Page 3 of Blood of Vengeance

Curling over in horror as it clicked into nothing.

Not even connecting to his voice mail.

“He’s dead,” I whispered to myself. Feeling the weight of truth in the words. Shaking with the knowledge that I had seen his death from almost two thousand miles away. Certain of it.

There would be no space or time travel for me. No chance to save the man I called Dad.

I had only one choice left.

I needed to go to Mesa to find him.

Two

Flinch

Death had been a part of my job for too many decades to count. I was good at killing—a natural. And when it came to getting rid of threats to my club brothers, I actually enjoyed it a little. But cleaning up the mess after one of my brothers got a little too excited during a fight had become the bane of my existence.

“Get the hydrogen peroxide.” I tossed the shovels into the back of my truck, making sure they landed in the tarp I’d laid down. “You need to wash your hands and boots.”

“Why?”

I slammed the tailgate closed and turned to glare at the man we called Rush. “Because I fucking said so.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Rush shook his head but followed my directions, grabbing the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and pouring it over his hands. As he dealt with his boots, I took one last look around the patch of desert where I’d decided to plant our friend. Nothing stood out, not a single thing attracted my eyes to that random stretch of sand, and yet something felt off. Felt missed. I couldn’t pin the feeling down, couldn’t find where it was coming from, and that left me and my wolf on edge.

Once all the blood had been cleaned by the shifter who was about to become my personal punching bag and I’d made sure to remove every trace that we’d ever been on that plot of scorched earth, we hopped into my truck and headed for the clubhouse. I kept my speed just above the limit, kept my stops complete. The idiot beside me likely had blood or something on his clothes that would delight the local crime scene investigators, so I made sure to keep any cops hiding along the highway from taking an interest in us. I stayed fucking invisible, because if someone noticed me, they’d have to be the next one in a shallow grave in the desert. And I wasn’t in the mood for a round two.

When I finally hit the clubhouse lot, I pulled into my spot and threw the truck into park before turning toward my passenger. Shit like this only ever went sideways for two reasons: being unprepared or being an idiot. Rush’s behavior since the moment he’d gone berserk on the now-dead human made me think we were going to have trouble with both.

“The only way this stays between us is if you keep your mouth closed.”

Rush huffed, not looking all that agreeable. “The fucker shouldn’t have started talking about the girls like that.”

The girls, meaning the females—shifters and human—who liked hanging around the club and getting railed by my brothers. But Rush hadn’t been worried about the girls. He’d been worried about one girl. A certain human who did business at the club, selling us a few of the custom spirits she brewed every month. A female he’d denied having any interest in since the moment he’d caught sight of her tight jeans and red cowboy boots. The one he lied about on the daily.

Mated wolves would be the death of me.

“I don’t care if some blowhard hanger-on starts fucking her on the bar—you don’t kill a human without making preparations. The mess attracts the cops.”

“There’s no mess.”

“Because of me,” I spat, the growl of my wolf making my words rumble through the night. “You gonna listen to me now and keep that fucking trap shut?”

He flinched. The tic likely would have been unseen by most, but not me. I saw it; I knew he didn’t like being talked to like a little punk. Knew it and didn’t give a flying fuck about his feelings. My wolf reveled in knowing we had the upper hand.

“Well?” I growled out, letting my inner beast come out to play a little more. Feeling my canines descend and my face lengthen. Making sure the man beside me knew who ranked higher than him on every scale and who wouldn’t take his shit.

Rush twitched a lip again, his own wolf likely making an appearance, but neither the man nor the beast took the bait to fight. Smart move on both their parts.

“Yeah,” he finally said before letting out an irritated huff. “My trap stays fucking shut.”

“Good. Now get the fuck out of my truck.” I threw open my door and stepped out, freezing into place the second the wind hit me. The second I recognized the scent being carried on it.

“You smell roses?”

Rush looked at me as if I’d just asked him to eat a dick. “No. You do?”

I did, but I didn’t give him the gift of a reply, assuming the scent of roses on the wind—one that was already fading away—was some sort of response to all the shit flying at me lately. Instead, I slammed the truck door closed behind me and headed for the bar. I needed a stiff drink and some club pussy to give me her mouth in order for me to get my brain to unwind. Nothing about the night had gone the way I’d wanted it to, mostly because of Rush, but also because of the buzz I’d felt in the desert. The sort of buzz that my wolf and I knew could only mean one thing. Trouble was on the horizon.