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Day 156 of the re-emerged Hat Island pack, Saturday, Nov. 9, Tennant Lake campground
Abby called Okami on the phone and told him what Mei had decided. There was silence. Abby tried not to laugh, but she was afraid Okami knew it — if not because he was a smart man, then because he could sense it through their bond.
“Mei needs to call her father, then,” Okami said at last. “I will wait here until he has finished raging, and then we will make plans for the young men. How many did she say?”
Abby wasn’t sure, but better to leave fewer than expected instead of more. “Twenty-five?” she hazarded.
Okami grunted. “Have her call Hiro right away.”
Abby gave Mei the message and watched with amusement as the younger woman winced. Mei just nodded and moved off to make the call privately. Abby thought Okami had the right of it, however. Hiro would rant a bit, and then welcome his daughter’s proteges to his pack house, and farm them out somewhere. She snickered at Okami’s characterization, and then refocused on the table. Ryder and Jessie weren’t back from their walk and talk, and really, Ryder needed to be part of the discussion about the Okanogan. Benny was pacing and drinking coffee. She watched him for a moment. Was there anything she needed to do?
Abby couldn’t think of anything. “Breakfast,” she announced, and she got up and headed around the RV to the men’s pavilion to get a plate of the meat she could smell on the grill. Bacon, ham, sausage? Yes. And maybe some toast.
She was too focused on the smell of breakfast that she missed the wolf — in wolf form! — bearing down on her until it was almost too late. And then it took a second blink to understand what she was seeing. Really? In wolf form?
Abby heard shouts and knew that Jake was just two steps behind her. She knew where all of her people were, actually, but none of them were between her and the wolf coming at her. She widened her stance a bit, bracing herself for impact, and then she let her wolf surge closer to the surface, and shifted her hands.
Still, the impact of a 200-pound animal staggered her. He was going for her throat, and that was his mistake. Should have gone for her gut, she thought, a bit grim that she’d become such an expert in this. She didn’t make the same mistake — she raked his belly with her claws, opening him up. And then she danced backward, to avoid his bite. What big teeth you have, grandmother, she thought, a bit hysterically.
And then Cujo had the wolf in his own hands, and Jake had put himself between her and her attacker. “Make him shift,” Abby ordered. Cujo nodded. He said something to the wolf, and then there was a naked man on the ground, guts leaking out of him. Abby grimaced.
“Name, and pack,” Cujo growled. Abby worried he was close to losing control of his own wolf. And if this group of men needed to know what a terrifying alpha wolf was like, they were about to get a demonstration.
Easy, she sent. We’re all fine. Cujo took a steadying breath and nodded.
The man mumbled something. Cujo rocked back on his heels. “Penticton,” he said. “With your permission, Alpha, I have a few more questions for him.”
“He’s all yours,” she said, and turned away. She didn’t need to watch that.
Ryder was standing behind her, in guard over the women. Smart, she approved. It could have been a feint — draw her and her protectors into a battle here, and then raid the unprotected women. That second attack didn’t happen.
Abby considered it. The wolf who had attacked her might have been the commander of the guards who had attacked Ryder last night.
“We need to get out of here,” Ryder said to her. Jessie appeared and handed her a cup of coffee and a napkin loaded up with bacon. Bless the girl, Abby thought gratefully. She attacked the bacon. A partial shift took a lot of energy.
And it was bacon.
“They know where we are,” Ryder was saying. “We’re sitting ducks.”
Abby nodded. “Mei is negotiating with her father,” she said, looking around. Mei was still on the phone. The attack hadn’t taken very long.
I’m sorry Abby, Jake said through their link. I shouldn’t have been caught off guard like that.
Not your fault, she assured him. I didn’t think. I should have warned you I was on a straight-line march toward breakfast.
Jake snorted. Ryder’s right, though. We’ve been here too long.
“So we’re going to have to split up,” she continued out loud. “Mei and a team will take some of the young men into Bellingham and out to her father’s pack house. The rest of us head down to Everett and out to Hat Island. We’ll have to house all these people until Mei makes arrangements at her apartment complex. Suggestions?”
Ryder looked around the campground, as if he were evaluating numbers of people, and transportation options. “We’ll use the two vans to take Mei’s young men to her father,” he decided. “We’ll put you and Jake on a bike.” He looked at Jake. “I’m guessing you haven’t forgotten how to ride one?”
