14. Neo

Chapter 14

Neo

C ree gives me the address and I map out the best route to get to her. Fuck. I still can't believe I have a mate. When King showed me her picture, my entire world stopped. I've never seen anyone more breath-taking in my life. I was already half in love with her just from Jax's description. Now? It's like Jax said, she's everything I never knew I wanted.

I ride in my position next to Prez as we fly down the highway. It takes an hour but feels like the blink of an eye as we pull to a stop at the end of her long driveway. We shut our bikes off and leave them to walk the rest of the way. We don't want to alert her to our presence and risk spooking her again.

"Check the garage for her bike. Let's make sure this is the right place before we go any further," King instructs.

Jax leads the way and I follow before anyone else can say otherwise. We slip around the side of the garage and find a door. It's dark as fuck but with our shifter sight, we have no problem seeing.

As soon as he steps in, Jax inhales deeply and grins the sinister smile he gets when he's found his prey. "This is it. I can smell her."

"She's got a nice ride. That fucking Bugatti is a thing of beauty too. And you know I prefer my rides with two wheels," I chuckle as we walk further into the dark space.

We walk by a room that has a soft glow of light filtering through the door. I turn to look at King, waiting for directions. We should definitely check it out. What if she's in there? But as always, I defer to my prez. He gives me the up nod and I turn the knob.

Unlocked.

Again.

What does our mate have against locking doors?

There's no sign of our mate, but since Jax pointed out her smell, I can tell she spends a lot of time in here. Her scent is strong.

"Ok, am I seeing what I think I am? Is this room loaded with almost every poisonous snake on earth? And holy hell, a shit ton of poisonous insects too!" I point out as I look around. "I think our mate has a death wish. She has some of the worst toxins on earth here."

Jax growls but I ignore him as I check out the room. The setup is incredible. They're not caged per se. Everyone is set up as a habitat specific to its inhabitants. As we are looking around, the hairs on my neck stand up.

I slowly turn and see why. A spitting cobra is on a shelf eye level with KC if he were to turn around. "King, don't move fast. But behind you is a spitter. He looks pissed and not in a cage."

Jax is farther away, turns, and sees it. "Damn, he's big, and pissed." He chuckles. "Guess we know why the system wasn't armed. He is the system."

KC doesn't move more than needed to turn to see it for himself. However, Jax does. He has the snake by the neck and hisses back at it when it spits on him. The snake must sense his scorpion because he relaxes into Jax. Thank god for DJ insisting we build a tolerance for every toxin and poison otherwise we'd be rushing Jax to the hospital right now.

I walk over to an enclosure that has to be his and open it. "Here Jax, we better not hurt him. She obviously likes them all and we don't want to piss her off by hurting her pets. If we did, we might never get laid again."

We leave as quietly as we came without disturbing anything else. King leads the way back outside and DJ whips his head around, sensing our presence. Cree has his nose buried in his tablet when we walk up to them. And Beck doesn't take his eyes off the house.

"Well? Is this it?" DJ asks.

"This is it. Our girl is all kinds of crazy and I can't wait to meet her!" I answer before Jax or King can.

"What do you mean she's crazy?" Beck glares at me.

"Dude. This chick has a room full of the most lethal snakes and spiders known to man," I tell him, still in awe of our mate.

"Oh. She's that kind of crazy," he laughs.

"Yeah, King almost got eaten by a cobra," I snicker. "Jax saved him, though. Got spit on for his efforts, but once the snake sensed his scorpion it calmed down."

"Damn. You ok, Jax?"

"I'm fine. It'll take more than a little snake venom to get me down." He smirks.

"Yeah, thanks to me," DJ mutters with a roll of his eyes.

King shakes his head and walks over to Cree as DJ and Jax banter. "What'd you find, Cree?" King stops next to him and waits for his update.

"This house belongs to a dummy corporation that doesn't exist. It was purchased roughly ten years ago with cash—literal cash not a check. I'm still bouncing around, trying to find who she is," Cree mutters as he continues whatever it is he's doing on his tablet.

Finally, her lights go out and I look over at Cree. "Alarm?"

He types a couple things on his computer before answering, "Not armed. But from what you said, who knows what we're gonna find inside."

I look over at Jax. "You doing OK?" He nods, but doesn't say a word. He's hyper-focused to the point I see his eyes almost neon in color. Which tells me his scorpion is very close to the surface.

When we get to the door, King steps forward and knocks.