Page 35 of Rex's Release

“I’ll have to stop by the house first.”

“Okay. What time do you think you’ll be done for the day?”

“Maybe five. Four if my appointments don’t drag on.”

He sighed again, this time it sounded relieved. “Will you text me when you know what time?”

She frowned. “I suppose.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

The line was silent for a long moment, then Jolene stated, “When I get there, you will answer all of my questions. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Jolene ended the call and took a deep breath. As she let it out, she thought about the locked room in her basement. If necessary, she was prepared. She may have left that part of her life behind in the general sense, but the skills she had learned would always be a part of her, and the tools she acquired were still in her possession.

Mentally clicking that part of her brain back into place from the box she had shoved it into years ago, Jolene climbed out of her SUV and headed across the lot to Mama Hen’s car.

Axle

After hanging up the phone with Lira, Axle let out a long sigh. Lira, the lead champion of the God of Balance, didn’t have any information about the people following his family. While some of them weren’t blood, every member of both the Howlers and the Claws were his family, and he’d do anything to make sure they were safe. But that was hard to do when he didn’t know what they were up against. That was when the room erupted in cheers, roars, and howls.

Ordys, lead champion for the God of Wisdom, said he’d look into it the best he could, but he couldn’t promise he’d have anything quick enough to help them. Axle understood that. Ordys had his own responsibilities. He considered them allies, but he didn’t expect them to take on the problems of the clubs.

He checked in on Keys and Skull, but they didn’t have anything useful… yet. If there was something to find electronically, Keys would find it. Of that, Axle had all the confidence in the world.

Their problems never came at agoodtime. Axle didn’t believe any time was a good time for problems, but it just seemed as if their troubles always came when they were in the middle of so many other things.

Both clubs were working on rebuilding the club that the Hell’s Dogs MC had blown up. They were also making plans to patch over the UpRiders MC, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Axle was going to have to send a group up there to help with that. Not to mention, they recently bought a property they planned to use as a safe house, but it needed work before it would be habitable. To take on that project, he was calling in the retired members, including his father, Joker, the former president of the Howlers.

Add in the fact that he had a baby at home and a mate who was grieving the loss of her sister, and yeah, Axle was stretched as tight as possible.

Whatever their intentions, the assholes in the Pathfinder needed to be dealt with and out of the way, so Axle and Crush, the president of the Claws, could direct their members toward healing.

Determination renewed, Axle made his way down to the cafeteria, stopping briefly in the main room to give Nugget a kiss on her rosy cheek. Then, he shut the doors and turned to face the members of the Howlers and the Claws.

“Are you ready to hunt these bastards down and end this shit before they do something stupid?”

Crush let out a humorless chuckle. “They already did. Fucking with us is the stupidest thing someone could do.”

That was when the room erupted in cheers, roars, and howls.

Rex

They had been driving around Warden’s Pass, Michigan, and the surrounding area for a few hours and nothing. Two Pathfinders had been found, but neither of them had tinted windows like the one that had been following him. They checked with the Claws who had followed, and they said the same thing – The tint wasn’t dark enough.

Frustrated, Rex barked out a curse as he sat on his bike at the town line. In front of him, Smoke and Score were just as pissed as he was. They were sick of this shit. All the Howlers wanted was to live their lives in peace, to love their women and children, and to ride. It wasn’t too much to ask. The fact that many of them could shift into predatory animals was irrelevant. When they shifted, they spent most of their time running through the woods together, having fun. It was the rare occasion that one of them used their shifting abilities to harm, and it was always when provoked. If people would leave them alone and treat each other with respect, there wouldn’t be a problem.

“Now what?” Smoke glanced back at him.

Rex was shaking his head as he tried to think of where else to look. The majority of the Howlers had broken up into groups of three or four and were scouring the area, but he hadn’t heard news that they’d found anything.

His phone chimed with a new text.

“Not Axle,” Score commented, pointing out the obvious since Axle’s number had its own tone for text or calls on all of their phones. It used to be something a few of the members did, but recently, it had become a club rule.

DOC : Leaving the clinic now.

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