Page 3 of Claimed By Werewolf
Tyler hadn’t been some random drunk who picked the wrong fight.He’d seen everything he shouldn’t have.The guns in the back of the van and the wrong men at the wrong time.The order had come down fast: clean it up with no witnesses.
I kept my face blank, but inside, gears turned.Tyler had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, sure, but not random.Not to me.And if this woman had half a clue what she was poking her nose into, she’d be running back to whatever safe little life she’d crawled out of.
Instead, she was standing here with fire in her eyes and demanding I hand her the truth like it was a receipt she could fold up and shove into her purse.
I stepped closer and crowded her space.She took half a step back, but she didn’t run.
“Let me give you a piece of advice, Demi,” I said and tasted her name on my tongue.“Walk away.Forget my name.Forget the Broken Sons.If you keep chasing ghosts, you’re going to end up lying in the ground next to your brother.”
Her jaw clenched.Stubborn as hell.“You think you scare me?”
I almost laughed.Not because she was wrong—I scared plenty of people—but because of the way she said it.Like she hadn’t spent a second wondering if maybe she should be scared.
“You should be scared.”I leaned in until my breath brushed her hairline, until I could see the quick flutter of her pulse at her throat.“You have no idea what kind of monster you’re dealing with.”
She swallowed hard, but her voice didn’t break.“Then maybe you’re exactly who I need.”
That one hit me like a sucker punch.
For a heartbeat, I just stared at her, caught between wanting to shake sense into her and drag her the hell away before anyone else noticed.Her stubborn eyes locked on mine and dared me to deny her.To laugh in her face, and to walk away.
I should’ve done all three.
Instead, I turned, swung a leg over my bike, and fired up the engine.The roar shattered the tension hanging between us, and exhaust smoke curled in the cool night air.“You don’t want me, sweetheart,” I said over the engine’s rumble.“Trust me.”
And then I gunned it, leaving her standing in the street with her bag clutched to her chest.
If Demi wasn’t going to protect herself from me, then I would do it for her.
The clubhouse was twenty minutes down the road, tucked off an old county highway where the trees pressed in tight and the only light came from the neon skull sign that buzzed over the front door.
I parked, killed the engine, and sat for a second with my hands still on the grips.My knuckles itched from holding back.Every instinct in me screamed that Demi Cross was a problem and a wildfire that would burn through the Sons if I didn’t stomp it out now.
And yet I’d walked away.
Inside, the place smelled like smoke and leather and the faint metallic tang of oil that never really washed out of the floorboards.A few of the brothers were crowded around the pool table, arguing over a shot.Music blared from a speaker in the corner, and laughter rolled like thunder.
But the Prez’s office door was cracked open, with light spilling out into the hall.
I knocked once and pushed it open.
Prez looked up from the paperwork spread across his desk.Tank-sized, bald, and scarred from a dozen knife fights.He was the kind of man you didn’t lie to without a damn good reason.
“Wolf,” he said and leaned back in his chair.“You look like you seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost.”I dropped into the chair opposite him.“A girl.”
His brow furrowed.“What girl?”
“Tyler Cross’s sister.”
That got his attention.He set his pen down slowly, and his eyes narrowed.“She sniffing around?”
I nodded once.
“What’d you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
