Chapter 2

Ivy

I drop the duffle into the booth of the seedy little bar in the godforsaken fucking town where I'm stuck. I feel strange, like a bright light has erupted on my insides and filled all of them with brilliant light, then cranked up the amps so it's super loud. What the fuck? I follow my bag into the booth and rub my head, taking a deep breath, waiting for the strange sensation to wane.

It doesn't, and I don't have time to fixate on it.

I need to get the fuck out of this town.

I need a fucking map. The stupid bus broke down, and now I need to figure out a way to get another thousand miles to Onyx City. No back- up bus for another week. No rental cars. No ride shares. No train stations—unless I can figure out how to get a ride to one. The closest airport is farther than that.

Fuck.

Ignoring the tingles racing through my body, I dig my phone out of my back pocket and slide it open, pulling up the map of Murrus Province. Carran Hollow is the town where I'm fucking stuck. If I don't fucking get to Onyx—I swallow, trying not to think about it, and start looking for options.

My body heats. I can't afford to suddenly be coming down with something. I need to get to my sister.

"Hey."

I look up from my phone at the shadowy figure at the end of the table. I sigh. "Fuck off."

He—because that's a dude's voice—chuckles. "Figures," he says.

Annoyed, I use my body to deter him, but the energy pulses inside me. I shiver. Dammit. I can't be getting sick.

Fucker doesn't take a hint and slides into the booth across from me. Only now I can see him, and I fucking hate that my breath stops up for a moment. Dear fucking fuck. He's… fuck. Not only is his voice nice, deep, with a butter-smooth accent, but he's gorgeous. His face is perfect if a bit intense and dark. Dark brows frame dark eyes with thick lashes. His nose is a touch wide and a touch crooked, from fighting, perhaps, and there's a scar across the bridge. His lips are perfectly shaped, proportional to everything on his face. There's ink sliding up his neck from under the collar of his t-shirt. All that rugged beauty is framed by wavy dark hair, short on the sides but longer on top, so strands of it fall across his face.

Fuck me, I think, but say, "What part of fuck off wasn't clear?" I look back at my phone but struggle to concentrate between hot-as-fuck dude across from me and the weird pulsing energy ripping under my skin. As much as I could sit there admiring this asshole's good looks, I don't have the time or the energy, even if I have the inclination.

He has the nerve to laugh again. "You're not from around here."

"Oh. What gave me away?"

"You look like you could use some help."

"Are these your go-to lines?" I scoff and toggle back and forth between schedules, but I blink. I can't seem to concentrate. What the fuck is wrong with me? "I suggest you return to whatever cave you crawled from and find an idiot who will fall for it."

Silence greets me. I'm used to silence, even if I hate it. It's when the voices are the loudest. The longer the silence stretches, I wonder if my words have chased him away. Disappointment slides through me considering that might be the case, because I would have liked him to work a bit harder—which is a stupid thing to think. When I look up, expecting to be disappointed, I'm not. He hasn't left. He's just sitting there in that black leather jacket with those intense dark eyes watching me, as if waiting for something.

I give him a questioning look. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Probably shouldn't say." He smirks, and fuck if that doesn't work for him. Fuck if it doesn't work for me.

Surprised by his audacity and in need of some distance, I sit back so I'm pressed up against the vinyl back of the booth. "Wow."

His grin deepens, and that fucking smile hits me right between my legs so that I have to squeeze my thighs together and adjust in my seat. That tingling sensation slams right into me, right there, as if I were touched, and I'm sure I've got a weird look. His smile widens, and it's one of those smiles that makes promises. I make a frustrated noise, which I swallow because I don't want him knowing he's got something that's working for me.

"Yeah. I mean, I should be a bit more modest, but I've heard that a few times." He leans forward, arms on the table.

I scoff and glance back at my phone, flipping between the map and the next town's schedule. "Unbelievable," I mutter.

"That too."

I can't help but look up at him again, shocked, but I want to laugh for some reason. That's even more off-putting. He's a fucking stranger in a Podunk town who could charm the pants right off me. And it's only been ten fucking minutes. In the course of my twenty-five years, I've come across my share of guys. Smart ones, dumb ones, charmers, alpha assholes, comedians, and pushovers. Some have been kind, most have not, so dealing with dudes is usually the same. But the brass on this one is something else along with… that fucking feeling that has me wanting to… I'm not sure. Moan? Vomit? Strip? Flick my clit? It's maddening.

