BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (95 page)

Bruce sat down in the mulch at the foot of the mountain and waited, he wasn’t sure for what. A long time passed and there was no sign of anyone or anything near the village. The pull of the moon was starting to fade as the dawn crept closer, and a while later Bruce dared to change back to human form. He didn’t know where the Family was. He closed his eyes to focus on them, to find them, when something fluttered up in the trees and then came down almost on top of him.

Bruce got a fright, wanted to scramble away, but then he stopped and felt the bond. An eagle-like creature sat on the ground in front of him, looking out of place in the mulch when it usually sat against the rocks. But then it shifted, so quick it was just a blur, and Cleveland sat in front of him.

He was easy to spot in the dark, with his pale hair and skin. But he was so small that he looked like a child in front of Bruce. He didn’t look threatening, and Bruce didn’t doubt that Cleveland came in peace, even though he didn’t know why he knew that.

“Where are they?” Bruce asked. 

“They’re on the plateau. Stephen was shot and Tara is up there trying to pull him back but she’s weak.”

“I wonder why,” Bruce said darkly. Cleveland nodded.

“I know, and she has less power than she had before. But I don’t blame you for what you did. The Family won’t suffer more because of it. She’s not a good alpha.”

The words were spoken calmly, but they had power behind them, not strength like Bruce’s own magic, but intensity. Cleveland’s power was different than anything Bruce had felt before.

“Tara has ordered us to kill her, your girl,” he said. The words, again calm, sliced through Bruce like a knife.

“When?” he asked, breathless.

“A few nights ago, but starting tonight. That was what Stephen had been doing. We weren’t allowed to tell you, but it’s not right for innocents to get harmed. Find a way to save her, but don’t drag us down in the process.”

Bruce nodded. He understood. He couldn’t leave, that was what Cleveland was saying. But the kindness was out of place.

“Why are you helping me?” he asked.

Cleveland shrugged.

“As a bird of prey I’m the weakest shifter in the Family. But that doesn’t mean I think the strongest one is right for the job of being alpha. If you can keep all this from getting worse, once Tara falls, you have my loyalty.”

“You’re so sure she’ll fall?” Bruce asked.

Cleveland got up and made to walk into the trees.

“I don’t see you submitting to her much longer.”

“And I thought Dwayne was the psychic,” I said, but Cleveland had already disappeared into the trees.

Chapter 4

“Where have you been, Drew?”  Jenna asked. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in days, since she’d sprained her ankle, and it was very unlike him.

She was out on her crutches again, not moving fast but at least moving. It was better than being cooped up in the cabin. She’d only been able to handle that for two days.

Drew shrugged and carried on packing the food into the paper bag. They were in the general store. She’d gone in to buy lunch and he was there, buying something of his own.

“Come on, you’re on my case all the time to be with you, and then when I finally agree you ignore me?” she asked. “What’s up with that? Did something happen?”

Drew sighed and turned to her.

“I know you don’t like me, Jenna. Not in that way. I’ve known that for a long time. But I’ve always wanted just a shot, you know? But you’re never here. When you’re with me it’s like your mind is somewhere else all the time. And when you hurt yourself… I’m sorry that it happened and I should probably have been better, but you didn’t want me to help you. You just pushed me away.”

Jenna opened her mouth to argue but closed it again. Maybe he was right.

“A lot has happened lately,” she said. He couldn’t blame her for being distant. But she had pushed him away. Was it really because she thought she was too heavy for him to carry? Or was there some other reason? Like the fact that subconsciously she still just didn’t want him, even though she’d decided to give it a shot?

“You still didn’t have to avoid me just because I couldn’t run after you and catch you,” she said. She gestured to her ankle. He looked down at it and his face softened.

“I’m sorry about that. I really am. But I figured that you knew what you wanted. I came to see you the night after it had happened, and I saw you hobbling your way to Bruce’s cabin. Not mine. There’s nothing more I can do if you’ve made up your mind about which man you want.”

Jenna opened her mouth to say something – anything – that would make it all seem better. But if that was the case, if Drew had seen her go to Bruce’s cabin – even if nothing had happened – it made more sense. She should have gone to Drew, would have, if she really felt something for him.

“I’m sorry, Drew,” she finally said.

“So am I,” he answered. “Look, we both made mistakes and we’ll just chalk it up to two people trying to make something happen that just doesn’t fit. I still think you’re great and we don’t have to walk away from this and never speak again.”

Jenna nodded. “Friends then?”

Drew gave her half a smile that didn’t look like he really thought it was the best idea, but he nodded, too.

