Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Bring It On

Nera

A loud knocking woke me. I blearily picked up my phone and checked my phone: 6:52 a.m.

"Nera," came a male voice from the other side of the door. "It's Wizard. Are you up?"

I got up and opened the door. "What?"

"Psycho needs you, now. In Rumble," he replied, looking stressed.

I took in his uncharacteristically unkempt appearance. His tee and jeans were dirty and—was that dried blood around his mouth? His short hair was sticking up everywhere.

"Um, okay, give me one second to throw some clothes on," I said, closing the door in his face.

I slipped on the clothes I'd worn yesterday that were sitting on the end of my bed and grabbed a hat, sliding it over my head because I could only imagine what my hair looked like.

"Let's go," he said, rushing quickly through the clubhouse. "Head to Rumble, I gotta find Cutter."

"Check the kitchen," I muttered, since I could smell food cooking.

I fast-walked through the clubhouse, past the loungers and TVs where all was quiet, and out the front door into the bright morning sunshine. I used the path around the front that took me to the bar, and quickly opened the door.

What I saw made me gasp in horror. The minute I locked eyes with the man—the vampire—in the cage, I almost lost my stomach contents. It was him.

I stood dumfounded for… I didn't know how long, and then I got mad. I got angry. I raced toward the cage and screamed, but strong arms pulled me back so I couldn't get close.

"Let me go," I snapped, wiggling out of Shep's arms. "In fact, give me your gun." I held my hand out and set my jaw.

He laughed but then dropped the smile when he saw my scowl. "Slow down there, Buffy."

"What's it doing here?" I demanded. I looked into the cage to see the vampire holding a dirty white cloth to his neck and scowling at me. Good, served him right for trying to choke me in that warehouse.

"He invaded our bayou. I asked you here to confirm this is the vamp that got away, but by your reaction, I'm assuming so."

I turned and looked at him, as he was still staring at me. "Where's Deon?"

"Fuck off, witch."

"Dolor!" I waved my hand, giving him the mother of all brain stings.

He screamed and dropped the cloth, gripping his head.

Menace, Trigger, and Psycho all chuckled.

Psycho turned toward the vamp. "What's your name?"

He was breathing heavy from the pain of the headache and said, "I don't think so, Psycho."

I couldn't tell if he meant it as an insult or was trying to show us he knew my man's name. It didn't matter, it wasn't like these guys were trying to hide their names or identities in front of this vamp, which he should know meant that he wouldn't be "alive" very much longer.

"Just kill me already or get me out of this cage. It reeks like wet dog," he snapped.

I threw him a look and he shrank back a little.

"Where's Deon?" I asked again.

"I don't know," he replied.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Bullshit."

"Believe me or don't, I don't fucking care. He took off that night you set him on fire and I haven't seen him since."

"What were you doing in the bayou?" Psycho asked.

The vamp looked at him long and hard before answering, "I was hiding out there, trying to figure out what I was going to do. It's dark enough there during the day. If I'd had known you mutts turned there, I would have split days ago."

Psycho pulled out his phone. "Call Deon."

He stared at the proffered phone but didn't make a move. "You don't think I've already tried that? He had a burner. It's no longer a working number."

"Wow, so he just ditched you? No loyalty amongst sex traffickers, huh?" I jeered.

"We're not sex traffickers," he came back quickly. "We sell human girls to vamps as blood whores."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, yeah. That's so much better than being a sex trafficker. Does your friend Deon know he isn't supposed to touch the merchandise?" I asked, my hands on my hips.

He licked his lips and looked uncomfortable, refusing to meet my eye. "We all told him to stop that shit. He didn't listen. I knew it would catch up to him one day."

"So he's the only one of you who were abusing the girls?" Psycho asked. "You didn't touch any of them?"

"Only when I snatched them, but I never touched them in… that way. Only Deon." Then he grinned. "Human girls can't handle me in bed. I usually end up killing them."

Menace, who was closest to the cage, reached through the bars at the top and snatched him by the hair, then slammed his head into the top of it.

"Ow, you creepy fucker!" the vampire hollered, looking up at Menace.

"Like I haven't heard that before," he said with a chuckle, releasing his hair.

"Where do you take the girls?" Trigger asked, his massive arms folded across his cut.

He was silent then, not so quick to throw out an answer.

"Menace, your switchblade," Trigger said, holding out his hand. Menace plunked it into Trigger's hand. He then flicked it open and got close to the cage. "I'm going to start cutting off fingers, then I'll move to… larger appendages."