Jake grinned. “I remember.”
Abby looked at him. He knew how to ride a bike? Now was not the time to grill him — he was studying the bikes parked beyond the church bus. “Someone going to loan me one?”
Ryder nodded. “We’ll get you one.” He looked at Cujo who had joined them, wiping his hands on some napkins. “I’d like to put you on a bike too with Mei riding behind you. You good with that?”
“Better ask her,” Cujo advised. “But yeah, that works for me.”
“I’ll send a half-dozen of my men as your escort,” Ryder continued. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Maggie and Brenda can continue driving the RVs. Alefosio drives the bus. Van drivers?”
“Jason and David,” Cujo said promptly.
Ryder just nodded. “That works,” he decided. “Then another half-dozen of mine will follow the RVs. Diego will take the bulk of my wolves on south to home. We’ve got more bikers than is good for us. But we need to talk about who goes on to Odessa — if anyone — and who guards.”
“On Hat Island,” Jake said. “This place isn’t secure. They know we’re here.”
“Do we know who ‘they’ are?” Abby asked.
“Penticton,” Cujo said. “Apparently, a number of Chen’s people fled there, and they’re regrouping under the leadership of the Penticton Alpha, and his new pack Second.”
Abby saw Ryder’s quick glance in Cujo’s direction. Something about that statement meant something to the man. She wished she had a link to him so she could ask what. But the whole camp felt precarious. She didn’t ask questions that would hold them up.
Mei came back. “We’re good,” she announced. “Dad’s expecting us.”
Abby caught Cujo’s amusement — a wisp in her mind, and a crinkling of his eyes. Mei had better not get wind of it, or he’d pay, she warned him mentally.
Cujo just looked more amused.
Men, Abby thought, torn between amusement and disgust. Did he want to wind up Mei? Why?
More amusement. She rolled her eyes.
“Brenda, get the Alpha a helmet,” Ryder ordered. “Since you’re driving an RV, tell Inky that you need your bike back — Jake can use it.”
Brenda nodded, and ducked inside the RV — the one where the twins weren’t, Abby noted. A woman named Maggie had staked out that one. Jake took the helmet from Brenda and she showed him a motorbike. Abby watched with narrowed eyes. She’d never ridden one before.
“You’ll need a warmer jacket,” Benny said softly at her side. He’d stepped up when Jake had gone to check out the bike — and he was methodically going over the bike inch by inch. Abby was used to his paranoia, she glanced at Brenda and Carl. They just looked amused. Abby guessed paranoia was nothing new to them either.
“I’ve never ridden one,” she confessed to Benny. “I don’t know how.”
Benny grinned. “Easy,” he said. “You sit behind Jake, wrap your arms around him so tight he can’t breathe. Then you lean when he leans. Think of yourself as one body.....” He considered that. “Actually with your bond, that might be interesting.”
Of course, he found it interesting, Abby thought with some sourness. Benny found everything interesting.
And you don’t? Benny demanded in her brain.
She ignored that.
And then she just waited, while Ryder organized things to his liking. “He’s good,” she said to Jake, who had returned to her side, carrying two helmets.
Jake nodded. “A lot of running a motorcycle club is just this — logistics. But if he’s who I think he is, he did this in the Army too. Transport.”
Abby thought transport meant trucks, but it seemed to mean something more to Jake. She was missing something, she thought. Jake had been a Marine — a Lt. Colonel at that. Why would he know anything about an Army enlisted man?
She started to ask, when there was trouble. Jake started to put her behind him but stopped when she glared at him. She could take care of herself, hadn’t she just demonstrated that?
You shouldn’t have to, Jake argued. But he stayed at her back.
Besides, the biker wasn’t coming at her. He came for Ryder.
“Why are we doing this?” he shouted. “We should be heading home. Hell, we should be home by now. Instead we’re babysitting this bunch? It’s not like they’re some presidential candidate. Get us out of here.”
Don’t tell me Ryder’s a Biker for POTUS, Abby said to Benny, truly appalled at the idea.
No, not him, or any of his pack, Benny said with amusement. But his attention remained on Ryder, and the confrontation. Abby stopped distracting him.
People backed away, giving Ryder room. He rushed the man, grabbed his fist, and twisted his arm behind his back. The man yelped.
