THE BAR WAS rowdy as Bullet and I came downstairs, and for a moment no one noticed us. Then Ryan’s head lifted from the end of the bar, his nostrils flared, and his head turned toward us. A purr started up in his throat as his eyes narrowed in an examination of me, lips curling slightly at the corners.
“Jesus, Bullet,” he muttered. “Nice work.”
I shared a private, amused smile with Ryan as Bullet puffed up in pride behind me, large hands on my shoulders. “Just taking care of our girl,” Bullet said.
Ryan snorted and next to him at the bar Tom shook his head. “Gettin’ a whiff you might’ve been the one taken care of.”
Bullet growled and one of his hands on my shoulder turned up to flip off his pack members. He bent and his cheek nuzzled against my ear. He pointed over to Brody on the stool by the entrance hall.
“Red’s handlin’ the door tonight, so I’m free. You wanna see any of the guys or stick with me?”
I leaned back into his touch to see the slightly hopeful twist of his lips. “Stick with you,” I said. I was still riding the high of our time upstairs and in the mood for a good cuddle.
Bullet purred and an arm wrapped around my waist, lifting me to his broad chest with my feet dangling. He headed to the corner booth where I’d first seen him, his lips pressed to my ear. “Gonna sit you down in my lap with my hand up that cute skirt of yours. Get you off over and over again until a fight breaks out.” He grinned, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. It wasn’t as though the same thing wasn’t going on in some of the other booths. Roger had one of the sweeties in his lap, but I was pretty sure he had more than his fingers up her skirt.
“No fights,” I bargained. “And maybe a nap included?”
Bullet’s wicked grin softened, but before we reached the booth a commotion at the front hall caught his attention. He set me down on my toes as Brody rose up from his barstool and Jonah stood from his spot at a table with Tornado, the whole group of them blocking the entrance to the main room. Bullet tugged me behind his bulk and I got a brief glimpse of his jaw hardening and eyes narrowing, expression sharpening into a different man than the one who’d melted under my touch.
I leaned around his side, following on his heels, and saw three figures barred from entering by
Jonah and Brody.
“Baby, stay back,” Bullet murmured.
But it was too late. I rose on my tiptoes and saw dark roots and purple hair, sandwiched between two unfamiliar men in leather jackets. Lola.
“Lola!”
She peeked past Seth, her smile breaking out as she waved to me. “Hey, babe.”
I was too fast for Bullet, or maybe he was too surprised to catch me, and my alphas ahead stepped aside for Lola, letting her charge forward. We met in the middle with a crash of limbs and giggles, arms tangling around each other. My eyes were squeezed shut and I took a deep breath, waiting for the familiarity of my friend to wrap around me, when my throat tangled around the sticky charr of burning marshmallows. I coughed, eyes popping open, and saw Jonah’s jaw ticking and his arms crossed over his chest, hands clenched tight.
Lola smelled like alpha.
“Damn girl, you’re really rolling in some pheromones,” Lola laughed into my hair.
“I am? Girl, you are!” I answered, leaning back. I went to pull her back into my hug and she leaned away, prying me loose from around her shoulders. Her smile wobbled as she nodded in answer.
“Go on, hug your friend,” one of the stranger alphas called to us. “Cuddle up.”
All around us, snarls choked in throats. Lola stiffened and escaped from my arms as I stared between alphas. They wanted her to take my scent and… and Lola did not. Jonah took a step forward, and I shook my head at him briefly, relieved when he stopped himself.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Lola’s shoulders rolled, shaking off my touch. I forced myself to not reach for her, wanting my friend back, even if she did smell like unappetizing alpha.
“I hadn’t heard from you and I wanted to make sure you were okay, babe,” she said softly, smile weak. God, she was right. I was a shit friend. “Buzz said there was news an MC had just gotten a new omega from the Center, I figured it had to be you.” ‘Buzz’ must’ve been one of the men she’d walked in with. I wondered if it was the tall, gangly one with greased back blond hair and tattooed wings wrapping around his throat. I thought he might’ve been the one I’d snuck past with Seth that night at the Devil’s Noose. He grinned at Lola and winked at me, speaking out of the corner of his mouth to my alphas.
“Figured now’n we has a truce, might be good to give the girls a visit. Showgirl, why don’t you ask your friend to show you her nest? I know you wanna see it.”
