Page 5 of Renegade Queen

The second floor had been knocked out to create a two-storey high bottom floor, the back was my gym, and the front was the garage I ran. It mostly catered to motorcycles, but some of the MCs that used it would bring along the odd truck. The top storey was my apartment, and after seventy years, I’d just got it how I wanted it.

I glanced at my watch to see it was just past 8:00 pm. We kept weird hours at the garage, but Tank should be getting ready to close the garage down about now. I’d noticed that he was asleep on the office couch when I got home last night, and I needed to find time to talk to him tonight about it. It wasn’t like him to spend time away from his sleuth, but he’d been at the garage more and more recently.

Tank was a bear shifter, and when you saw him, it was pretty obvious why everyone called him Tank. I wasn’t even sure what his real name was, it could even be Tank, although that seemed unlikely. At just under seven feet tall, his long dark hair gave him that mysterious look that made my mouth water. He had a body that would make bodybuilders jealous and I wasn’t ashamed to admit I’d spent more than a few nights fantasising over him.

He’d walked into the garage about ten years ago looking for work. I immediately knew what he was and hired him on the spot. It could be hard for shifters to find work because they didn’t age the same way as humans, so they had to move around a lot. I didn’t age at all, so he was safe with me, and there was no need for him to move on.

I had three MCs that used the garage. Some of them left the bikes for me and Tank to work on. Some of them worked on their own bikes there. The only rule was that if you came into my shop, you left any bullshit at the door. Rival MCs could get stupid when they got together, but the garage was a safe haven, and the penalty for breaking the rules was to be cast out. I had enough experience with that to know it was an effective deterrent, and so far, it had worked.

Two of the MCs were shifters, one wolf pack and the other more of a mixed bag. The third was a mixture of witches and other Fae who had either been banished like me or just got fed up and left.

Poor Blue Eyes was going to have the shock of his life when he found out that his little human world wasn’t so human after all.

When I turned the street corner and the warehouse came into view, I saw the shutters up and the garage open for business. It looked like some of the Storm Howler guys were there already. Bit late for those guys to be working, but who was I to judge?

I strolled into the garage like I owned the place, because, you know, I did. Poor Blue Eyes strolled in a few seconds behind me like he didn’t have a care in the world. Tank must have been in the office because I couldn’t see him on the garage floor.

The two Storm Howler guys were on their feet immediately. Blue Eyes, completely oblivious to the danger he was in, just kept on following me. You had to give him his due, he had some balls on him.

Hunter immediately stepped into his path, placing a hand on his chest. “I think you’re lost,” he told him sternly. “You’d be wise to find your way somewhere else.”

Blue Eyes looked down at the hand on his chest and then leaned around Hunter to look at me. I just grinned, and he rolled his eyes.

“Don’t look at me for help,” I said, raising my hands and backing into the office, laughing.

Tank was sitting at the desk shuffling through some invoices and looked like he was doing the books. He wasn’t. He didn’t have the first clue about how to do the books. He did this when he was stressed out, and then I had to come in here and put it all back into the correct piles and do the books myself.

“What’s up, big guy?” I asked, sinking down onto the very couch I’d spotted him sleeping on last night. I clocked the blanket, and a duffle shoved in the corner of the room.

He shrugged and kept shuffling the papers around. I knew he’d tell me about it when he was ready. He always did. But whatever was on his mind this time seemed to be really bothering him.

“You smell like human,” he grumbled.

“One followed me home from the coffee shop,” I told him, cocking my head to the side. The reaction that I got from him was more than I’d expected.

Tank burst up out of the chair, sending it flying back against the wall with a crack, and I was pretty sure it broke. Then, he physically moved the desk out of his way rather than step around it, before going to storm out of the office. I slid out of my seat and stepped in front of him before he could go full bear and destroy the garage in the process. It sounded like an exaggeration, but trust me, it had happened before.

As soon as my hand touched his arm, he froze. His nostrils flared with the amount of air that he sucked in and puffed out. I’d never seen him fly into a rage so easily before.

“Ease up there, big guy. You’re gonna pull a muscle or something.” I looked over at the door, but no one had followed me in here. “Keep the bear caged or go and let him play in the gym. I don’t want you tearing apart the garage again. That shit is expensive to replace.”

He deflated a little, and some hurt flickered in his eyes. He still felt bad about the last time, no matter how much I told him that it didn’t matter. I had more money than I knew what to do with. It was a side effect of having been around for so long and making good investments.

I tried to wrap my arms around the massive bulk that was him, but it was basically impossible. To my surprise, Tank scooped me up off the ground and crushed me against his chest, dropping his head into my neck and inhaling my scent. When he put me down on the ground, I raised one eyebrow in question.

Tank looked worried, but then just asked, “Can we talk about it later?”

“Sure we can,” I told him brightly.

Tank had been around for so long that he was basically my best friend. I had thought it would lead somewhere else when he first showed up. Who wouldn’t? I mean, look at him! I’d climb him like a monkey and never let go. But he didn’t seem interested in that sort of relationship with me, and we’d fallen into an easy friendship instead.

I knew I needed to go back out of the office and deal with what was outside, but I didn’t really want to. Sighing, I moved to the doorway and nudged Tank’s duffle with my foot. When I glanced back at him over my shoulder, he looked worried.

“Move that up to my guest room and stop sleeping on my couch. You make my back hurt just looking at you,” I told him with a smile.

I didn’t know why he didn’t just crash upstairs anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it, and he knew that he was always welcomed. Something was definitely going on with Tank. He smirked and nodded, and I left the office.

Now, I know I was only in there for less than five minutes, so what I saw when I made it into the garage was quite impressive. Hunter and Axel, the two Storm Howlers, were sitting on the sofa in the garage drinking beer—my beer, I might add—with Blue Eyes and the other two guys from last night.

---