Chapter Eight
A roar of rage exploded from Mundo’s damaged chest. The agony doubled up, but it was what he needed to feel. The pain grounded him, helped him stay focused, awake.
As his clan helped him to his feet, shuffling him inside the shop, he yelled, “Where’s Christie?”
Hank’s tone was grim. “They took her.”
“Who the fuck is they?” he gasped, as they managed to carry him into the back. It wasn’t ideal, but the space was large enough to shift.
He had no choice but to shift, even though it would cause a shit storm in a tea cup. The bear knew his mate had been stolen, but the bear had to come out to play if Mundo was to stave off the bullet wound to his chest. Throw in the agony of shifting when he was injured, grievously so, and the creature was going to be pissed—with a capital P.
“Rory and Travis are chasing after the van. I came out in time to see it pulling out; the tires screeched like hell.”
“Who took her?” he bit off, grunting as the guys helped him strip. They all knew how precarious the next ten minutes were going to be—best not to exacerbate an injured, furious, heartbroken bear by making him dance around with too-tight human clothing digging into his limbs.
“The cartel. Who fucking else?” Hank snapped. “Now shift! You’re mated enough that if you die, she dies too. If that isn’t what you want, then shift!”
He froze, terror swilling through him at the idea Christie could die because of him, and he shifted.
His bear, once on terra firma, let out an enraged roar that had anything loose within the shop rattling. Considering sheet metal and tools were on nearly every surface, the din was cacophonous. Most of his brothers rammed their hands over their ears to absorb the sound, but still, it wasn’t enough. The noise even hurt Mundo’s ears, but the endless roar released some of his fear and pain, and it helped him think more clearly—clear enough that he knew he needed to shift back. Now.
The bear struggled, demanding to chase after its mate, uncaring that outside these walls was the city at its purest. Uncaring that traffic was heavy and pedestrians abounded. The creature wanted his mate and wanted to scream his fury until everyone knew of his wrath at having Christie snatched from him.
His chest heaved with the rattling breaths he took, the agony of the bullet wound registered by his body but not his mind as the bear processed the fact his other half had been stolen. He didn’t care that only the magic of the shift was knitting torn muscle, ripped sinew, and shredded veins and arteries together. All it cared was that Christie was no longer at his side and that she’d yet to touch the bear—to pat his head and run her fingers along his snout.
“Mundo, shift back now, son. Come on, you can do it.” Hank’s voice was loaded with concern, but it was well hidden as he urged Mundo back to his skin. “She needs you, boy, not your bear.”
An enraged growl escaped the beast, but seconds later, the creature allowed Mundo to reappear. He collapsed to his knees, the blow of the bullet and the magic and energy required to heal the wound more than his human form could stand. He screamed out the agony, smashed his fist against the ground in distress, then as he controlled it, contained it, he forced it inside himself and slammed the pain away, putting it in storage until he had time to process it.
“Call Mars,” he gritted out, head bowed. “And pass me my pants.”
Hank snorted but shoved the jeans into Mundo’s hands. “Already called Mars; he’s on his way.”
“That will take what, forty minutes to get into town?”
“Nah, he was downtown. Shouldn’t take too long. Haven’t heard from Travis yet, but they wouldn’t call unless they’d stopped. Fucking Martinez cartel… Those bastards are pure shit. Should have figured out that the old ladies and bunnies weren’t safe—not after what we saw in their warehouse.”
Mundo firmed his jaw then arched his back as a wave of agony slipped free of the constraints he’d placed on his body. “I’ll kill them all if they hurt her. I’ll raze their fucking clubs and warehouses to the ground.” His voice was a rasp, but it was loaded with a deadly earnestness that didn’t bode well for the cartel.
Hank bent down, rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. “We’ll get her back.”
“They’re going to hurt her,” Mundo bit off. “I’ve only just found her, and they’re going to hurt her. The fucking bastards.” He wheezed as terror swamped him. The myriad ways in which they could and would hurt her blitzed through his mind until he swayed forward, only come to a halt when his forehead rested against the ground in a pose that could be considered supplicating.
He’d pray to any God, any Goddess, and say whatever, so long as he got his mate back.
