Page 30 of Rocky Top

This was my club. Knox’s, technically, but I kept the wheels from fallin’ off. We weren’t just wolves. Hell, we weren’t just bikers. We were a damn zoo, dressed in cuts and attitude.

First one I saw was Bearcat, our tailgunner, posted up near the bar. Big bastard. Built like a semi-truck with a beard that made Paul Bunyan look patchy. Man didn’t own a shirt with sleeves. And the ladies sure as hell didn’t mind.

He got his name for being mythical but redneck. A bright white dire wolf in the shift, I shit you not. Ancient and larger than life, the kind you didn’t want chargin’ at you in the dark. Quiet most the time, unless the jukebox played old country. Then ol’ boy got sentimental and talked about a girl in Montana who broke his heart. Right now, he was talkin’ to a redhead with a tramp stamp that read, “Ride or Die.” Her face said mostly die. His boots were kicked up, beer in hand, watchin’ the room like he was born to guard it.

Next to him was Mate, our enforcer. Another gray wolf, but where Bearcat was muscle, Mate was all teeth. Lean, wiry, dangerous. He had a scar that cut through his eyebrow and made every woman in a ten-mile radius think he was a tragic poem in leather. Brother came from Boston originally, had that New England accent but in these parts sounded like he was from down under. No one knew the different. Anyhow, the asinine name stuck. He was flirtin’ with Sassy, one of the club girls, real subtle-like, his hand on her lower back and that grin that made women forget their upbringing.

Across the room, huddled in his own dark cloud, was Hog, another gray wolf in the club and the one most likely to put you through a wall if you looked at him wrong. He never talked much. Just grunted, drank, and lifted weights that should’ve broken the damn barbell. He was watchin’ a new waitress we hired named Jolene, but not like he was interested. More like he didn’t trust her yet. Couldn’t blame him. She was too sweet for this place.

Pickles, our nomad-turned-homebody, stood in the corner eatin’ Cheetos like it was a life mission. Nobody knew what the hell he really was, but word was he shifted into some hare-like thing—half man, half rabbit—like a deranged Easter Bunny that haunted your nightmares. No one had seen it, and none of us were sure we wanted to. Still, he’d rolled with Nashville for a while and got booted by their Prez for reasons no one would explain. Knox gave him a shot. So far, he hadn’t bitten anyone. Yet.

K.O., our cleaner, was loungin’ near the pool table, talkin’ to himself and sippin’ from a flask full of homemade hellfire. Coyote shifter, slick, twitchy, fast as hell. Man didn’t miss much. Rumor had it he’d cleaned up a kill back in Alabama so well the sheriff hired him to do their evidence disposal. You had to be a certain kind of fucked-up for that job. Now he took our kills to his contact at the body farm, aresearch project over at the University. But he smiled like a sinner on Sunday and never broke a sweat.

Taters, our tech guy, was hunkered down in the corner booth with three burner phones, a busted laptop, and a list of names he wouldn’t explain. Tech-savvy for a gray wolf. Looked like he belonged in a college dorm, not a biker bar, but he could wipe your online presence in six minutes flat. He wore ironic t-shirts and boots that cost more than my first Harley.

And then there was Squeegee.

Poor bastard.

Prospect with too much energy and not enough sense. He got bit by a rogue jackal on a run last year, and we weren’t sure what the hell he was anymore. His eyes flashed yellow sometimes, and he snarled in his sleep. No one wanted to bunk near him. But he was loyal. Dumb, but loyal. Right now, he was sweepin’ broken glass and tryin’ not to stare too long at Tara’s tits.

Speak of the devil…

Tara slinked by in black leather pants and a smirk. She was highborn in the shifter world. Came from one of those pureblood families that held court in the Appalachians. Full-blooded wolf. Elegant. Deadly. Thought the club was beneath her unless it was between her thighs. She’d had a thing for Knox before Eliza came along. Didn’t like losing.

Now, her sights were on me.

She paused beside me, leanin’ in like she belonged on my arm. “Long night?” she asked,voice honey thick.

“Gettin’ longer,” I muttered, sippin’ my whiskey without lookin’ her way.

“You could use a distraction,” she purred. Her hand grazed my vest.

I caught her wrist before it went any lower.

“You’re sniffing the wrong dogs asshole, darlin’,” I said, low and even.

Her lips curled. “You don’t even know what you’re missin’, Rocky.”

“I know exactly what I’d be gettin’. A headache and a mess I’d have to explain later, to your brother.”

That got a few snickers from the nearby table. Even TNT lifted his head, smirkin’.

“You scared of Bearcat?” Tara’s smile dropped, her eyes flashin’ wolf-gold for a second. “Don’t say I didn’t offer.”

I watched her walk away, hips swayin’ like a threat.

I didn’t want a power-play princess or a shifter with an agenda. I wanted…

Shit.

I wanted Birdie.

Trouble was, I didn’t know how to want her without wreckin’ her whole goddamn world.

AndI didn’t know if I could stop myself from tryin’.

Birdie.

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