Ride the Wicked Woodsman (A Night Falls Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (7 page)

"Would that best friend be Paisley?" I asked, trying not to be a complete social dork. It was hard, though, because no one back home talked to me if they could avoid it. I was Miss Invisible, except they made eye contact just often enough for me to know they actually could see me.

"Yes," she said. "And it sucks so bad she left me for another year while she picks up her master's degree. Hence the non-stop stream of bribes that come to me in the mail."

She looked over her shoulder, her body leaning backward to try to see into the partially walled kitchen where Taron continued to hide.

"Hey, pooh bear, can Onyx come and play at my house while you're at Church?"

"No," he rumbled. "Stays with me."

"Fine, then I'll go to the clubhouse and keep her company."

"Can't, you're not a sweet butt," he mumbled and started banging more pans around.

"Neither is Onyx!"

He came around the corner at her loud protest, his gold-brown gaze scrunched up like he had a bee buzzing about his head.

"Are you seriously telling me," she chided, one impertinent finger wagging in her pack leader's direction, "that when you're behind locked doors in Church, you want her only company to be a bunch of other males and Landa?"

"What is a Landa?" I asked, skin itching uncomfortably at the idea of being stuck around a bunch of men in whatever condition I was in even though I was still on the fence whether it was some kind of functioning estrus state.

Clover laughed so hard she snorted. "That's what we've been trying to figure out the last two years. Ostensibly, she's a puma. But I've got my money down on some kind of moray eel slash vampire bat slash rattle snake."

"You can come this one time," Taron growled. "Now leave."

"Thank you," she smiled sweetly, batting her stubby eyelashes at him while she ignored his command to go and turned her attention to me. "You do know what a sweet butt is, right?"

I looked at Taron, watched his agitation grow and wondered if it was because of the high octane girl in front of me, this Landa woman, or whatever a sweet butt was.

"Sure," I winked and tried to match her broad grin. Trying to distract her from the topic, I picked up a pair of the jeans, a top and what undergarments she had brought, plus the pile of toiletries and the makeup. "I'm going to change out of this circus tent. Will you be here when I get out of the bathroom?"

"She won't," Taron huffed.

"Probably," Clover chirped.

Trying not to laugh at the big bear who had rescued me and was still keeping me safe, I disappeared into the bathroom.

********************

I took my time in the bathroom, even after I heard Taron tell Clover he was calling her brother if she didn't haul her ass out to the Jeep and leave, which she promptly did.

The makeup she brought fascinated me. I'd never had any to use. My sister Selisma had tons, of course, and my mom wore more than her fair share. Having watched them from afar as they helped one another get ready for some pack event and talked incessantly about contouring and highlighting and everything else they excluded me from, I knew enough about applying the stuff without looking like a porn star or a rodeo clown.

I applied some smoky eye shadow, triple thick mascara, a little color on my cheeks because I was looking paler than usual. Killer red lipstick of course. When I finished, I pulled my long black hair back and held it like I was wearing it in a ponytail. I made a duck face. Blew a kiss.

And then I washed it all off.

When I emerged, Taron studied me for a second, his face pinched before he monotoned his tepid approval. "Good."

I lifted a brow, wondering if he appreciated just how gruff and insulting a general manner he possessed.

"I was worried you were going to..." His hand moved in a circle around his face like he was throwing flour on pizza dough. "You know."

"Put the makeup on?" I asked, knowing that was exactly what he meant but wanting to hear him admit it.

"Yes. You're trouble enough as it is without looking like you want to attract a mate."

"Lord knows I don't," I snarked, side eyeing him hard.

"Look, I don't want you here against your will anymore than you want to be here," he said, ushering me toward the door. "And this morning was only round one."

"Well, Rocky," I said as I waited next to him on the porch while he locked up. "Try for a knock out next time and we'll both be happier."

"Wait here," he growled and went around the back of the cabin.

I hadn't been outside other than my arrival last night and in the clearing that morning while more than a dozen males gawked at me in curiosity. I hadn't noticed a vehicle of any kind, but clearly someone couldn't be the president of an outlaw motorcycle club like the Woodsmen without having a motorcycle.

