“I remember asking something similar when you lot were oh so concerned with how well I knew my neighbor.” He seemed to squeeze Taylor tighter. “So turnabout, motherfucker.”
Boogeyman plopped down on the stool next to Monster. Propping his chin on his hand and swinging his feet in an exaggerated motion. “Ooooo, gossip.”
“What the fuck?”
“Just rip it off like a band aid brother.” Bulldog slapped him on the shoulder. “Then we can get back to being fucking men.”
Monster threw up his hands before motioning for a shot. “Fine. I met a hot number the other night. She gave me a hummer in the parking lot of King’s Ransom, and we have a date tonight. The end.” He threw back his shot, then slammed the glass back down. Before he could make for the door, Kansas piped up.
“Hot number is an understatement. She’s fucking gorgeous.”
Monster growled at Kansas. It was hard enough for his wolf to accept that he’d kissed her, but he’d be damned if he let him remark on how hot she was.
Why is that? He asked Ulf.
Don’t know. Just is.
Well, that was helpful. He was drawn to her, that was clear, but he didn’t experience the signs of her being his mate. Maybe it was just the male part of him and not the beast.
“I’m out.”
With that, he left. He had some time before he’d meet Carys at the restaurant. She’d insisted on driving herself, which irritated Monster a little. However, he wasn’t ready to toss her on the back of his bike for all the world to see either.
Once he hit the road, he found himself riding for the sake of riding.
The open road always helped him think. The other thing he needed was to run. Ulf was restless.
Soon, Ulf. Soon.
He promised the beast he’d let him out as soon as it was possible.
More of Ulf’s emotions and disjointed thoughts were bleeding through, as he was agitated. Maybe it was time to look into stronger ways to keep him calm. Monster didn’t want to suppress him the way they had to with his incarcerated brother. That path led to madness, but it hurt him that Ulf was unsettled twenty-four seven. He was feral, and that wasn’t good.
Especially when they only had moments to communicate without the distortion of the silver, when he let the fur free. He dreamed of a day when the wild beast would be lucid enough to understand his emergence, but he doubted that day would ever come.
His dad told him, when he’d suppressed his confused beast, that when Arden was mature, he would let the beast free, and his dad’s wolf would communicate it all to him. When Ulf understood what had happened and the two merged, it would heal the damaged beast. But his dad died long before that day came.
When Arden lost his mother at seventeen, he drove way out into the wilderness and released Ulf. Hoping he could explain it all the way his dad would have. Instead, Ulf was so confused that he suppressed Arden and stayed in fur for three days. It wasn’t until Ulf was too tired to keep Arden from waking up that he was able to take over. He was miles away from his truck and naked.
During the shift back, Ulf used the time to tell him to put the cuff on and never take it off in skin.
It had taken a lot of quick thinking and lies to cover what happened and get back home. That day, he locked Ulf down tighter. Still, since Ulf never learned how to properly shift, he still suppressed Monster when he took over their body. With time, Monster had managed to teach himself to hold on to consciousness for longer at the beginning of a shift. He was up to a solid two minutes. They could talk less disjointedly during that time. The wolf didn’t know another way to take over.
Monster vowed to himself to find a way for Ulf to be as he was meant to be, or he would take more permanent measures, no matter the cost.
On his way back into town, he noticed a box van behind him. It raised his suspicions. When he sped up, they sped up, and when he slowed down, so did they. Hitting his Bluetooth on the side of his helmet, he made a series of turns, waiting for an answer.
“This better be good.” Prowler answered breathlessly. He could hear Taylor scolding him in the background.
“Sorry to interrupt your, um, evening, but I got a tail.”
He could hear Prowler snapping his fingers. “Clubhouse.”
A few seconds later, Taylor said, “Here.”
Monster could hear he was on speaker and he assumed the clubhouse was on speaker on another phone.
“Give us the details.”
