Page 10 of Brandon’s Mate

Brandon had been running with the club for over three months, skirting the edge of the law. Fencing some stolen goods here, muscling some other clubs for territory there.

The adrenalin kept his panther from going off the deep end, and it was a damn sight better than slaving away building cookie-cutter houses for Bearcat, the Bad Blood Crew’s construction company.

Especially since Flynn had pitched him out of the territory when Brandon’s cat had started watching him all the time, trying to figure out how to take him down.

Picking fights that were just short of actual challenges. It had already gotten Brandon a couple of serious beat-downs.

We are meant to be alpha, his panther said.

Yeah, well, not by trying to fight one of the most deadly alphas in the entire shifter world, who could probably kill them with one paw tied behind his back. If his dragon mate didn’t just lose patience and barbecue them with her fiery breath.

His cat gave a soft snarl. He still wanted a piece of Flynn’s lion hide.

Brandon told him to shut the hell up. Right now, it was Rocko who needed dealing with. Turned out he was branching out into distributing drugs. And not your bad-enough opiates and party drugs.

Date rape drugs.

Just the thought of it made Brandon want to rip Rocko into bloody little strips and sun-dry him into wolf-jerky.

Aside from the inherent wrongness of that shit, all the Bad Blood kids had grown up on the stories of his dad and Flynn and Tank and Jasmin and Sloan being held captive in a lab, drugged and abused so they could be sold on the black market as pets or sex slaves. If they found out what Rocko was getting into, they’d come over here and burn the clubhouse to the ground with Rocko and the rest of the gang inside it.

And they’d make it look like an accident.

He banged through the screen door into the gloomy interior. Gang members were scattered around the shabby clubhouse, drinking at the makeshift bar, throwing darts or knives, playing pool.

Metal blasted out of the speakers.

But to Brandon, all that faded into silence, and his vision narrowed to encompass one thing. Fifteen-year-old Kitty Jameson, wearing six tons of makeup and with her boobs almost popping out of a leather bustier, sitting on Rocko’s lap in the corner, making out like there was no tomorrow.

Chapter 4

Brandon was across the room in less than a second, without even thinking about it. Every instinct was screaming.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled at Kitty. “Get off him!”

He knew it wasn’t her fault. He knew she wasn’t the one he should be yelling at.

What he should be doing was shoving her off Rocko’s lap so he could tear the asshole’s face off, but if he moved one muscle right now, he’d lose control of his cat, and someone would end up dead. Maybe a lot of someones.

His panther’s growls rumbled in his throat, and the rest of the gang was beginning to close in around him. Sharks, scenting blood in the water.

Kitty looked up at him, her eyes glazed and drunk. “Hey, it’s Brandy-balls!” she said, leaning on Rocko, whose hand was wandering way too close to the cleavage. “Did you come to party?”

Brandon flexed his fingers, still watching the hand. One slice of his claws, and the dude would be Captain Hook.

“You need to leave,” he told Kitty. “Now.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” She giggled. “You’re just a buzzkill.”

Buzzkill. Shit.

“What did you take?” he demanded. He turned on Rocko. “What did you give her?”

“Mind your business,” Rocko said, his voice getting low and menacing the way he liked to make it when he thought he was being badass. “You ain’t her nanny. And anyway, she’s eighteen.”

She looked eighteen in that outfit, but she damn well wasn’t. “She’s fifteen.”

To his disgust, he saw a smile spread across Rocko’s face as he ran his hand up Kitty’s back. “Is she now?” he murmured.