The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (34 page)

Because Aker Arud, my alpha grandfather, The One Who Struggles, is right.
 

I am the One We Answer To.

Nash is barking and chattering and hopping around the church grounds, his hyena choking against the cruel iron collar. Blue’s doing the same, toppling over stone crypts, flinging massive chunks of granite through the church walls, getting his wreck on because there’s a wild energy coursing through me, fueling my packmates, a berserker energy that knows no restraint, no cages and no collars, and suddenly I’ve had
enough
of the fucking collars, I tear my grandfather’s cassock back and hook my fingers under his collar. Icy blue light glows from my hands and I snap the collar clean off and my Pureblood packmates, the ones who heard my roar of summons, feel that collar snapping as if they were standing right here beside me. Every one of them feels it and their animals scream and thrash and howl in envy—

I hold the broken collar in my hand. Stare at it in shock.
 

Eons of imprisonment.
 

Of fighting our animals and fearing our true selves.
 

That age has ended.
 

The Purebloods roam free.

“Do you remember how the collars came to be?” my grandfather asks.

“No.”

“The Purebloods who survived the One War forged them. We swore our animals would never hunt free. We mistrusted our wildborn nature. And so we collared ourselves with iron, hoping to prevent another slaughter.”
 

Aker Arud’s wolf leaps out of him. The old man’s bones twist and snap and his face shifts and his teeth lengthen. He’s lying on the wet grass beneath me and fucking hell if he doesn’t look like an older version of my brother Sorry, Radulf Arud, and a part of me howls in loss and mourning because I wish my brother was here to witness this joy.

Sorry understood all along.
 

Saw the apex alpha lurking in me.

My brother had
faith
.

Even when I didn’t. Especially when I didn’t.

That’s why he yielded that day on the river, back when we were youths roughhousing. When he had me pinned down. He yielded because he sensed this power. And he trusted his instinct—

I stand over my grandfather and raise my fists and roar, and then I whirl and Blue shambles to me and kneels and I free the fucking Kodiak, an animal so magnificent and powerful he brings tears to my eyes. Nash the nattering mad dog is next. I have to fight to get my fingers under my bro’s collar because his neck is so swollen, and when the collar snaps apart and Nash goes full animal I realize that maybe, all right, some of us Purebloods are gunna need a little time to learn to
control
our freed animals, because as soon as Nash collarless his hyena goes all yellow-eyed and launches straight at my throat.

Nothing personal. Dude’s confused is all.
 

Lost in kill-lust. Unaccustomed to freedom.
 

Mistaking his alpha for prey.
 

Fucking dumbass.
 

Nash slams into me and his fangs rake across my chest and then I’m holding him by the throat and slamming my fist into his face. It takes three punches before the murder glow fades from the hyena’s eyes and he shakes his head and gives me a little yelp to let me know he fucked up and I hit him once more, just to make sure the message is loud and clear, then drop him on the ground.

Blue sweeps Nash up and hurls him against the church’s stone walls, then lumbers over to me and roars. I hold my ground and return the Kodiak’s roar. The bear pauses, then lowers down and wanders out among the gravestones behind the church. Nash picks himself up, shakes his heavy head and looses a barking laugh.
 

My grandfather hasn’t moved from beneath the oak tree.
 

I kneel beside him.

Aker’s trembling.
 

“Why’d you leave us?” I ask, needing to understand.

“I stepped aside. It was time.”

I’m tempted to call the old man a coward. But maybe there’s a lesson in what he did. Maybe there’s courage in realizing when its time to exit the stage with dignity. My grandfather fought and struggled his entire life. The man deserves some peace.
 

“We needed you.”

My grandfather closes his eyes. “No. We needed
you
.”

I set my hand on the wolf’s forehead. Feel his life-force fading. There’s a world of questions. But only time for one. So I ask: “Will we win?”

“No,” he whispers. “But you won’t lose.”

***

The fast among us chose to stay in their uncollared animals and run.

They abandoned their Harley’s outside the church and stayed wild after I freed them from their collars. A few brawls broke out, a bitchy little weasel overstepped himself and got shit-kicked by a mean-as-hell tiger named Cuft.
 