“We’re doing it because I said so,” Ryder said calmly, but his voice carried. He intended it to, Abby thought. “That it. That’s all the reason you need to know. I gave my word. Unless you’re challenging me, Timms? You want to lead this sorry bunch of bikers?”
“No, Ryder,” the man’s voice was softer now. “I’m sorry. I need to ride. That’s all.”
“And if you stop interfering with me getting things organized, we’ll all be on the road faster,” Ryder said. The crowd snickered a bit. Crisis over, Abby thought, fascinated by the dynamics. Ryder still had the man’s arm twisted up behind him, and they stood chest to chest. Control, she thought. He’s controlling him physically, but he’s also giving him a chance to regain self-control.
Yes, Benny sent. They rely on him to be able to do that. He’s demonstrating that he is in control, of the club, of himself, and of them. And even when one of them loses it, he will still be in control of them.
More than that, Abby thought back. Look how he’s doing it. He’s up close. Body to body, in a way that heterosexual men don’t do. I mean he could have just given him a hug.
Benny was snickering at that. No, bikers don’t have group hugs, he agreed.
Abby grinned, but her eyes were on the two men still standing in the center of the ring of people, mostly other bikers, but her people too. So he caused pain, but not damage, Abby went on. He’ll feel it every time he uses that arm — the whole ride, I suspect — but he’s not damaged. The club doesn’t have to wait until he heals or leave him behind.
Benny considered that. Interesting.
Abby nodded. And he’s controlling him so that he can’t do something so stupid Ryder can’t overlook — like challenge him. He’s letting him get his own control back before he releases him.
And there he goes, Benny agreed, as Ryder stepped back from the man.
“We’re doing this, because that’s my brother,” Ryder said. “And because I took the job. And I’d rather help out victims of abuse than some no-account politician, and so would you.”
There was laughter.
“And we’re doing this, because it’s the right thing to do,” Ryder said quietly. “And sometimes, even a bunch of bad-ass shifter bikers ought to do the right thing. But none of that matters really. We’re doing it, because I said so. And if you don’t like it? You know the rules. Ride out, and don’t come back. Or challenge me.”
“Got it,” someone said.
Ryder nodded, looking around, meeting people’s eyes. And then he walked over to Abby. “I’d like you to get started down I-5,” he said. “We’ll send others after you. But....”
Abby smiled at him. “But the Alpha leads,” she finished for him. “Get me headed to the barn and the rest of the cows will follow.”
“Something like that,” Ryder agreed with a grin.
Jake nodded then fastened Abby’s helmet on her head, and checked for fit, and then swung one leg over the bike like he did indeed know how to ride one. Ryder helped Abby get on behind him. “Snuggle up tight,” he said, “and wrap your arms around him. The tighter you are, the easier it is for you to feel his body move and move with it.”
He grinned at her. And Abby just laughed. She wasn’t going to touch that. She heard the sexual innuendo loud and clear.
“I’ll be bringing up the rear,” Ryder said. “No one gets left behind.”
Jake looked at him. “Ryder?”
Ryder stopped, but didn’t turn back to look at them.
“You were the soldier at Mosul, weren’t you?”
“I was,” he said, but didn’t look at them. “But I couldn’t get them all out to safety.”
“More lived than would have without you,” Jake said. “Sometimes it’s good to remember that too.”
Ryder did glance around at that. “Got your own nightmares, do you, Marine?”
Jake grunted. “Yeah, I do.” He started the motorcycle, and Abby wrapped her arms around him as instructed. Then she realized where her hands were resting and snatched them back.
No, that’s how you know you’re holding on tight enough, Jake said with amusement. Just keep your hands where they were, and press those breasts against my back, and we’re good.
He started slowly down the exit road toward the freeway. Really good, he added.
Abby laughed.
The trick is to not think of other things, however, Jake said. No daydreaming! No chats with Benny about links and bonds. You need to be present in your body. Let your body sync with mine. Ryder’s not wrong — it’s a lot like making love.
Abby paused, because she had been going to do exactly that — think about what Benny had said about links and bonds. I can’t think? she asked, wondering if she could even do that for 90 minutes.
Jake was amused, and it came clearly through their bond. Just feel, Alpha. Just feel.
Well, she’d try. Abby pressed her breasts tightly against Jake’s back, and let her hands rest just below his belt buckle. She felt his body respond. OK, she thought with a grin. Just feel, might be fine.