The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (28 page)

I hop between the captain’s chairs. Over one of the fields there’s a flock of huge black birds, ravens…or vultures, so many the sky is dark with them. They swerve in perfect formation, a million bodies moving as one, responding to secret signals only they understand, then dive toward the fields, pull up at the last second and fly vertically straight into the sky, a single black column highlighted against the clouds. They break formation, scattering in opposite directions, then whirl back at one another, and when they come together there’s something like a face in the sky, massive and dark, with three shifting black eyes leering down.

“You fuckers seeing this too?” Nash asks, breathless.

“Yeah,” Aaron and I say together.

“Good. Or maybe…not good. Maybe it’d be better if I was just having a flashback.”

My skin is tingling, and I’m suddenly very cold.
 

“He knows,” I whisper. “He’s watching us.”

“Who is?” Trish asks.
 

I tear my eyes from the face in the sky, settle in the back of the van beside Mia and say, “Nothing. No one. Don’t worry about it.”

“Not good enough, Lil,” Trish says.

I sigh, fold my hands on my lap. “I don’t know. That’s the truth. When I do you will too. I swear.”

“You been watching the news these last few days?” Trish says, rubbing black and grey ash out of her jeans. “No. I can’t imagine you have. There’s some weird shit going down, Lil. All over the world. Sun rising and setting at the wrong time. Stars not where they should be in the sky. Trees dying…entire forests dying, in northern Canada and Russia. And not just dying. Withering. Leaves turning brown and falling off in hours, and the next day the entire forest is dead. Then a lightning strike, and suddenly there’s a fire stretching halfway across the globe. A storm buried Sao Paulo in eight feet of snow. You redneck douchebags know where Sao Paulo is? In fucking
Brazil
. Lake Victoria, in the African Rift Valley? Dried up. Almost overnight. The largest lake in the world, just…gone.” Trish sits up and presses her palms to her eyes. “Lake Victoria feeds the Nile River. It’s bone dry all the way to Egypt. Millions at each other’s throats. A mass exodus out of Africa.”

Mia shrugs. “It’s happened before. It’ll get worse.”

“It
is
worse,” Trish says. “The fish in the oceans around Japan washed onto shore. People are starving. Japan’s in emergency lockdown. Martial law. Same with most of Europe, where a storm nearly as large as the continent has settled, blocking the sun. And right here in the good ole US of A? Preppers and survivalists slinking down from the hills. Storming towns on their way to the cities in the southern states. Evangelicals are calling it armageddon, making mad bank peddling branded salvation. People are going apeshit. Turning on each other.”
 

“That’s what Skins do,” Mia says. “They’re a mindless herd. When they panic they charge, trampling one another. That’s why the pack is sacred. It provides a framework. Rules. Boundaries. Leadership when the panic mounts in the back of your throat. Skins have been butchering themselves since they first crawled from their filthy caves.”

“Skins?” Trish says.

“Humans,” I answer.

“Is that what this MC is?” Trish asks Mia. “A pack?”

“Yes,” Mia says.
 

“So what’s that make me?”

“Fucked.”

“We might be fucked too,” I say, and the look Aaron gives me makes me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I planned to tell him in private. But here it is. “I got called to a body yesterday. In a penthouse. Head torn off. Heart missing. He was one of yours.”

“A Pureblood?” Aaron says.

I nod.

Nash leans into the gas petal. Tate lays his head against the van and closes his eyes.
 

“You sure he was Pureblood?” Aaron asks.

“Not unless the iron collar was just an attempt to fit in.”

“Fuck,” Mia says, looking at Sorry. “That fat Senator bitch wasn’t just trying to kill us. She wanted to feed on us.”

Aaron turns and faces the front without saying a word.
 

Heavy silence descends on the van, and finally Mia says, “That’s mother nature, too. Species rise and fall. Dinosaurs. Sabretooths. Look at the Skins. Not long ago we taught them how to wipe their asses. Gave them fire. Now they can destroy this world with the push of a button. What goes around comes around. We’ve feasted on Stricken for millennia. They’re adapting. Becoming a new breed of predator.”

“This motherfucker is no one’s prey,” Aaron says, a growl brewing deep in his throat.
 

