CHAPTER 3
~ Nyle returns to Tulsa ~
Nyle’s heart hammers faster with each mile as he approaches Tulsa city limits. After over four and half years searching for his lost love, he had stumbled across Ares in Detroit while chasing a bounty on a killer rogue for a Ghoul clan whose home base is near the Motor City. The Greek war god, and head enforcer for the UCI, told Nyle that Kazar had been trapped in the Nihility for all this time. The war god also went on to say that Kazar has been back in this realm since early November of last year, but was too weak to travel, and too disorientated to even recall where he made his home. The thought of how bad his condition must have been to leave an ancient vampire that weakened sends chills down the spine of the Celtic shifter. He is also filled with guilt for not joining his lover on that last enforcer gig for the UCI, and has spent most of the long ass ride from Michigan to Oklahoma kicking himself for the time they have lost.
He’s been back for months? Hell, I could have been with my mate instead of taking random bounty jobs in the faint hope of learning something about his whereabouts.
Realizing that it is not healthy to dwell on what could have been, Nyle is simply eager to get back to the MC and see Kazar with his own eyes. To actually touch the male, and be assured he lives. He guns the engine of his maroon 1956 Royal Enfield Super Meteor, and leans over the low handle bars as he passes a slow moving semi-truck in his eagerness to see his vampire lover again. With each mile that the powerful 700cc engine puts behind the shifter, the ache in his heart grows sharper, as though suddenly afraid this new hope of a reunion will be stolen away by some cruel twist of fate, leaving the Celt brokenhearted, again.
What if Kazar didn’t return to the Twin Ravens?
Momentary panic threatens to overtake the male before he shuts down his run away emotions. Nyle is not a male to lose control, and the fact that he’s allowing himself to ride the edge this way pisses him off. “Fuck, Nyle, man up already,” he chastises himself. Nyle Black isn’t ready to admit to himself, or anyone else, just how close he had come to being left a hollow shell of himself when he couldn’t find any trace of his lover for all these years.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
When Trinity returns from “chatting” with her fellow TRMC enforcer, Callie is bursting at the seams with questions about the man, but her bodyguard is not big on small talk. While Callie really could not get a good look at the swarthy man sitting in the shade of the café’s awning, she was convinced he seemed familiar. At first, she nearly panicked thinking it was the vampire come back to finish her off. Trinity quickly assured her that simply was not the case. But Callie couldn’t resist stealing frequent covert looks out the storefront window in an attempt to get a better look at the man.
When Dottie Parker, one of the dancers from the MC’s strip club shows up at three o’clock to take over for Callie, the exhausted store owner gratefully calls it a day after greeting Dottie and her bodyguard, Ice. Because it is possible the vampire who attacked Callie two weeks ago will come back, no one has been allowed to work at Callie’s store, A Twist of Time – Clothing Consignments, without an MC member along for protection.
Today, Callie is as eager to leave as she was to arrive at the beginning of the day. Despite Tara’s objections, Callie was determined to get an early start and catch up on updating her website with new consignments. It was Callie’s own stubbornness that began her work day at seven A.M., but after eight hours, nearly three dozen sales from street traffic and over thirty online sales that had to be packed up and shipped out, she is more than ready to go home… But going home isn’t really an option. The best Callie can manage until the Twin Ravens catch her attacker is her bunk at the MC. She longs for a bit of privacy, even though Tara and Trinity have been nothing but kind to her, she wants her own space and some semblance of normalcy for her life. Despite the caring support of her new friends, she frequently craves her mundane and quiet existence from the time before the attack.
Involuntarily, her hand goes to the small baby bump that has already formed in her belly, and she realizes normal is not something she will likely ever experience again. Even though the attack happened less than two weeks ago, Callie is already at the end of the first trimester, thanks to freaky supernatural biology. It seems that vampire/human pregnancies only last about six to eight weeks. Depending on the strength of the woman carrying the baby. The horror stories Blood and Tara shared with her were the stuff of nightmares, but Callie refuses to destroy the child just because its father is a monster.
Heck, who are you kidding? Vampire or not, you are over the moon at the prospect of being a mom.
As a quiet, single lady with no family, close friends, or prospects for a boyfriend much less a husband, Callie had resigned herself to never having a family. And even though this will by no stretch of the imagination be a typical pregnancy and child birth, Callie is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her daughter. Somehow, the thirty-two year old mom to be is quite certain the baby will be a girl. And as crazy as it might sound, Callie feels like she has found a new family in that very strange group of supernatural beings who call themselves the Twin Ravens MC.
