the empty space in the kitchenette to the right with four chairs around it. At least the last round of Bastards washed all the dishes before they left, so I didn’t have to pick up after them before unpacking my shit. I walked up the wooden stairs to the second floor landing, immediately heading to the primary bedroom on the left.
It wasn’t huge, only large enough for a queen-size bed and a dresser, but the other rooms only had twin- or full-size mattresses, and at six four, I needed something bigger than that.
I dropped my bag on the floor before checking that the rest of the rooms had been stripped and vacated the way mine had. Not that Lycan or Poe would give a shit, but I appreciated the consideration from our brothers.
Once satisfied that the house was in working order for the few weeks we might be trapped here, I went out back and trudged down the hill to the barn. The livestock guard dogs, Judge and Pete, howled at my approach, both born and bred to keep predators away from our flock.
“Hey ya, boys,” I said, stepping inside. Judge bounded up to me, his massive paws nearly the size of my own feet. He nudged his head into my hand, expecting a few pats before he went back to his rounds. Pete was only a year old, basically a puppy compared to Judge, who had lived up here for almost five years. Both were mutts, but with the mastiff blood in them, they had grown to be over a hundred pounds each. They loved their herd, and they kept predators away better than even me or Kodiak. The dogs smelled the wolf in me, and my animal side considered them honorary members of the pack.
After making sure the sheep were accounted for, I went to check on the mule, Larry. He honked his greeting, making me laugh and give him a few scratches behind the ears.
“You ready for the blizzard, huh?” I teased.
He flapped his tail and nodded, pulling his ears back when I got him in the right spot.
We kept five horses up here for the brothers to ride when they stayed, so I made my way to the next stall and checked on each one of them, pausing when I got to Nemesis. She was a huge quarter horse at almost sixteen hands, and she didn’t like anyone except me. Perhaps she, too, could scent the wolf in us and had decided I was the most trustworthy out of the rest.
“There she is,” I said when she whinnied and came closer, nodding her giant nose into my palm. “I know, I know. I’ve been away so long. I won’t do it again.”
She harrumphed and gave me more of her annoyed cries, reading me the riot act for having sent the other brothers up here instead. Whenever they tried to get close to her, she bit or kicked them to push them away. Kodiak had wanted to get rid of her, and if it weren’t for my insistence, he would have.
“You’ve just got spirit is all. Isn’t it?” I rubbed her nose and smiled when she blinked affectionately, nudging me again. “I promise we’ll go for a ride before the snow hits.”
I checked on the other horses, decided to get Poe out here to clean their pens once he arrived, and headed to the smaller shed where we kept the pallets of hay. Once satisfied that the Fiver Cabin would keep us fed and warm for the next few weeks, I went back to get Nemesis, making sure to give her a good rubdown before putting on her saddle.
Then, I walked her out of the barn and climbed onto her back, grabbing the reins.
“We’ll just do a quick sweep, okay?” I gave her a good pat on the neck before nudging her to go.
She set off like she hadn’t been run properly in months. Laughing, I held on and encouraged her. I knew that was a lie. The guys would let her out in the pasture even if they couldn’t ride her themselves, but with me on top, Nemesis was indomitable. She opened up those legs and let me have it, whipping through the woods, panting in the cooling air. There was no greater feeling on earth than flying across the earth on horseback—except for maybe doing the same thing in my wolf form or on a bike.
I’d grown up on the Bastards’ ranch, and even if it wasn’t as big as the Vanderbilts’, I’d been around horses my whole life. I wasn’t much of a people person, and I found that I enjoyed Nemesis’s company more than most humans, maybe more than most of my pack. Between her and me, there was only ever the truth—the feel of the air in our hair, the beat of her heart against mine, the cacophony of the world around us.
Out here in the wild, the rest of the world could have fallen away. With the mountains stretching around us and the enormous trees insulating this tiny cocoon of peace, the war with the Scorpions didn’t exist. The Vanderbilts were a million miles away, and time itself faded into nothingness.
We slowed when I got to the lake, and I paused to take in the beauty of the Montana skyline surrounding me. The storm clouds were rolling in, and everything had been cast in a shade of gunmetal and steel, but even that added to the decadence of the ever expansive vastness. The smell of snow permeated the thick, freezing air, accented by the ice and fallen leaves. I wasn’t a religious person, and I didn’t know if God existed, but when presented with natural splendor like this, it was difficult to argue that there wasn’t some divinity in the very earth itself.
Nemesis stopped to rest before carrying me down to the far edge of our property, right where it butted up to state park territory. A break in the fence caught my eye, and I hopped off my horse to get closer and check it out. The wire had been cut straight down the middle, almost like it had been done purposely. I sniffed the air and frowned when neither I nor my wolf picked up anything nefarious.
I’d have to come back out here to repair it before we let any of the animals down this way. I stood up and glanced around, looking for signs that a wolf or mountain lion had gotten in. When I found nothing, I did my best to lay the wire over the hole before mounting Nemesis and circling the rest of the perimeter.
I didn’t find any more signs of damage, so I headed back to the house, sensing through the bonds Lycan and Poe had arrived. Despite the cold, they’d ridden their bikes up, leaving my truck as the only reliable way to get around in the snow.
“It’s about damn time,” Lycan said, howling a laugh when I walked my horse into the barn. “We were wondering if you’d gotten lost.”
I smirked while I placed Nemesis in her stall and took off her saddle, hanging it on the rack just outside her pen. “I spend more time up here than anyone else.”
“That’s not a good thing,” Lycan said, narrowing his bright blue gaze on me. “You need human interaction. The lone wolf dies. You need a pack. You’re too young to become the monster in the woods.”
He was only a few inches shorter than me, but his natural build made him wider and stockier through the chest. He had wavy blond hair that he kept chin length, and combined with his alabaster skin, high cheekbones, and big, wide smile, I understood why people loved him. I’d never been into guys myself, but objectively, he was beautiful.
“Says the worst monster in the woods,” Poe added, circling around the corner with a bale of hay.
Poe was a few years younger than Lycan and me, having come to the Bastards just after his transition, which he’d gone through alone, not knowing what he was. I’d only heard of that a few times in my life, and I winced to think about the kind of hell that must have been on him. He was from Baltimore, and he could be a broody motherfucker when he wanted to. He liked to read and write poetry in his spare time, something that didn’t fit his biker persona until you learned that the shit was darker than the stuff created by his namesake. Some of the imagery he imagined would live rent-free in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
Where Lycan was tall, blond, and stocky, Poe was all lithe muscle and long limbs. He had short brown hair that he kept swept to the side and big brown eyes that seemed innocent despite the violence I knew he was capable of, and his olive skin spoke of some Mediterranean heritage.
“I’m not a recluse monster,” Lycan said, giving Poe a playful wink while he swiped his tongue over an extended canine. “Just the kind that likes to stalk his victims before he eats them alive.”
Poe grinned, and his cheeks turned a bright shade of rosy pink.
“Get the stalls cleaned up,” I cut in. “Then we’ll head down to the lake. There’s a tear in the fence, and we’ll need to patch it up before the snow starts.”
“Ten four,” Lycan said, nodding as I walked back toward the main house.