The scent of leather and fur tickles my nose as I blink awake.
It’s still dark out, but I must have passed out for a few hours, because the bone-deep fatigue from earlier is gone. Rubber scrapes earth nearby, and I sit up, trying to see what’s going on with the little bit of light the stars are giving me. I really need to charge my phone so I can get the flashlight back.
“How’d the run go?” Micah asks Alejandra, facing away from me.
She doesn’t have her vest on, so I get a full view of the way Micah’s white shirt stretches across her shoulders, every rise and dip of muscle in her back outlined in shadow. A black strap curves down over one side, tapering all the way to narrow hips, with a large clip clasped to her leather belt.
That smell is so familiar.
I look down and see Micah’s vest, neatly folded right where my head was. When did she do that?
“Went fine, but we’re starving.” Alejandra gives Micah’s shoulder a friendly tap. “Come on. Let’s take a ride to the diner.”
Micah turns around to look at me, running a palm over the pale field of her buzz. “You hungry? We usually go out to eat after errands.”
She didn’t even ask if I was awake. I guess she heard me getting up.
“Sure.” I don’t have the first clue what kind of errands they’d be running at probably-two-in-the-morning, but that’s so not my business. Instead, I grab Micah’s vest, offering it to her as I stand up. “Thanks for the pillow.”
“You’re welcome.” She reaches for the vest, and I glimpse a dark shape tucked underneath her arm, attached to that black strap.
A gun.
“Shit,” I mutter.
Out loud. Christiana, that shouldn’t have been out loud.
“Everything okay?” The question comes from Talisa, eyeing me from back near her bike.
“Yeah, I just...” Might as well go on record and state the obvious. “I didn’t realize Micah was, um, armed.”
Hazel eyes flicker down to her side, then back up. “It’s usually concealed.”
She puts her vest back on, and the gun—some kind of pistol, but I don’t know enough about them to guess make or model—is out of sight.
“I mean, we’re all armed.” Alejandra takes a step forward, yanking her own vest open. She has two holsters. “Occupational hazard.”
For what job? Plenty of people in Arizona open carry, but concealed permits are a bit harder to come by. Except for cops, of course.
I glance at Talisa, but she shrugs. “My shotgun is in the saddlebag. It’s a last-resort kind of thing.”
“I’ve never even shot mine,” Connor says, tapping his back with one hand. “At a person, I mean. Alejandra has me practice a lot.”
“And I don’t have a gun at all,” Royal mumbles, sitting up from their sleeping bag. They pull out the largest knife I have ever seen in a person’s hand, steel shining under the stars. It has a wicked, hooked tip, the kind that would hurt fifty times worse coming out than going in.
“Just this,” they add with a laugh, then slide it back out of sight.
I got used to Andrew having a gun, but he would constantly lecture me whenever we saw other people with them. He said they didn’t have the first clue what it meant to put their life on the line to protect someone. They didn’t deserve to own something so dangerous.
After yesterday, I don’t think he does either.
Micah, on the other hand—if she hadn’t taken her vest off, I never would have noticed. No one in her club seems trigger-happy, just prepared. Something about that makes me feel a lot better.
“You want to ride to the diner in my sidecar?” Royal asks, popping a thumb toward their bike. “I can move Connor’s bag out of there.”
Micah clears her throat. “She can ride with me.”
She says can, but I hear should. A shiver sweeps up my back. I smile at Royal, a little flustered. “I’ll go with Micah, if that’s okay.”
They grin, not a hint of disappointment in sight. “Hey, who doesn’t want to roll with the prez? I don’t blame you.”
My face is still hot by the time I straddle Micah’s motorcycle, but I chalk that up to the fact that everyone was watching me do it. With my luck in the past twenty-four hours, the chance of me falling off the other side is way higher than I want to think about.
Outside the sleeping bag, it’s pretty chilly, but the moment I wrap my arms around Micah’s stomach, heat pours over me like a warm bath. She radiates it from head to toe, and pressed up against her back, the cold might as well not exist.
Her bike is the first one down the hill, gently guided by boots and gravity until we’re back on the trail. When the engine roars to life, I bite my tongue. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the amount of power under me and simultaneously wrapped in my arms is a pretty potent combination.
I can’t remember the last time something felt so good.
Micah takes off down the trail nice and slow, the other motorcycles falling in behind us, one low rumble after another. Between the stars and moonlight slicing through the trees overhead, everything is cast in silvered shadows. The scent of pine is even stronger, clinging to the cold dew that’s sure to evaporate the second the sun rises. If I were alone, I’d be terrified to get lost in here, but with a five-biker escort, I can’t call it anything but incredible.
