Chapter 13 #2
I gave her a wink, knowing I was the luckiest bastard in Texas.
Toolbox drawers screeched warnings as I stalked the shop floor.
Every grease smear told a story. Skeeter’s boot print on invoice #4421, the fresh grind marks on a supposedly defective cylinder head.
I trailed fingers across a motorcycle seat indentation from her thighs; the leather remembering what my hands couldn’t forget.
Her scream was a piston misfire. I took the stairs three at a time, wolf eyes catching the blood first—crimson polka dots across freight manifests. Not hers. The ledger showed a Rorschach test in red transmission fluid blooming around part number C-442.
“Mouse got nervous,” she deadpanned as she set aside the dented can, wiping hands on her overalls that hung too temptingly low. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” She was embarrassed because she thought she looked clumsy.
I wrapped her in my arms. “Not your fault. Too much clutter.” I had to slow my heart rate down. Her frightened scream was not a sound I wanted to hear again. “Only scream I wanna hear out of your mouth is my name when you come around my cock or on my tongue.” I told her in a low whisper.
“Bronc. Don’t be giving me talk like that when you can’t immediately back it up.” Her smoky laughter was as sexy as any dirty talk.
I tilted her chin and gave her a quick kiss, knowing she wanted to get back to work. Through the floor grates, Skeeter’s shadow stretched long and shameless across crates of “lost” spark plugs. I kept my eyes on him as I headed back down the stairs.
The sharp tang of motor oil clung to everything in my office—stained blueprints, the cracked leather chair behind me, even my coffee mug from this morning.
I was elbow-deep in inventory spreadsheets when boots thudded hard against the shop’s concrete floor outside.
Two pairs. Heavy, purposeful. The hair on my forearms lifted before the door even creaked open.
Menace filled the doorway first, shoulders nearly brushing both sides of the frame.
His scarred knuckles rapped once against the steel doorjamb—a courtesy knock swallowed by the grind of overhead fans.
His short-cropped blond hair always perfect.
Wrecker slipped in behind him like smoke, shutting the door with a click that sounded too final for midday Wednesday, running his hand through his dark hair.
“Got trouble,” Menace growled by way of greeting. He tossed a crumpled map onto my desk; state lines crawled across it like spiderwebs—Nebraska and Missouri, bleeding together under red marker circles.
Wrecker leaned against my filing cabinet, arms crossed over his grease-streaked Henley. “Seven shifters gone in three weeks,” he said quietly. “Scent trails just… stop.” His thumb tapped restlessly against his bicep—once, twice—before he caught himself stilling it with visible effort.
The spreadsheet numbers blurred as I leaned back in my chair. “Rogues?”
“No, they are from different packs. They’re just now putting pieces together.
” Menace’s jaw worked like he was gnawing on something foul.
“Once word started getting out that shifters had gone missing, packs started comparing notes. If you check your email, you’ve likely gotten something from the Council.
They’ll be meeting soon. I’m sure to compare notes with all the packs. ”
Outside, an impact wrench screamed through metal somewhere in the shop bay.
“Damn, you think it’s hunters?” I kept my voice steady even as adrenaline prickled under my collar.
Wrecker exchanged a glance with Menace before answering.
“Maybe, but why are they only taking one here and one there? If it were hunters, they’d be wiping out packs.
” He pushed off the cabinet to tap a circled area near St. Louis.
“But here’s what keeps me up—disappearances started almost a year before Juliet got here.
Might be completely unrelated. But that fiancé of hers.
He owns the largest pharmaceutical outfit in the country. Think it’s possible?”
“Fuck.”
Wrecker repeated my sentiment. “Right. Fuck.”
The A/C unit rattled in the window briefly before choking off into silence.
“I think it’s best if we keep that speculation under our hats for right now.
I still need to explain all of the Council business to Juliet.
I don’t want to overwhelm her too much. Finding out that shifters aren’t the only supernaturals there are in the world could really knock her for a loop.
