The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (21 page)

“What? You want to be my friend?”

“Yes.”

“Friendship is
earned
.”

“I see. You must be a lonely lad.”

“People disappoint me.”

“I see. Then you and I have that in common.”

“Tell me.”

Professor Melchuk faces me, and I know if he could see in the darkness it would be the first time he’s looked at me directly. “I want to
know
, is all. It’s who I am. Will you tell me? Only as much as you’re comfortable with? I’m so curious…about your kind. I’ll be dead soon, of course. But there’s this massive question. And if I could die, knowing a little more of the answer…”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Good. Yes. See? Mutual cooperation. You and the others arrived roughly thirty-six hours ago. Your presence caused…well…I suppose you could say it caused a sort of mutiny…or more accurately a
violent revolt,
since we’re not at sea. Admah was forced to…my youngest brother was a gambler. He would’ve used the expression, ‘cash in a few chips.’ So she did. Admah cashed in a few chips. The revolt was quelled. Brutally, as is her fashion.”

“Why did her men revolt?”

“Ah…uh…because at the end of the world, men of a certain base predisposition…their inhibitions weaken.”

“They tried to rape the women.”

“Yes.”

“And did they?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Where were the women, when you saw them?”

“In the truck with Admah. Safe.”

“All of them?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

I breathe a long sigh of relief.
 

Melchuk picks at his fingernails nervously, then says, “But it’s not entirely good news.”

“Why not?”

“Because although Admah successfully quelled the revolt, she was forced to make certain concessions. Or at least…now that I’m blessed with a more complete picture of our stoic and brave queen…she was forced to make the
appearance
of giving concessions as payment to those who fought for her during the revolt.”

My blood runs cold. “Payment?”

“Well. The difficulty is…and I see it quite clearly now…Admah needed a convincing reason why she wants you and yours alive. Because up to this point, if you wanted to join the New World Order, you had to do so by challenging an existing member. A fight to the death would ensue, with the victor gaining membership. A rather clever way of dispensing with the tribe’s weakest and making sure only capable warriors are admitted.”

“What did Admah tell the men who supported her?”

“Hmm. Yes. She said you are to be used for her personal enjoyment. That she’s going to…how did she put it? Fuck your brains out? Then you’ll be deployed as bait to draw any shifters we meet into the open. You’ll be given a use, in other words. The New World Order is very efficiently organized.
Ruthlessly
organized, in fact. Every member has a specific function.”

“And the women I arrived with? What decision—”

“I’m sorry,” the professor says, sounding like he means it. “The women will be sold to the highest bidder at the Blood Market.”

I settle beside him.
 

Run my fingers through my hair and try to remember how it felt to be free.
 

T
HE
B
LOOD
M
OON
shines on a grisly scene outside the Rusted Spike as my MC settles in for a feed of Stricken hearts.
 

“I owe you one,” I say to Nash while I walk over and toss Blunt’s heavy boar’s head on a raging bonfire of burning Stricken corpses. I’m fucking shaking with raw, barely restrained energy. My nerves race and burn with adrenaline from the kill. My wolf is half out, snarling and howling, scenting the new crew members and making his alpha presence known.

I haven’t felt this strong in a long fucking while.
 

This certain of what I am and have to do.

My pack’s still with me. My collar’s gone. I command the shadow-wolves. My bloodmate’s the fucking All Encompassing. And together we’re gunna murder the First Fallen.
 

I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.
 

A few familiar faces slap me on the back. There’s fist-bumps and high-fives and someone hands me a bottle of rye and then I’m snorting a dump-truck sized load of blow from a gold sniff bullet and the desert wind’s swirling through the parking lot, blowing dust down the empty highway and all I can think about is getting on a bike and scenting her out, my bloodmate, because her and I…well, we need to clear the air about our little domestic.
 

“You owe me more than one,” Nash laughs, patting Stricken corpses down for weapons and contraband. “You owe me a fucking boatload.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Tate filled me in on what happened with your girl at the rich prick’s house.”

My neck muscles tighten. “Lily’s not my girl. She’s the All Encompassing.”

