Page 2 of Fastlander Fealty

“Why you for the job? Or why do I want you after everything you’ve done to me?”

“The job.” The answer to the other was ‘control.’ She’d learned that months ago.

“Because you can hide what you are so damn well now, Silver. That’s a good trick. And you came in long after Ace and his father left the Pride. He won’t know you. You’re unregistered. All you have to do is play innocent, and you’re the best at playing innocent, aren’t you, Silver?”

She bit the corner of her lip and watched a tall man built like a brick house duck under the Grand Opening sign.

“Say yes sir again,” he ground out.

“Yes sir,” she said automatically.

“Good. Now go shove your tits in Captain’s face. It’s your talent. Just need you around the Crew for a couple of weeks, and feed me the information I need, and then you can come home to a hero’s welcome. The shun will be lifted if you do well enough. This is your chance, Silver.”

“My chance,” she repeated softly.

“Your chance to prove you are no longer a traitor.”

The line clicked and went blank, and she poked the icon that opened the tracking application on her phone. Rook was still in Pride territory. He could see her whereabouts too, so she didn’t really know why he had asked if she was here yet. He had an eye on everything she did. She liked to check the tracking application to make sure he was far away from here still.

Okay, this was her chance. Maybe if she did this, people in the Pride would start talking to her again. Maybe she could eat with the others. Maybe people would hug her and settle the loneliness her animal had been struggling with.

Rook was right. This was her chance.

Silver flipped down the visor mirror and checked her make-up, careful to not look at the big scar down the side of her face that announced to the world that she had betrayed her people.

That scar was her biggest shame.

Silver cut the engine, pushed the door open and clutched her purse closer to her side as she strode across the freshly laid gravel of the parking lot.

Moosey’s BBQ was a restaurant and gas station combination. Ace Holland, the true King of the Holland Pride, would be working on the gas station side, but he wasn’t the reason she was here. She wasn’t here to kill him. That time had not come. The Pride would exact their revenge on him eventually. She was here to do recon on his entire Crew, because to a King like Rook, it wasn’t enough to kill for vengeance. He would make Ace watch everyone he loved die first.

Captain Walker was the brother of the Alpha of the Fastlanders, and a grizzly shifter. She had studied his online shifter registration, and gathered as much on him as she could. Grizzlies were intimidating for a couple of reasons. One, their animals were enormous and the aggression went to a level-ten as soon as they shifted. Two, most of them lacked the control of a lion shifter. Volatile shifters were just a dangerous beast to mess with, and here she was, on her way to grab one’s attention.

Captain was the pit-master for the barbecue side of this new business.

She hated the way her hands shook as she reached for the door handle. She’d heard so many stories of the shifters of Damon’s Mountains, and none of them encouraged trying to bring down one of them. Getting the attention of the Blue Dragon, Damon Daye, who protected these Crews was a horrible idea, so she would need to be very careful here.

Inside of Moosey’s, she looked around, taking in her surroundings, making notes of all the exits.

The garage hangers were open, because it was a warm day, if a little cloudy. There were rows of picnic tables covered in checkered red and white table cloths. There was indoor seating, with an exit to a porch off the side of the building. Her stomach growled at the delicious scent of barbecue smoke, pork ribs, brisket, and buttered corn. The place was crowded, and she pushed up on her toes to see around the line of people that stood in front of a counter.

There were two women working at the cash registers, and a couple of men filling orders and stacking trays of barbecue next to the registers as the women entered in the orders. Farther in the back, a giant barbecue smoker was open but she couldn’t see anyone there. Perhaps Captain was taking a break.

Silver had that spine-tingling feeling that someone was watching her, so she lowered back down off her tiptoes and glanced around, sure to keep her face soft and friendly.

There was a picnic table of people over in the corner and one of the women’s bright green eyes were on her, but she was in the middle of talking to the person across from her, and she didn’t seem to have her attention focused on Silver.

The woman looked back at her friend and belted out one of those throw-your-head-back laughs, and Silver found herself watching so intently. People really laughed like that—like they had no worries in the world.

How strange.

Her stomach growled again. Might as well get some food and check this place out while Captain was on his break, or whatever he was doing. What if he wasn’t working today?

No, that wouldn’t make sense. It was the first week of Moosey’s being open, and the Fastlanders had a big hand in the business. He was the pitmaster. Even if they were training new hires, the pitmaster wouldn’t miss the first week, surely.

She meandered to the back of the line, and gave a tight-lipped smile to a man who stood in front of her. He smiled back. Silver dropped her gaze and then pulled her phone out, just to avoid conversation.

“That’s a shy-girl move,” the man said.

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