Page 1 of Trick's Elite

Chapter One

Trick

Thewomanacrosstheroom from Trick was responsible for everything that had happened to his family for months. Okay, that wasn’t true, but Messer’s actions brought on a lot of it.

When the Hell’s Dogs MC waged war on his club — the Howlers MC — and the Tiger’s Claw MC, it resulted in many injured and dead, mostly on the HDMC’s side. Videos taken by the Hell’s Dogs and their allies were released that exposed the existence of shifters to the world. Most of the population believed them to be altered or faked, which wasn’t true, but there was a faction who took that as proof of shifters being a threat to the general population. In reality, shifters had been living amongst humans for… well, he wasn’t sure the number of years, but it was at least thousands of years.

A billionaire with too much money and not enough sense decided to start an academy to train people to hunt down shifters and eradicate them. Their lower-level soldiers were called hunters, and they took orders from Elites. As far as he knew, the Elites had a boss, but above that boss was only the owner and any other possible investors. The woman across the room from Matthew ‘Trick’ Waters was an Elite.

Elite Stella Messer had been sent to their little town of Warden’s Pass, Michigan, to find out everything she could about the shifters who lived there. Trick had been a prospect for the Howlers at the time and had been tasked with finding out what she knew and preventing her from learning too much. He had considered his mission a success when she had been called back to the Black Forest Academy to answer for her lack of new information.

Months later, she showed back up with four other Elites. They kidnapped two of the club members — one died and the other was tortured. Before they knew everything that had been happening, Stella had shown up at the compound and told Axle, the Howlers president, where the club members had been held and tortured, declaring that she had no part in it. Trick didn’t know if he believed her about the kidnapping, but from what he knew, he didn’t think she fully participated in the hell that the members went through.

Trick knew he should hate her. He knew that regardless of her participation, she brought the hunters there. It was the limited information she had obtained that gave them the starting point on their mission to kidnap, torture, and kill shifters. Yet, he didn’t hate her. He didn’t, because when he looked into her light blue eyes again, his inner bear went on alert, pawing at the ground and demanding he claim her. By some twisted fate, Stella Messer was their mate.

While most of his family — the Howlers and the Claws — would love to take her life from her the way the Elites ended Shortcake, the Howlers had put their collective foot down to stop it. They didn’t fuck with each other’s mates. Stella had been saved because of him, at least for the time being.

Shortcake was a member of the Claws. In the biker world, that meant that the Claws had a right to avenge her death. It meant Stella’s life was owed to them. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was Trick’s mate, Axle would have handed her over to Crush, the president of the Claws, and that would be the end of it. For Trick, Axle was putting the entirety of the Howlers MC between the Claws and Stella. The Howlers would fight the Claws over it if Trick didn’t find a way to avoid that. They were allies. It would be heartbreaking for that to end in destruction.

Nevertheless, Stella was safe for the moment.

But what was he supposed to do to fix everything?

She was still their enemy.

Leaning back against the concrete wall across the basement of the Howlers clubhouse, the room they were using for a cell, barred door and all, Trick crossed his arms and stared at her. She was sitting on the floor with her forearms folded and resting on her knees that were bent up in front of her. The look on her face was almost as if she had given up, and that didn’t sit well with Trick.

As angry as he was at her and her mission, she was his mate, and it grated on his bear that she wasn’t happy. He had to come up with a way to both satisfy his bear and keep his family safe. He was stuck between having his mate and having his family, but there had to be a solution. Therehadto be. He wouldn’t give up the people who had always supported him, but could he walk away from his mate forever to keep them? No, he didn’t think he could.

The problem was that keeping her around the compound, or even in Warden’s Pass, would mean he would need to practically make her his prisoner. What a way to start a relationship. The whole situation was a shit show.

“Why in the hell are you staring at me?”

The defeated tone of her voice was like a stab to his heart. Yes, she did it to herself. If it wasn’t for her choices, she wouldn’t be in that situation. But if it wasn’t for her choices, he wouldn’t have met her either.

“You’re my mate,” he stated.

“What the hell does that even mean?”

He sighed. “It means we were meant to be. It’s like soulmates for shifters.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say.”

He chuckled low, but there was no humor in it. “I wish I knew what in the hell I did for the gods to give me a mate who wants me dead.”

Her words were so low that had he been human, he wouldn’t have heard it when she said, “I don’t want you dead.”

“Why?”

Her light blue gaze lifted to meet his. “Before I left, I thought…” She shook her head and looked away. “Never mind.”

His bear gave a little whimper at that. Heneededto know the rest of that sentence. “No. Tell me.”

“I thought… we had something,” she admitted in that same defeated tone.

Trick’s smile was slight, but it was there. “Yeah, we did… because you’re my mate.”

A possible solution to their troubles began to form in his head as he watched her react to his words. If he could get her to agree, he was positive he could win Axle over to it.

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