Chapter Twelve ARK #2
She eventually turns to me with a sigh. “Is this sudden concern about Jackpot?”
Any other day, her question would make me laugh. She’s been my primary concern for most of her life, and the fact she doesn’t realize that is both tragic and frustrating as hell.
“He’s on a short leash. If he fucks up again, he’s done. But you need to tell me if he causes trouble, not try to handle it yourself.”
I wait for her to blow me off, to tell me she’s a big girl and I have a shit reputation for keeping her safe. All valid points, but as we leave the hub, she turns to look at me, her hazel eyes serious. “I’m not reckless. I won’t put myself - or anyone else – in danger.”
I know she’s highly motivated to protect Wings, and that he’s a big part of why she came back at all, but I also know that she doesn’t back down from a fight.
I put Goldie into her workplace to watch her back, and his reports regularly involve her stepping into the line of fire, the first to defend her patients, no matter the cost. I both admire it and hate it, and I’m pretty sure she can see that written all over my face.
“Okay,” she says with a snort. “So, I’m a little reckless. But it’s always for a good cause.”
I open my mouth to scold her, but what kind of hypocrite does that make me?
My impulse control, especially when it comes to Abbie Taylor, is for shit.
I might have spent years hiding my thoughts behind a scowl, letting the shit Booker put me through slide off my back like it didn’t burn me to the bone, but Abbie’s always been my weak spot.
Something Booker was only too aware of and used to keep me leashed until cancer put him on his ass.
I shove those memories down deep and focus back on our surroundings.
“You checked out the med center yet?” I ask, nodding at Patch’s domain.
I funneled a lot of funds into its creation, given that Booker believed medical tests were for pussies, and the only thing a distressed omega needed was a knot and a firm hand.
“It’s got a general exam area, but also a lab and a critical care area for more serious injuries.
We can also accommodate heats and ruts, assuming other arrangements aren’t in place. ”
She’s been studying the building, but now she turns to me with a cocked brow. “My heat’s not for a month, and I always pack suppressants. Just in case you were wondering how I was planning on managing it.”
“None of my business,” I tell her, even though the denial burns like acid. “Some packs choose to go offsite for their heats and ruts, but most use their own suites.”
“Really? Your dad was never a fan of that.”
My stomach clenches, that acid now swirling through my blood. “Booker’s views on omegas were archaic bullshit, but he was also just a greedy old fuck. Any way he could make an omega feel like they were under his thumb, he milked it.”
Abbie wraps her arms around herself, but her gaze is still fixed on me. “And it won’t be a problem if I’m unbonded? I just mean that our suite is on a residential floor, and alphas slip up…”
“Patch tracks every alpha’s rut cycle in the club. That’s a condition of membership. Plus, we issue them with blockers before a heat and use air purifiers on all the floors.”
Abbie’s brows shoot up in surprise. “Wow, that’s thorough. I guess that’s why it smells so clean. I just assumed it was the new club smell.”
“If you think of anything else we can do to make it safer for omegas, let me know.”
“I will.”
She gives me a tentative smile, and I can’t resist brushing a thumb under her eyes, where the shadows are the deepest. “I know you’re still adjusting, but you look tired, Abbie.”
I tell myself that she leans into my touch for a second, before pulling away with a rueful smile. “Some nights I sleep. Some nights I have vodka.”
“And any night you have me.” Her eyes widen and I silently curse my runaway tongue. So much for keeping my impulses under control. “I mean that if you want to talk – about the club, Samson, or anything else – I’m here. And I don’t sleep much, either.”
“There is something I wanted to ask you.” She shuffles her feet, her scent thickening. “You know that other guy in the picture on your desk? Your VP? Is he around much?”
I pause, seeing something shimmer in her eyes before her gaze darts away from me. “Bluff lives offsite. I want him as my VP – it’s what I always planned – but I’m not sure it’s going to work out.”
Her brow crinkles, her attention fixed on a distant spot, and when I turn, I realize she’s staring at the gym. “I saw him. Just for a few moments the other day.”
I feel heat flood my neck. Bluff has always been a risk I’m willing to manage, but now I’m wondering if that’s backfired, as well.
