Page 9 of Brandon’s Mate

It shouldn’t take long to find out what happened to Nick, and who needed to bleed for it. He just couldn’t do it under his real name.

The Bad Blood Crew was legendary in the shifter world, and their ties with the Shifter Council Enforcers were common knowledge. Bad guys either thought Brandon was working with the Enforcers, or just wanted a shot at a Bad Blood to see if they could take him down.

It was like being a gunslinger in the Old West—challenges every time you turned around. It was also a fucking pain in the ass, except on days he needed a fight.

So from now on, he was Ray Danvers, a scammer and con man who moved from city to city just ahead of the cops. When he wanted to stay under the radar, he worked for a while as muscle for whatever shady people would take him on.

It was a good solid fake ID, completely backstopped if anyone wanted to check. But it meant he had to hide away everything from his real life, just in case anyone came looking.

Bit by bit, he stacked it all into the wooden cubbyhole, the smell of fresh wood filling his nose. Passport, driver’s license, bank card, credit cards, a few other papers he didn’t want to lose.

Cell phone. He looked down at it. There was almost no charge left; once it ran out, the phone would be untraceable. No one could track him that way.

The text message icon in the corner of the home screen read 167 new messages. And those were only the ones he hadn’t deleted yet. Unread and unanswered.

He knew who they were from. His dad. His mom. His sister and brother. Colt and Remy McCall—his best friends from his home crew.

Everybody always texted him, and he never answered. What was there to say? That wasn’t his life anymore, and it never would be again.

Better they didn’t know what had happened to him.

All the same, he found his hand moving to the photo album icon. He could curse himself as a sentimental idiot, but he’d never once been able to let the phone die before a mission without a last look.

Just in case.

He tapped the icon and swiped through the pictures. The Bad Blood Crew at Thanksgiving. They always did a big bash because it was the anniversary of the day the crew was formed, when all the original members had pledged to Flynn just before a dramatic battle to rescue Tank, their grizzly bear Protector, from a psycho who’d taken him hostage to get to his mate, Lissa.

Swipe.

Brandon’s dad, Xander, hanging his “dead reindeer” lights like he did every Christmas, dressed all in black with his huge bowie knife strapped to his leg.

Swipe.

Colt and Remy’s dad, Sloan, playing guitar by the firepit.

Swipe.

The whole crew sitting around the main cabin on a Sunday morning, stuffing themselves with Flynn’s pancakes.

Swipe, swipe, swipe… Pranks. Crazy stunts. Knife-throwing competitions. The house perched in the giant oak tree, where he’d grown up.

A picture of him and Colt and Remy, the last Thanksgiving Brandon spent at home. They were standing there with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, mugging for the camera, all of them laughing at some idiot thing Colt had just said.

He tried to tell himself again that he didn’t miss them, that it was better he was out of their lives, but that familiar stab of loneliness said different.

To make it go away he swiped onto the next picture, forgetting what it was.

Kitty Jameson’s face looked out at him. She was standing next to the vintage Pontiac Catalina she’d been restoring with her dad, wiping her greasy hands on a rag. Someone had just called to her and she’d turned around, smiling, mischief in her eyes.

Her blond hair was tied back, curling almost to her waist, and even though she was wearing an old sweatshirt, it couldn’t hide her curves.

Kitty fucking Jameson.

He drank in her picture, even as he hated himself for being so weak.

Even when it brought back the memory of the last time he’d seen her, and the reason he finally knew he had to leave.

It was a sharp fall day, the scent of decaying leaves thick on the ground. Brandon pulled his motorcycle up to the clubhouse where the biker gang hung out, ready to throw down with Rocko, their leader.