“That right?” Nash says, a flicker of concern clouding his eyes. “You going all in now? Cuz the last time we talked you believed it was all bullshit.”

“Yeah. Until the bitch blasted me with her fucking heat ray.”

I decide not to detail my new plan just yet. Lily and I murder her fucked-up brother Vuk. Keep it strictly business until that’s done. And after, when things maybe get semi-sane again, if there’s still something between us—

Nash laughs. “That could change a man’s mind.”

“About a lot of things. We got some shit to work through, Sparkles and me. Bitch tried to kill me.”
 

A powerful slap on my shoulder nearly sends me careening into the dirt at the same instant a booming baritone rumbles: “Boohoo for the Prez! I tried to kill you, too, you whining little pussy. Fuck!
Everyone’s
tried to kill you, Aaron. You gunna hold it against this girl forever? Gotta say I’m psyched to meet the girl that has the Pureblood Prez so whipped.”
 

I snarl and turn, about to gut the motherfucker stupid enough to step to me like that, and when I do I’m facing the fucking largest dude I’ve ever seen. I’m no shortie, and this guy stands so tall I have to crane my neck up to meet his eyes. His hands are big as dinner plates. The fucker’s chest is twice as wide as a normal man’s, and it ain’t flab: his leather cut was shredded during the fight. Long sinews of tattooed muscle bulge across his chest and shoulders.

Blue.
 

The motherfucking predator Kodiak grizzly.
 

Rock-solid pillar of my MC. And next to Nash and my dead brother Sorry, one of my oldest and most trusted friends.
 

Blue would look like a monster, except his face is boyish, his smile broad and guileless. He has wavy sandy-brown hair that hangs loose around his ears, and his eyes are a happy-go-lucky golden color.

I hop to the side, slam my fist into my friend’s stomach.
 

It’s like punching a brick wall, and I have to struggle not to wince.

“You’re still slow as all shit, Blue,” I say, rubbing my hand.

Blue laughs. “But hard as all fuck. Prison’ll do that. Nothing to do but lift iron and murder motherfuckers.”

“How’d you get out?”

Blue shrugs his broad shoulders and lifts his hands in a sure-beats-me gesture. “You know how it is, Prez. Can’t keep a big bear down.”

I lift my head to the sky and howl. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so freely. I don’t have to tell the bastard it’s good to have him back, because he knows it.

“So. About this lady,” Blue says in a way that’s more than getting- caught-up friendly.

“Lily,” I say, not really wanting to talk about it but thinking Blue and the others deserve to hear my story. The rumor mill’s probably been grinding out an earful of bullshit about how I got my ass kicked by a Skin cop chick. A few of the MC gather around behind us, listening. “What about her?”

“What happened?” Blue asks.

“She fucked me,” I say.
 

“Besides that,” Blue says, his massive white fangs flashing as he smiles.

“Turns out I maybe murdered her Skin mother decades back. She found out.”

“Ooh,” Blue says, wincing.

“Yeah. Ooh.”

“So. You gunna forget her, you gunna man up and apologize, or you gunna keep running like a little bitch?”

Fuck, Blue.
 

Dude’s been back ten minutes and he’s right at the heart of it. “It’s more complicated than that,” I say.

Blue cups a hand to his ear. “Hello? Is Aaron Arud, the fucking Pureblood apex predator biker Prez around? No? Oh, great. That explains why it sounds like I’m talking to a spineless little pussy.”

A few of the MC laugh.
 

My face burns red.

Blue looks at me long and hard.
 

This isn’t all fun and games.
 

I’m being taken to task for turning my back on the MC. Choosing Lily over them back at Tate’s mountain cabin, then choosing to run wild into the Cascades after Lily attacked me instead of seeking them out.
 

That’s two strikes.

I feel the MC’s eyes burning into me.
 

Someone snarls behind me, quiet and low. But I know what it means.
 

“Reach down, grab your nuts and make the call, Prez,” Blue says, his normal rumbling bear voice dangerously quiet. “And do it quick.”