"If I tell you, I'm as good as dead," the vamp said, eyeing the switchblade.

"If you don't tell us, you'll wish you were," Psycho replied, his arms folded across his cut.

"Fuck," he muttered. "There's a location in Hancock County where we meet up with them and trade the girls."

"Why do you only take one a time and leave the rest in a location for weeks?" I asked.

"I don't know. That's just what they told us to do," he replied.

"When's the next exchange?" Psycho asked.

He licked his lips then clamped them shut, and Trigger flicked the switchblade open and closed. He asked to anyone, "What's the date?"

"Thursday, the twenty-third," I replied.

He cursed under his breath. "Uh, tonight. But who knows if it'll happen because all our girls escaped." The vamp looked at me.

"Oh, I'm sure dickhead found some more vamps and managed to snatch a few girls after his burns healed," I snarled.

"You're gonna take us to the location," Psycho said. He looked over to the bar where Cutter had been busy setting out food.

"I'm hungry and I need a shower. Take turns babysitting." He pointed to the vampire inmate and Trigger, Menace, Chaos, Wizard, and Strife nodded.

Psycho grabbed my hand and led me out the front door.

"You know," I said after we were outside. "They have Anna. Maybe she'll be there tonight?"

He looked at me gravely. "I don't know. I'm sure they offloaded her already. I'm sorry."

I hung my head. He was right. Why would they hold onto her this long?

Shep used his fingers to lift my chin. "I don't want you to get your hopes up, but we'll look for her, okay?"

"Thank you."

"C'mon." He put me on the back of his bike and we took the short road to his house.

Water rained down on me from Shep's fancy showerheads. He had a massive shower I could throw a party in, four showerheads not missing an inch of our bodies.

Not that we were paying attention to the water.

Shep ran the soapy loofah down my spine, bending to kiss each of my ass cheeks before he soaped them up, then ran it down each of my legs slowly. Then he stood and went around to the front, where water dripped down my body and off my pebbled breasts. He soaped up my neck, chest, then both breasts, his cock standing at attention and pointing right at me. I stared down at it with desire before raising my gaze back to him, where he stared at me with heat blazing in his eyes.

He washed the rest of me and then slammed me up against the tiled wall of the shower, his hand around my throat. It startled me at first, but I knew I could trust Shep. I could trust this man wouldn't hurt me—my mate. I knew he cared about me, but he also had some quirks that I was learning.

He liked to be in control.

With his giant hand pinning me to the wall, he bent slightly and used his other hand to slide his dick inside me. I gasped, and his grip tightened on my throat. I felt a myriad of things all at once: a slight fear, fullness from his cock, pleasure from it on my clit, and love and deep emotion from the way he was looking at me like he'd tear the world down for me. It was sensory overload and a climax was fast approaching. As he fucked me hard and fast up against the wall, he reached up and twisted my nipple between his slick fingers and the orgasm rushed to the surface so fast, I screamed.

"Fuck yeah, come for me, baby. Clench that pussy around my cock. Milk me. Good girl."

I was about to come down from my high when he suddenly pulled out of me and spurted his cum all over my stomach. Before the water washed it away, he leaned down, licked it off, then stood back up, spitting it into my mouth, where I swallowed the salty substance with nothing but surprise.

I gasped when his mouth left mine, and I looked into his warm brown eyes and saw he was smiling wide with those perfect white teeth. "Wow," I breathed.

He rinsed his mouth out under the shower and spit it out, then asked, "What? The choking or the snowball?"

"Snowball?"

"The little salty surprise I gave you." He grinned and grabbed the shampoo. He lathered up my hair before he washed his own.

"All of it," I admitted. "So hot."

He suddenly grabbed my neck again, squeezing gently and looking at me in the eye. "Don't ever forget you're mine. Anyone else who touches you is dead."

I swallowed hard at his words, but the possessiveness of them, made me shiver, despite the heat and steam of the shower.

"Say, ‘yes, Shep.'"

"Yes, Shep." I rinsed my hair under one of the showerheads and then opened my eyes. "Same goes for you. We're in this together. Nobody else comes between us, and I will give any woman who touches you a raging case of herpes." I wiggled my fingers.

He chuckled and grabbed me in a hug. "God, I love you, Nera."

I looked up at him, wide-eyed. "I love you, too."

He leaned and kissed me and we stood under the water until it went cold.