Page 25 of Rocky Top

Being light.

Being Birdie.

Eliza and Emma were my people. And I’d ride through hell and back to keep ‘em safe.

Rocky

The woods were still clingin’ to me by the time I rolled into the Wild Dog. Pine needles in my damn boots. Blood under my nails. But through it all, Birdie’s scent was lingerin’ on my skin.

I parked my bike out back, shut off the engine, and just sat there a second, starin’ at the dark clubhouse like it might offer answers.

It didn’t.

Place was lit up like usual, bikes lined up like soldiers, music rumblin’ low behind the walls, everybody probably two beers past good judgment.

I tossed the helmet and went in. The weed made it smell like a garage fire mixed with a whiskey distillery. Home sweet home. The familiar mess wrapped around me, but it didn’t settle the gnawin’ in my gut.

“VP’s back,” called TNT from the far table, feet kicked up, knife in one hand, an apple in the other. He carved it with precision, like every slice was a warning.

“TNT,” I grunted. “That blade better not be for decoration.”

“Don’t worry,” he smirked. “Still plenty of blood on it from the last bastard who thought it was.”

Chevy sat beside him, dark-eyed and still as a shadow. Witch blood ran thick in that one. He didn’t say much, but when she did, itlanded like a prophecy. He had that sleepy, Southern charm that could flip like a switch when the spirits whispered.

Smokey was leanin’ on the bar, arms crossed over his chest like he’d rather be fightin’ than breathin’. “Heard you were out ridin’ solo,” he said. “That smart, after what happened last full moon?”

“Smarter than sittin’ here waitin’ for ‘em to come knockin’,” I muttered.

“Yeah? You find what you were lookin’ for?”

I thought of Birdie. Her scream. That damn rogue.

“No,” I lied.

We’d all been on edge since the last attack. The kind that don’t make the news ‘cause no one’s left alive to report it. And then what happened to Birdie. She could’ve ended up like the last folks. In the belly of a rogue.

Now, I had this new ache, somethin’ primal and stupid, curlin’ up my spine when I thought of her.

“Where’s Knox?” I asked, peelin’ off my cut and tossin’ it over a chair. I needed to tell him that the job was done.

“Out back with the prospect,” Smokey murmured. “Tryin’ to convince Flint not to bolt.”

“Shit,” I muttered, rakin’ a hand through my hair.

The kid had seen somethin’ in the woods, and word was, he was startin’ to put pieces together that didn’t belong to no humanpuzzle.

“Let him bolt,” TNT said. “He talks, we erase it.”

I gave him a look. “We don’t erase our own.”

TNT shrugged, unconvinced.

This was what it was like, bein’ VP in a club where most everyone carried a curse under their skin. I was the leash. The steel trap. The goddamn babysitter to monsters who wore leather and smiled too easy.

Almost all the officers were wolves like me, and unlike our prez Knox, but that’s not all the fuckers were. Well, Smokey, a firefighter was all claws and teeth. Nothin’ too special about our gray wolves. But TNT was half demon, they said. Red wolf came from some backwoods stock where possession ran in the family like red hair. The kind of man who laughed while burnin’ a body.

Another gray, Chevy could hex you six ways to Sunday without movin’ a muscle. His magic was subtle, but deadly. He always said he wouldn’t curse any brother. Unless he had a reason.

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