The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (18 page)

Something important got severed.
 

A nerve connecting the right side of his body to his brain.

“You want me to make this quick?” I snarl, baring my fangs.

Blunt ignores me, tries to swing the knuckles. They arc limp through the air, then settle at his side. He spits and smashes his left hand into his right, insane with anger.
 

I should kill him now.
 

A few more seconds and the nerve might heal up, but I say, “Nod if you want me to make this quick.”

“I had your bare white ass in the air, pretty boy,” Blunt sneers. “Remember that.”

I grin. Talk doesn’t mean shit.

Neither does the past.
 

Survival is all that matters.

Blunt stands motionless as I run at him, and at the last moment he opens his jaws and leans forward, hoping I’m aiming for his throat, hoping to get some part of me between his teeth.
 

But I’m not aiming for his throat.
 

I slide low and slip may claws across his thigh, almost gently, like a lover’s caress, and am rewarded by the hiss of his femoral artery sprouting black blood.

Blunt slams his left hand over the wound.

Looks at me.
 

Knows he’s a goner.
 

Spits and stumbles and snarls, struggling to remain standing.
 

Blood wells up through Blunt’s fingers, spills onto the dirt, and in two breaths he’s face-first on the ground.
 

I pounce on the Stricken Prez’s back, close my jaws over his injured neck, crunch through his spine and rip his massive head from his shoulders.
 

My MC cheers as I stand and lift Blunt’s ugly boar’s head into the sky.
 

My shadow-wolves howl in the distance.

They’ve picked up the good doctor’s scent.
 

“D
ID
YOU
LOVE
him?” Mia says.

We’re standing in the gleaming suburban kitchen. Bickering like a couple of jilted housewives…except for the two dead bikers in the front entryway and the fact Shiori keeps grossing Mia out by letting yellow wasps slip from her mouth.

“The New World Order?” I ask, noting Mia’s use of the past tense to ask about Aaron. “Bunch of fascist pricks, Mia. Thought you were all about freedom? Liberty? The open road?”

“Did you love him?” Mia hisses. “I need to know.”

“Why? What does it matter? He’s fucking
dead
.”

Mia’s violet-green eyes flicker, and for a second I see the hurt and sadness hidden beneath that slippery snake skin. Then the grief is gone, replaced by Mia’s usual anger and bitchiness, and she says: “Yeah, you little cunt cop. He
is
dead. Because of
you
. But it still matters…to me.”
 

So he’s dead.
 

Or at least Mia believes so.

I dig my fingernails into the kitchen countertop and count to ten. I feel like crumpling into a ball and wailing. But I don’t have the luxury…there’s a pack here depending on me to get them the fuck out of this mess.
 

I guess I never thought…the crazy motherfucker would die. Aaron of the Mountain River. He just felt so strong, you know? Even after my creature arrived. Aaron always felt…invincible.
 

But yeah.
 

He was hurting inside. Like all of us.

And he sure wasn’t invincible.
 

I’d hoped he’d lived through what I did. Hoped he was still out there, stirring shit up. Hunting Stricken. We need a force like Aaron. Something quick and sharp and determined to hunt out the sickness and filth and perversion in the world.
 

I tighten my jaw and steel my will.
 

There’ll be time to grieve later.

“You gunna hand us over to them?” I ask, nodding at the two corpses by the front door. “Chain us to that flatbed?”
 

“Haven’t decided,” Mia says in an offhand way that makes me believe her. “I got guys stationed all around this place. They have orders to light it up unless I walk out the front door in ten minutes.”

“Skins?” Shiori says with withering disdain.

“They’ve gotten pretty good at killing freaks like us,” Mia says.

I raise an eyebrow. “Is that what we are now? Freaks?”

“That’s what we always were, dearie,” Mia answers as she opens a cupboard, finds a glass, pours herself some water. “Freaks and monsters and demons and ghouls. The Skins have feared us since they stood upright. Turns out they were right to.”

“You could help us,” I say quietly.
 

“Help you?” Mia nearly chokes on her water. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

“You got your own crew,” I say. “That’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?”

