This was it. There was no getting by these guys unless I wanted to run them down in my Jeep, and I knew it.

The big, burly biker who’d pulled up beside me first now stood in the middle of the line of Skull and Bones riders. Coming in at at least six-five, Big Bear towered over his compatriots, which was pretty impressive in and of itself. He probably had a hundred pounds on me, too, and looked to be solid muscle through and through. Where Wyatt Axelrod had a little bit of paunch around his waist, though, Big Bear had at least a keg of solid mass.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” Big Bear called as I sat there on the road. “You wanna turn this into a shooting war, we’ll be more than happy to oblige. Otherwise, you can come right out here and fight me like a man.”

I could turn this into a shooting war, I realized. They were armed, clearly, and they were threatening me. No court in the world would find me guilty for defending my life and property. But I still didn’t think it would fix anything. There would be more of these guys where they came from. Instead, I opened up my door and, gun held in the air with my finger clearly away from the trigger, I stepped out onto the lonely highway.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, pistol still in hand. “Trying to get me away from the girl?”

“The girl? What girl? I wanna fight you, you fucking dumbass,” Big Bear called. “Wanna show you what the fuck you get for sucker punching a Bonesman.”

“Sucker punch?” I asked, a little shocked. “Come on, I didn’t fucking sucker punch the guy. He swung first for fuck’s sake. How’d I sucker punch him?”

“You calling our president a fucking liar? That what you’re doing?”

Well, that hadn’t worked. “Fine. Whatever. You guys gonna leave if I beat your ass?”

“What makes you so sure we won’t leave you begging for your life?” Big Bear asked.

I sighed. Guys like this were always the most frustrating, but they also tended to be the easiest to take down.

“Fine,” I said, resigned. “Let’s do this.” I took my gun, ejected the clip, and cleared the chamber. I stuffed the clip in my pocket and tossed the empty gun on my driver seat. “You want any rules or anything? Like no fish hooks, eye-gouging, brass knuckles, all that?”

“Come on, fucker,” he called as he brought his fists up in front of his face and rolled his shoulders to loosen them up. “Happy hour’s going, and I ain’t got all day.”

I slammed the Jeep’s door shut, thumbed my nose, and spat to the side. Okay, if things went bad—or worse, I guess—there was one of me and five of them. They all looked pretty rough around the edges, which meant they probably knew how to fight, and how to fight dirty. I had to keep my face covered and cushion my head if they knocked me to the ground, as well as support my kidneys. As a shifter, I healed fast, but I could still be knocked unconscious if I wasn’t careful.

I could work with this. After all, I only had Big Bear to deal with, right? And, as soon as I stomped him into the ground, I could get back on the road and make sure Jessica was alright. I marched up to him, fists at my side. “You know I don’t want to do this,” I told him.

“Fight me?”

“More like kick your ass, but sure, whatever makes you feel better.”

A big toothy grin broke his coal black beard as we shuffled towards each other, keeping our stances tight and firm, our heads down low and behind our fists.

He swung first, a quick right jab that came hard. I sidestepped and blocked, and jabbed him in the ribs with my own right. He barely reacted and slammed into my jaw with his left fist before I could get away.

Stars burst behind my eyes as my steps faltered a little, and I stumbled back from him.

“Guess you’re a lefty,” I said as I touched my smarting chin and blinked the splotches away. I couldn’t take many of those, even with my faster-than-normal healing, and I knew it.

“Guessed right, asshole,” he said, urging me forward with a wave of his hand as his biker buddies cheered and jeered behind him.

Damn, that had been one hell of a rightie earlier, though. This guy hit like a freight train rolling downhill at ten times the OSHA-approved safety limit. I needed to rethink my strategy here.

Before I could, though, he was back on me, his hands everywhere and moving fast. His buddies urged him on, their voices loud and raucous on the stretch of empty road, echoing off the barren cliff face beside us.

I knew I didn’t have a chance in a straight-up boxing match with this guy. He outweighed me and out-reached me. Every time I’d try to hit him, he’d be able to block me or counterpunch me into next week. So, I took a different tack. On defense now, I blocked almost all of his swings and made no counters. Each one hit like a truck as I desperately tried to find an opening, a way to try and get to him. I was too busy blocking, though, to get back on the attack.

I could tell Big Bear was already getting out of breath.

Any kind of fight takes a lot out of you, and if you’re not specifically training for endurance, you’re not going to last long. Thankfully, Peter made us run with the sand bag every weekend to keep us in shape. Sprint up the hill with the seventy-five pound bag in your arms, throw it to the ground, wrestle and punch it like your life depends on it, grab the bag, and sprint some more. Repeat ad nauseam, literally. He doesn’t let up till we’re puking in the pine needles, swearing to him how much we hate him between gasps.

Beads of sweat dotted Big Bear’s forehead and his chest was heaving. I had a sneaking suspicion that he hadn’t had a fight last this long in quite a while, and had never thought to really train for it. He gasped for another breath and swung again. This time, his punch had lost some of that notable ‘oomph’ from before.