I clamp down on my reaction, worried now as the sensation shifts, grabbing hold of the back of my neck, sending a message to the rest of me that I might need to run. Only… I don't want to run away. My impulse and the idiotic thought in my head are to run toward smirking, audacious, hottie. Which is stupid and dangerous.

It's me. I'm the stupid idiot from his cave!

"I could help." He looks at my phone.

"Did I ask?" I snap.

He leans back, and it's as if maybe I've finally pushed him off whatever track he'd been taking. He shakes his head. "Fucking hell," he mutters, "it totally fucking figures," and moves as if to leave the booth.

His words are hooks that sink in. What the fuck does that mean, I wonder. "I don't know you," I say.

The bell on the door jingles.

He glances at the door and tenses. "Fuck," he says under his breath, having caught sight of something that he obviously doesn't want to see. Then he glances at me, then shrugs. "Don't worry. You will." He stands, and fuck, his form is as gorgeous as the rest of him. He's long and lean. Tall in a way that isn't too much, but just fucking right. I glance at his ass as he leans toward the bar to grab something. His backside is rounded so nicely in those blue jeans that hug his hips perfectly. Not too tight but fitted enough to know that what's underneath is going to be good.

I bite my bottom lip then skim my tongue over the treatment I've given my skin.

He straightens, a helmet in his hands.

A vehicle!

"Hey," I say, scurrying from the booth before he can leave. "You've got a motorcycle." I stand, blocking him from the door.

He isn't looking at me. He's looking at something over my shoulder. "Yeah," he says, his face tense, his demeanor completely different now.

Fuck. I might have fucked up, I think.

I glance over my shoulder at a couple of guys standing near the entrance. They look feral, red-faced, and sweaty, as if they need a fix and quick. I ignore them and turn back to hottie.

"You're right. I could use some help. The bus I was on broke down and I really need to get… somewhere else. And there's no way out of this town for another week. I need to find a ride to the nearest bus depot." I don't know what I'm doing. This is a fucking stranger, and what exactly am I suggesting? Stupid. I shake my head.

The door rings again.

I turn and glance over my shoulder. Where there were two feral, red-faced men, now there are four, and weirdly, they all kind of look the same. The second two are an amalgamation of the first two, with their ruddy features and hungry gazes.

"I'd love to talk about that ride," he says, pushing me behind him. "But maybe we can do it somewhere else."

"My bag!" I exclaim.

He leans into the booth, grabs the strap, and pulls it from the seat, hoisting it over his head and settling it on his shoulder, all the while keeping his eyes glued to the front of the room.

I want to yank my bag away from him so it's safely back in my possession, but what was four men at the front of the bar is now eight. "What the hell?" I say, though it comes out like a whisper.

The hottie takes a step back into me, pushing me backward. "Out the back."

The mass of men at the front of the bar follows. "We'll take the calix," they all say in unison, which is creepy as fuck.

Calix?

"Sorry. No can do," the audacious hottie says. "She's mine."

She? Does he mean me?

"What the fuck?" I snap. My first impulse is to duck around this guy for his presumptuous statement, but there's a pack of frightening- looking men between him and the door talking gibberish, and I have a horrible feeling that it has something to do with me.

Out the back.

Only he has my duffle and I need that.

"Go," he says. "As much as I would like to think I can take eight of them. It's going to be sixteen soon, and I don't like those odds."

"You have my bag. I can't leave my bag."

"I'll give it to you outside," he says between clenched teeth. "Now go."

"Listen. I don't like being told?—"

"I don't give a fuck what you like right now. Get the fuck out the back," he snaps. The domineering edge of his voice snaps at my spine with something altogether pleasurable, despite the situation, and while normally I'd be telling him where he can take his bullshit, I listen, hurrying out the back of the bar. I burst through the metal door out into the alleyway, where I stumble through the door and catch myself against the pavement. When I look up, I freeze.

"What the fuck?" The words expel on a breath. I'm surrounded by a group of giant men, except they only have one eye. Then I scream.