“Friends.”

He tipped and imaginary hat to her and picked up his paper packet, waving at Murray at the back of the store. Then he walked out, leaving Jenna alone in the store. She sighed.

Murray came closer.

“What can I get you?” he asked. She told him what she needed and he ran through the shelves to get it for her, allowing her to rest her foot at the counter. When he was done, he came to the register and started ringing up.

“How are you doing?” he asked her. “Phil told me he ran you to the doctor the other day.”

“Turns out I needed to see someone after all. I’m too stubborn,” she said. Murray smiled and nodded.

“Sounds familiar. Your father was the same.”

They both fell quiet, thinking about the dead. A feeling crept into the shop, something low and dark. It was almost like a mist around Jenna’s ankles, but when she looked down she couldn’t see anything. She looked up at Murray to see if he’d felt it, too, but he carried on like nothing was wrong.

“What is that?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“What’s what?” Murray looked up at her.

“Can’t you feel that?”

Murray frowned.

“Never mind,” she said. She didn’t want to sound weird.  Murray narrowed his eyes at her but she looked away and cleared her throat. When Murray was done and she paid, she left the shop as fast as she could manage on her crutches.

Outside wasn’t much better. It was the kind of suffocating feeling she got at night sometimes, except this was daylight. It danced around her, the air was almost electric with it. She looked up and down the road.

No one else seemed to notice, or if they did, they didn’t show it. When Jenna glanced into the trees she got a horrible sense of foreboding, so she pulled her gaze away again and started down the road toward the salon. Her lunch break was almost over.

“Hey, Carla?” she said when she sat down in one of the customer chairs and took out her sandwich. The salon was empty.

“Yeah?” Carla said, chewing gum with an open mouth.

“Do you ever feel like something’s wrong?”

Carla frowned at her and tipped her head to the side. Her hair was teased up in an old-school beehive and it looked like it wouldn’t move no matter what, there was so much hairspray in it. The effect with her confused face would have been funny if Jenna didn’t feel sick to her stomach.

But the food tasted like sand in her mouth and she swallowed hard, putting the sandwich down without taking another bite.

“Wrong how? Like sick?”

Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve just been feeling off lately.”

Carla nodded. “It’s those pills the doctor gave you for your ankle. I always feel horrible when I take medication. It’s like it causes more damage than whatever what was wrong in the first place.”

“It must be that,” Jenna said and sighed. It wasn’t that at all, but she couldn’t explain it without sounding like she was losing her mind.

The afternoon dragged on. By the time the sun sank toward the horizon, Jenna started getting anxious. She wanted to get home before it set. She didn’t want to be the last and lock up after everyone else. She wanted to get somewhere safe before the shadows got long enough to touch her.

“Will you lock up?” she asked Carla.

“I don’t know… I’m going to Rhodestown tonight to see a film at the cinema. Ronnie’s taking me and if we don’t leave early enough—“

“Please?” Jenna asked, cutting Carla off. Carla pulled a face. Before she could say something the bell above the door jingled and they both looked up. Bruce stood inside the door, making the salon seem small with his size and his presence.

“I was wondering if you needed someone to walk you home,” he said to Jenna. Relief flooded through her. He would keep her safe if she had to lock up. That was good enough. She turned to Carla who gave her a funny look and looked back at Bruce. Of course, none of them knew what had been going on. It was weird for Bruce to appear and offer that way, but they’d been friends for a long time.

It wasn’t weird for them. It shouldn’t be.

“Don’t worry about it, Carla,” Jenna said. “Bruce will help me.”

Carla nodded, blew a bubble with her gum and bit it so that it popped. She opened up the magazine she’d been reading.

“You’re timing is great,” Jenna said to Bruce in a low voice when he came closer to her. “I was just needing saving.”

“Well, that’s my job,” he said and smiled.

Jenna’s last client walked in through the door and she moved to the chair. It was just a wash and trim, but in that time Carla left and Bruce and Jenna were left alone with the customer.

Finally they were alone. Jenna collected her tools and made her way to the sink to rinse them in the solution.

“How was your day?” she asked Bruce. He didn’t answer. When she turned to look at him he was staring at a mirror that reflected the front of the shop.

“Bruce?” she asked. He snapped out of his daze and turned his face to her.

“I asked how your day was,” Jenna tried again.

“Oh, it was fine.”

“What did you do?” It was Bruce’s day off, and he often disappeared into the mountains. Jenna would have liked to know what he always did when he left the village.

“I just walked some of the trails,” he said.