Finally, I did what he’d never expect. Not with a guy so much smaller than him, even though I was pretty damn big in my own right. I rushed him, head down, and wrapped my arms around his waist.

Big Bear planted his feet in the gravel, laughing almost he as pounded his ham-hock fists into my back. He stopped sliding backwards, but only because I’d stopped shoving.

I shot my hands down grabbed the back of his thighs and lifted.

“The fuck?” he yelled as I heaved him into the air by his middle.

In the air, I positioned him so his back was right at the ground.

He flailed his fists at me again. With how close I was, and how tired he’d already become, each punch just glanced off my head and shoulders, barely phasing me.

With a roar like an old hot rod, I slammed him into the ground with a resounding crash, knocking the wind from him as I pinned him to the ground like a spear from heaven. As I was just about to climb on top of him to straddle his torso and pin his arms to the ground, I looked up. I realized then that my earlier roar hadn’t been my own, and that crash hadn’t been Big Bear and me going down.

No, it had been Frank O’Dwyer, one of my pack mates! He’d put his old silver Shelby Mustang into a slide and gone right through the line of Skull and Bones bikes, sending them flying as he came through like a bowling ball.

All around me were toppled motorcycles and broken bikers, the men screaming on the ground as Frank hopped from his car, its engine still rumbling like a panther.

“Murdoch!” he yelled, sliding across the hood of his now scratched up and dented Mustang like some 80’s badass, sidearm already drawn as his combat boots hit the highway’s surface at a run.

I slammed my fist into Big Bear’s face, knocking his head back into the asphalt. “Frank!” I called back, glancing up at him.

“What the fuck, buddy?” Frank yelled, his pistol’s barrel directed to the ground. At least he had enough sense not to start picking up targets without knowing exactly what was going on. “What the hell you doing?”

“What does it look like?” I yelled from on top of Big Bear, punching him in the nose and causing blood to splatter all over his face. “Fighting bikers!”

All around us, the Bonesmen were getting to their feet shakily. As if by unspoken command, they clamored for their bikes. They were leaving, I realized. Still, I was impressed they could even move. It’s not every day an old sportscar slams your bike into you like that.

I climbed off Big Bear, who didn’t have any fight left in him as far as I could tell, and one of the guys came over and helped him regain his wobbly legs.

I moved back from him, my eyes darting around as I checked out the men around us.

He looked at me around his already swelling nose. “This ain’t over.”

“What the fuck, man?” I said, my fists back up in front of my face. “It wasn’t my ass that ended up on the ground, getting helped up by his buddies.”

Big Bear hocked up a big bloody loogie and spat it to the side, dangerously close to my feet. “Fuck you!” he growled. “Your buddy showed up to help you.”

“He showed up after I kicked your ass!” I reminded him.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Then this ain’t over cause of our bikes.” Behind him, his buddies were already getting their bikes turned around, pointed back to Enchanted Rock. They were keeping one eye on Frank, who still had his pistol at the ready, and one eye on me.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. You call my secretary and set up my rematch. Just leave the girl out of this, or I’ll do worse than beat your ass next time.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t back up, bitch,” he growled.

“Fine, whatever.” I replied. “Guess I’ll see around then. Meanwhile, you just take your trashy asses out of here. Next time I see you in my town, though, I won’t be as fucking nice as I was today. Hear me?”

He growled again and started to go after me, but his buddy that was holding him up and helping to keep him balanced, pulled him back. “Nah, Bo, this shit’s over for now.”

Big Bear glanced down at him where he was tucked beneath his armpit, and growled again as he looked back at me. “Be seeing you, asshole.”

“Yeah, Bo,” I said. “I’ll be looking forward to our next conversation.” I would have air-quoted the last part, but he was still within swinging distance.

He growled again, then his buddy helped him over to his bike, one of the only ones still standing from Frank’s powerslide.

As they started their bikes, I looked at Frank. “You came north on the highway, right?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod, his eyes still locked on the bikers as they started up their bikes and headed back to Enchanted Rock.

“Did you see a red Jetta on the way here?”

“Now that you mention it,” he said, frowning slightly, “I did. Off on the side of the road, looked broken down. Why?”

My heat started pumping again in full throttle. I knew they’d had a reason for cutting me off from her!

“Shit!” I shouted as I ran back to my Jeep and reloaded my pistol and shoved it in my holster.

“What?” Frank asked as he came around to my driver side.

“That was our client,” I explained as I started up the Jeep. “They cut me off from her.”

He nodded. “Meet you there!” He was off in a flash, running around to hop back in his Mustang.

This was all my fault. I shouldn’t have lagged so far behind her. I should have just done what Frnak did and rammed through those bikers when they’d blockaded my way down the road. Would’ve served those fuckers right to have this much domestic steel rammed right up their hairy asses.

I took off before Frank could even get the door open and climb inside.

I just hoped Jessica was okay. I didn’t know what I’d do with myself if they’d even hurt a hair on her head. Not just because she was my client, either. This was something else. Something more.