Page 10 of Blood of Vengeance

“Maybe.”

“You’re going to have to try harder to rile me up, short stack.” I rolled slowly to the end of the driveway, ready to turn onto the highway. Before I did, I turned and grabbed her thigh. Making sure I had her full fucking attention. “No one’s ever complained about that seat because no bitch has ever ridden this beast with me. Now, sit back and hang on. I’ll give you a good ride.”

Five

Locklyn

Flinch’s place wasn’t anything to write home about—a single-story stucco home in the desert with a deep porch, a cheap couch in the living room, and what seemed like nothing else. No pictures on the walls, no decorations, not a bit of softness or color anywhere. The entire place smelled like him, though. A mixture of sage and leather that made me want to curl up in his blankets and breathe deeply. Which could actually happen, considering the man had a huge bed. Just one, though.

“You’ll sleep in here.” Flinch tossed my bag on the corner of the mattress then slipped into the hall, staying close but not too close. “Bathroom’s through the door over there. Don’t open the other one. Don’t touch my shit.”

“Where are you going to sleep?”

That got his attention. I would have sworn his blue eyes darkened as the expression on his face went from nothing to…everything. “Why? You planning on inviting me into my own bed with you?”

I felt a moment of something close to shame, to guilt. Some sort of misplaced need to be nice and tell the huge, scary man—who could probably pick me up with one hand and looked like he would if I pissed him off—that there was plenty of room and we could share the bed.

But my mom hadn’t raised a nice girl. She’d raised one who knew to listen to her intuition to keep herself safe.

“No. But I do want to know where you’ll be in case I get up for water or something.”

His expression shifted back to the nothing of before. His face like stone, his body locked into place. Taking up the entire doorway without even trying to. Intimidating, thy name is Flinch.

But I was not one to be intimidated. “So? Where will you be?”

He almost smiled, if that was what the tightening around his lips meant.

“There’s a glass in the bathroom for water, plenty of snacks in the kitchen, and beer’s in the fridge. I’ll be on the back porch.” He turned to walk down the hall, not even pausing as he hollered, “And don’t touch my shit.”

I shut the door behind him—a little harder than I probably needed to—and crossed to the bed, falling onto the mattress with a groan. I was relieved to be rid of Flinch for the moment, but also so tired. Between the nightmares, the bus ride, and the stress of the night, I’d had enough. And as much as it felt silly to grieve the loss of my dad, I did. The man had left us when I’d been a kid, and I hadn’t seen too much of him in the years since. A yearly visit to wherever I was living at the time seemed to be about all the traveling he had been up to. But he’d always answered when I’d called. He’d always sent money when I’d needed it. He’d always tried to teach me lessons about his kind and the world he came from, even though I seemed to have skipped any sort of shifter genetics. One of those lessons being that I should never trust a shifter, yet there I was, lying in one’s bed. Alone. Just Flinch and me in the desert.

If I woke up dead, I was going to be really pissed off.

As if she could sense I was finally alone, my phone rang, and Zella’s name appeared on the screen. I tapped to open the video app and accept the call, rolling over as her face appeared. Her slightly unhappy face.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“You don’t want to know.” I sighed and frowned. “Well, maybe you do.”

“I do. How was the clubhouse? Did you figure out where your dad is yet? Where are you now?”

“Slow down.” I rolled over again and sat up, sliding to the head of the mattress so I could lean against the wall. No headboard for Mr. Scary. “The clubhouse was…well, it was a motorcycle clubhouse.”

“Lots of tits and ass?”

“And drinking and general debauchery.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Not at all. And the men…they didn’t want to let me in, but I proved who I was, so they sort of had to, I guess.”

“Did they tell you anything about your dad?”

“He’s missing.”

“Missing or…”

“I think he’s dead. I really do.” I looked up at the ceiling, blinking against the tears burning my eyes. “One of the club guys came in, saying his place had been ransacked, and I knew. I just knew.”

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