“It’s not only evolution,” Tate says, his eyes still closed.

“What is it then?” Mia says “And what the fuck is
she
?” Mia’s looking right at me but talking like I’m not even there. “I’ve never scented her kind before. She smells familiar, but also…new. Different. Half the time her scent makes me want to feed on her fucking heart, and half the time it makes me want to fall on my knees and beg for mercy.”

“I’ll take the latter option,” I say.

Mia gives me a smile that makes her preference clear.

Trish is eyeing me as well. There’s a question brewing in her eyes.
 

She looks about to speak and slams her mouth closed.
 

Tate’s voice is rumbling and distant when he speaks, and his skin changes, hardens, becomes split with shiny black-blue scales. “In ancient Aksum the priests spoke of a return. A final clash of light and dark. The stars darkening in the heavens, one by one, until the night sky was pure black, while a red moon rose and war raged on earth.”

“Smoke another bowl, rasta,” Nash growls.

Tate ignores him. “The religions and myths are mostly wrong. But within each there’s a grain of truth. I scent this one,” Tate nods at me, “and I’m reminded of the story of the Risen. Children of the first mating. Blood even more pure than the Purebloods who came after them. More powerful than either Stricken or Pureblood.”

“Stoney needs another hit,” Trish says.

Tate fires her a pretend-hurt look.
 

Nash cackles from the driver’s seat.

“Y’know, you guys ever think we’re dreaming the same insane dream from a nuthouse somewhere?” I ask.

“All the time,” Tate says.

“Tell me about the Risen,” I say to Tate.

“No, don’t,” Aaron says. “Save it for the cabin, where I can walk into the woods and not have to listen to this bullshit. There’s only two species: us and them. They lay down and die at our feet and we fucking feed on them. That’s all there ever was. That’s all there will be. The Stricken might be changing, sure. Getting rid of their baby teeth. Fine. Fuck ‘em. I still know a meal when I scent one.”

“Who you trying to convince, Prez?” Mia hisses. “And what about your girl? Turning her skin to flame? You ever seen one of us do that?”

Mia’s right. Aaron sounds unsure. And although I haven’t been around that long I know enough to understand that’s very dangerous, for him and everyone in his pack.

“Great,” Trish says, covering her face in her hands. “It’s the end of the world and I’m rolling with a biker gang suffering an identity crisis. I thought you people had it figured out? Pack framework and all that shit?”

“We do,” Aaron says. “Long as we keep shit simple. We feed on Stricken. Stricken feed on Skins. That’s everything worth knowing.”

Mia looks about to argue, glances at Sorry and appears to think better of it.

***

The van winds uphill into the Wenatchee Mountains. Rain begins pouring down so hard the windshield wipers can’t keep up, forcing Nash to slow.

Nash punctuates the miles by bitching about the lack of booze, blow and music in the van. I tune him out and doze in and out of a restless sleep. Every bone in my body aches. I don’t know how to help Sorry, and the thought of failing leaves a cold pit in my stomach. I try and remember the last meal I ate, then shudder, remembering the Stricken I killed at Trish’s. The animal in me might be satiated for now, but the girl formerly known as Lily Nobody still needs to eat people food.
 

Aaron and Tate are going over the supplies cached at Tate’s cabin. Particularly the guns. Trish’s eyes are closed, but I know she’s listening. I wonder what Aaron’s next move will be. He doesn’t seem like the hermit type, content to sit in a remote cabin and wait out the storm. He promised we’d find my son Lachlan. My boy’s been missing almost three days now. As a cop I know the odds of finding him alive decrease by the minute. Yet here I am, driving into the mountains instead of hitting the streets searching for him.
 

A harsh wave of guilt crashes into me.
 

I abandoned my son once, and I’m doing it again.
 

Maybe it was the right decision, giving him to another family.
 

Maybe I don’t deserve to be a mother at all.
 

Then I think about how fast the Stricken tracked me. I don’t know how long I was on the park bench after Connor-the-Cunt dumped me—and I don’t even want to acknowledge the fact I’ve been dumped in the street by two different men in less than a week—but it couldn’t have been that long. So let’s say an hour. Then another hour with Trish.
 

