Chapter Five
Caleb rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t care about rumbling with the True Sons, but he’d prefer not to do it in his own bar. It’s not like the damn biker wolves would pay for the damage. It wasn’t like the pack had tons of money, and insurance would only go so far.
Not everybody could be a rich dragon who had decades to collect cash.
He considered challenging the True Sons to fight somewhere else. Somewhere nice, far away, and abandoned. He just doubted things would end that easily. After how easily he took down Jake’s man, he wasn’t all that impressed, but he had no idea if that was one of the tougher guys in the pack or not.
Caleb looked over at Sarah and shook his head in disgust. Given how strong her Blooded scent was, she knew exactly what she was doing when she walked in. So why hadn’t she left when things got tense?
Even an asshole like Jake wouldn’t try and kill or maim a Blooded, but a room full of brawling werewolves was still an accident waiting to happen.
The harsh truth was that Werewolf blood grew thinner with each generation. If they were actually better organized, they could probably do something about it, but brawling packs didn’t exactly look to the long-term future. The end result was that every Blooded, regardless of purity, was important. She had to know that.
Maybe Sarah got off on being around danger. He’d run into more than a few Blooded women who liked to see wolves fight. He’d also seen them get hurt more than a few times because they were stupid. A pointless waste. He growled at the thought.
Something felt off about that explanation as he stared at Sarah. The woman stood in the corner still, nibbling on her lip and rubbing her wrists. She didn’t seem like a woman who was excited to see alphas square off. She seemed more like a woman who was scared by what she’d just witnessed. He’d even seen her pull out a Taser and place it back in her purse.
Good. He could work with that to knock some sense into her. A little sensible fear never hurt anyone.
Caleb pointed at Sarah. “You’re coming with me.” She blinked and gave him a quick nod. He then turned to his beta. “Malcolm, if the cops show up, you handle it.”
The other man nodded. “Sure thing, Caleb.”
He stomped toward the back, and then halted when he realized Sarah wasn’t following him. He looked over his shoulder with a frown. “I said you’re coming with me.”
She nodded and hurried after him. They walked through the back hallway, first past the bathrooms, then a small stairway, and then all the way to the back door that led to the small parking lot where he kept the garbage cans and his truck.
“What’s… going on?” Sarah asked. “I mean, where are you taking me?”
“I was planning to take you home. I wanted to talk to you on the way.” Caleb looked back at the bar, his shoulders tensing. “Shit. Did you drive here?” So many little things to worry about.
Sarah shook her head, some of her black hair settling over her eyes. She brushed the strands back with her hand. “Lyft. I didn’t know how much I might drink.” She shrugged. “Maybe you don’t find that very hardcore, but I don’t normally drink a lot.”
Caleb snorted. “My apartment’s above the bar, so it’s easy for me to get drunk and then go pass out.” Some of the tension left him. “Anyway, if you don’t have a car that makes things easier.” He lifted his key fob and unlocked the doors to his red Ford F150. “Get in. We’re going for a little drive.”
Sarah bit her lip and hesitated. “Why do we need to go right now?”
Caleb furrowed his brow. Why was she being so resistant? “Like I said because I need to take you home.”
“But why right away?”
He groaned. “I’d rather not have you around if the police show up. They’ll ask questions, and you might slip up. Just because you’re Blooded doesn’t mean I know anything else about you.”
Sarah’s face scrunched up in confusion for a moment. “And you promise you won’t hurt me?” She rubbed her arms. “I keep having this feeling like this is the part in the horror movie where I get in the truck, and I’m never heard from again.”
Caleb stared at her before shaking his head. He chuckled. “No wolf worth being called a wolf would kill a Blooded. And, hell, even wolves that aren’t worth being called wolf would do that.”
Sarah tilted her head, staring at him for a moment as if trying to figure something out, then nodded slowly. “Okay, then.” She hopped into the passenger seat.
