Chapter Eighteen
Werewolf
The second I walked into church, I knew the wolves were circling.
Every head turned.
Prez sat at the head of the table with a cigar clamped between his teeth and his eyes hard as iron. Tremor lounged to his right with a smirk carved across his face like he’d been waiting for this moment.
I took my seat and lit a cigarette.
“Wolf,” Prez said, his voice slow, deliberate. “We got a problem.”
I leaned back with my face blank. “Don’t we always?”
Laughter rippled low around the table, but it didn’t soften the edge in the room.
“This one’s the same one I told you about before,” Prez went on. “Demi Cross.”
My jaw flexed.
Tremor cut in. “Showing up at the garage. Acting like she owns the place. People notice when a civilian sticks around too long. Makes us look sloppy.”
“Or compromised,” another brother added.
The words landed heavy.
All eyes shifted to me.
I dragged slowly on my cigarette, exhaled the smoke, and let the silence stretch.
“She’s not a problem,” I said finally.
Tremor’s grin sharpened. “Not yet.”
I leaned forward and planted my elbows on the table. “She’s mine. That means she’s under my protection. Anyone got a problem with that can take it up with me.”
The room buzzed instantly. Some were surprised, some were amused, and some were angry.
“You claiming her? For real?” Prez asked, voice flat.
The weight of the words pressed down like a hammer. Claiming wasn’t casual. Claiming meant she was marked. Off-limits. Family.
Claiming meant I was putting her life and mine on the same line.
I met his gaze steadily. “Yeah. I’m claiming her.”
The noise around the table rose, sharp and heated, until Prez lifted a hand and the room went quiet.
His eyes bored into mine, sharp enough to cut. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“Fine. She’s yours. But you keep her close. You keep her quiet. And if she becomes a liability, it’s your head.”
My pulse hammered, but I didn’t flinch. “Understood.”
The gavel slammed against the table and ended church.
But as the brothers stood, Tremor lingered with his stare locked on me.
When the room cleared, he leaned close with his teeth bared in something that wasn’t a smile.
“You just signed both your names in blood.”
Then he walked out with the echo of his warning and the weight of what I’d just done.
The garage was buzzing when I rode up. Word traveled fast in a club. It had only been an hour since church, and word had spread like wildfire about me and Demi.
Brothers looked at me differently now. Some with respect. Some with curiosity.
And Demi.
I wasn’t going to have to wait long to see what she thought about me publicly claiming her. She was sitting on the steps outside, waiting, with her arms wrapped around herself like she knew the world had just shifted under her feet.
When she saw me, she stood. “Where were you?”
I didn’t answer. Not yet.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the back lot, away from prying eyes.
She didn’t resist.
When we stopped, she yanked free. “What happened?”
I met her gaze. “I claimed you.”
Her breath caught, her eyes wide. “You what?”
“I told them you’re mine. Which means nobody touches you. Nobody questions why you’re here. Nobody so much as looks at you sideways without answering to me.”
Her lips parted, her chest heaving. “You, you just—”
“Yeah, I did.” My voice was hard, final.
Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
Finally, she whispered, “So what does that make me?”
The question twisted in my gut.
What did it make her?
To the club, it made her property. To outsiders, it made her a target.
But to me?
It made her the only thing that mattered.
I stepped closer. “It makes you protected. It makes you untouchable. And it makes you mine.”
Her breath hitched, and her eyes burned into mine.
My hand twitched at my side, and I ached to reach for her. To drag her closer and to finish what we’d started in that office.
But I didn’t.
Because if I kissed her again, I wouldn’t stop. And if I didn’t stop, there’d be no coming back.
Instead, I forced myself back a step and dragged air into my lungs like it might cool the fire clawing through me.
“You’re in this now, Demi,” I said. “There’s no walking away. You wanted the truth? You’re going to get it. But it’s going to cost.”
She swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “Then I’ll pay it.”
Goddamn woman.
I should’ve been furious. I should’ve dragged her out of here, put her on a bus, sent her as far from this world as I could.
Instead, all I could think about was the fire in her eyes. The steel in her spine. The way her lips had tasted under mine.