Lola’s cheeks flushed, but her eyes avoided mine and I got the pretty clear picture that she did not want to see my nest. At least not on Buzz’s orders. My alphas looked to be about two seconds away from completely losing their shit and barking at her, but it wasn’t her fault. I would’ve taken Lola up to my nest, if only for a chance to talk to her alone, but I had a feeling no one but the strangers would take that well.
“Let’s wait a while for that,” I said, shrugging and trying to catch Lola’s eye. When I stepped toward her she flinched and my heart ached. I retreated to the security of Bullet’s chest, taking his tense arms and crossing them in front of me. “The heat makes me kind of territorial about my space,” I said.
Lola hummed and nodded, shoulders relaxing. It was a bullshit excuse but it sounded like something an omega would say, and Lola flashed me a brief and faint smile. I ran my hands up and down Bullet’s arms and looked to Jonah, unsure of how to communicate while we had two rival MC members and my beta friend between us.
He nodded once and stepped back. “Come have a seat,” he said, voice low but in imitation of being relaxed. He jerked his head at the bar where Seth and more of my pack were watching. In fact, there wasn’t anyone in the bar that wasn’t keeping their eye on the exchange. As tense as my alphas were, there was no way the two strangers stood any chance of making a move without getting their asses kicked by my pack if that’s what they were here for.
“Boss, should I…” Bullet trailed off behind me and Jonah shook his head, eyes glancing at me.
“Baby would miss you,” Jonah murmured, a silent exchange taking place over my head. Buzz and the other man watched us with careful eyes, and my stomach turned as they caught Lola’s elbows between them. I had a million questions I wanted answers to, but it was obviously not the time to be asking them, which left me in an uncomfortable and murky confusion.
Jonah stepped toward the corner booth, and I grabbed his hand before he could pass me, forcing him to pause. His eyes tracked my movements as I raised his hand to my cheek, pressing my face into his palm, moving it down my throat to my shoulder, twisting my own hand in his and circling his fingers around my wrist. As quickly and subtly as I could, I replaced any lingering effects of Lola’s touch with my alpha’s mark. Jonah remained tense, but warmth filled his gaze and there was a whisper of a purr between us. He squeezed once and then released my hand and turned, Bullet and I following his lead.
Bullet tugged me on to his lap next to Jonah, facing Lola and the two alphas with her. One, Buzz the charred marshmallow, had his eyes so firmly glued to me it left me with the urge to curl into Bullet’s chest and hide. Which was deeply irritating. The other wore a rumpled and thin leather jacket with ‘Indy’ patched on the front. His head was shaved, eyes ice blue and skin pale, and he kept his hand cupped over the back of Lola’s neck in a possessive clamp that forced her stare to the table. He smelled strongly of sharp pine. Both bikers had thin rope around their neck, knotted over their throats like a noose.
“How… how have you been, babe?” Lola asked. She made a move to lean forward, but Indy’s fingers squeezed slightly and she sunk against him.
Around us the bar shifted, pack members rearranging themselves at tables, finding closer spots to the booth, enclosing us. There wasn’t a single sweetie on any of my alpha’s laps now, but they didn’t leave either, simply took their own chairs and pretended they weren’t feeling the sharp edge of alpha pheromones clashing in conflict.
“I… I’ve been good,” I said, finding a smile for Lola and wishing she looked up to see it. I’d been great, amazing even, but I couldn’t say that when she looked miserable and trapped. “How have you been?”
“Oh, your girl here has been so good,” Indy purred. “Found herself a pack too, didn’t you, showgirl? She’s just waitin’ for one of us to bite her, I bet.”
My mouth tasted like acid. Lola shuddered, and I wasn’t sure if she nodded of her own accord or if Indy forced the jerking movement of her head.
“Wow,” I managed, and Bullet’s rough jaw skimmed over my shoulder, his chest vibrating with a silent purr to soothe me.
Lola fought the grip on her neck, raising her eyes to mine, wide and pleading. “Tell me about the courting gifts, babe,” she said.
Talk. Talk and distract them. Act like this is normal. I wanted to heave my guts out. I wanted to leap across the table and claw these alpha’s eyes. Or snatch Lola from them and cradle her to me.
Emmy reached the table with a tray of glasses, standing at Bullet’s side and setting drinks down in front of us. Finally, Buzz’s attention was drawn away from me as he eyed up Emmy’s skyscraper legs in her black stockings and ragged shorts.