It takes maybe ten minutes to get back to the road, and another ten to reach the diner. The place is right out of the fifties, covered in red and pale blue stars with half the neon gone dark. A little silver UFO slowly spins above the front door, with a sign in blocky letters welcoming us to Space Age Shakes. The promo menu underneath is a bit of a jumble, but they promise twenty different flavors.
With an empty parking lot, Micah takes the spot in front, and everyone else flanks her space before the engines cut to silence. It’s a little eerie with the constant purr gone, but a server welcomes us with a smile and a wave the second we walk inside. Her name tag is absolutely plastered with glittery stickers, spelling out Nadine.
“Sit wherever!” Nadine gestures toward a line of booths with faded, overstuffed cushions. “Do you need a menu this time? I see a new face.”
The club must be regulars. “A menu would be great, please.”
“You bet, sugar.” She passes one over the counter, a laminated page that I think might be older than I am. “The usual for everyone else?”
Micah nods, Royal gives a thumbs-up that Connor quickly imitates, and Talisa’s reply is a polite “Yes, ma’am.”
Alejandra collapses back against the booth, eyes half-closed. “Coffee too, please.”
“It’s two thirty in the morning,” Talisa comments, sliding in next to her girlfriend.
She waves a hand in vague acknowledgment. “I am fully prepared to deal with the consequences of my actions.”
I sit on the opposite side of them beside the window, with Micah next to me and Connor squeezing in at the other end. Royal pulls up a chair to take the last spot. My eyes glaze over the menu a few times before the words sink in. I might need some coffee too.
It isn’t like I have anywhere to be tomorrow.
Nadine comes around with drinks, and my guess for who gets what is pretty spot-on. Micah and Talisa stick to water, but Connor snags a soda swimming with grenadine and Royal has an iced tea Southern-style. Alejandra drops three packets of sugar into her coffee before gulping it down, ignoring the steam pouring off the top. That has to hurt.
“How about you, honey?” Nadine asks.
“Coffee would be great.”
She flips her little yellow pad open. “I’ll take your food order too if you don’t mind. Little faster that way.”
Hunger’s starting to turn my stomach into a pit, but I have no idea how long the fifty bucks in my pocket is going to have to last. “Could I get a waffle?”
“You gotta put more on your stomach than that,” Connor says. “This place has really good food.”
Micah glances at me. “This is on my dime. Order whatever you want.”
Heat rushes up the back of my neck. “You don’t have to do that.”
“She does it for everybody,” Talisa counters. “If you’re out with us, you get covered.”
I search the table for any signs of hesitation, that I’m being humored on a bad day, but looking into Micah’s eyes, I can tell it’s true. “Okay.”
Nadine patiently waits for me to read through the menu again, and I change my order to the Starship Pancake Special, which promises to be out of this world. I’m not sure about that part, but a bunch of fruit and whipped cream sounds perfect right now. She disappears back to the kitchen, and Micah’s attention hasn’t wavered.
Not that I mind.
“You said earlier your phone had no reception,” she says. “Is that still true?”
I take it out of my purse. The screen is a dull black by now, but that’s no surprise. “Good question. Right now it’s just dead.”
Micah holds out her hand. “Can I see it?”
“Um, sure.”
She flips it over after I give it to her, examining my rose-gold case—it’s just shiny plastic, I couldn’t afford the real thing—and then tosses it to Connor. “Crack that open.”
Whoa. “Hey, what—!”
My shock doesn’t even make her blink. “Do you know how many ways a cop can track your phone?”
Cold fear curls up in the pit of my stomach. “No. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“You’re mostly fine since it’s off,” Connor says, prying apart the case with a quick flick of his thumbnail. He sets it down like it’s made of glass, then starts opening the phone too. “Unless there’s a...well, shit.”
He holds up a tiny little green chip that I’ve never seen before. The chill feeling spreads through the rest of my body. “What is that?”
“GPS. Real pro look too.” Connor cringes. “I’ll break it and ditch it in the trash outside.”
“But how—” My head swims, trying to outpace anxiety and nausea at the same time. “When did he do that?”
No one hazards a guess, but sympathy’s mirrored on everyone’s faces. I must be off the charts pathetic if a group of gun-toting bikers feels bad for me. Connor does as promised, ducking outside to get rid of the chip, then puts my phone back together like a professional.
“Where did you learn how to do this?” I ask him. Something has to occupy my thoughts beyond how awful Andrew is.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He smiles sheepishly, the way people do when they don’t expect to be asked a certain question. “I was super into tech during high school. Lots of people wanted their parents’ shitty apps off their phones and cars. The money was pretty good too.”
