The girl looked truly stunned. “Rike is his brother, and they’re crow shifters. You’re a wolf. You can’t be his brother.”
“And yet here I am,” he murmured, using her words. “This is boring. Good luck in here, Predator Female.”
He stood to leave, but she said, “Mountain Lion.”
Kade stopped his retreat and looked down at her. “You’re safer from me with every word you say, woman. I like my females submissive.”
She smiled up at him with canines too sharp. “Ew,” she said, using his response from earlier. Huh. She was kind of interesting.
The girl looked back over her shoulder to the exit doors where the Wulfe Clan was still milling around outside. They had cold beers in their hands now. They would be here for a while.
“Can I ask you more questions?” she asked.
“No. I told you I’m bored.”
“Not about your life, Wolf. About motorcycles.”
He studied the one she was balanced on. “That one is a 2014 Sportster. The color is meh, but it looks good if kept up. And it’s a good size for you. You look hot—”
“I do?” she asked quick.
Kade snorted. “Lady, you know what you look like. You don’t need compliments from a little dork like me.” He didn’t mean to snarl at the end, and he shook his head hard to stop the noise.
“Are you messed up?” she asked low.
“Yes.”
“Well…you’re hot, too. I mean when you are on a motorcycle. I don’t like wolves, so you’re safe from me, too.”
Hmm. She was just interesting enough for him to take a seat back on the black Sportster he’d been relaxing on a minute ago. “Why don’t you like this one? It’s a better color and is newer.”
“This one is cheaper, and I like metallic red.”
“Black is the best color for a Harley.”
“That’s your opinion. All the Harley’s outside are black with black pipes. I want something different. When I walk out of my bar, I want to immediately know which one is mine.”
“You have a bar?” he asked. “I like whiskey.”
“All wolves do, don’t they?”
“Stereotyping already?”
“Yep. That’s all those assholes drink when they come in.” She gestured toward the Wulfe Clan with the flick of her fingers. “And then they fight and break stuff and start shit with my Clan and the Two Claws Clan.”
“Hmmm. What bar?”
“The GutShot.”
“You own the GutShot? In Darby?”
“Me and my dad took it over when my first Clan fell.”
Oh, he knew what had happened to her first Clan. The Darby Clan fell because they were stupid enough to go after the bear shifters in the Two Claws Clan. Obviously, survival instincts weren’t strong with them.
“I thought no one in the Darby Clan survived,” he murmured.
The girl wouldn’t meet his eyes anymore, and there was sadness in her voice when she said, “Maybe no one did.”
“You don’t think you survived?”
“I didn’t survive as I was. I’m not the same me anymore.” She cleared her throat. “Is this a good buy or not? I’ve come to see it four times this week.”
He wanted to observe her longer. Wanted to figure out how she did that—went from sad to stoic in a breath. Tough girl. She’d given him something just now. A peek into what made her tick. Little survivor probably reinvented herself completely to live through all those broken bonds and be okay.
A long snarl rattled his throat again, reminding him of why he couldn’t be around nice things. The wolf was good for a fuck or two, a one-night stand, and then he messed everything up. As apparent by the deep frown the girl just gave him.
“If you’ve come to see it four times in a week, it feels special to you. On motorcycles, when you know, you know. Is this your first one?”
“Yeah. My car broke down, and it’ll cost more to fix it than it’s worth. I live near my bar. And since everything went to shit, I want to do something just for me. I’m always watching the MCs rippin’ out of the bar on their Harleys and, lately, I’ve been wishing more and more I was riding one, too. My Alpha has one. So does my dad. I don’t want to ride on the back.”
“You mean you don’t want to ride bitch?” he said with a baiting smile.
The woman rolled her eyes and turned on the Sportster. It roared to life.
“Well, now I’m liking it,” he said over the engine noise.
“Why’s that?”
“Whoever owned it before put good pipes on it. People will hear you coming a mile away. Loud is best on a Harley. And I might not like the color, but it suits you. You ain’t one of them little dorks outside.”
“Ha!” She laughed loud. “No, I am not.”
He leaned over and flipped the price tag toward him. “Fifteen thousand, my ass,” he muttered. “Hey!” he called to the sales person he’d told to fuck off.
The salesman strode right on over with a big smile plastered to his face. “You finally deciding to pull the trigger?” he asked the girl.
“Uuuuh—” she stalled.
“Not for this price,” Kade growled, not hiding his animal eyes at all. He pointed out the age, the mileage, the worn tires, the engine and what it was worth, and the scratches on the paint job that said this thing had hit concrete hard at some point. “Now, you and I both know this thing is worth maybe seven thousand, and you have it marked up to fifteen? That’s bullshit. What’s the best you can do on it?”
The salesman looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Let me talk to the sales manager and see.”
“Seven grand, plus you take your cut for a couple thousand for title, tags, and profit, all that crap. Come back to us with an offer of nine-five max, and she’ll walk out of here with it.”
“That’s an insane amount of money to take off a motorcycle,” said the sales guy, Owen, his nametag read.
“Well, go back and look at your books again. You guys obviously mislabeled this price tag. No one on Earth or in Hell would ever buy this ride for that much. You know it and I know it. Go recalculate, Owen. Find the mistake. Re-label it or whatever you have to do, or this thing will sit on your showroom floor for months. And then you’ll sell it at auction for a fraction of what this lady here is willing to pay.”
“Trina,” the girl murmured. “My name’s Trina.”
Hot name. Kade corrected himself, “For what Trina will pay.”
Owen nodded and spun on his heel, jogged off toward the sales desk in back.
“Nine-five!” Kade called out. “Sell a motorcycle, Owen. Get that commission.”
Trina was watching Owen talk to the sales manager in back with her jaw hanging down to her perky little tits. “Will they really consider nine-five?” she whispered.
“Nah. They’ll come back with eleven, and then it’s up to you to purchase it.”
“It’s way better than it was. I only haggled them down to fourteen thousand.”
“Yeah, well, they really did make some mistakes when they marked this bike. Look at ’em.” He jerked his head toward the pair of them frowning at a computer screen, looking stressed out. “Somebody fucked up, and they know it.”
Fuck her from behind.
Kade shook his head and swallowed a snarl. His inner psychopath was making a not-so-rare appearance. He needed to Change and kill something. Sex with this little she-cat was off the table. He really didn’t like other shifters, and he’d be good-goddammed if he stuck his dick in one. “All right, Trina, I’m off to find more trouble. Enjoy your heat.”
He made his way out of the Harley store and, sure, he could feel her watching him leave, but that didn’t change a thing. Shifter females were always on the hunt for a mate, not a hook-up, and he was built for one thing—being alone. It had always been like that for him. There were big reasons he hadn’t pledged to a single Clan until his thirty-fifth year of life. He didn’t play well with others. Friendship made his wolf all murdery and overprotective, so for the survival of people here in his territory, he stayed far away from meaningful relationships.
The tasty little cougar would’ve been fun to fuck…if she hadn’t been a tasty little cougar. Shifters were off-limits to a monster like him.