Page 23 of Bad Blood Wolf

Chapter 9

Brody sat in the back seat of Jasmin’s pickup, his breath fogging in the frosty air, wondering what the hell just happened.

Because one minute he was having a fucking out-of-body experience, and the next he was sitting alone with his pants around his ankles, feeling like a total fool.

He heard the slam of the bar door and voices coming across the parking lot. He wrestled his jeans back on in a hurry—the last thing he needed was for his not-so-loving packmates to find him butt-naked.

He found his torn-up shirt tangled with Jasmin’s slinky red one. He brought the smooth fabric to his nose and inhaled her spicy scent. An overwhelming feeling of loss and longing slammed over him.

It was just sex in the back seat of a truck, he tried to tell himself. It probably didn’t mean anything. Hell, parking lot sex was pretty much the definition of meaningless.

So why did he feel like he’d been shattered, and didn’t know how to put himself back together because none of the pieces fit together the same way?

It couldn’t be possible she didn’t feel anything.

He let the fabric slide through his fingers, remembering the feel of her hair slipping over his skin, her warm softness sheathing him. His belly clenched and his chest ached. His wolf whined.

She didn’t want him. She hadn’t just walked away—she’d run like her fur was on fire. He should just lock her stuff in her truck and go.

He couldn’t make himself do it. He couldn’t put down the shirt, couldn’t shut the truck door, couldn’t walk the hell away. Just the thought of it made the shattered pieces of him feel like they were being crushed to powder.

Brody stood for a long moment, stroking the soft red fabric.

Then he picked up her jeans and searched the pockets for her keys and her pool winnings. He locked up her truck, taking her things with him.

He got into his car—an old Chevelle he’d bought when he sold his other ride to make money. Back when he still had stuff to sell, and hadn’t sunk down to having to fight instead.

He grabbed another shirt out of the back seat to replace the one Jasmin had shredded, and shrugged on his jacket, sticking her keys and money in the side pocket.

Then he fired up the Chevelle and headed out to forbidden land—Bad Blood territory.

As he bumped up the dirt road towards the Bad Bloods’ compound, Brody tried not to think about all the reasons this was a really bad idea.

Starting with the fact that he was a known enemy coming into the territory of a certifiably crazy, utterly paranoid badass lion shifter, uninvited and in the middle of the night.

He figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of being dead within sixty seconds of getting out of the car.

Even so, something kept pulling him forward. Death wish, probably. He pulled into the compound and parked in an empty space amid the random array of trucks dotting the clearing.

His wolf sight was sharp, even in the dark, and he could see that the place was covered in Christmas decorations. The only ones still lit up were a row of three wire deer covered in white lights, hanging by their hind feet from the fat limb of an oak tree with their heads down, like hunters’ kills.

From their necks fell strings of red lights that pooled on the ground. It looked like someone had shot three of Santa’s reindeer and left the bloody carcasses to drain. With festive lights.

He didn’t know whether to laugh, or get back in his car and drive the hell away. The Bad Bloods really were fucking crazy.

He gathered up Jasmin’s clothes and then got slowly out of the car, senses alert.

Everything was dark, cold, and silent, except for the faint smell of smoke from a couple of wood stoves.

This was such a bad idea. He didn’t even know which building Jasmin slept in.

He could smell crisscrossing scent trails, old and new. Lion. Two strange cats, the grizzly, and another bear.

And Jasmin. A tantalizing hint of fresh scent.

He closed his eyes, trying to sense her presence in the night. Something prickled up the back of his spine. There was more than one presence out here, looming in the shadows.

Watching him.