The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (22 page)

I hit the joint hard.
 

Tate watches me suck the blue-grey smoke down, then says, “Keep that one. You smoked the knuckle anyway.” He pulls another joint from inside his cut, sparks it, passes it to Blue, then notices the iron collar’s gone from my neck. His Komodo flickers to the surface and I scent its desire and envy, then Tate gives me a fist-bump and asks, “So how’s it? Being free with the wolf?”

“Killer,” I say, grinning.

We laugh and another crew member hands me a bottle of vodka and even though I hate the foul shit I take a long pull because the night’s still young—

“This the knuckle?” Blue asks, pointing to the super-thick middle of the joint.
 

“Yeah,” Tate answers proudly. “My signature move.”

“Moms must be proud,” Blue says.

“She taught it to me,” Tate laughs.

Blue inhales the joint well past the knuckle.
 

Tate groans and calls us all greedy motherfuckers.

A bike gas tank explodes, sending flame and shrapnel winging through the desert night.

We all laugh and cackle and howl and bark, and then I’m missing my brother Sorry and even the snarky bitch Mia.
 

I’m missing my inner circle. The Pureblood elite. All of them.

Blue looks at me with concern. “You all right, Prez?”

Nash passes me the vodka. I take a long pull and say, “Thinking about my brother. And Mia.”

Blue nods but stays quiet.

“I saw Mia,” Nash says. “She told me about what happened at the rich cocksucker’s house. I tried to bring her back in, Prez.” Nash shakes his head. “She was having none of it. Stubborn bitch decided to roll solo. Then I found this useless prick,” Nash nods at Tate, “and we figured you’d head east. Always did hate the city, didn’t ya? There’s only one highway running north-south out here, so we sat on it. Waited for you to turn up. Had a run-in with the Satan’s Spawn and I called in a few favors to get the rest of the boys up here.”

“You did good, Nash.”

“This is all of us,” Nash says, his lips tightening.

I look at the couple dozen MC. “All of us?”

“All that’s left alive in the western US. I sent the word out. S-O-S. No one still living would ignore it.”

“Damn,” I say, feeling somber again. I down the last of the booze, toss the bottle into the fire and say, “I’m gunna show you assholes something.”

I close my eyes and feel for them.
 

The shadow-hunters.
 

Two slip from the desert while the third stands guard over the sicko Stricken doctor I’m gunna deal with after I’m impeccably fucking wasted.
 

Someone shouts a warning as the wolves approach.
 

There’s a rifle shot, then another, then another more panicked shout.
 

Blue cracks his knuckles and stares at me, waiting for me make the call to kill.
 

I laugh and give him a fucking wink.

My shadow-wolves emerge from the desert behind us. Walking slow as my MC peppers them with bullets that zip harmlessly through their ghostly flesh.
 

The wolves settle close next to me. Stare down my MC.

Blue lets loose a long, slow whistle.
 

“What the fuck are
those
?” Tate says, coughing through an interrupted inhale.

I smile. “Haven’t named them yet.”

Blue reaches out, tugs my shirt down to reveal the turquoise amulet and says, “Been a long while since anyone’s lived to tell about seeing a Skinwalker, and even longer since they’ve been gifted something like that.”

“I’m a special kind of guy,” I say.
 

I let the shadows off to roam free.
 

They nose at me, and for an instant I feel their chill breath.
 

Then they’re gone.

***

I climb into the mechanic’s warehouse and slam the trapdoor leading down to the Stricken’s basement feeding lair closed.
 

“That was fucking nasty,” Tate says, visibly shaken by the sight of a hundred partially consumed Skins strapped to steel tables.

“We kill clean and we kill quick,” I say. “That’s the difference between us and the Stricken.”

“They got these meat lockers all over the world by now,” Blue says quietly.
 

I nod as the Stricken doctor’s screams sound from beneath my feet.

“You think the Skins we freed are strong enough to finish him?” Tate asks as we walk outside.
 

It’s nearly dawn.

I light a smoke, take a long drag and say, “I know they are.”

“Something’s different in you, Prez,” Nash says. “Those dying Skins…wasn’t long ago you’d have left ‘em.”

