Swallow (Kindred Book 2) (18 page)

It was Friday, and the idea of going to Purdy’s was unappealing, but so was staying late at CI. So, in a rare show of defiance, Zara left work early. As the week had progressed, her relationship with Grant had become strained. He tried on an almost daily basis to convince her of Sutcliffe’s merits. Avoiding the conversation was becoming impossible and she needed Kindred guidance on how to deal with it.

Her nerves were taut because there had been no word from Brodie since he left on Sunday. Being alone in the manor didn’t scare her, but it did echo when she knocked about in it on her own. Exploring each of the rooms and taking advantage of what the manor had to offer was a poor substitute for having Brodie and Tuck around.

After getting back to base that evening, she wasted no time searching the halls for someone she wouldn’t find. She wandered to the bedroom, conscious that she would spend another night sleeping alone. With a sigh, she tossed her purse onto the floor, pulled her pins from her hair, and dropped onto her back on the bed.

She wanted Brodie to be here. Turning her head, she examined the closed bathroom door and imagined it opening. Imagined seeing her guy there in the doorway, with one of the little white towels wrapped around his hips and rivulets of water sliding from his impressive shoulders, trickling down the plains of his hard pecs and onto the ridges of his abdomen. Pouting, she narrowed her lips and smiled as she adjusted her mental picture and erased the towel.

Elevating her hips, she unzipped her skirt and shimmied out of it. After she tossed it on the floor, she skimmed her fingertips over her hip to the fabric of her panties and traced her fingers over the heat nestled between her thighs.

Before she got the chance to complete her fantasy, the shrill buzz of her phone’s ringtone pierced the air, and she dragged her focus from the closed bathroom door. Her disappointment at the interruption was short-lived, because she’d been waiting for a phone call all week and this could be it.

Lunging to grab her purse from the floor, she tugged out her phone and dropped the bag as she fell onto her back again to fumble with the touchscreen to answer the call.

“Hello?” She didn’t mean to sound so breathy and desperate when she answered. But the flash of “unknown” she’d read on her phone could mean only one thing: Brodie.

“Hey, baby.”

Sighing out a week of worry, she felt lighter and so much happier because she could hear his voice. “It’s been almost a full week. I was starting to worry about you.”

As confident and aloof as ever, he took a breath. “What’s there to worry about? You think there’s any situation I wouldn’t be able to handle?”

Maybe not. But not having him near to her was enough to leave Zara unsettled. Hearing his cockiness, she smiled, Brodie was a warrior who could adapt and handle any combat situation. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

He didn’t waste time gushing, he got to the point. “We need you here,” he said. She sat up to blink at the empty bedroom.

Brodie hadn’t wanted her with them, hadn’t wanted her anywhere near the op and now he was issuing not an invitation, but an order for her to attend.

“Ok,” she said, twisting to let her legs dangle from the bed. “Where?”

“Tuck has emailed your ticket. Someone will pick you up at the airport.”

“Someone?” she asked, piqued by his ambiguity. “Like someone I know?”

“Probably not,” he said. “The details are in Tuck’s message. It’s waiting for you downstairs. Pack what you need and get moving. Your plane leaves in an hour.”

Brodie had a way of knowing just how to motivate her. Leaping off the bed, she cast off her clothes, while trying to maintain her link with her love. “How do you know where I am?” she asked.

“There’s a tracker in your phone,” he said, but she already knew that. “And there are some internal cameras.”

His voice got lower and his teasing was enough for her to cast her eyes upward, then left and right. “You can see me?” She had no idea there were cameras inside their rooms at the manor, but Art had told her the building held secrets.

“You got too damn close to playing with what’s mine, baby. You keep your hands off that pussy. I control your pleasure. I say when and where you get off.”

She wished she’d known sooner that he was watching her when she was here in their bedroom. Knowing it now made her feel closer to him and she might have been inclined to put on a show if he was the only one watching. “You’re a creep,” she said, but couldn’t keep the smile away from her face. “I hope your spy gear is private viewing.”

Reassuring her lasted only as long as it had to. Provoking her was more fun. The mischief in his voice caused tiny firecrackers to start sparking and bouncing in her belly. He wasn’t even in the same state as her and he was getting her wet. “My eyes only,” he said. “Want to tell me what you were thinking about?”

Getting her turn to tantalize him, she leaned back on one hand and with the other she traced a fingertip up her abdomen and over her breast where she circled her nipple until it pinched into a painful peak. “Come home to our bed and I’ll tell you every detail.”

“Soon, baby,” he said, humoring her. “You’ve got to shift your ass into gear, there isn’t much time.”

Then there was no time for recreation, which was a shame because after a week without it, she was in need of some naked and sweaty recreation. “Why am I hurrying?” she asked, pouncing to her feet in response to his urgency. “Is there something wrong?”

“We’ll explain everything when you get here. There’s a window of opportunity, and we don’t want to miss it.”

“Opportunity for what?” she asked, hooking the phone between her shoulder and cheek so she could put her foot on the bed and roll off her stocking.

“You’re Kindred. You do whatever is asked of you.” He sounded angry. Something told her he wasn’t riled by her question, but by something else that he wasn't revealing.

Curious, she slid her foot off the bed and conceded haste in deference to concern. “If there’s something you want to tell me...”

“Just do as you’re told. Dress slutty and get yourself dolled up.”

She almost couldn’t believe her ears. Brodie had never asked her to wear makeup. She rarely wore much, and when she did it was conservative for business functions. “Makeup? Why do I need to wear makeup?” she asked because this was an easier question than to ask why he wanted her slutty.

“You’ll understand when you get here,” he said. “Get a move on. Time is short.”

