Page 6 of Renegade Queen

“Alyssa,” Axel shouted as he saw me walking out of the office. He reached down and grabbed a beer, opening it up and passing it to me. “You need to see the Harley this poser is riding.”

“Why, thank you for sharing my beer with me. That’s far too kind of you,” I drawled sarcastically, and he smirked at me. I literally had to order beer in from a wholesaler because these guys stole so much of it.

I leaned against one of the workbenches, looking over the scene carefully. These guys might all be friends, but I hadn’t decided what to do with them yet. I locked eyes with Smiler, who seemed a bit more downcast today, while I took a deep pull from my beer. He must be the baby of the group because he looked younger than the others. Of course, it might be because he had a bit of a baby face. He was clean-shaven, and his brown hair was gelled back from his face. The dark circles under his deep brown eyes made me think he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. He was wearing torn blue jeans and a white t-shirt that stretched across his muscles and screamed, yeah, I’ve got a six-pack, but no, you can’t touch it at me.

The other guy from last night sat quietly, drinking his beer. He was keeping watch between the two bikers and me. He clearly didn’t trust them, but I couldn’t figure out what his feelings were about me yet. He had leather pants on with a khaki tank tucked into them. It left his arms bare, showing off the muscles of his shoulders. The thin layer of stubble on his face was more designer than forgetting to shave. It worked for him, though.

There was a strange, eerie silence over us before Blue Eyes cut in. “Look, we clearly got off on the wrong foot last night. I’m Maddox, and this is Dean and Ryder,” he said, pointing to Smiler and the other guy from last night. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”

“I told you last night, I’m not taking you to the fae realm,” I told him sternly, taking another pull from my beer.

That had the two Storm Howlers straightening up, and the looks on their faces were decidedly less than friendly now.

“Someone needs to fill us in,” Hunter growled.

“They’re military working for the General. The General’s been up to his usual tricks and sent a team into the Fae realm, which includes Maddox’s brother. They haven’t heard from them for nearly two weeks. The General seems to think I’d go into Nymeria and get them out,” I calmly explained to Hunter.

Axel was hunched over and growling by this point. He was close to shifting, and his wolf had already decided these three were a threat.

“They know?” Maddox asked, looking confused. “Look, I just want to find my brother, we took a leave of absence as of this morning,” he said, turning back to Hunter and Axel, who weren’t convinced enough to back down.

“How much do they know?” Hunter asked me, ignoring Maddox.

“They know about the fae realm, and they know about magic,” I told him.

I knew what he was really asking me. Did they know about them or any of the other shifters? That could be a death sentence for these three until they spoke with their alpha, and he made the call.

“You should have dealt with that General a long time ago, Alyssa,” he growled.

I hitched an eyebrow at him in annoyance, and he backed down like a good dog. This was my shop, and no one took that tone with me.

“I already told you, if we leave him in play, we know the information is contained with him. We don’t know what contingencies he has in place if anything happens to him. Anyway, I can handle the General.” I smiled as I recalled the glee I felt when I’d stabbed him. Next time though, I’d have to follow through on my threat, or he wouldn’t take me seriously.

Dean looked at the two bikers suspiciously now. “If you take us there, we can pay you,” he told Hunter, who just threw his head back and laughed.

“Do I look like a Fae to you?” Hunter heaved out between laughs.

“I mean, I don’t know. My extent of Fae is that they look like hot blonde women,” Dean huffed, crossing his arms and sinking back into the sofa.

Axel looked across at me and growled appreciatively, and I threw him a saucy wink. It had been a while for me, like six years a while. Maybe I should let one of these shifters finally get into my pants.

“Even if I wanted to, little man, I can’t get into Fae. You need one of them to do that. Anyway, you don’t want to go there. You reek of human. They’d sniff you out in two minutes flat,” Hunter told him.

We all seemed to be getting a bit too candid about this now, and these two were cutting seriously close to telling them something they weren’t authorised to.

“You need to call your al… boss,” I finished lamely.

Fuck! We were usually better at keeping this secret, but these guys were way too friendly.

I sighed in exhaustion and rolled my head to look up at the ceiling when I realised that this situation wasn’t going to just go away. Drinking the last of my beer, I threw the bottle in the recycling bin and listened in to Hunter quietly explaining the situation to his alpha over the phone. Finally, he hung up and confirmed that he was on the way.

Tank bounded down the stairs from my apartment, looking a bit happier, but his face dropped in annoyance when he saw the three guys sitting on the couch. The garage had turned into a sort of garage/hang-out for the MCs, so there were a couple of couches that had been added to the space, along with things like the massive fridge and some tables dotted about. I’d caught them trying to drag a pool table in the other day and finally put my foot down.

Tank strode across the garage and stopped so close to me that I could feel the top of his abs pressing against my shoulder blades. The dude made me feel tiny. His message was clear, though. No one came near me unless they wanted to go through him.

I leant back slightly into him, and Tank gently put a hand on my shoulder. Tank always felt so familiar, so comfortable—safe. As the tension drained out of my body, he squeezed my shoulder in support.

“You eaten?” His voice rumbled behind me. You could always tell when his bear was close to the surface because his voice got all growly like that.

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