“Alone?”

He hesitated only a moment before he nodded, but it was for just long enough that Jenna thought maybe he wasn’t telling the truth. She didn’t say anything about it, though. If he was lying, there had to be some reason. After racking her brain for a moment she couldn’t find a good one. Unless it was about Tara.

“Have you spoken to Tara?” she asked, blurting the words out before she really thought about them.

“Spoken to her about what?” he asked and he looked like he genuinely didn’t know what she was talking about.

“About when the three of us are going to go out on our date,” Jenna said sarcastically. Bruce’s face darkened at her tone and he turned his eyes away. Jenna regretted her words immediately, but he’d asked her so innocently about what there was to speak to Tara about. Like their situation was normal.”

“About being with her,” Jenna said and she made sure to check her tone this time.

Bruce shrugged and then nodded like it was no big deal. “Oh, that,” he said. “Sure.”

“Oh, that?” Jenna asked.

Bruce looked at her, and there was so much going on in his eyes, so much Jenna felt like she suddenly didn’t know.

“What else was there to talk about with her?”

“Nothing,” Bruce said quickly. Jenna turned her back to him and carried on cleaning her equipment, but her mind was spinning. She knew nothing about Tara, about Bruce’s relationship or friendship with her. Even though she thought she knew Bruce very well.

“Where did you meet Tara?” Jenna asked, trying to sound like she was making casual conversation.

Bruce was quiet for a moment. “We ran into each other in Rhodestown when I was there,” he finally said.

“I didn’t realize you go to Rhodestown so often. Did she come here when you spoke to her?”

“Why are you asking so many questions all of a sudden?” Bruce asked, and even though his voice wasn’t raised, it was still defensive. Jenna shrugged, her back still to him.

“I just realized there’s some things about you I know very little about. And if we’re going to be…” she let her sentence taper off because the truth was she’d almost said ‘together’, but she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure if that was what was going on.

“Well, there are parts of our lives we don’t have to share, isn’t there?” Bruce asked. He sounded upset, and when she turned his eyes were almost black and he looked rough and unkempt. She tried to remember if he looked like that when he’d walked into the shop a bit earlier, but she’d just been so relieved to see him she hadn’t really paid attention.

“I didn’t think we really had to make a point of being allowed to keep secrets,” she said in a low voice. Bruce sighed and walked to her. She could feel him coming, a warm energy that washed over her like water. He stopped next to her as she was drying her hands. She shifted on her good foot so that she was facing him.

“I just had a rough couple of days,” Bruce said. “Sorry.”

He put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to him so that she lost her balance and the only place she could fall to was against him. She didn’t mind so much, but his body was stiff and tense, like he was going through the motions but his mind was on something else.

“Shall we get going?” he asked a moment later, pushing her gently back up until she found her own balance again. She nodded and collected her crutches.

They walked slowly toward the cabin so that Jenna could make her way with the crutches. Her arms were rubbed raw against the wood and she was getting stiff muscles, but it would only be another day or two and then she could stop using them for periods throughout the day.

She was grateful Bruce was next to her. The night was thick, as if the blackness suffocated everything else, even if it was night. Nights like tonight were so dark that it felt like the light didn’t even make a dent in it the way it should have. Jenna looked up at the moon. It had just been full moon. It shouldn’t have been as dark as it was.

There was a sound in the trees to their left, and Jenna gasped before she could catch herself. She was scared. Her heart beat faster and she swallowed hard.

Bruce looked into the trees as well, but a moment later her said, “its nothing.”

“How do you know?” Jenna asked. “Murray shot a wolf the other night. They’re coming down to the village now.”

“Oh, was it Murray,” Bruce said, and it sounded like it was a revelation to him. But of course he’d already known about the wolf. He was probably one of the men that had run out with their rifles when the howl had sounded right in front of her door.

“I don’t like this, Bruce,” she said, sounding small and scared.

“Don’t you worry, nothing will happen. I’ll make sure of it.”

They were at her cabin and she opened the door. She stared into the dark of the small little house, feeling like something might jump out at her. Bruce leaned past her and got the light switch.

The yellow light flooded the room with warmth and managed to chase away the darkness, which was more than she could say for outside. But it was enough.

“Thank you,” Jenna breathed.

“I mean it when I say I won’t let anything happen to you,” Bruce said. And then he lowered his head and before Jenna could do anything, or think anything, his lips touched hers. It was hot and electric, surging through her with a jolt. When he broke the kiss his eyes were black and they seemed larger than usual. Jenna was breathless.