“Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, brother. I’ll say no more.”
Monster wanted to protest, but he didn’t get a chance before Ghoul was speaking again.
“I thought you said Ulf couldn’t mate. And if he could, I thought the silver kept your wolf suppressed enough to not?—”
“You’re literally saying more,” Monster accused.
As a mountain lion, Ghoul wouldn’t have the same drive as wolves did toward one person, but he respected the bond.
Ghoul threw his hands up in surrender, and they drove in silence … for a few moments anyway, until his Veep spoke up.
“Is it a possibility, Monster?” The bear pitched his voice low.
“No,” his knee-jerk response was out before Bulldog’s last syllable died.
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like a distinct possibility,” Bulldog quickly added. “Don’t bite my head off, Brother, but I have to say I’ve felt Ulf more in the last ten minutes than I have in the years we’ve known each other.” Bulldog’s eyes shifted to his wrist where the silver band sat. “Even with that, he feels more … present. Grizz feels it too.”
Being the only bear among wolves, Bulldog had senses about them that they themselves did not. Bulldog said it was because his bear had heightened senses where wolves were concerned because in the wild, a bear could be taken down by a determined pack.
Therefore, Bulldog’s words carried a weight that settled directly in Monster’s brain.
“Fuck me, I don’t know,” Monster muttered more to himself than the other two men in the car. “Since I met her, I’ve been all twisted up, but Ulf is having complete thoughts. I asked, and he doesn’t know if she is, but he said she’s different. He even managed to stay present for her.” His voice was low and trailed off, but he knew they’d heard. Luckily for him, neither asked follow-ups. It gave him a moment to quiet his thoughts before they arrived at Cliff’s.
They parked on the street a bit away. Before exiting the vehicle, Bulldog spoke.
“Might I suggest at some point removing the cuff when around her? Just to see if anything sparks for Ulf. I can be there to handle … things if it goes south. Think about it.”
His Veep clapped him on the back. “But put a pin in that for now and clear your minds. We’ve got an asshole to scare the shit out of.”
With that, they made their way quietly through the neighborhood and to Cliff’s house. “Let’s go in through the garage.”
Most people didn’t realize how easy it was to pop up a garage bay door and work on entry behind a curtain of privacy. Plus, nine times out of ten, the interior garage door wasn’t looped into the alarm system.
They secured entry in under five minutes. “Good old Cliff, one of the nine,” Monster muttered to himself.
Winding their way through the modest-sized but garishly appointed home was easy. They just followed the strong smell of obnoxious cologne toward the back of the house.
There were three closed doors along the hall leading toward the one that was ajar, which one hundred percent was where Cliff was racked out and snoring.
Bulldog signaled for them each to take a room. Once cleared, they padded into Cliff’s room.
“Would you look at that,” Ghoul said in a whisper. “I’ll never look at red satin the same way.”
Cliff was asleep on a waterbed. A freaking waterbed, wearing red satin pajamas.
“Where the hell did he find that thing? A DeLorean back to 1984?”
“Right?”
Monster whipped out his switchblade and walked over to where the man slept and stabbed the bed, then waited.
A few minutes later, Cliff started to thrash and curse.
“Son of a?—”
When he managed to sit up, Monster grabbed him and held his now wet blade to the man’s throat.
“Hey there, buddy.” Ghoul spoke with an over-the-top, sugary-sweet tone. “How you been?”
