Page 21 of Blood of Vengeance

“Yeah. Well, maybe you shouldn’t have to.”

With that, he turned and jogged to his bike. Settling those damned sunglasses on his face once more and hiding that intense gaze from me. I still felt it, though. Knew he was giving me one last look over before he started his bike and walked it backward out of the driveway. He nodded once to the prospect before turning onto the street and riding away. Leaving me alone. In his house. With a babysitter.

Nine

Flinch

Popper owned a crematorium so far out in the desert, no one really bothered him with things like inspections and business license review. The man offered a service—he cremated loved ones and the ones not so loved for dirt cheap, while still honoring and respecting the lives and traditions of the deceased. If they deserved either.

Chiggy deserved every bit of respect.

“I’ll have my assistant check him over for any evidence of the responsible party. That will push back his service—” Popper flipped a page in his notebook, frowning as he looked over what he had written there. “Three days. Evening. Will you be sending people to witness?”

“Yes.” Zed never glanced my way, taking lead with a contractor I normally dealt with. As tail gunner, I cleaned up the messes club members made, like making sure the bodies wouldn’t be discovered. As warlord, Zed kept the brothers safe and made sure they got home at night. He would be leading the charge to send Chiggy home. “He’s a brother, Pops. We’ll all be here.”

The old man with the beady eyes who had burned more bodies for me than I could even remember nodded solemnly. “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss. You Hellions have been good to me—I’ll be sure to be good to your brother.”

“We appreciate that,” I said. “Got a time for his service? The club will want to know when to roll up.”

“Eight thirty. I’ll make sure he’s the first of the night.”

So his ashes wouldn’t mix with anyone else’s. He didn’t need to tell me—I’d been there for burnings before. Hell, I’d watched him toss ten bodies in a pile and fire it up. I’d been the one who’d told him to do it. Chiggy would get better. The best.

Once finished with Popper, Zed and I headed back to our rides. We had to check in at the clubhouse and let Cutter know the situation. We also needed to start spreading the word about the vigil we would hold for Chiggy while he burned. But first, I needed a little time alone with the club warlord so no unwelcome ears overheard.

“Thoughts on Chiggy’s murder?” I asked once we made it to the van.

Zed grunted, slipping off his ever-present sunglasses and looking around the empty lot as if expecting someone to be hidden in a pocket of scrub grass. The man took caution to an extreme.

“I think a normal gunshot—even a hollow-point—shouldn’t have been able to drop the old man. I think everything about this situation feels off. I think we’ve got a shitstorm headed toward us.” He looked my way, those black eyes locking on mine and making my inner wolf tense. “And I think your new girl’s sitting square in the middle of all of it.”

My new girl. He had no fucking clue.

“She’s his daughter—she’s definitely in the middle of it.”

“How come we never knew he had a daughter?”

I shrugged, pondering the same thing. “Would you want a young girl around the brothers? At the clubhouse?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then there’s your answer.” I took a moment to rub a dirt spot off my odometer, sinking into thoughts about Locklyn and Chiggy. “He told her to never trust shifters.”

“Smart man. Humans should stay the fuck away.”

“She’s half shifter.”

“Still more human, though.” He leaned closer as I jerked back, giving me an exaggerated sniff. “There’s not a bit of shifter in her smell. Just that human perfume…and you.”

I growled low, making sure he knew he was coming close to crossing lines. Making sure he knew nothing had changed with me—he still wouldn’t want to go claws out against me. Thankfully, Zed was a good brother and a smart fucking wolf. He didn’t press the issue, didn’t open his mouth and spout off. Instead, he slid into the van and rolled down the window, looking out toward the horizon where the sun had started to dip behind a rise. Darkness would arrive soon, the shadows already deepening and growing longer. It was time to get home, but my wolf wasn’t ready to back down, and Zed wasn’t done quite yet.

“I checked your scent to prove a point,” he said. “Not to start a fight.”

“And what point is that?”

“This one: That girl is pure human, the only shifter scent being the one tying you two together as mates.” He started the van, looking my way once more. Deep, dead eyes meeting mine and locking on hard. Not showing dominance, showing how much he knew. How much he hadn’t been saying. How fucking stupid I had been to assume my connection with Locklyn could be kept a secret. “Most of the brothers won’t recognize the scent, but some will. Their wolves will. Some of the dumber ones might try to challenge you for pack hierarchy if they do. They might try to steal her from you. And those are the people you think of as brothers. Our adversaries? They’ll kill her just for the fun of it.”

Rage unlike any I’d ever experienced blazed through me, making my entire body burn with the hatred of my wolf. “The fuck they will. I’ll lay them out before they ever even get close.”

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