“You think whoever murdered Newberry is responsible for the other deaths?”
“Shattered bones seem to be the new trend.”
That all-knowing glint that Saige was known to carry in her stare was there again. “I assure you that the one who ended Newberry’s life is only responsible for his death…clearly their actions inspired a copycat.”
“Right,” Reveca said coldly. “I’m hunting this killer. This person mocking me—you know they will not survive that hunt.”
“I wish you all the best with that.”
Reveca had to leave before fury took over, before she flung every emotion she was dealing with at her sister, and burned a bridge with her. Which would seal Talon’s death in time.
When Reveca reached the bedroom door she went to turn to the right to move through the kitchen and find her way to her bike, but Saige gently clasped her arm.
“It’s out front, before the house.”
“Why did you touch my bike?” Reveca said in a near growl.
“It shouldn’t be a secret that you’re here,” Saige said as Reveca heard a familiar laugh come from the front room.
“What the hell is going on?”
“There she is,” Thelma Ray said as she emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food. “Go on now child,” Thelma Ray said as her large body ensured that Reveca did move forward.
In the living room Reveca saw Reverend Bradshaw, Matthias’s grandfather, and a host of other people that went to his little white church.
“See, Reverend? I told ya. Miss Beauregard, after the loss we all had, she was needing this quaint revival.”
Reveca looked to her side at Saige, clearly wanting to know what the hell was going on. Her hosting one of these made next to no sense. It was not her faith, but at the same time the energy these mortal souls put off had masked and aided both Saige and Reveca at different times.
“Good karma, sister,” Saige said quietly to her. “Pure energy. Take it in…that is unless you have found another source of energy to feed the power you are going to need for the wars before you.” She glanced over Reveca. “You do have a glow about you.”
For spite, to not admit that King had and would give her any energy she asked for, Reveca sat down next to Reverend Bradshaw, even looped her arm through his and smiled innocently. She’d always loved that old man, how he knew when to ask questions and when to listen.
“I need this picture right here,” Thelma Ray said, snapping a shot of the Reverend and Reveca.
This was going to be a long night but Reveca would endure it ten times over before she gave her sister the satisfaction of knowing that no matter how much pain it had caused, or would cause, seeing King again, feeling him against her again was worth it.
***
They knew they were being followed. That was the plan, to lure them out. These were same back highways—the ones that Holden had escorted trucks on, ones he knew about. They also led to the clinics that had shortages.
Days ago, one of those clinics were raided by the lawmen. They found nothing. The Sons were always two steps ahead of them. But while the Sons were watching, waiting to see who led the lawmen there they saw something else. Trucks stalking the highway, turning off on off-road paths, and when they found nothing, returning to the main road. They were looking for the clinics, too.
That’s when the hunters became the prey.
When Talon, Thrash, Steele, Shade, Thames, and Judge laid their traps.
When they saw the trucks start to prowl the highway again they divided into groups of two, each wanting to draw attention and get their quarry to follow.
Shade and Steele were the only ones having issues with this ploy. The others had corralled their trucks and were waiting not far off.
Their prey must be a mean son of a bitch, the leader. He didn’t trail them at a distance like the others, he nearly ran them over. And before he did that he fired at them.
Shade had caught a bullet his shoulder, Steele in his arm. It was Shade who fired back, going ninety down a highway leading this ass to the trap that was set for him. He aimed his gun, hit the driver in the arm; he needed him alive a little longer.
Wounded, their prey was an even bigger ass. He used his truck as a weapon, did his best to get both Shade and Steele to lay their bikes down. His maneuver had sent Steele off the side of the road, but as far as Shade knew he still had control of his bike.
The prey’s next charge tipped the back of Shade’s bike just as he turned off the main road.
Shade did lay his bike down. His energy strength kept it from spinning, kept it on a nice straight path that was digging gravel into his side. With a grunt he pulled the bike up then turned it facing the truck which was trying to fit down the same path. Surely the driver thought he was going to find a destroyed bike and a dead biker.
Instead he came to a stop when he saw Shade astride his bike, two guns aimed at him.
“Get the fuck out,” Shade bellowed seconds before he heard Steele come down the same path.
The guy was massive, as big as most of the Sons. He looked mean as hell, and there was no doubt he was from the Devil’s Den. They all had Lucifer, the goriest version, tattooed on their chest. Shade could see the horns peeking out around his blood soaked wife beater.
To stress his point Shade balanced his bike then dismounted, always keeping a gun on his prey. He was two steps away from him when the man finally got out, when Steele came up from behind the truck, guns aimed.
“What are you, a fucking ghost? You should be dead!” the man said, looking over Shade.
“No, I’m the fucking Reaper, here to send you to hell,” Shade said, reaching the man, grabbing him by the back of the neck, and pushing him forward.
“Dude fucked your bike,” Steele said as they passed it. It was rideable but that was about it. The gravel Shade felt in his skin along with the bullet had sent him past rage. It was all he could do to not kill the fucker right where he stood.