Mia hurls the glass at the wall, missing me by inches. “Do
not
question my loyalty to Aaron Arud, new girl. You know nothing about anything.”

But I know by how quick she is to defend herself that I’ve struck a nerve. I decide to take a different approach. “He might be alive, you know. He might be out there.”

“So what if he is?”

“You abandoned him. If this is your loyalty I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.”

“He
ran
from me,” Mia shrieks. “Your fire freed him, okay? Melted his collar. He went full wolf. Wild as all fuck. Didn’t even recognize me. Snarled and charged when I approached. I watched him run into the woods…” Mia looks at her hands like she wishes she’d done something different, they says, “I stayed loyal when the fucker whored with you. Even after he took you as his bloodmate. I stayed loyal when he—”

“Broke your heart.”

“Yes! I stayed
true
to the pack! Followed him, even though he wasn’t worth shit. Saved him at your rich prick boyfriend’s house. And even
after
you tried to kill him…when I approached him…he didn’t want me.”

She’s fighting back tears.

“I’m sorry, Mia,” I say, and I mean it. “I didn’t want for this to happen. Any of it. I wish I’d never went into that fucking biker bar. I wish me and Aaron had never met.”
 

The last part is a lie. I’m glad I had the time I did with Aaron.
 

Even if it all went to shit.
 

Those few moments together were all-the-way worth it.

“I don’t want your fucking apologies,” Mia says. “Especially when you’re full of shit. You love him. I scent it! So don’t fucking lie and tell me you regret meeting him—”

“I
do
love him,” I say. “But a part of me…fuck yes. I regret meeting him. Look at us! All this…” I wave my hand in a wide circle, “…fucking
madness
is because of me and Aaron. If he hadn’t marked me she wouldn’t have woken, and then she wouldn’t have called her brother Vuk, and then none of this—”
 

“Yeah,” Mia whispers. “I’ve thought about that too. How a single event can set off a huge chain. Rekindle an ancient war. End a world.”

Mia slides across the kitchen, heading for the door.
 

“What
do
you want?” I yell after her.
 

“Nothing. Fuck it,” she says, waving her hand at me in dismissal. “You’re right. The New World Order are a bunch of fascist pricks. Meathead preppers and survivalists and rednecks and racists. All jacked up with kill-thrill. Thinking they’re gunna carve themselves a new nation from the wreckage of this one. Can you imagine? A nation ruled by those assholes?” Mia shudders. “Too fucking lazy and stupid to succeed when there was actual competition, but now they have all the guns and think they’re hot shit.”
 

Mia spits, looses a bitter laugh, plants a boot on the shoulder of one of the dead men and says, “They’re all dead anyway. Walking dead men. All the Skins are. Some will last a few years longer than others, and most of the ones that do will wish they died now, in the early days.”

“So what then?” I ask, pressing, knowing she’s here for a reason.

Mia’s voice grows cold. “We’re dead too, you know. The Purebloods. The Fallen can’t be stopped. Not by whatever the fuck you are. Not by anyone. So I’m finally riding just for
me
, you know? For what I want. To put a few more of those black-hearted motherfuckers in the ground before I die.” Mia’s voice sharpens to a razor edge. “To settle a few scores.”

Silence descends on the room.
 

“You came to murder me,” I say.

“I guess I did, yeah,” Mia says.

“And now?”

Mia hesitates. “Seeing you…scared and broken. With your shitty-ass crew. Hiding in this fucking yuppie den like a bunch of pussies. Whatever. I don’t need to kill you. You’re doing a fine job of it all by yourself.”

She’s right. Even if we do survive into the night I have no idea how we’re going to make it the forty miles to the Monroe Correctional Complex, nevermind whatever comes after that. Connor said I need to find the fourth member of my pack before I face the First Fallen. A man named Rodas. But Connor also said Rodas is in Mexico City, and I’m fairly certain we’re not gunna find cheap Air Miles flights during the end of the fucking world—

Suddenly I burst into despairing, half-mad laughter.
 