Taron had a beautiful one, as far as such things go. It was all black and chrome, the front wheel ridiculously far in front and attached by two chrome-covered rods on each side. It had a Harley Davidson maker's plate on it, but I didn't know anything about motorcycles other than they weren't cars.

Stopping a few feet in front of the porch, he gestured for me to climb on behind him. I groaned and dragged my feet, wishing I'd been rescued by someone with a proper vehicle so I wouldn't have to wrap my arms around his big body and press my breasts against his strong back.

It took twenty minutes to reach the clubhouse, most of them going down the mountain with me fighting the urge to scream while I gripped him tighter and tighter.

The clubhouse was a big single story building made out of sandstone blocks. Dozens of other bikes were parked in the lot. I recognized Braeden's, in part because it was standing alongside Clover's Jeep.

"Do I really have to go in?" I asked after Taron had parked and climbed off.

"You're not afraid of them," he told me.

I closed my eyes and shrugged.

He pinched my chin gently and kept holding it even after I opened my eyes and looked at him.

"They won't hurt you," he promised.

Maybe, maybe not. First they would hate me -- some already did. Then the hurtful words would come. After that, the sly physical abuse just like with members of my father's pack -- of my own family.

I had fled Illinois before I would have to find out what the final stage would be.

"Look, Clover is here. She'll keep you company and bury anyone who bugs you with about a billion words."

I smiled. I was pretty sure she would at least try.

"Church was already scheduled for today," he went on. "There's lots of non-you club and pack business to discuss and I'll bulldoze through it as fast as I can."

I slid off the bike. I had been holding him so tight, my legs clamped to the sides of the big, roaring machine, that the bottom half of my body had gone to sleep.

Knees folding like an accordion, I was going down.

Taron caught me, one arm against the small of my back, the hand of the other molded around my ass cheek.

"You should try to ride a hell of a lot looser next time," he suggested.

He had no idea what torture riding down that mountain holding onto him the entire time had been. The engine thrumming between my legs would distract me until he took a wide sweeping turn as the one lane dirt road circumnavigated a boulder or some other obstacle. That would leave me clawing at his stomach and ready to throw up from the combination of motion sickness and a sudden spike in adrenaline.

Then we'd hit a section where the seasonal rains had turned the road into a washboard, the bike bouncing mercilessly, my nipples rubbing up and down his leather jacket, the material too thick for him to feel the hard tips they had become while I was left with an agonizing ache that echoed deep between my legs.

"I'll keep Church as short as possible," he promised again. "Then we can get you back up to the cabin. Okay?"

I nodded, grateful he wasn't huffing or growling at me while being so nice.

Leading me inside, he found Clover and deposited me on a bar stool next to her. His hand rested for a second against my back, and then he left without a word and disappeared behind closed doors. A few minutes later Mallory stalked by, his narrow chest rumbling with displeasure before he vanished behind the same doors.

"That's the last of the officers," Clover said as she pushed a bottled water at me. "Are you sure you don't want a beer? You'll need one or maybe something stronger before you meet Landa."

I shook my head. "Is she not here yet?"

"Oh, she's here all right," Clover groused and pointed her beer bottle at the same doors Taron and Mallory were hiding behind.

Almost on cue, the doors opened and a compact blonde with giant breasts backed out cooing into the room, her chest dipping to display her cleavage. "I'll be right back with that drink, Prez."

"I have a shovel," Clover quipped. "And I know a nice spot in the forest, easy to get to, but not a lot of foot traffic."

Smiling, I popped the seal on my water and took a sip. She was probably right about needing something much harder to make it through my initial visit to the clubhouse, but I didn't want the first time I got drunk to be in front of a bunch of shifters judging every move I made.

Landa slithered by behind the bar, side eyeing me as she opened up a bottle of hard lemonade. Her nostrils flared in a blatant show of taking in my scent and then her lips curled. Without saying anything, she returned to the double doors, stopped and gave me a pointed smile before she went into the private meeting room.

"So what exactly is a sweet butt?" I asked, my voice as low as I could make it go and still be talking.