Caleb stepped into the truck. “Where do you live? You said Tempe, right?”
She rattled off her address and the cross streets.
“That’s just down the street from the university,” Caleb said. “I don’t get out that way much, but I’ve visited some friends out there. Nice city, but a little too artsy and folksy for my taste.”
Sarah blushed. “I’m a sociology grad student at the university.”
Caleb arched a brow. “Not really my thing, but I’m sure you find it interesting. Whatever the hell that means.”
The truck’s engine roared to life, and he pulled out onto the street.
Now that they sat together in a small, enclosed space, her Blooded scent enticed him even more. His cock grew distractingly hard. Maybe if he’d gotten laid lately it wouldn’t be so intense, but he’d been more focused on getting Devil’s Den up and running than bedding a woman.
His gaze drifted over her body, lingering on the cleavage only barely concealed by the mesh and the top underneath. He liked the size of her breasts. Not too large, not too small. A good handful.
He pulled his attention back to the road. He wasn’t about to have a major accident because he couldn’t stop looking at Sarah.
Still, she’d shown up to a bar filled with werewolves dressed like that, so she was probably looking for a little fun, but no matter how hard he was, he needed to concentrate on the situation at hand. He wanted Blooded to visit Devil’s Den, but he also didn’t want them to be stupid about it.
After a few intersections, Caleb cleared his throat. “Why the hell did you stick around?”
“What?” Sarah said, blinking those oh-so-innocent-looking blue eyes.
Caleb kept his eyes on the road while he drove. “Someone as strong Blooded as you should have known the score. If things got rough, you could have gotten hurt. It’s not like we were having that fight in the field. You know how wolves can get.”
Sarah let out a long sigh. “It sounded like that was the first time the True Sons have come in.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “We were warned that they might stop by, but it’s been a couple of months since we got the warning.”
“Do you think they’ll come back?”
“You know wolves. We’re all stubborn. I think Jake’s gonna need a lot more sense pounded into him before he gives up.”
“Wait,” she said. “You have a truck.”
“Yeah, and… ?”
“You don’t have a motorcycle?” She sounded disappointed.
“No. I told you earlier. My friends and me don’t ride.” Caleb barked out a laugh. “And it’s hard to carry things on a bike. I’m not a biker, Sarah, even if I’ve known more than my fair share.”
“Are the True Sons typical, you’d say?”
He spared a glance Sarah’s way. Her voice had become detached, almost clinical. He wondered if the encounter had riled her more than he suspected.
“Typical of what?”
“Werewolves.”
“Huh?”
“Are most bikers werewolves? Is that why you chose to try and push a more biker-bar vibe?”
“Uh, no. Come on. If most bikers were…”
Shit. No, it couldn’t be.
“What?” Sarah said. “Oh. While I’m thinking of it, how did you hit that guy so many times without him even showing any injuries? I know I saw them, but then it was like that all just healed. I mean the blood was even still there. Was that because you didn’t use silver?”
Oh shit.
Caleb’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. His heart thundered. This was bad. Very bad.
He’d assumed that a Blooded with such a pureblooded scent had to be in the know, but her questions made it seem like she didn’t know anything about werewolves.
It wasn’t unknown. Plenty of weaker Blooded managed to skate by without ever running into shifters and learning the truth. Many lineages had been lost through the years, but someone who smelled like Sarah? It was almost unheard of.
He had to be sure.
“Do you know what it means to be Blooded?” Caleb asked quietly.
“Is that what you’re called after like your first kill or something?” Sarah frowned and shook her head. “No, no. That doesn’t make sense. You said I was Blooded. So what is it, then?”
Caleb yanked the wheel to the right, pulling the truck into an empty parking lot outside some abandoned warehouses.
“What’s going on?” Sarah said, a faint tremor in her voice.
Caleb growled and turned the engine off. “I was a dumbass, and now I have to figure out how to solve a big problem.”