I take another drag. Nash is right. Not long ago at all. “Nothing deserves to die like that,” I say. “It’s against natural law.” I walk over to the second warehouse and try the door. Locked. I shoulder it open, and when I step inside my breath catches in my throat. It’s a bike garage, and there in the middle is a mint Harley Night Rod in flat black.

Blue steps up behind me. “Our lucky night.”

“Starting to feel that way,” I say, checking out the bike.

Tate and Nash step inside. Tate whistles and throws me a fist bump.
 

“You jerkoffs want to ride?” I say.

***

It’s a beautiful desert dawn, the kind that demands gratitude just for being alive to witness it. The sky lightens to pale purple, then deep pink and finally to fiery streaks of red arcing across the Cascades. The Harley growls beneath me and the wind tears at my hair and despite still missing Lily I feel like shit’s beginning to turn around for me and my crew.
 

The Pureblood Predator MC fans out behind me.
 

Two dozen strong.
 

A pack of wild motherfuckers roaming for a kill.
 

We all know this might be our last ride, but I tell you what: the end of the world has its perks. No pigs sweating you for speeding or not wearing a lid. No yuppies in Beamers or Sunday drivers or RV’s clogging the road. Just mile after mile of straight desert highway, juniper and sagebrush whipping into a blur, my Harley redlined and purring, morning air cool and crisp and full of promise, a bellyful of black hearts and a head full of the rasta’s skunk weed…yeah.
 

I haven’t felt this good in a long while.
 

I motion Blue up beside me. It’s been nine years since we’ve ridden together. Blue’s my Road Captain. My presence on the street. The mind and muscle of the club.
 

Nash is up next. The three of us ride in silence for a while, just grooving on the speed and roaring wind and sense of freedom and not giving a fuck. I’m going to make Nash my VP. He’ll replace my brother Sorry. It stings, yeah, having to choose someone else.
 

But that’s what a leader does.
 

Nash deserves more for all he’s done in the last while, but it’s all I got to give.
 

Tate comes last. The dreadlocked rasta stoner didn’t have to stick around after that bullshit went down at his cabin, but he did. Loyalty like that means something. Tate’s gunna be my First Sergeant.

The men riding beside me don’t know it yet, but they’re the beginning of a new Chapter of the Pureblood Predator MC.
 

The End Days Chapter.
 

Origins: the former United States of America, 2015.
 

And like any new chapter, this one needs an initiation in blood.
 

After that, we start redrawing boundaries. Reclaiming turf. There’s assholes all across the world doing that very thing right now. Burning and looting. Staking claim to the spoils. I’ll be fucked if I’m gunna sit on the sidelines for a once-in-a-millennia riot.

The road rises into the foothills of the eastern Cascades, then narrows as we hit the first of several winding ravines that lead up into the mountains. A few pine and fir trees appear and the sage thins as we gain altitude. We pass a couple remote settlements: old hangouts for hippies and back-to-the-landers and anti-social fucks who’d had enough of the city a few hundred miles to the west. Burned out gas stations. A leveled trailer park. Smoldering cars. Corpses littering the road.

I glance at the Harley’s fuel gauge. Only a quarter full.
 

Scarcity.
 

That’s the name of the game now. How to get the shit you need to survive. And from the look of the gas stations and shit-hole diners and corner stores we pass I can tell we’re late to the party.
 

There won’t be any fuel here.
 

Nash rolls up beside me while I slow into the mountain turns.
 

“The Collazo Cartel’s claimed the entire western half of the continent as its territory,” Nash says while we dodge around a burning school bus. “From Mexico City on up to Alaska. They got what’s left of the Mexican army pushing north into Cali.”

“Apex predators need room to roam,” I say, grinning.
 

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“How about the good ‘ole United States of America? What’s our fine Skin President and his army have to say about the Mexicans moving north?”

Nash shrugs, shouting over his Harley’s roar. “TV news went out a week ago. Radio still works sometimes. The President’s redrawn the nation’s borders. Consolidating what’s left of his power around the eastern seaboard. Basically said thanks for the good times but fuck you to everything west of Denver.”

“Pioneers made it to the west last. Makes sense it’s the first to be abandoned. Let the west run wild. Don’t know about you but I’m feeling damn fucking feral.”