“I’m gunna find her,” I say, raising my voice so everyone hears me over the wind. “And you useless motherfuckers are going to help.”

Blue claps his giant hands together. They boom like thunder. Then he points at the crew milling around. “You hear that, assholes? Your Prez just gave you a
task
. You fuckers in or out?”

“In!” the crew shouts.

Blue looks me up and down, then says to the MC, “Find the Prez some clothes. His pecker flapping around’s making me nauseous.”

“Making you horny,” Nash says, cackling.
 

The crew laughs.
 

After they’re gone and it’s just the two of us alone Blue grips me on the shoulder, looks me in the eye and says, “You’re free now, Aaron. Uncollared. Don’t overthink things. What does an uncollared predator do?”

“He acts.”

Blue’s eyes gleam gold. “Fuck yeah he does. Trusts his instincts. You know who taught me that?”

“I did.”

“Action, Prez. No dithering. No wavering. That shit’s over, yeah? Pick a road and follow it. This pack needs you to
lead
. Needs a single answer now that the world’s nothing but uncertainty and chaos.”

“I know the answer. I know where we’re going. What we have to do.”

“Yeah,” Blue says, lifting the turquoise amulet from my neck and staring at me with an intensity I’ve never seen in him. “I think you do. Because you know
who
you are. I scent it. Maybe you haven’t quite admitted it to yourself yet. Maybe you should say it out loud to me first.”

“What…I am?”

“Yeah. Claim it.”

My mouth goes dry.
 

I try to speak but only garbled nonsense comes out, and by the time I find my voice Blue’s stalked off and I’m being handed a pair of steel-toe shitkickers and some faded jeans and a black t-shirt.

The One We Answer To.

I want the Skinwalker bitch to be right. Blue seems to think she is. I want that power…but even more I just want to know my role. My place in the hierarchy. Lily and her Risen pack upended everything. Destabilized a structure that’s given the Purebloods a sense of purpose for millennia. I sense it in my crew: their nervousness and anxiety and uncertainty.
 

Blue’s right. They need an answer is all.
 

A single, crystal-clear answer about who and what they are and who’s gunna lead them into the Age of Discord.

The age of violence and war and possibly extinction.

Am I The One We Answer To?
 

Am I?

I finger the turquoise amulet.

There’s one sure way to find out. Challenge the Fallen myself.
 

When I’m done dressing Nash says, “Got something for you,” and hands me a brown paper shopping bag. Inside there’s a loaded Glock, a curving Nepalese khukri blade, and my Pureblood Predator cut. I hold the cut up to the flickering light cast by the burning saloon. The front half is bubbled and melted from Lily blasting me, but it’s wearable.
 

I say thanks and slip it on.
 

It feels like coming home.
 

Nash and Blue share an odd look, then Nash says, “We’ve been keeping the cuts hidden when we ride.”
 

I give him a long glare, then say, “What’s up with that?”

Nash pops the twig he’s been picking his teeth with from his mouth and says, “We’ve been rolling low-pro since you…since…whatever. Guerrilla style. Ambush. Strike fast and hard and get the fuck out.”

“Nash knows how to treat a woman,” Blue says, grinning and elbowing me in my still sore ribs.

“Yeah, that strategy makes sense,” I say, “if you’re a chickenshit.”

Nash looks almost angry, but when I slap him on the shoulder he relaxes.
 

“We cool?” Nash asks, eyeing me. He’s talking about way more than my MC choosing not to wear the cuts. He’s talking about challenging me on that fucking mountain ridge. He’s talking about defying my leadership and taking off after my brother was murdered.
 

“We’re cool.”

“Regular fucking bromance over here,” Blue says as Tate ambles over, wiping black blood from his lips and flicking his dreads over his shoulder. The Komodo’s still kickin’ right at the surface; Tate’s skin is all scaled up and shiny.

“Prez,” Tate says, giving me a handshake and offering me a hit from a joint nearly as thick as my wrist. “Toke?”

“Fuck yeah,” I say, and suddenly I want to get fucked up. It’s been a long, long while since I’ve felt comfortable enough to blow off some steam.