Especially when she learns that her best friend from college is a vampire. ”
Menace jabbed a finger at my calendar still flipped to June’s photo of some snow-capped mountain. “Full moon’s what, four nights out? Your girl—”
“Juliet, your Luna.” I corrected automatically, though we all knew her name, her position in the pack.
“—she’ll be primed for her first shift.” Menace didn’t soften his tone. “Her scent’ll rip through five counties if she bolts scared.”
My coffee turned to acid in my gut. The pack’s celebration bonfire already felt less like tradition and more like a beacon.
Wrecker cleared his throat. “We double perimeter watches starting tonight.” His eyes met mine. Drought-yellow but sharp. “Ride rotations every two hours instead of four.”
I stared at the blood-red circles until they burned behind my eyelids.
My office suddenly felt too small, too full of engine parts and fading pack photos pinned haphazardly to the corkboard.
Juliet’s graduation picture that I got from her background file smiled at me from beneath a reminder sticky note: Trans fluid order, Nov 17th.
She wore her mortarboard crooked, laughing mid-stride like she couldn’t wait to leap somewhere new. Somewhere unguarded.
“She’s tougher than you know. But with everything else happening, call everyone back from runs,” I said finally, reaching for my keys with hands that didn’t shake. Good. Strong leader hands, steady. “Every patroller runs at dusk.”
Menace grunted approval as they turned to go, but Wrecker paused at the threshold. For half a breath, his posture softened into something that might’ve been pity if I didn’t know better. Then he was gone, leaving only gasoline-scented air and ghost words hanging where maybe, maybe I imagined them.
“She’s strong, boss… Like her Alpha.”
The door clicked shut again, trapping me with ghosts of red circles and one truth clawing at my ribs: Whatever was hunting beyond our territory was hunting shifters for something specific. Hunters don’t do random.
The golden light of dusk pooled over Juliet’s desk as she straightened her final stack of receipts, her meticulous hands stilling at my voice.
“Time to call it a day,” I said, lingering in the doorway of her office.
Pride surged hot beneath my ribs as I watched her glance up, strands of hair slipping loose from the pencil she’d used to twist it in a knot.
Damn, she’d been buried in those ledgers all day.
“Gather every ledger,” I added, stepping closer. My thumb grazed her shoulder. It was these quiet touches that anchored us both. “Can’t risk leaving anything here.”
She nodded once, pragmatic as ever, and followed me into the hall after tucking each binder into her arms like secrets we couldn’t afford to lose.
Outside, summer clung thick to the air as we walked arm-in-arm toward my bike parked beneath the mesquites.
Our shoulders pressed snug together, no space left between us now unless duty carved it out.
I strapped the ledgers into both saddlebags with care while Juliet traced patterns across my back absently through my shirt. Her feelings of what I could only call contentment flowed to me through our bond.
Pearl’s Diner hummed with twilight regulars when we arrived, its neon sign flickering pink against bruised skies.
We claimed our booth by habit, the one farthest from chatter and closest to exits.
Sliding into our corner booth, Ma greeted us with our usual cups of coffee.
Black for me and Juliet’s sweetened with so much cream and sugar it was basically a coffee milkshake.
Ma’s triple strand of pearls glinted in the dim light of the diner, a smile as big as Texas on her face. “Well, if it isn’t my two favorite people gracing me with their presence finally.”
“Ma, we’ve been kinda busy. Work, and things.”
“Uh huh. I bet you have.” Her eyes went to both of our mate marks. “Well, I’m sure you’re starving. Ya need some calories to keep you goin’ after all of that… work.”
I gave her a big sigh. “Ma, just bring us a couple of chicken-fried steaks and mashed potatoes, would you?”
“Thank you, Pearl!” Juliet hollered as Ma wandered back to the kitchen. Then she gave me one of her big, beautiful laughs.
“Full moon celebration’s in four nights,” I said finally…and felt her freeze mid-reach for a napkin like she’d been waiting all week for this knife to drop. Steadying myself took an effort. “We need t’talk ‘bout what you’ll face during your first shift.”
Her lashes lifted slowly. That wildfire gaze locked on mine. I felt her wolf stir through the bond for the first time.