“Now he keeps folks off our trail,” Royal adds, giving Connor’s arm a fond squeeze.
Silence threatens to spill back in, so I rack my mind for a question, anything to keep the conversation going. “So I have to ask, is the Hounds of God like a religious thing? Because no offense, but it doesn’t seem like—”
I’m interrupted by the entire table bursting into laughter. Even Micah cracks a faint smile; by some mercy, there’s no mockery in it. Connor slowly bends down wheezing, his shaved head meeting star-spangled linoleum.
“Be nice,” Micah says, and the laughter fades. “She wouldn’t know.”
Royal answers first. “I mean, a couple of us are. I’m a Heathen, capital H. Norse gods and the like.”
“Alejandra’s Catholic,” Talisa says, tone teasing.
“I’m ex-Catholic,” Alejandra grumbles, reaching for the gold chain around her throat. When she pulls it out from under her shirt, a delicate cross is hanging from the bottom. “And just because there’s no hell doesn’t mean I wouldn’t burn for getting rid of my mom’s quinceañera gift.”
Guilt puts an unexpected spike through my heart. It’s been almost a decade since my quinceañera; the super-expensive makeup my mom got for me is long gone. I’d been overjoyed at the time, but suddenly I wish I had asked for something more permanent.
“Hey.” Alejandra’s clearly talking to me. “¿Hablas español?”
Damn. I’m just an open book tonight. “Sí, pero es muy malo porque mi papá es americano.”
She slaps a hand over her mouth, but it doesn’t keep a cackle from slipping forth. “Oh, I like you. This girl’s good company, Micah.”
I smile so wide it almost hurts. My mother is from Mexico and my dad’s on the light side of Cajun, but the neighborhood they settled in was almost blindingly white. High school was hellish as a result, and as much as I enjoyed college, it didn’t get much better on the social front. I’d have killed to hang out with someone like Alejandra—Latina, sapphic, and fearless.
There aren’t really any close friends in my life. After I met Andrew, I stopped going out as much, but even before then, I didn’t have someone with that “life-and-death” trust, like Royal said about Micah. The girls in my dance program were nice, but except for classes, our dreams and interests never intersected. I spent four years practicing myself bloody to make up for it, as if straight As would magically fix my problems.
Except real life doesn’t care much about grades, when it comes down to it.
Our food comes, derailing the conversation. My pancakes are a colorful, sugar-filled delight, but everyone else went hard on the protein. There’s at least half a cow’s worth of beef between their plates, with extra sides of eggs and sausage. Once the forks and knives are flying, we’re back to small talk, and even though I barely know anyone at the table, it’s easy to joke around. They don’t seem to mind when I throw in my two cents either.
Micah is the quiet one of the bunch, only responding in nods or single-word answers when a comment is directed her way. Yet I can tell how intently she listens to everyone, her body language focused on whoever’s speaking. Each time that attention falls on me, I almost lose my train of thought.
I’ve never met anyone who seemed so at home in their skin. Even if I didn’t know Micah was the leader among them, five minutes in her company would have proven the truth. It’s like the laws of the world simply don’t apply. She’s unquestionably in charge and free to do whatever she likes, whether that’s zipping a hundred down the highway or living off the grid.
I can’t remember the last time I did something just for myself, or to make my life better. With Andrew, I drifted between work and his place, only going home to sleep or zone out in front of the TV. My life was stuck. Now that my day-to-day has spun out on the side of the road, maybe that can change. What would I do, if I could do anything?
My teeth edge against my lip, eyes locked on Micah as she listens to Connor tell a very corny, meandering joke.
I’m so into her. And I shouldn’t be.
Like, I’m a bartender. I’ve talked countless girls out of rebounding with the first guy who promises to fix their broken heart with his dick, but here I am going full WNBA on Micah less than a day after breaking up with Andrew. Okay, I’d been thinking about leaving him for months, but still. I don’t even know if she’s into other women.
Even if she is, what if she’s weird about me being bi? The first girl I ever dated ragged on me about it during Pride, asking if I was fully converted yet. Andrew didn’t want to hear a word about it either, because somehow the fact that I’d slept with women before made him jealous.
“Hey,” Micah whispers. The others keep talking—they haven’t noticed. “You all right?”
She asked me that yesterday too, and it feels just as genuine. I can’t figure out why Micah cares so much, why she’s done so much for me without asking anything for return. Who knows where I would be right now if she hadn’t come over the horizon?
But I can’t say what’s on my mind, so I settle for another truth instead. “The tracker thing kind of freaked me out.”
