Page 5 of Vampires & Bikers

“From whom?”

“Sunny.”

“Sunny?”

“Sunny the Snake.”

The door outside the club slammed and I felt rather than heard the men shifting into their animal selves. The air changed, became supercharged. I could hear sniffing and snarling. Wolves. I needed to go. I dropped Tomás and shot into the air, blending into the shadows before they could find me. The effects of my charm would mean that he’d forget who he’d spoken to and about what, but he might remember the girl. I needed to ensure that she was safe.

I moved among the trees and once I knew I was safe, I trained my thinking on her.

Ruby.

She wasn’t far.

I focused on the feel of her skin, let it call to me.

It led me through dirty streets lined by ramshackle houses and boarded-up shops with broken windows. This might have been a sweet little town once, but not anymore. There were no shops or businesses, just boarded up buildings with broken windows, a dumping ground now for lost souls, broken people. There was trash everywhere. I knew things were bad outside the cities but this was one of the worst towns I’d ever seen. It was outlaw country where the shifters ruled. I couldn’t imagine a beautiful woman like Ruby living in a foul place like this.

I was pulled towards a small house next to a vacant lot.

She was here, I could feel it.

Ruby.

It was meant to be.

I knocked on her door, only once.

She knew I was coming.

The agony of anticipating her opening the door was the most exquisite torture.

Chapter 3

Ruby

There is a knock on the door.

It is a soft rap rather than someone pounding on the wood.

I know who it is, of course.

I freeze on the spot, unable to move. My thoughts are racing and all I can think of is that he’s here. The vampire is here.

He will know that I am inside the house, that I’m deciding what to do but he doesn’t knock again, he’s waiting for me to answer the door. I don’t know what will happen if I open the door, or maybe I do, maybe I want it to happen. I felt it in his eyes, the way he looked at me. The way he wanted me.

I try to banish these ideas from my head.

This can’t happen, it would be a disaster.

I know this for a fact.

I was born in this shithole of a shifter town, a place that everyone leaves the moment they can but we couldn’t leave. With a sick mom and a father who got sent to prison before he could pay Tomás back for drugs he had lost, the debt got transferred to me, the only child of a man everyone called Cat, for obvious reasons, I guess. My father’s alter ego is a bobcat, fierce, but no match for the wolves in these packs. They are huge and ferocious.

Tomás gave me a job in his club, taking half my wages and telling me if I even think of sneaking away one night, he’d take his rage out on my mother. My poor mom, sick with complications of diabetes and struggling to stay alive after everything that’s happened to her. I can’t let that happen.

I’ve worked at the strip club for almost five years now, hating every minute, trying to find a way out. Allowing one of the bikers to come around sometimes, for protection. Danny has always had the hots for me. He has managed to work himself up at the club as part of the protection. He rides out with the pack as a captain of one of the groups. He is known as an enforcer, which means he is not scared of violence or handing out justice. His idea of justice, of course, which usually has nothing just about it at all. It doesn’t help that he has a short temper and is easily riled, especially when he has been drinking, which is most days.

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