He’s the first man I’d want beside me in a gun fight, but he’s also the definition of a loose cannon.
Whatever respect he had for rank and duty was blown out of him by the IED that killed two other members of our unit.
But even that tragedy won’t protect him if he frightened Abbie.
“That’s why you left.” The memory of her pale face and wide eyes the day she literally ran out of the compound makes my heart pound. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. We barely spoke.” She shakes her head, but there’s something there… Something that flickers under the surface and adds a different note to her scent. “It’s fine, Ark,” she insists, dragging her hand through her ponytail. “I was just curious about him.”
I try to catch my breath around the tightness in my chest. I’m pretty sure she’s hiding something from me, but after telling her I’m a friendly shoulder to lean on, I can hardly shake it out of her. Bluff on the other hand…
“I’m thinking about offering his seat on the council to Wings,” I tell her when my pulse finally stops pounding. “He’s a legacy, and everyone respects him. I think he’d be a strong addition.”
Her gaze warms, making my neck prickle all over again. “He’d appreciate that, Ark.”
I want to say more – promises pushing against my tongue, eager for more of those warm looks and gentle smiles – but my phone buzzes, reminding me that I’m late for church.
“I’ve got to go. But I’ll see you later?”
“Sure. I’ll be around.”
As I head back towards the main building, I shoot Bluff a message, asking him to contact me ASAP.
He never answers a call, and most of my texts go unread, given that he misplaces his phone every other week.
I’m constantly mailing him replacements, but that doesn’t mean he bothers to take it out of his junk drawer, or wherever he stores the damn thing.
We need to talk about what happened in the gym.
That will either get him answering out of curiosity, or if something really happened with Abbie, it might kick his ass into defensive mode. Not that much gets a rise out of him these days, even when I’ve asked him to be my VP at least a dozen times.
My agitation carries me across the compound, and it only gets worse the moment I step into the room we use for church.
Booker preferred tradition over style, with a slab of a table scarred by cigar burns and stained with Red Man and bourbon.
No matter how much Febreze Precious, our club secretary, pumped into the room, the walls still reeked, and my blood never really came out of the carpet.
The furniture was the first thing I tossed on the bonfire, replacing it with a sleek mahogany table surrounded by premium leather armchairs.
Unfortunately, two of them are occupied by Jackpot and Mimi, their heads close together as they plot whatever shit will haunt me for the next few weeks.
Rage thrums through my blood, and I have to force myself to focus on my allies around the table.
Pitt is sitting opposite Jackpot, and by the glower on his face I can assume he knows about the other alpha’s run-in with Abbie.
There’s enough bad blood between them anyway, since I made Pitt the club’s Sergeant-at-Arms the moment he shoved my father’s enforcer in the morgue incinerator, freeing up the job.
Jackpot was the Vipers’ Sergeant-at-Arms and while he accepted the position of Road Captain under my dad, everyone knew he assumed the enforcer job would eventually come his way.
Watching his perpetual sneer melt into a look of shock as he saw the patch on Pitt’s cut was one of the highlights of my takeover.
Next to Pitt is Precious, the oldest member in the club at eighty-three.
Her sister was a Viper, and her loyalty can be a little slippery sometimes, but she’s held the role since my grandfather was president.
When she finally retires, I plan to give her seat to Tori, a female alpha who was a master-sergeant and can still make the hairs quiver on the back of your neck with a single glance.
Until then, I put up with Precious and take comfort in the fact that Mimi hates her with a passion.
As Treasurer, Mimi has ceded most of the financial control to me, since I would rather swallow glass than give her control of club funds, but she still insists on yapping on about all the hairbrained schemes she and my father used to cook up.
Immediately to my right is Threads, who’s standing in for Bluff as VP.
His predecessor also had a fiery end, and Jackpot is always citing the club charter about how long a leadership position can remain unfilled.
Thankfully, Threads is a three-hundred-pound alpha with an inch-long fuse, so most of Jackpot’s venom is limited to whining that I choose to ignore.
Threads, on the other hand, moves restlessly in his seat, clearly eager to get back to his pack. He has a new omega called Callie, who was rescued on our last raid, and while she looks like she should be sipping tea on Fifth Avenue, she seems completely smitten with the old grouch.