And none of the time they did have was allocated for questions apparently because the line disconnected. She would have to trust that he’d reveal all when she got to them because she couldn’t return his call, not when he’d made it from an ‘unknown’ number.

Rushing to the closet, she dressed and packed as he’d directed then pulled out the makeup box to decorate herself. He was lucky she had this here and it was just luck. The box had been picked up by Tuck during one of their first runs to retrieve stuff from her apartment.

She didn’t have time to think twice about what she was doing. Thinking trampy, she got made up, dressed, and put her feet in a pair of spike heels that made her legs look incredible, but always hurt her feet.

The Chief of the Kindred had given her an order, and this was her chance to prove her loyalty to the team. So ignoring her nerves, she snatched her suitcase and hurried down the stairs to pick up Tuck’s message.

Slutty meant different things to different people, but she was pretty confident that she’d gotten the look right because she’d never had so much attention as she did at the airport and again on the plane.

Tuck’s message had included a picture of the guy who would pick her up. So when the rough-looking bearded man in the leather vest grabbed her arm in arrivals at the airport, she did her best to keep up with him and in five-inch heels, that wasn’t easy.

He stuffed her and her case into the back of a pick-up and drove off at high speed into darkness. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to know or who this unkempt guy was, so she didn’t try to make conversation.

He glanced her way more than a few times and she wasn’t surprised. The silver top she wore hung on a string around her neck with another going across the width of her back and that was it. Her hips and midriff were on display above the skimpy, black leather skirt she wore that clung to her ass.

Brodie told her to dress slutty and told her that she was at the beck and call of the Kindred. This was the most revealing outfit she had. Brodie was going to be impressed. But she was apprehensive about what she’d have to do in the name of the Kindred that required such an outfit.

After a week without her love, she would be happy if her show of skin encouraged him to take action. But her first question would be about this stranger who’d snatched her from the airport. She’d have preferred to have Brodie or one of the other guys come to pick her up.

After driving for so many miles that civilization was a distant memory, she observed the unlit road they were on and began to get nervous until a glowing light in the distance made her frown.

As they got closer, the outline of a single-story building with a corrugated roof and a black-painted timber frontage came into view. Weeds grew out from the foundations and the parking lot was little more than compacted dirt, though that was almost impossible to see beneath the hundred or so motorcycles that were parked in haphazard spots around the area.

Bumping off the asphalt highway, her driver maneuvered the truck between two metal poles that held up a chain-link fence, which seemed to be protecting the perimeter of the whole place. A gang of half a dozen stood around just inside the fence. The driver nodded at them and they lifted their hands in greeting. This was a pleasant exchange, but she wondered how they would react if the man wasn’t a friend. Or if she’d tried to come here on her own.

He drove the pick-up around until her door was parallel with the hooded entrance, though the door wasn’t highlighted in any way and there was no light to welcome her near.

“Go on, he’s through the back,” her driver said in a gruff voice that he punctuated with a smoker’s cough.

The driver rested an arm the length of the front seat when he was done hacking and she swallowed away her apprehension. She might not know this guy, but she’d rather enter this sinister place with someone than walk into it alone, especially since she had no idea if the Kindred were even here or not.

Showing vulnerability to the driver wasn’t an option and she couldn’t stay here all night. Calling Brodie on his Kindred number and hoping he’d pick up wasn’t possible either, her cell was in her suitcase. She didn’t want her lover to think her a pussy who was too afraid to enter such an ominous building anyway. She’d told Brodie that she wanted to be a part of the darkness and all that entailed, so she couldn’t discount the possibility that this was some sort of test.

Grabbing the handle of her case, the driver grunted. “Leave that.”

So she was to leave all of her possessions here with this stranger and walk into a building that looked like the end of the world.

Ok, she convinced herself that she could do this. In spite of the cauldron of dread swirling her guts into a heated frenzy, she thrust her shoulders back and spread her glossy lips in a wide smile. If she was supposed to be a slut then she had better start acting like one.

Shuffling to the door, she opened it and shimmied out, tugging her skirt down in the process. No sooner had she slammed the door than the truck trundled off, leaving her alone and freezing in this dark parking lot. Noise from inside carried to her, there was music and shouting. The track changed and in the brief moment of quiet, she picked out the sound of glass on glass, pool balls ricocheting, and heavy boots on wooden flooring. Ok, so this was a bar. A biker bar. Where else would Brodie feel more at home?

The men from the gate shouted and she was sure they were jeering her, but she wouldn’t turn to look over her shoulder. She wanted to get inside in one piece and starting a fight outside would put Brodie in a precarious position.

The building sounded busy and if the number of bikes was anything to go by, it was packed. If Brodie was in there, she had nothing to fear. If he wasn’t, she was monumentally screwed. But he would never have sent someone he didn’t trust to get her.

Telling herself to get a grip, she tottered forward and with every step, she grew in confidence. This was exciting. It was an opportunity to see inside Brodie’s world—rather, Raven’s world.

The music got louder. She stepped onto the low square porch and grabbed the dirty door handle. Giving the long, vertical bar a tug, a hard rock tune blasted when she opened the door. The smell of sweat, dirt, and grease mingled seamlessly with the scent of alcohol. Straightening one confident leg, she strutted into the room with her head held high.

Bikers were like dogs, they could smell fear, and she wouldn’t give them any hint that she was hesitant. Her driver had said through the back, so she kept moving and searched the back of the building for any clue as to where that might mean. Every table was busy, there was a crowd in a back corner, and she saw a flash of grubby green felt. The pool table wasn’t her goal and she was none the wiser as to where her goal was. She didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to give anyone the chance to talk to her.