Outside, the rumble of several V-twin engines made themselves known. They rasped through the shop, seeming to set the ground to vibrating before there came a sudden silence. The doors to the store opened then came the sound of stomping of heavy boots.
“Why the fuck is Mundo naked?”
It was Kiko, The Nomads’ second in command.
“He shifted, dumb ass,” Mars grunted, his irritation obvious at the stupid question. “What the fuck’s going on?”
Hank hesitated then carefully stated, “Mundo’s mate has been snatched.”
Quiet strummed through the workshop until a brittle sound escaped Mundo. It was pain and misery, sorrow and wrath combined.
“Who took her?” Mars’ voice was like silk.
“The cartel. It has to be,” Mundo whispered. “Who else could it be? We don’t have that many enemies.”
“We’ve been making them ever since we went rogue.”
For most MCs, going rogue would involve more hardcore dealings in the underworld. For The Nomads, ever since Mars had taken over as Prez and had found himself a mate, that involved fewer illegal transactions.
The Nomads were more likely to help than hinder then cops nowadays.
It was a fact that pissed some brothers off but appeased many more, and considering the MC had over four thousand members across the state, that was no small feat.
“It’s payback. For what I did to their soldier.” Mundo felt like sobbing. Retribution should have fallen on him, on his shoulders, not on his mate. It didn’t matter that he’d been shot, that if he’d been human as the cartel believed him to be, he’d have died. He wasn’t dying. He was a Shifter, and therefore could survive, so the injury was negligible in the face of what Christie was going to have to endure because of him and his actions.
Guilt speared him, lancing the wound on his chest only to gouge deeper into it, making him shudder with the pain of it. If they hurt her, if they did anything to her… Mundo gulped. He didn’t know what he’d do. Razing their shit to the ground was too small a punishment.
“We’ll get her back, Mundo,” Mars promised. He got to his knees beside Mundo then hissed, “Shit, what’s with all the blood?”
Hank grunted. “They shot him and snatched the girl. I sent Riley and Travis after the van. I just managed to see them stuffing her into it before the sped off, so I’m hoping they don’t lose track.”
“Travis is one of our best trackers,” Kiko asserted, confidence oozing from his voice. “We’ll get her back before nightfall, Mundo.”
Another promise, more faith in their Clan, but that didn’t ease his pain or his grief.
“But what can they do to her before then?” Mundo rasped. “I can’t lose her, Mars, I can’t.” When his Prez wrapped an arm about his shoulder, more tears threatened to fall. If anyone could understand the agony going through him, it was Mars. A stray bullet shot from a cartel gun had almost killed Annette, Mars’ mate. He’d had to go through a blood sacrifice to save her life. Humans tended to adopt some of their Shifter mates’ powers, some to a lesser degree than others deepening on the strength of the bond. But for Annette, thanks to the blood sacrifice, she shared a lot of Mars’s ‘talents.’ Mundo was certain, though Mars had never confirmed or denied it, that they could speak to each other telepathically. Christ, how useful that would have been for him now. At least he’d know if Christie was okay. He swallowed back more tears, not wanting the others to see his weakness, and gritted out, “The bond isn’t fixed yet.”
“No, but it’s there enough to smell it,” Hank mumbled. “It’s a powerful scent. Even if Travis lost trail of the van, Kiko’s right, with his nose then he should be able to track her from that alone. I swear to God, Mundo, there’s no way no one couldn’t tell she was yours by scenting her.”
Mundo let out a quivery breath, his bear reacting viscerally to the news that Christie was almost fully claimed. “I hope so.”
“We know so,” Mars vowed, squeezing his shoulders again. “How strong’s the bond?”
This was said in a small voice, and Mundo’s reply was equally quiet. “Strong. You know only the strongest nab some of our powers? Well, we’re not fully bonded and she’s already fast as hell. She scared the shit out of herself this morning.” His laugh was a gurgle of pain when he thought back to those hours this morning when they’d been together, both at peace. How had things gone so wrong, so quickly?
“Maybe she can use that to her advantage?” Mars asked. “If she can get free, she could run, and if she can run as fast as you say, Riley or Travis might catch sight of her and might be able to get her the hell out of Dodge.”
“They might shoot her if she runs.”
“Not if she can outrun the bullet.”