“I umm…” I rattled off a few of the things I’d received, my hands searching out Bullet’s and Jonah’s under the cover of the table for support. Bullet held on tight and Jonah circled his thumb over my rapid pulse, his knees spreading until they bumped my own. I stopped as I thought about Bullet’s gun safety lesson, not certain I could talk about them without telegraphing with my stare that I wanted
to shoot the two alphas across the booth from me. “Some things are personal too,” I said instead, leaning back against my alpha.
“You’re pretty ripe for a beta,” Buzz said as Emmy dropped a pint of flat beer in front of him.
“Might be you’re just picking up some of your own stench, hun,” Emmy snapped back.
“I’m glad it all worked out for you, babe,” Lola whispered to me, smile wobbling.
I’d given her that stupid sweatshirt and look at what it’d gotten her. This was my fault.
Buzz’s hand was reaching to Emmy’s legs, and I was about to shout and warn her when the bar tray came down hard on his hand with a loud crack!
“What the fuck!” Buzz snarled, jostling the table as he rose.
“Whoops,” Emmy said, completely dry and with no remorse.
She stepped away and before Buzz could chase her, Tornado was standing in his way, face like stone as Buzz snarled at him.
“You can smell Chef on her, Buzzard,” Jonah said, words low. “We all can. You really wanna challenge him?”
“He might,” Indy said, flashing a yellow smile. “So, how’d you like that sweet omega puss, Scorch?” Jonah stiffened, teeth gritting and body vibrating. Indy ignored him and looked to me. “How bout you, omega? How’d you like your first knot?”
I didn’t know the history of the MCs. I didn’t know what Buzz wanted to accomplish bringing Lola here unless it was for her to get another hit of my scent or just to rile Jonah, but either way I wasn’t playing along.
“I’d say I enjoyed it as much as any omega,” I said as Bullet’s rising growl hiccuped beneath me.
“But to be honest, I think my alphas really know how to find a girl’s sweet spot.”
Lola laughed, a quiet but genuine friendly sound, and this time when she slid her hand over the table I leaned in, squeezing it once with mine.
“That’s my girl,” she said, winking.
Buzz was still standing, Emmy long gone back to behind the bar, and his eyes scanned the crowd around the room, the way my pack had closed in around him. His wandering stare stopped on Cole, and he grinned.
“Asshole. Get over here,” he barked in full alpha voice, making me twitch and swallow a whimper.
“You’re doing good, kitten,” Bullet whispered. “Wanna purr for you, but don’t wanna share any whiffs, you know?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to either. It was better to be tense and uncomfortable around these strange alphas, than loose and perfuming for them. Cole rose reluctantly from his table, crossing the few feet to stand in front of Buzz who grabbed his upper arm.
“See this fucker?” Buzz asked me, and I refused to meet his gaze. “He used to be a Hangman.
Left his brotherhood. Came over here to this shithole.”
“Watch it, Buzzard,” Jonah murmured.
“Just imagine, man. If I hadn’t let you walk out of my club all those years ago, you never woulda gotten a crack at this sweet piece, huh?”
Cole didn’t even look in my direction, barely even blinked as Buzzard got in his face, smirking in the unfriendliest way. “Guess not.”
“Tell me, for old time’s sake, how good is she?” Buzz whispered.
Jonah was growling openly, not the tender frustrated sound when he found me too tempting, but a genuine warning. Indy’s fingers were clamped tight around Lola’s neck, her head tilted down and
color high in her cheeks. I wanted to leap across the table and claw him to pieces, but I didn’t want to touch him or give him the opportunity to touch me. Bullet was growing behind me, his arms over my shoulders almost consuming me into his huge frame entirely.
“Fuckin’ heaven, man,” Cole said, jaw tight, eyes fixed to Buzzard’s face.
Buzz leaned in and took a deep breath, his grin stretching wide and ugly. “I’ll just bet.”
“Enough,” Jonah whispered to Bullet, and then quick as can be, I was passed from one alpha to the other and Bullet was rising up out of the booth, a hand jerking quick directions to Indy and Lola.
“Truce is truce, so I’m gonna politely show you lot the door. Your beta wanna visit Baby, she can call and come on her own,” Bullet announced “I haven’t fucking marked this bitch,” Buzz muttered as Lola scrambled out of the booth with Indy’s hand on her neck and ass. “She can do as she pleases.”
