Rex’s voice stopped me mid-step. “Wait, why are you still in that get-up anyway? Too good for the clothes Doc gave you?”
His earlier words about being waited on hand and foot returned unbidden to my mind and embarrassment filled me over my inability to undress myself last night. That embarrassment quickly turned into a hot rage and I whirled on my heel, stomping back across the kitchen to him.
“If you really must know I couldn’t get out of my dress, you insufferable”—I paused, trying to come up with the worst insult that I could after a long night of no sleep— “cad!” I finished with a little stomp of my barefoot.
As soon as the words left my mouth all of the bravado drained out of me and I found my eyes stinging with tears again.
I turned and fled up the stairs, leaving a shocked Rex in my wake.
Chapter Six
Iwatchedtheskirtsof Juneau’s gold dress disappear up the stairs before letting out an aggravated sigh. I scrubbed my free hand through my sleep mussed hair, suddenly feeling like an asshole.
I hadn’t meant to be so combative with her, but I couldn’t help it. She stood for everything that scared the shit out of me and I couldn’t let myself be swayed by blue eyes and a pretty face.
A voice came out of the dark space next to the stairs, making me jump. “Wow, you really fucked that one up, didn’t you?” Bat asked as he seemed to appear out of the inky blackness, his eyes glittering with amusement.
“Jesus, Bat, how long have you been standing there?” I asked, pressing a hand to my chest in order to still my wildly beating heart.
Bat had a nasty habit of hiding in dark corners and eavesdropping on conversations before inevitably scaring the living daylights out of us when he revealed himself.
“Since before Juneau came downstairs in search of food,” Bat said with a shrug as he grabbed the half-eaten apple from my hand and continued where she’d left off, taking a huge bite. “She’s a pretty little thing,” he commented as he stared at the top of the stairs. I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me or to himself.
“You are the weirdest fucking human being, dude.” I shook my head in disbelief as I watched him crunch merrily on the apple. “I was just telling her that she should have waited for one of us to come down and help her get some breakfast.”
“That was not what it sounded like to me. To me it was more like you were scolding a child for stealing a cookie.” Bat threw the finished apple core into our composter.
He gave my shoulder a pat as he moved past me toward the kitchen door, probably to go out and feed his pigeons. “I know your mom used to freak you out with her visions and shit, but don’t take it out on Juneau, she doesn’t deserve it.” With that, he opened the door and stepped onto the back porch.
The sound of a distant rumble could be heard filling the morning air and Bat turned to me with a grin. “Looks like the BBs are back from their joy ride.”
The back door slammed, muffling the sound and leaving me standing by myself in the kitchen. My mood immediately lifted and I put the shit with Juneau on the back burner of my mind for now. It could wait, I had guests to greet.
Heading through the living room I yanked the door that led into the bar open just in time to see three older women dressed in riding leathers step inside.
“Rexy!” Legs greeted me with a cheerful hoot as she dumped her duffel on the floor and came to give me a big hug, her soft beta scent wafting over me as she squeezed me in her arms. “Did you miss us?”
“Of course,” I assured her, finding myself smiling down at her as her two wing-women came for their own hugs. Wren was a short, plump Asian woman with a pixie cut and lines around her eyes from smiling so much. She was probably the softest of the trio and gave my face a small pat before moving out of the way for Taz’s turn. They were the BBs, the Beta Bitches, and a group of the toughest women that I knew.
“How was the ride?” I asked when we had gotten our hugs out of the way.
The women exchanged a glance, their previously happy expressions falling.
“We swung by Cape Cod,” Legs admitted, not looking me in the eye. My spine stiffened at the mention of our old hometown.
“I thought you were headed north?” I asked, and mentally slid my fingers along the bond I shared with the guys until I found the one that belonged to Doc. I was shit at manipulating the bonds like Podcast could, but I could manage a yank to wake the leader of our pack. I felt him respond and he must have been in Podcast’s nest because Podcast’s groggy confusion also filtered down the threads that connected us.
“We were,” Wren said, wringing her hands nervously. Other than Podcast, she had faced the worst treatment from the Titans MC and still bore the scars from it on her back and neck. “But some of the other betas wanted help getting out and we wanted to do what we could.”
“You should have told us. We would have gone with you,” I growled, realizing that they had put themselves in danger and we had been none the wiser. The three older women were the only holdovers from the old guard that I had grown up with. Some of my earliest memories were of them dancing with my mom in the kitchen. The four beta women had been the best of friends up until her death.
My dad had also ridden with them until he died when I was six, and other than my time in the military, I had ridden with them as a part of the MC too. I eventually brought Doc, Bat, and Storm into the fold with me, forming my own little pack in a group of alphas that were definitelynotpack minded.
The old MC Prez, Apollo, had been a fair alpha that treated everyone with an iron-fisted respect regardless of their designation. But two years ago he died in his sleep and his only son took the reins.
I’d grown up with Orpheus and had never been a fan of him. He was constantly trying to prove that he was better than me in any way he could, even though I never agreed to compete with him in the first place. Upon becoming Prez, he’d taken the club into a dark direction, treating our betas like trash. Legs, Taz, and Wren were the only betas who escaped with us when we left two years ago, the others stayed behind to chance their luck with their new Prez. It sounded to me like that had been the wrong choice.
“We didn’t want to bring you into our shit,” Taz said with a shake of her head. “Those girls were implicit with what happened to Podcast, we couldn’t ask you to do that.”