Instead, he pushed him through the woods a few hundred feet until they came to a clearing where the others had their victims.
“Get lost?” Talon teased dryly.
Shade kicked the guy he was leading so he fell with the others. “This one must have taken defensive driving lessons.”
That earned a laugh from the Sons, all but Judge who was doing his part, looking in the guy’s mind, figuring out what they needed to know.
From the outside looking in, the Sons seemed more cold in these lethal situations. They never told you why they hunted you, never asked you for information. They never told you that you could live if you told them what they wanted to know. They just killed.
They didn’t have to beat any of their answers out of the victims—Judge saw them. And if they were hunting you, there was nothing you could say to talk your way out of it.
Shade rolled his shoulder and clenched his jaw, telling the pain to fuck off for now.
After a few minutes Judge said, “All yours,” with a nod to Shade.
Shade aimed his gun and fired one shot at the back of the man’s head, grateful that he was not asked to pull life out of him by devouring his vile energy. He didn’t want to see where the asshole had been or what he had done.
Since Reveca was gathering souls to feed Crass, the bullets with her spell were the only way they could take him down.
Once life was gone, Talon focused his stare on the body and the Phoenix fire in him made itself known. One gaze set the body on fire, a fire that burned so hot it could disintegrate a man before your very eyes. That’s how they were covering their tracks tonight.
The trucks the assholes had driven was where Thames came in. Reveca trained all of the Sons in magic; none of them cared for it and only a few grasped it naturally. Thames was one of the few. He spoke the spell that Reveca had taught him and the ground opened, swallowing each truck where it was parked, then sealed closed.
Thames may have been the natural, but they all knew the feeling of gratitude for
that spell would be the only way for it to stay in place.
That was the reason for their moment of silence before Talon looked over at Shade and Steele. “Let’s get these trucks dealt with then get you home. Shit looks like it hurts,” he said with a slow look over Shade.
***
When the boys rode out, they didn’t say a damn word about where they were going, not even a cover story, and that scared Gwinn.
With Reveca and the rest gone, it was all that she could do to remain calm.
Moments before, she had felt a raw pain, and an annoying one that followed it. King had told her that her energy was low, that she had to be hungry, told her to linger near the lounge, that someone somewhere had to be near exaltation.
He was teaching her to hunt on her own and she appreciated it, but at the same time she was still learning that, in that one emotion, there were many ranges and flavors and some were not so awesome. She’d rather taste the rush the riders felt when they came in or left, than empty lust, but it was a mild night. The people there were there, not leaving, and not many more were rolling in.
To settle her odd nervousness she went downstairs anyway. On the front porch, she breathed in nice and deep.
“So how long ago did you quit?”
Gwinn glanced to her side to find Star in a rocking chair, smoking a cigarette.
“What?”
“Ex-smokers—they always breathe in that way when they pass the scent.”
Gwinn was breathing her in, the natural high Star always had, but she wasn’t going to say that. She wasn’t sure what this girl should or should not know.
“I don’t remember.” And that was the truth. She was sure she had smoked but how long ago and how much was lost on her.
“Have a seat. I’ll blow it in your direction,” Star said with grin.
Gwinn made her way there, but kept looking over her shoulder at the lot, trying to see if she could hear distant bikes coming.
“You’re sick,” Star said when Gwinn finally sat down.
“What?” Gwinn asked when she focused on the fact she was talking to her.
“Love sick. I was the same way.” She nodded to the road. “They never talk about what goes on in Church, and what goes on there sends them on the road.” Star smirked. “I’ll tell you what I learned. First, Reveca is not going to tell you, so don’t bribe her with wine, she never gets drunk anyway. Second, they don’t talk about it because it breaks a trust. If you tell a man it’s okay to break his trust with his brothers then you’re telling him it’s okay to break a trust with you.”
Gwinn furrowed her brow, trying to understand the philosophy or why she was telling her about it.
“You can be a jealous bitch all day long but you can’t question the trust, the life,” Star said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You and your dream of becoming a Pentacle Son’s Ol’ lady.” When Gwinn made a face Star laughed. “It’s a term of endearment. You have a thing for Shade.”
Gwinn swallowed nervously. “He seems different.”
“That’s what we all say ‘bout the one we want to claim, and maybe in some way he is, but in far more ways he’s the same. He’s in this life for a reason; this is where he fits, where he can be the man he was made to be. He’s in the inner circle for a reason, too. Those boys, my daddy always told me, were twice as hard and tested.”
“Your dad is here, too?”
“Not anymore,” Star said with a glance away.
That energy Gwinn was slowly feeding on started to fade. It was strong and thriving when the topic was on the Sons. For both their benefits Gwinn shifted the topic back.
“Was it hard when you and Taurus got together, learning this stuff?”