Mundo gulped. “You might be right.” He edged up onto his hands and knees then forced himself back and onto his feet. Once he was standing, his head spun as blood rushed to it, but when he peered down and saw the state of his chest, he understood why he felt like shit.
The magic of the shift had healed a lot of the bullet wound, but it was still red, raw, and weeping. The crater in his chest hadn’t grown smaller, and as far as he was aware, the bullet hadn’t popped out, but the blood had ceased to gush. He was well aware that if he was human, he’d be dead now. There was no way he could have sustained that amount of damage and survived. An ambulance wouldn’t have been able to make it in time.
It was a dampening thought.
“The bullet’s still in him?” Mars asked Hank, tone grim.
“Yeah, it didn’t come out with the shift.”
“It must have been a close hit.” Mars peered at the wound, pulling a face as the tissues started to knit together in front of him. If the bullet was still inside him, then those tissues would be forced apart yet again. The healing process was swift, sometimes too swift as different parts of an injury sought to catch up. It could be a real bitch to get every bit of a wound up to par.
“Yeah. The fucker was a dozen feet away.” Mundo swallowed, tilting his head down to stare at the bullet wound. Yeah, this was going to be a real bastard to get right. It would take two shifts, maybe three to get it right again, and each shift took more energy—energy he couldn’t afford to spend on himself, not when his mate was out there in danger. Speaking of which, he hissed, “My guard was down. I’m on MC territory, for fuck’s sake. I never thought…”
“They were brazen motherfuckers, I’ll give them that,” Kiko snarled, striding down the length of the workshop. Mars, in comparison, was still. “You know what this means?” Kiko continued, as he picked up a spanner and started to tap it against the palm of his other hand.
Mars, though still, vibrated with the same rage Kiko was experiencing. “War.” He let out a hiss. “Fuck. I wanted to avoid this shit. The only good that will come of it is we lose a lot of brothers and we can’t fucking afford to weaken the clan, not with a gang of humans as the enemy.” He ran a hand through his hair, stress making him pull at the ends a little. “When we started that inter-cartel war, it was with the intention of taking the spotlight off us.”
Mars had used Annette’s paper to start a shit storm among the cartels, getting her to write articles that were like putting a cat among a flock of pigeons. Those articles had diverted attention from The Nomads and planted it firmly onto the Spanish cartels. The backlash from stealing the last shipment of females from the Martinez cartel’s human trafficking ring had, thus far, been light because of this diversionary tactic.
It seemed their time of grace had run out.
Mundo grimaced. “War isn’t going to do shit. We need to burn the motherfuckers.”
“How though? We got the press and the cops involved last time.”
“I’m being literal, Mars. We set fire to their shit and watch them burn.”
“That’s no fucking solution. What about all the people in their buildings? Not all of them are guilty fuckers. Some of them are innocents. Look at what we found in their warehouses. How would you feel if there was another shipment in there who burned because we avenged your mate through arson?”
Mundo closed his eyes, sickened by the memory of the way the cartel had kept the group of women they’d trafficked from Eastern Europe over to the States. A few of those women were still at the MC’s HQ in Channelview. They hadn’t dared leave, though many of the others who had been with them had tried to make it on their own in the big bad world.
Mars shook his head. “I need time to figure out what our next step is, but in the interim, we get Mundo’s mate back.”
Almost as though the demand in his words had triggered it, Hank’s cell phone beeped. Mundo’s head shot up and he tracked Hanks’ every move as he connected the call.
“Travis? Where the fuck are you?” Hank blinked then let out a sigh of relief. “You have sight of the van? Yeah. Okay. That’s great. Keep watch and send me the GPS coordinates.”
Mars strode over and snatched the phone out of Hank’s hand. “Do not engage, Travis. How far away are you? Greenspoint?” He looked at Kiko. “What is that? Twenty minutes away?” When Kiko nodded, Mars snarled, “We’ll be there in ten and we engage together. Unless you hear gunshots. Do you understand me?” He disconnected the call then let out a breath. “Mundo, shift once more to get the bullet out, and then we’re gonna go and get your old lady.”
In less than five seconds, a bleeding, enraged bear stood where a naked man had.
Shit was about to get real.