“Yeah. I bet.” She frowns. “But no one followed us here, so chances are, he didn’t have a chance to use it. Now it’s gone.”
Even if he was enough of a horrible stalker to do the same thing to my car, it’s on the side of the road miles away. “Yeah. You’re right.”
Nadine sidles back over and Micah straightens up. She’d been leaning really, really close to me, but it hadn’t even registered.
“Anything else?” Nadine asks.
“No. I’ll pay.” Micah shifts, reaching into her pocket. She pulls out a wad of bills thick as my fist, peeling off three twenties before handing it over. “Rest is yours.”
Wait, she doesn’t have an apartment, but Micah’s walking around with a few thousand bucks in her jeans? Where does the money come from?
“Thank you, honey.” The cash goes right into the pocket of Nadine’s apron. “You ride back safe, okay? It’s late.”
I’m trying to fit the disparate pieces of Micah together in a single box that makes sense as we leave the diner. I’ve never met anyone like her, and I can’t figure out why she’s welcomed me into the group with barely any hesitation. Climbing on the back of her bike for the third time is easy—it’s almost starting to feel like habit.
We’re back on the highway a minute later, and I cling even tighter to Micah to ward off the cold. Even after the coffee, I’m pretty tired, so I get jolted from a half-asleep daze when her body straightens up on the bike.
“Tell Connor to hang back,” Micah calls over her shoulder to Talisa. “We’ve got more weight up front, and I can hear his wheels spinning.”
“Hey, Connor!” Talisa shouts. She has to at this speed, especially when the night wind is whipping around us. “Ease off the gas.”
Rubber screeches. Something metal wrenches against itself with a scream, and Micah spits a curse. “He hit the damn brake. Connor!”
Her shout is drowned out by a crash that leaves my ears ringing, followed by a horrible thud of flesh meeting asphalt.
Two things happen in my next breath: Micah takes one broad hand and braces it across my arms, squeezing tight, and she throws the motorcycle into a full one-eighty turn before rolling to a hard stop. My body can’t make sense of it, stomach roiling at the bike moving light as a toy while staying unmistakably solid underneath me.
The rest of the club has stopped too, leaving a chain of tire marks scattered across the highway. Alejandra’s already off her bike, with Talisa and Royal following after, running toward Connor. He’s writhing on the ground, his entire body twitching.
Oh God, what happened?
“Stay here,” Micah growls, letting go of me and knocking the bike’s kickstand down with her boot.
She’s off the motorcycle before I can respond, sprinting toward Connor. The others surround him in a semi-circle, which doesn’t make any sense. Why aren’t they helping? He’s howling in pain, and even from this far away, I can make out the dark stain spreading across the road under his arm.
I’m even more mystified when Micah steps past everyone and tackles Connor, pinning him down hard to the ground.
Fuck staying back. I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s screaming his head off, and I refuse to stand by and watch.
The club is silent as I approach, but Micah’s whispering something. She has Connor’s injured arm pinned down, but the other is cradling his head against her shoulder as she utters the same words over and over.
“Come on, Connor. Breathe. Breathe. You can heal this, come on.” Even though she’s speaking low and soft, something commanding is infusing Micah’s tone in a way I don’t understand. “It’s just pain. It’ll heal. You can’t surrender. She can’t see you.”
He lets out another sound, but it escapes low and guttural, more like a dog than a person. His bloody, demolished arm wrenches out of Micah’s grasp, and bone snaps. Gray fur bursts from tattooed skin, nails stretching out into massive black claws.
I stare, breath caught in my chest, so tight that I can’t move.
This isn’t real. There’s no way.
Micah’s hand catches Connor’s wrist, now twice as thick, and slams it against the ground, locking it in place with every muscle in her arm strained tight. He’s still snarling, still fighting, and something else inside him breaks. Micah rears back, and I catch a glimpse of fangs in Connor’s mouth, his jaw stretching wider than should ever be possible.
“I am your alpha, Connor Hughes, and you will bare your throat!”
Micah’s voice booms with so much force that I actually stumble back. As I recover, head spinning, Connor sprawls flat on the road, panting hard for breath. His teeth look normal, face drenched with sweat, but I watch in dull horror as Connor’s arm twitches and changes again, the fur and claws disappearing like they were never there.
“Oh my God,” I gasp.
Everyone turns to look at me, almost in unison. I meet Talisa’s eyes first, glowing bright as molten gold. Alejandra’s are the same. Royal too. I don’t wait to see Micah’s face.
I turn and run, escaping into the desert as fast as I can.