Editing: Darlene Tallman
Copyediting: Amabel Daniels
Chapter One Hundred Ten
The bloodsucker glowered at me from under the fringe lying lazily over his eyes. “Fuck you, shifter!”
He scrabbled up from where I’d thrown him out on his ass and scurried away, chancing occasional glances back at me as he fled like the coward he was. As soon as he had cleared the parking lot and disappeared into the night, I chuckled with a head shake and headed back into the club.
“What was that about?”
I turned around to see the club’s president, Six, standing there looking at me with something close to amusement coloring his features.
“Vamp managed to sneak inside.” I cleared my throat. “Won’t happen again, boss.”
Six narrowed his eyes and stared past me into the night, where the vampire was long gone, having used his preternatural speed to disappear into the dark. “How’d it happen?”
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall as I pulled a piece of gum from the front pocket of my jeans. I’d quit chewing dip, and gum was the only thing that kept me orally fixated since I didn’t smoke. “Not sure. Found him pawing Candi. She was holding her own, so I just watched until she looked at me and seemed to need help. He wouldn’t take his mitts off her. Didn’t know he was a vamp ’til the fucker hissed at me as I grabbed him.”
He looked annoyed but kept his cool. “All right, I’ll talk to her.”
“Thanks, boss.”
“Everything else all right?” he asked, piercing me with his intense golden-green eyes.
I nodded, my hands on my hips. “Yeah, copacetic, boss.”
“Good.” He clapped me on the shoulder and walked off.
Candi was one of the club whores, and while I never paid them much mind, it was my job to make sure everyone inside the club stayed safe. The look of panic on her face when the vamp had been all over her had sent off alarm bells in my head and I knew it was time to act.
As it was a Tuesday night, the club wasn’t very busy. Church was held on the weekends, and the bigger crowds didn’t show up until then, so it was a bit dead in here.
I felt her breath on me before her touch on my bare bicep.
“Thank you for what you did back there.”
I glanced down to see Candi standing next to me, her long red fingernails grazing up and down my tattooed arm. She peered up at me, her fake eyelashes batting as she waited for a response. I avoided dragging my gaze down to her humongous tits spilling out from the red leather top and kept my eyes trained above the chin like I’d learned to do with women in my thirty-plus years.
“You’re welcome, Candi. Not sure how that vamp got in here, anyway.”
I watched as she glanced around briefly before looking back to me. “Angelica has some kind of obsession with them. I think she invited him in. I just wish she’d keep her addictions outside of here. This is the only place I can relax and feel safe. But not with vamps running around.” The small shudder she barely suppressed didn’t go unnoticed by me.
I relaxed a little when I saw Candi show a more vulnerable side, and I put my hand on her bare shoulder in the same way Six had done to me. “It’s okay, he’s gone now. I’m sorry he slipped past me, but it won’t happen again. You really are safe in here.”
She lifted her eyes to mine, looking hopeful.
“Okay?” I asked.
She nodded, her platinum-blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Yeah, I’m good.” She glanced around the club, then back to me. “Thanks, Holden. You’re always one of the good guys.”
I bit back a smile. “Just doin’ my job.”
She winked at me and sauntered off. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and shot off a text to Six to let him know about Angelica’s little vampire addiction.
I sank into my recliner and blew out a breath. With a beer in one hand and the remote in the other, I popped on the TV and caught up on Sports Center. As the commentary droned on, my mind drifted.
I had so much going on lately. While I wasn’t a new prospect with the Dark Leopards MC, I was still pretty low on the food chain there. Which was fine with me. I had no big ambitions to take over the club or anything. I just wanted to be a part of their organization.
But… I hadn’t stumbled on the club by mistake. About six years ago, a serious error in judgment landed me in federal prison. I still wasn’t proud for agreeing to take that measly five-grand in cash in exchange for driving a kilo of meth over the U.S./Mexico border, but it is what it is. I’d been desperate as fuck for money at the time, and it seemed like an easy way to put a dent in my mother’s hospital bills. That shit had backfired on me and had cost me forty-eight months behind bars. Every day of those forty-eight months I’d kicked myself for having that goddamn 9mm pistol under the seat. Without the weapon, I’d have maybe done a year or two, tops.
The feds didn’t like anyone having guns but them. And now, I wasn’t allowed to have one at all—ever again.
My cellmate had belonged to the Dark Leopards MC before he had gotten locked up and he’d told me to look him up when I got out. The rest, as they say, is history. I was grateful they’d given me a hand up—not a hand out—after my release until I could get on my feet. About six months after I got out, I was able to land a job as a journeyman electrician for a local electric repair company. Turned out I was a
