Brain(60)

Duke stepped out of the black Expedition and walked to me. “Gen seems to think you were responsible for the video leak, which led to my release with all but a few misdemeanor charges dropped. I’d hoped this meant you might be ready to mend fences.”

I glanced at Harmony, remembered what she’d been put through by the Russians, and then the cage Gonzo had put her in, and the humiliation she experienced, and rage shot through me as I lunged towards Duke and hit his face hard enough he took four steps back and almost went down.

He took a step towards me, his hands up ready to fight back, but then dropped them and said, “I deserved that.”

Duke’s calm acceptance didn’t sit well with my wolf, and I let the animal inside me even closer to the surface as I closed the distance between us and struck Duke a dozen times or more, left fist and right fist to the face, to the stomach, wherever I could land a punch as Duke used his arms to try to fend me off, but didn’t strike me a single time.

“Fight me, you bastard! You ordered my woman be put in a fucking cage, so she had no choice but to squat and shit in the floor, and you think we can ever be okay again?! I’ll rip you to pieces if you don’t fucking fight back.”



* * * *

Harmony



Bud put his arm around me to comfort me, and possibly to hold me back, and I told him, “I’m fine, and I don’t do well with strangers touching me.”

He looked at me a few seconds, inhaled deeply, and finally dropped his arm and nodded. “Okay, but don’t run towards them, okay? They need to work this out, and wolves can take a lot of damage. If it gets too bad, I’ll step in.”

Duke’s face was a bloody mess before he finally starting hitting Brain back, and five minutes later they were both blood-soaked, their faces transformed into something between human and wolf, and Duke ripped his clothes away like the Hulk as he grew several feet and bulked up into a grotesque wolf-monster.

Brain also grew and shifted, but he didn’t seem monstrous to me. Huge and deadly, and certainly some kind of wolf-human hybrid, but not hideous.

Now the men fought with claws and teeth as well as fists, and I could see Duke was stronger, and a better fighter, but Brain was smarter, and way more pissed off.

Brain wanted to fight, and Duke was only fighting because he was forced to. His heart wasn’t in it.

I touched Bud’s arm and said, “It’s time to stop them.”

“Close, but not yet. If I’m not mistaken, they’ll end things on their own before much longer.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later Duke stepped back, his arms up and out. His voice came out a rough growl, barely intelligible, as he said, “I don’t want to fight you. Dammit, Brain, you’re my best friend.”

Brain took a few steps back as he dropped his hands and changed back to his normal human form. “You should’ve trusted me to know how to handle her without turning my back on the MC.”

“You’re right. I fucked up, and I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“There’s nothing you can do to make it up to me, Duke. You hurt her in ways you can’t imagine. I took care of Gen for you, helped you get the club to accept her, even went behind your back to get Gonzo to talk to her and explain, when she’d broken up with you. And then I find my woman and you put her in a fuckin’ cage, treat her as less than an animal.”

Duke was in his human form now, and naked, but no one else seemed bothered by it so I didn’t let it affect me, either. I stepped forward and told Brain, “Ice was an enemy of the club, but Ice is gone. Also, she made a point of making things right with Duke and Gonzo, which I’m sure is why Bud’s okay with me. But all of that’s history. I’m Harmony now, and the club has never had any dealing with Harmony. Maybe we can find a starting point for a conversation?”

Brain shook his head. “Bash and Gonzo will know you from your smell. Any supernatural who knew you before won’t be fooled by the plastic surgery.”

Fear laced through my nervous system, and he took a few rapid steps to me and said, “Hey, none of that. They haven’t found you yet, they won’t find you now, either. The odds they’ll happen to be somewhere they can smell you aren’t good.”

“So, you’re saying the Russians are…?”

“I don’t know. The Georgian Mafia is, but I don’t know about the specific Russians who held you.”

“They aren’t,” said Aaron, “though they employ some bodyguards who are, but I can’t say what they are. However, it’s doubtful they’ll have the same enforcers with them, so it isn’t likely anyone from their organization will recognize you by smell.”