Lola was sheet white, and I wanted to chew Buzz out, but the best possible thing for my friend would be if these alphas lost interest in her.
“I’ll call,” I said softly. “We can do a girls thing.”
“Sure, babe,” Lola muttered without looking at me.
I held a whine in, and Jonah’s hands found mine in my lap, tangling our fingers together as if he could sense my edgy disappointment. I had meant to call Lola, but every day had been strange and full to the brim with a hazy decadent feeling as if I was still living in a dream. Or maybe I was just making excuses. Either way, I’d abandoned her to this fate and I had to do something.
Something queasy and cold was sinking into me, a headache rising. The room was too thick with scents, and I wanted to tear myself out of Jonah’s arms, run to Lola, and charge us both out of the bar.
Instead, I slowly extricated myself from Jonah’s hold, with his help, and Tornado intercepted Lola with a gentle touch to her back. Indy released her, and my alphas guided us together.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Lola’s smile was weak, eyes teary. “I don’t blame you,” she answered, even quieter. “I asked, remember? Wasn’t careful enough.”
Tornado made a soft choking sound, and Jonah coughed behind me. I leaned in carefully, lips to
her ear without her touching me.
“I’m going to help. Somehow.”
Her lips pressed tight and her expression was wary as I pulled away, but I thought she nodded, just barely, before returning to Indy’s side. He didn’t touch her, just herded her behind Buzz on the way out the door. It wasn’t enough. I should’ve told her to stay. And asked Bullet to punch the alphas for good measure.
“They’re testing the truce,” Cole said, and Jonah hummed in answer.
“They’re testing Baby,” Tornado said. “She’s still unclaimed.”
“I am not,” I snapped, and his eyebrows ticked up. “I mean… I know, technically there’s no bond but…” I looked to Jonah, waiting for him to say it, but it was Bullet to the rescue.
“You’re ours, kitten. Buzzard just wouldn’t’ve waited two whole minutes to sink his teeth into you.”
“Tornado, you and Books take Baby up and stay with her,” Jonah said.
“I could—“ Cole started.
“No, I want you out with Bullet checking to make sure the Hangmen haven’t decided to step over the line already. Buzz’ll assume we’d drag Baby off to lay claim again. I want to make sure he’s not letting his guys harass the neighborhood.”
My headache was starting to pound, but I caught Jonah by the elbow before he headed for the bar
to talk to Seth. “Hey.”
His hands reached out, lifting my face to meet his stare, and I was surprised to find a soft smile on his lips. “You did good. Acted proud of us.”
“I am proud of you,” I said on reflex, eyes widening as Jonah bent, lips pressing softly to mine.
“Lola met those guys the night my perfume came in. She grabbed some then, and she took a sweatshirt of mine the night my heat came in.”
Jonah’s brow furrowed and Tornado growled and spoke. “They’ve been taking hits of her perfume off the beta.”
“Lola,” I said. “Can we do anything for her?”
“She live in Old Uptown?” I nodded, and Jonah’s frown deepened. “Baby girl, I’m sorry but…”
“Between her living in their territory, and laying in their beds, we’d be risking a lot to try and
step in,” Bullet finished.
“I’ll think on it,” Jonah said.
“No, it’s okay. I think… I might know someone who can help,” I had Lola’s cousin’s number in my phone. If David could get to her, he might be able to get her away from Buzz.
“Come on, love,” Tornado said, guiding me through the crowd of alphas.
Mackenzie met us on the way as we headed for the staircase door, his eyes drinking me in head to toe. “You okay, Baby?”
“Headache. And kind of nauseous,” I admitted.
Mackenzie signaled to Ryan who was up in a flash, and soon I was being gently ushered up the stairs towards the apartments. “Tornado, you get a bath going for her when we’re in. No scents. Baby, you smoke? Green’s got real gentle stuff if you want it.”
“Maybe just a little,” I said, nodding.
“On it,” Ryan said with military efficiency.
“Just gotta get out of the firing line of all that alpha bullshit,” Mackenzie said to me. “You’ll be right as rain in an hour.”
In spite of the headache and the worry and my churning stomach, and the fact that I kind of wanted Bullet with me since I still hadn’t got my cuddle, Mackenzie’s plans drew a little smile from me. My alphas certainly wouldn’t fail for not trying to please me.