That’s two hours and they scented me out.

That’s not enough time to find Lachlan. The only way to free my son will be a good old-school smash-and-grab. Get in and get out quick.
 

Which means I need to know where he is first.

I wouldn’t mind another round or three with those filthy Stricken assholes. Killing them is like pissing twice in a weekend. Except…I’m tired. I feel it in my blood, the exhaustion like a poison sapping my strength. And every time I unleash her the exhaustion grows deeper.
 

It takes a lot to keep her caged.
 

And not just physically. It takes…psychic energy.

After she surfaces I feel like I do now: like it’s the morning after a three-day bender.
 

Achy. Tired. Trembling. Head all swampy. Mouth dry. Stomach balled in a knot.
 

Everything’s piling up: the abduction; pulling me and Aaron through that RV, fighting the spirit-eater, fighting Kusch, dealing with Connor-the-Cunt and his incestuous lovebird—pun intended—Star, and then this last Stricken attack and getting a Glock unloaded in my chest.
 

That’s why I’m so worried about Sorry. Whatever he needs is going to involve calling her. Summoning her energy. And I think…one day…it’ll be like the spirit-eater said: I’ll summon her and won’t have the strength to send her back, and that’ll be the end of me. Forever.
 

Keep her inside
, the spirit-eater said.
 

If only it were that easy.
 

It’s like waking up to find a new sports car in the driveway and being told not to drive it.
 

He said something else, too, something that’s only really hitting home now:
You are your own keeper.

I tilt my head so I can see Aaron in the passenger seat. He’s sitting with his Dayton’s on the dash, legs man-spread, flicking a Zippo over and over. I study his face in profile, his angular jaw and chiseled cheekbones, feeling more drawn to him than ever.
 

I have to resist the urge to hop into his lap.

And I wonder: is he worth the risk? Can I trust him?
 

The smart girl in me says no to both questions.

The horny bitch says who fucking cares?

If there’s any sense in an outlaw biker’s life it’s this: live now.
 

For this moment only. Because tomorrow might never come.

Aaron whips his head around, catches me looking at him, gives me a sly smile.

Fucking bastard.
 

I flip him the bird and close my eyes.
 

Best get some rest as well, biker-boy. You’re gunna need it.

***

 
I’m in one of those shitty half-assed dreams where you know you’re dreaming but can’t wake up and that makes the dream all the more terrifying because it means you have no control.

Control. My life has been a series of extremes, flipping from having zero control to being too buttoned down. Mommy’s girl to orphan. Street kid to cop. Cop to…whatever the fuck I am now. Biker bitch? Was it Buddha who spoke of a middle way? Maybe the heavy-lidded, smarmy-looking know-it-all was on to something.

In the dream I can’t wake up from there are many things, but one thing defines them all: cold. White is the color of cold air expelled from my lungs. Blue is the color of frozen skin. Black is the color of cold water running under ice a mile thick. Even orange, color of warmth and fire, is a cold, heatless orb in this pale dream-sky.

In this dream cold is a sound. A brittle, cracking sound. Like frozen trees exploding in a deadly cold breeze. Or an iceberg shearing from a glacier to land in silty, turquoise water.

In this dream I worry over my extremities. How long has it been since I felt my toes? My hands? My ears?

In this dream I am marching hungry, calling a name, over and over and over, reciting it like a prayer, believing it will give me warmth.
 

Lily.
 

Lily.

Lily.

***

I wake to the feel of Tate’s cool leathery skin pressed to mine, robbing me of what little heat I have.

“Get off me, you cold-blooded bastard,” I say, shoving him aside, forgetting to check my strength and sending all two-fifty of him slamming into the opposite wall of the van. That strength is a gift from my creature. I’d give it back in a heartbeat if she’d leave me alone.

“Suppose you’re all right,” Mia says, cracking me the first smile ever. “Was just about to check on you. Moaning and shit. Like you were bing tortured.”
 

There’s something about the hard-assed biker chick look Mia has going on: even cradling a bleeding dude she looks sexy,
especially
cradling a bleeding dude, and I’m suddenly self-conscious, thinking of my matted dirty blonde hair and stained jeans and frumpy jacket.