"Club whore," Clover replied without making any attempt to whisper. "We don't have enough females around here. Used to be even less and that kept erupting in fights."

"We have an abundance," I said. "Probably five females for every four males."

"Crap, and here I was hoping you had some really hot brother you wanted to introduce me to."

A hollow laugh shook my chest as I shattered her fantasy. "You really, really, really wouldn't like my brother. He's not at all like Braeden."

"None are," she agreed with a smile. "Anyway, to cut down on the violence, females need a male family member or a mate to stay in the pack. If she doesn't have one or doesn't want to pick a mate -- one who'll have her, of course -- she can stay if she services any unmated, adult male in the pack who wants a fuck as long as he doesn't, and has never, hurt her."

"That's..."

"That's Landa," Clover said when I couldn't finish the thought. "She's had plenty of offers to pair bond, but she's got her eyes set on just one male."

Seeing the pointed look in her green gaze, I slowly exhaled. "Taron?"

"Got it in one -- we should play
Team
Jeopardy
together. We would totally annihilate our opponents."

"It's still barbaric," I protested, almost feeling sorry for the woman but for the fact that she clearly had a bitchy streak going and had an immediate grudge against me because of Taron's claim that morning.

"There's a six-month grace period," Clover explained with one of her half-shrugs. "Not that it excuses the practice."

Ten long minutes later, Landa came out of the meeting room, legs unsteady as she pulled down her skirt.

"How many men are in there?" I whispered.

Clover did a quick count in her head. "Eight tonight, usually only five. Sometimes all the adult males, but that's rare."

"Fuck, they're horny tonight," Landa said, her eyes half lidded as she scooped a bunch of ice into a bucket and then loaded the bucket with bottles of beer. She stretched her jaw side to side like it had grown stiff then shrugged and faked a bright smile. "Mama's gonna have a full belly tonight, that's for sure."

Placing a palm atop my forearm, Clover held it there until Landa was back behind the closed doors.

"She's just hamming it up to piss you off. Taron wants nothing to do with her. He's made it perfectly clear time and again."

"It doesn't make you feel weird knowing your brother's in there?"

She frowned like she hadn't really considered the possibility that her beloved big brother was in there fucking the club's sweet butt or getting a blowjob in between handling Woodsmen business.

"He's got someone else he likes," she whispered, something I didn't think she did very often. "He just won't admit it because she's human and doesn't know about us."

"Us-us," I asked, "or the Woodsmen?"

"Shifters," she laughed softly. "I think the whole biker thing kind of puts her off, too, but only kind of because he's definitely got that bad boy vibe going when he's on his chopper and his jacket's off. I know she thinks he's hot."

Landa came out more quickly than the last time. She didn't have to adjust her skirt, and she wasn't smiling. Instead she stalked straight in my direction looking every bit like the moray eel slash vampire bat slash rattlesnake that Clover had suggested.

Whatever had just happened in that room, whatever had been said. She looked at me like she wanted to kick my ass -- or worse.

Back home, I had tried putting on a tough face and talking even tougher when one of my peers thought it would be funny to challenge me. I'd soon learned that people thought I was a lot scarier when I kept my mouth shut and just stared at them. I could hide my fear, give them a blank mask and let their imagination run wild, but I was total shit at trash talking and usually wound up on the bottom of the fight.

"You're really fucking up Night Falls, aren't you, bitch?" Landa hissed.

"What's the matter?" Clover asked, all sugary sweet. "Wouldn't Braeden let you suck his dick?"

"Watch it, wolf," Landa snarled, claws erupting. "Or maybe I will go after your big brother just for the fun of rubbing your smug face in it."

Her bright blue eyes slashed in my direction. "Are you fucking mute as well as stupid?"

I continued staring at her, my gaze occasionally shifting as if I were sizing her up for combat. Never mind that she had claws and razor sharp teeth and that crazy kind of manic strength only cats seemed to possess, making them far more formidable than their size would suggest. Worst case scenario would be if she could hold the alpha state. Then, if she was as crazy as her contorting face suggested, my ass was toast.