No big thing.
 

The Pureblood Predators are rediscovering their animal hierarchy.

Me and Nash and Blue and Tate just kicked back, slammed a bottle or three and watched the fireworks.

Sometimes you gotta let mother nature take her course.
 

Now we’re back on the road, heading north. The interstate’s clogged with cars and dead Skins so we stick to the smaller side roads. It’s still pissing rain. My Harley makes a snake-like hiss as its tires track through puddles that stretch right across the road. Occasionally I hit a puddle too fast or at the wrong angle and start hydroplaning, fucking surfing along the water’s surface, the bike suddenly weightless beneath me.
 

Bad time for wreck.
 

Still, I’m feeling…frisky.
 

You gotta ride into the slide. Trust the bike. Throttle her down.

Let momentum carry you through.
 

You start hesitating, second guessing corners, getting all fucking timid and shit—that’s when you wreck.

Same is true in life.
 

Just throttle the bitch and lean in hard.

Ignore the dull-eyed chickenshit assholes preaching about security and safety and responsibility. They got you hemmed in. Caged. Making you afraid of the big bogey-man so they can peddle some expensive piece of gimmicky junk you don’t need. Pointing their bony, narrow-minded little fingers at the outlaws and riders and freaks and fuck-ups of the world. Saying how reckless we are. How antisocial. How self-destructive.
 

Self-destructive? Suck a dick.
 

Self-destructive means not living life how you see fit.
 

Letting the weak and frightened cage you in.
 

It means letting someone else decide how fast you hit the corners. Being a back-seat bitch in your own life.

Take the risk. Throttle her back and make the call. That’s outlaw instinct. That’s courage, and the kind of freedom you can’t buy with a credit card.

It’ll all work out. And if not?
 

So what? You’re dead.

There’s a fast-as-hell uncollared cheetah sprinting along beside me.

Forget the fucker’s name. One of the MC Nash brought with him.
 

Bastard’s egging me on, edging ahead then dropping back, his tongue hanging between his fangs as he eats up the road with massive thirty-foot leaps.
 

I lower my chest close to the bike, squint against the rain stinging my face and howl at him, then crank the Harley’s throttle, hit 170 mph and rip right on past.
 

We’re twenty miles outside Seattle when I scent something that makes me slam on the brakes and skid to a screeching halt. My MC piles around me. Nash leaps off his bike and sprints around, chuffing and barking, in half-hyena form. The wolves among us circle and scent. Bears stand on their hind legs and sniff the air. Reptiles scurry into the bushes alongside the interstate, doing whatever the fuck reptiles do.

Blue catches sight of the expression on my face, sets down the bottle of bourbon he’s slamming, flashes me a broad grin and says, “Never seen you look like a lovesick puppy, Prez. It’s cute. In a make-me-puke kinda way.”

“Wait until she’s actually here,” Nash scoffs. “And keep a paper bag handy.”

“Piss off,” I growl, scenting the air.

It’s her. It has to be.
 

She’s somewhere off in the woods, but the wind’s blowing hard, obscuring the direction of her scent.

She smells…injured.
 

I lift my head to the sky and loose a long, plaintive howl.

My pack follows my lead, and soon there’s two dozen wild, half-wasted biker Purebloods screaming at the sky.
 

It sounds terrible.
 

Damn. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.
 

Might frighten the fuck out of her.

I resist the urge to leap into the woods after Lily. My boys are playing cool with the lovesick thing, but beneath their shit-talk they’re still worried about where my loyalty lies. It says enough about how much they trust me that they agreed to follow me to the middle of fucking nowhere looking for her instead of staying in Seattle and claiming a new club headquarters.
 

I can’t risk acting the fool and losing that trust.

“What’s on your mind, Prez?’ Blue says.
 

Damn. Blue was always the perceptive one.

“Thinking about my grandfather,” I say quietly. “About the end game.”

Blue nods. “That’s good to hear, Prez. You should be doing the thinking.”

“I mean…fuck.” My inner circle leans in, listening. Waiting for my word. I take a breath and say, “I want the West Coast. From Alaska to the fucking Baja and east to Denver. The End Days Chapter of the Pureblood Predators is going to rule the West. Got me?”