Nash laughs, then says, “What’s the plan, Prez?”

We crest through the Cascades and begin descending towards the Pacific. “I don’t give a fuck who’s claiming what stretch of dirt in some rat-invested hellhole of a country. And I sure as shit don’t care about the Mexicans. But I
do
care that Collazo’s crew fucked us right here on our own soil. Sold us out. And tell you what: I kinda like this part of the world.”

“Us too,” Nash says, glancing back at the MC. “Feels like home, if you ask me.”

I nod. “Yup. Let Collazo’s cunts come on up and take a shot at booting us out. We’re not going anywhere.”

Nash looses a throaty barking laugh.
 

“Where’s Collazo now?” I ask.
 

“Mexico City. Rumor is he’s teamed up with a real badass motherfucker. A Stricken, from the sound of it. Former cage fighter. Dude likes to call himself all sorts of shit. Spotted Stalker. Lord of near and Nigh. The Night Wind. Fucker had the Mexican President assassinated.”

“Who’s running shop in the Westcoast cities?”

“Collazo’s using locals to maintain control. All our old associates. The Ah Hong Syndicate in particular.”

A growl develops in my throat. I slide the Harley to the shoulder, then say, “The Sin Crew. That backstabbing motherfucker Tao.”

“Yeah,” Nash says, pulling in beside me. “Chinese military’s using the Sin Crew as their advance troops. Paying them well—cash and weapons—to take a shot at claiming the Westcoast for the Chinese. Course the Sin are like us: they don’t give a fuck about nation-building. They just want their piece of the action. There’s money to be made during the end of the world, Aaron. Rich assholes buying muscle to protect their property. Nations and armies making bold moves and paying well for guys who don’t mind murder for hire. Skins looting one another and trading for anything on offer. Drugs. Food. Water. Gasoline. Guns. It’s a whole new economy. The black market moved into the light of day. The Cartel and the Sin have strongholds in every major coastal city. Seattle. Portland. San Fran. L.A.”

“Then we pick them off one by one.”

“Maybe,” Nash says.
 

“What?”

“We got less than thirty guys, Prez. We need an army to hold the Westcoast.”

He’s right. But we don’t need an army to take out the local Sin. “Let’s cross that bridge, huh, VP?”
 

I think about those Stricken bikers, the Satan’s Spawn, selling Skin flesh beneath the warehouse, then glance back at my MC, step off my bike and yell: “From now on we, the final chapter of the Pureblood Predators, will be known as the End Days Chapter. We’re at war, motherfuckers. Collazo Cartel. The Sin. The fucking Stricken. Maybe even that original asshole, the First Fallen. You remember him?”

A few boos. A few violent war cries. A few wary glances.

“We’re at war with ‘em all. Any of you got a problem dying?”

Silence.

“Any got a problem killing?”

My MC looses a round of screams and hollers and snarling, bloodthirsty howls.
 

“Good,” I say, straddling my Harley and throttling her hard. “Then let’s get our fucking kill on.”
 

T
HE
N
EW
W
ORLD
Order are even worse than I imagined.
 

This isn’t an MC or an army. It’s a mob, united only by greed and bloodlust and the realization that the strong can do whatever they want during the end of the world.

Chaos. Anarchy.
 

They’re only sexy if you’re holding the biggest gun.
 

It takes Mia and a wiry tattooed guy she calls Earl murdering three of the nastiest bastards just to keep the assholes from raping us. Earl is Mia’s main enforcer, and without him keeping the rest of the meatheads in line I think she would’ve lost her title as queen of the greaseball jungle.
 

The problem is Earl’s as greasy as the rest of them; his thin pock-marked face made even nastier by a narrow mustache and watery white-blue eyes. Worse, he seems to have taken a shine to Trish, and I don’t think he intends to offer my girl his hand in a loving lifelong union. But Earl’s quick with a blade; he had one buried in the throat of the first guy to challenge Mia before the dude finished his second sentence. Earl seems loyal to Mia, but one look in his eyes and I know he’s an opportunist. He’s biding his time for the right moment to take Mia out and assume lead of the Order.