“Na, well, nothing is easy in love and war. I knew the life from dad, so I knew what to expect. Taurus is eight years older than me. His wild days are far from over but he had gotten a lot of years out of the way before we hooked up.” She looked at Gwinn. “Shade’s been around for a long minute, but Reveca calls him a young one, and every word Reveca uses carries weight.”
Gwinn kept her stare at the front gate. She didn’t acknowledge that statement which may or may not have been a question or hint that Star knew about immortality.
Gwinn knew Shade was older than her when he became an immortal, by a few years, and that yes, he had been around the Pentacle Sons for a while.
Star leaned forward. “You haven’t broken any doors lately, that’s good.”
Gwinn had to grin at that. “He must be taking his dates somewhere else.”
Star laughed, hard. “Dates? Not dates, a release. That shit they see out there, what they go through, they deal with it their own way. That’s Shade’s.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nervous fuck, you heard the guys call him that.”
Gwinn had heard that once or twice.
“Does he look nervous to you?” Star asked with an arched brow.
When Gwinn’s eyes went wide Star bent over laughing. When she finally found a way to calm down she shook her head as she looked over Gwinn. “You’re going to kill that boy with all your innocence.”
“I’m not completely innocent.” And that was true. Gwinn didn’t remember losing her virginity, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. When she came out of that first fog she was in, her body was on fire, tingling with want. Her mind flashed back to a few times she saw herself messing around with boys. It was awkward—they didn’t know what they were doing and she wasn’t all that into it. But just the same, she wasn’t all that innocent.
“You’re not a chick that fucks at random either, and that’s good. Another thing I figured out ‘round here, these boys…when they settle for life, they always go for the opposite of what they’ve had over and over. Shade wasn’t going to find his Ol’ lady going down on him in a broom closet. A shy thing like you…that makes sense to me.”
“We’re just friends right now. He watched out for me.”
“Damsel in distress, eh? It gets even better,” Star teased. “Look, you got a rocky road in front of you. You got eyes on a damaged soul—he’ll fight you at first. They always do.”
“Fight me?”
“Fight off how he feels, be a mean son of a bitch. They do that when they’re falling for you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does when your life is a battleground. The idea of losing something they love destroys them. They’d rather not feel it, take on that worry. But they get past it, figure out that no matter how strong they are, they aren’t strong enough to fight the way they feel about you.”
Gwinn bit her lip as she thought over the last few days. She and Shade had a breakthrough the day Reveca came home, but it was short lived. King came and got her to teach her to feed. He didn’t say that though, just asked if they could talk. She could feel how furious Shade was at her when she did go. She tried to find him later to explain why, even ask if he knew how to sense the emotion she was hunting but he’d blown her off, and for three days it was nothing but glares.
“Make sense?” Star asked.
Gwinn nodded.
“Good. Here is another lesson: when they’re hurt they’re twice as mean—and I mean hurt inside and out.”
“They get hurt a lot?” Gwinn asked with wide eyes as she watched a few riders go to the gate and open it wide as if they could hear riders coming that Gwinn couldn’t.
“Yeah, and Talon gave a heads up a while ago…a few got hurt tonight but they’re okay. They always are. They’re mean when they are hurt, but sometimes the pain humbles them enough to open their eyes.” She laughed. “I was stitching Taurus’s arm after a fight where a knife got him—that’s when he chose to ask me out.”
“Happily ever after,” Gwinn said, inhaling that joy she felt come off Star.
She laughed. “Maybe so. Showtime, girly,” Star said as she stood. Right then Gwinn heard the distant bikes coming home.
Chapter Three<
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Gwinn stayed on the front porch, leaned on the rail, and watched from afar as the convoy of bikes soared down the long highway before the front gates. Her vision still wasn’t where it should be by immortal standards, but it was good enough. She knew Shade was in the center, that four bikes were riding so close that if she didn’t know any better she’d think they were holding it up, shielding it at the very least.
Right as they pulled into the lot, those at the gate closed it behind them. Then instead of parking, Talon and the others lead Shade right to the garage to where a bay was open and waiting for him. Talon turned off but Shade pulled into the bay. The second he passed it the doors were pulled down.
Gwinn clenched her fist and told her feet to stay still. She thought she’d seen blood, a lot of it, and she knew in the one second that his bike was visible it didn’t look good.
Immortal she said to herself over and over. She told herself that he was fine, to stay out of his business.
She heard the automatic tools start not long after that gate was down, could even hear the male rumble of conversation full of teasing and laughter. They all seemed so calm.
It was a good hour before she saw Shade emerge in the space between the garage and lounge. She gritted her teeth as a few girls talked to him, as one tried to look at his wound and console him, pull him down the hall between the lounge and the garage.
The wind picked up. It wasn’t much but it told Gwinn she was close to losing control. She knew if Shade disappeared into that hall with anyone she was going to have to go to King, get him to distract her or calm her down. She’d decided days ago not to attack Shade’s girls any longer, that it made her look childish. So far she hadn’t had to worry about that but if anything Star said was true it was all but promised to happen tonight.