My crew hollers and fist-bumps and howls.
 

“We got you,” Blue says, grinning at the MC.

“That’s a whole lotta miles,” Tate says.

“Yeah,” I say, “It sounds like a lot of work. Good thing you’re not a lazy, stoned-out rasta.”

Tate sighs, pulls another joint from an empty pack of smokes.

“After this shit with Lily and the…Fallen plays out we’re gunna roll down the coast. Beginning with Seattle. We’re gunna clear the fucking streets. Feed on the Stricken and wipe out any Skin organizations still remaining. We won’t even have to kill the Skins—we’ll just roll in wearing cuts and flash some fucking fang. That’ll straighten ‘em out. Set up new clubs, recruit any worthwhile Skins we find. Reestablish our territory. Just like back in the day. Nothing pisses in our territory without us knowing about it. We patrol the streets. Law and outlaw in one.”

“We don’t have the manpower, Prez,” Nash says, eyeing the MC.

“I think we do,” I say. “Listen. I saw the Purebloods. Thousands of them. Running alone. Being hunted down by Stricken. The word will get out. The West Coast is Pureblood territory. A fucking safe haven. A
home
. I summoned them. They’ll come. And when they do, we’ll recruit them. We got enough crew here to get the ball rolling.”

“Plus there’s the Skins,” Tate adds. “Some of them might be useful.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve been thinking on that ever since we found the kill room at the Rusty Nail. I think we should offer the Skins safe haven.”

“They’re nasty animals,” Nash growls. “No way the Purebloods are gunna live shoulder-to-shoulder with Skins.”

“But we have been living shoulder-to-shoulder,” I say. “Only under
their
rules. And yeah, their rules and values are fucked. But look around. That time is finished. Purebloods call the shots again. Skins can live clean…if they follow our lead.”

“And if not?” Nash asks.

I shrug. “We boot ‘em off our land. Us or the Stricken, son.”
 

Nash snarls, storms off, circles around, tosses a few rocks down the road, then comes back to stand at my side.
 

“I like it, Prez,” Blue says in his rumbling baritone. “Go big or go home. I like the
vision
.”

“What’s the alternative?” I say, lighting a smoke. “We keep running? With no home base? That shit might have worked a millennia ago, before the Skins went viral and the Stricken got all toothy. But now? No. We need a place to call our own. A place we can
defend
if…no, when…the Stricken strike.”

“You’re talking empire,” Nash growls. “Just like the Skins.”

“Bullshit. I’m talking
land
. That’s all. Every predator pack has its territory. Without land you’re shit. At the mercy of anyone or anything wanting to move in. But draw a fucking line in the sand and call everything behind it yours…now you’ve made a claim. Only question remaining is…are you strong enough to defend it?”

“Fuck yeah,” Nash says.

“Take some time to settle shit down,” Blue says. “The Skins have gone off the rails. Thinkin’ there’s no one around to tell them how to behave.”

“That’ll change,” I say.

“Prince Arud,” Nash says, splitting a wicked grin.
 

“Piss off.”

Blue and some of the crew laugh, then Blue bends into a waiter bow, does his best pinched-faced royalty impression and says, “May I deliver Sir Prince Aaron Arud a spot of bourbon?” Then the smart-ass hands me a mostly empty bottle.

I snatch it from him and take a pull while Blue says, “Just don’t expect me to salute when you walk into a room.”

“All I expect—from each and every one of you—is loyalty.”

“Of course, Prez,” Blue says, a flicker of concern in his eyes. “I’m just fucking with you.”

I take another hit of bourbon, press my fingers to my eyes and rub hard. I can’t remember the last time I slept. Blue’s the last person I should be snapping at.

“Hey Prez!” the tiger predator Cuft shouts, and when I look at him he points at the sky.

Its dark and cloudy. At first I don’t see anything. Then a black speck bursts from a cloud, so high its nearly invisible. A shiver traces down my neck.
 

“That fucking vulture,” Tate says.

Nash nods. “Yeah. Prick’s following us.” Then he turns to me and says, “We got a few birds on the crew. You want me to send them up?”