“Seems you might have a bigger problem than you originally thought with the local panther claw.” I turned to Raven then. “Might want to use all that authority you keep trying to throw around on the people who need it most. Women are disappearing, pelts are being stolen, and if they aren’t dead when they’re found, they’re broken and their animal caged. Your people are doing this.
“We’ll set them straight, even if that means wiping out the claw completely. This is unacceptable,” Raven told me as he glanced down at the decimated woman lying there. There was no life left in her. She died of her injuries as her pelt was stolen, or maybe as a result of something they did to her afterward. Either way, she was gone, so was her pelt, and she had been used to send a message that was received by more than just my club.
I turned my back on the corpse and started to head back inside when Raven called out to me. “When we get back from handling this unfortunate business, we will be dealing with the fact that you stole my mate out from under me.”
“She offered herself to me, didn’t know who you were, and we’ve already completed the bond. There’s not a damn thing to say. You snooze, you lose, pal.”
I didn’t wait around for his response and didn’t care what it was anyway. I needed to go hold my woman, because if I had been just minutes later than I was getting to her, that could have been her fate.
Chapter Three Hundred Eighty-Four
Walking in on my woman giving Bomber and Brace hell in a zombie-killing video game wasn’t exactly what I expected after what had just gone down with Raven, the body left at the gates, and the fact that we currently had two prisoners held in various parts of the clubhouse. It was a shot of normalcy in the newest fucking normal there could be and I loved it. A part of me secretly hoped the Raven fucker would go get himself killed off by the pelt-thieving ring, but I didn’t think we’d get that lucky.
“Who’s winning?” I waited to pose the question until I got my fill of watching my woman interacting with my brothers. It was like she was meant to be here with me, with us, all of us, this whole time. Chantal grinned back at me from over her shoulder.
“I am, of course. These boys need some lessons in how to shoot and get creative with weapons.”
“W-w-what? No! You take that back, right now!” Brace scoffed at her as a zombie took a chunk out of him. Chantal didn’t even respond beyond cocking an ‘I told you so’ eyebrow up at him and laughing.
“Your woman is vicious!” Bomber declared as his eyes kept shifting to the closet in the room we all knew he kept his little hoard of shiny shit in. He was nervous having so many people in his personal space and it showed. It didn’t matter if he trusted us or not, it was a dragon thing.
“You guys can move the game to my room, if you’d like,” I told him.
Chantal, who had her tongue poked out, and the controller held up close to her as if it was going to run while she told it to attack the zombies, pushed to pause the game. Then she turned to face me. “I told him that. I think he would be a much better player if he wasn’t worried about whatever skeletons he has about to pop out of that closet over there.” She tipped her head toward where Bomber stashed his shit. He paled.
“It’s not a problem,” he denied. “I don’t have a problem.”
“Sure you don’t, you hoarding bastard. Just this morning I saw you stash another fork in there. We’re going to run out!” A pillow sailed across the room and smacked Brace in the face. I knew he allowed it to happen just to make Chantal laugh, because he normally had superb reflexes.
Her laughter was a balm on my weary soul. “You guys are too much!” Her declaration was panted out amidst the chuckles she couldn’t contain. I moved into the room and shut the door behind me, then took a seat with my legs spread around Chantal’s where she was sitting on the floor in front of the television. She leaned back into me as she continued to whoop ass in the game and I just sat there content as fuck and soaking it all in. I’m not sure how long I watched them play before I ended up dozing off, but I was startled awake a little later as a knock rasped on the door.
“Gray, need you downstairs,” Knox called through the door. We all knew better than to open the door without Bomber’s express permission, no matter who was already on the other side. It showed how much he meant to all of us that we respected his quirks and his privacy the way we did, because the brothers had no qualms about just barging into anyone else’s room as they saw fit.
I leaned in and kissed Chantal before lifting myself from the floor. “Stay with Bomber and Brace, Moonbeam. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Don’t let him get to you,” she called out to me before I was able to get out the door.
“She’s a keeper, hmm?” Knox asked as I joined him in the hallway.
“If she wasn’t my mate already, I’d have a hard time letting her go to someone else,” I admitted.
“Lucky bastard!”
“Not going to argue that one,” I agreed. “What’s going on?”
“Raven and his band of dipshits are back. Thought you might be interested in sitting in on the briefing with him as well as what our guys found when they followed them there today.”
I grinned at Knox. “Let’s hope their story adds up to what our men