It rises from my gut, spreads through my chest, so strong it makes me double over and clutch at the kitchen counter just to stay standing. Trish rushes to my side, hugs my shoulders. I wave her off, shaking my head, then tears slip down my face and I’m close to giving up—

Anik’s looking at me with those big, sad eyes. Pim looks terrified. Shiori’s glaring and judging and scheming. And Mia? She’s soaking it all in, feeding on my misery.
 

Because the truth is I got nothing. Nothing at all, and the funny thing is…that’s just starting to sink in. I’m a slow fucking learner, I guess. We’re out here trapped in this house because I had a ridiculous hunch that maybe my insane father’s seen my abducted son Lachlan. That’s all I have. Nothing! It’s the end of the world and we’re running around after a crazy go-nowhere
hunch
, and I’ve already gotten one of us killed—
 

Shiori’s right to question my leadership.

My laughter fades.
 

I wipe the tears from my eyes.
 

Anik clenches his fists to his sides and turns away.
 

“I suck at this,” I say quietly.

Mia laughs. “Fuck yeah you do.”

“Get out of here,” Trish says to Mia. “You’re not helping. So fuck off.”

Mia smiles and stays put. She wants something.
 

But she won’t ask for it, so I say: “You roll with the New World Order. Kill a few Stricken. And if you don’t get killed, then what?”

Mia shrugs. “I remember Europe before the borders were drawn. Tribe against tribe. Everyone at war with everyone else. Constant, non-stop war. Butchery. Day after day. Kingdoms and allegiances rising and falling. Average Skin lived…what? Twenty years? Thirty? It was tough being a man, and it was
horrible
being a woman. That’s where we’re headed, sweetie. The fucking Dark Ages redux. If I live through these early days? Maybe find myself a fertile piece of land. Give it a name. Mia-land! Have the bastards build me a fucking throne. Get my cunt sucked twice a day. Play slut-queen until someone bigger and stronger comes along and slits my throat.”

“Sounds fucking miserable.”

“Well. Life
is
miserable,” Mia says in a tone straining for patience. “Or at least it was for most of history. This culture peaked. You can’t rise forever. Those of us who remember will look back on the days when we had nothing to do but ride Harleys and fuck and feed on Stricken as the Golden Age. We’ll gum our cold gruel and talk shit until someone rips our weak-assed hearts from our chests. It’s happened before, you know. Species rise and fall. Survival of the fittest. Natural law.”

“You’re giving up,” I say. “I never thought…not you. But that’s what you’re doing. The war hasn’t even started and you’re already giving up.”

“I’m
evolving
,” Mia says, a sneer twisting her lips. “Adjusting to a less accommodating reality. Territories are already being drawn. New leaders rising up to stake a claim. That’s what the New World Order’s doing, although the stupid assholes don’t know it yet. We’re claiming the Westcoast. Get it? Southern California all the way north to Alaska. That’s gunna be Mia-land.”

“You’re fucking nuts,” Trish says.
 

“Of course I am,” Mia laughs. “Conquerors are insane by definition. You think Columbus or Cortez were
sane
? In Mexico City a man claiming he’s a fucking reincarnated Aztec god is building an empire…and you know what? He’s got the city on its knees. Think he’s sane? Nope. Same shit’s happening in South America. Africa. Europe. Fiefdoms ruled by vicious despots and psychopaths. Just like in the good old days. History repeats itself. I know how this works. And I know where I fit in. Time to powder your noses and reach for your knives, ladies.”

“I want to show you something,” I say, very quietly and slowly.
 

Mia casts me a suspicious glance. “What?”

“I want to show you something.”

“Make it quick, sweetie,” Mia sighs. “You got maybe three minutes before the rocket grenades start flying. You ever seen one of those? Pretty fucking excellent. Stole ‘em from Fort Luis. You’d think a place called a fort would be tough to steal from, yeah? Not when everyone guarding it’s dead.”

“I’m coming—”

“No, Trish,” I say. “This is between me and Mia.”
 

I make my way out of the kitchen, past Mia and up the stairs.

“She’s a good friend, isn’t she?” Mia asks as she follows me up.
 

“Trish? The best.”

“Guess she’ll die for you someday. You consider that? What your friendship means for her?”