Ducking into an alley, I kept my eye on my target and stripped before activating my gift. I’d learned at ten that suddenly disappearing in front of anyone tended to make people freak out, and it was worse if you disappeared, but your clothes didn’t. Stepping out, I noticed my target leaning against a big blue mailbox, scanning the area. Maybe he was looking for someone. Good. That meant his attention would be on whatever, and he was less likely to notice the disappearance of his wallet.
The man was a shifter, and my heart thudded. I swallowed hard, and it sounded loud in my ears. I moved closer. His leather cut made me pause, but only for a second. This man was giving off a don’t fuck with me vibe, and I had the feeling many didn’t argue with him. I needed his wallet, though. Three more steps. The pounding pulse in my ears drowned out the sounds around me. This man was bad news. One more step. I could do this. I’d done it a million times, and this was no different than anyone else, except this guy could probably kill me. Reaching for his wallet, I noticed the back of his cut. FUCK ME! Not probably kill me. Definitely kill me. Dark Leopards MC was spelled out in bold letters along with their logo. I’d picked the wrong person to steal from…or had I? If I managed to get his fat wallet, not only would I have his money, I could have the satisfaction that I stole from a patched member of the local badass MC.
Slowly and carefully, I detached the wallet from the chain and began to pull it out of his pocket, and then all hell broke loose. His large paw grabbed my wrist, squeezing hard, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out. It hurt like a motherfucker! How? How had he noticed me? He shouldn’t be able to see or smell me. I was completely invisible.
“Big mistake, boy,” he growled. See? Very naïve little shit.
I should have died right then and there. I should have been ripped apart and left to rot. But I wasn’t. To this day I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a kid he saw some potential in, or he wanted my gifts, but instead of killing me, Knox took me to the clubhouse, and for the first time in my life, I had a family. Dysfunctional and odd, but unlike the rest of the world, I knew my brothers had my back. I prospected, became a member, and climbed the ranks to sergeant at arms. No one fucked with Dark Leopards MC and lived to tell the tale.
362
Snow
“Dimitri, where is your head?” Siam asked over the phone. It wasn’t very long ago that she’d been saved from a fate worse than death. Taken then held prisoner. Her kidnappers fully intended to sell her or worse, but we stopped them before they could. The fire of hell had been rained down on them that day, and they disappeared. I still wasn’t sure we got them all, but they had scattered in the wind, and we hadn’t found a single clue that they were back.
“It’s Snow,” I corrected her while pinching the bridge of my nose. I’d been up for more than forty-eight hours and just wanted to crawl into my bed and pass the fuck out. I didn’t even have time to give a passing glance to any of the club whores we kept around. Even my dick was too exhausted to rise to the occasion.
“Dimitri,” she stressed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like my name, it was more like that was the old me and Snow was the new me. I was reborn when I joined the Dark Leopards MC, and Dimitri was laid to rest when I became a member. However, sometimes it was better to leave it alone when it came to Siam than it was to argue. “What?” I growled.
My blustering didn’t faze her in the least, she laughed, and even though I was annoyed at her, I had to smile. When I found her again, we were both seventeen, and I’d become a prospect instead of some little errand boy for the Dark Leopards. Knox, the president, actually made it happen with the help of Aces, our IT guy. She was in high school, had a boyfriend who practically threw himself at her feet, but she didn’t smile. When we were kids, she smiled all the time, even during the hard times. I didn’t contact her for a year, working my way up to it. I eventually did, and we were close again. I pulled her into my life, and then, she was targeted and taken. I was twenty-seven now and not the same naïve dumb idiot I had been as a child. To some, I was young, too young to hold the position I did, but they could all go to hell. I earned my place and my position, and if they wanted me to vacate it, they would have to physically remove me. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Are you coming to the bar or not?” she questioned, and I had a feeling I’d missed some of what she said. After she was rescued, she’d started to open up again, her smile was back.
“When?” My mind was foggy, and I had a hard time grasping onto anything she was saying. Hell, I could have promised her a fucking purple pony right now and wouldn’t remember.
“Tonight,” she groused, and I could easily pictur her stomping her foot and clenching her jaw. We were twins, but two more different people did not exist in the world. She was short at 5’2”, and I was tall, towering a foot over her. She was