To every other human in Tulsa, the Twin Ravens is just an outlaw motorcycle club that seems to do a pretty good job of keeping to themselves and keeping even worse elements, like other outlaw MCs, gun runners, and drug cartels, out of the bustling and vibrant city in Northeast Oklahoma. But to Callie, the Twin Ravens, especially Blood, Tara, and Trinity are fast becoming family. Even Kat and Gin are becoming close friends. She has yet to meet an MC Brother who did not treat her respectfully and seem to be genuinely concerned for her welfare. Callie knows that if she survives carrying this vampire’s child, that it will not be easy raising a human/vampire hybrid. And yet, it is a task she looks forward to and one that she knows she will not face alone.
Trinity had decided to ride with Callie this morning because it was pouring rain. When the pair are walking to Callie’s old beater parked in the alley behind the shop, the enforcer pipes up in a singsong voice; “I have a surprise for you!”
Callie giggles at the sweet, eager, and child-like quality of her new friend’s announcement. “And just what might that surprise be?”
“The new MC is finished. Everyone will likely be moved in when we get there.” The tiny enforcer stops and smiles at her new friend. “That means you will finally have your own room.”
This news makes Callie squeal in delight. She stops and smiles at Trinity before asking; “Do you want to drive?”
The diminutive bodyguard smiles and shakes her head. “Nope, I do not know how to drive a car.”
“What?” Callie shrieks gleefully. “How is it that you know how to ride that massive motorcycle but do not know how to drive a car?”
Trinity shrugs, and looks around as though afraid someone might overhear her words. “I don’t really know how to operate the motorcycle either. I ride it using magick. It becomes an extension of my will, and acts accordingly.” She shrugs and continues to saunter toward the passenger door of Callie’s old car, tossing the bundle of clothing that Callie is taking home for repairs into the backseat. “One of these days I really should figure out how to do it like everyone else.”
Callie approaches the driver’s side door and gets in to start the cantankerous engine. “Why bother? If I could do what you do, I’d never worry about small things like learning to drive.”
The rest of the drive goes by quickly with Callie chatting animatedly about her busy day at work and how cool it must be to have magick. Trinity has fallen a bit quiet because she is worried that she is becoming too comfortable with Callie and might reveal too much information. Trinity has secrets that she can never reveal. Ever. Not if she has any hope of ever being redeemed in the eyes of Creation.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Turning off the engine of his Royal Enfield, Nyle looks up at the “new” MC. It looks a hella lot better than it did when he came back to Tulsa last November after news of his home base’s destruction reached him on the road. But then again, the young Celtic shifter never doubted Blood’s commitment to seeing to the protection of his part of the human world. That old bastard is the last remaining Guardian of the Red Earth Dwellers. That ancient sabretooth cat shifter embodies magick so ancient that Nyle’s nearly two hundred year old mind cannot even wrap around the depth and extent of its source or scope.
Nyle expands his senses, hoping to pick up a trace of Kazar’s presence inside, but he is disappointed. The Egyptian vampire is not here, but he has been, and recently. That encourages the Celt and he strides into his home with a prayer on his lips to any benevolent deity that might be listening to make his reunion with his lover a happy one. A lot can change in five years, and Nyle has no idea what Kazar has endured during their separation.
Worry furrows his brow and his sky blue eyes take on a wary look. His return in November made him realize that some of his brethren viewed his extended absence as a form of desertion of their cause. Nyle snorts derisively. None of these fuckers would have done any differently had their mate suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. Nyle is confident that his actions in leaving the MC to search for his mate were justified and right.
But the greeting that awaits him when he strides through the doorway of the rebuilt MC clubhouse is anything but cold or judgmental. The Celtic shifter feels as though he has finally returned home. Even going back to the clan of his birth in the realm of Airendell did not feel as right as this homecoming.
After much back slapping, ribald humor, and crazy tales of adventures, Nyle notices a pattern among his brethren. Many have found their fated mates. Nyle had met Joker’s Jenniene back in November, and had heard the chatter about the MC’s sadistic enforcer being off with his mate in the Beast Realm. But today it appears that Joker and Wrath are not the only Brothers who are bonded with their fated. Darkheart is with a pretty little female wearing nurse’s scrubs. Turns out she’s a healer, with some magickal ability, and works as a nurse midwife. Agnar Landvik, freelance muscle and paranorm enforcer who has apparently made Tulsa his new home, is also there with his mate. Leo Eeus is an intriguing warlock with an entertaining, but probably deadly familiar. While the two males are reserved in their public displays of their affection, there is no mistaking their soul deep connection, and witnessing their obvious bond makes Nyle’s heart ache.
He wonders for the millionth time in the last twenty years why the mate bond between Kazar and himself never formed. There has never been any doubt in the hearts and minds of either male that they are mates, and yet the bond eludes them. He pushes those thoughts away and focuses instead on his brothers and the happiness they have found with their mates. Even the wise-cracking, tender-hearted, bad-assed enforcer Coyote seems to have found his mate. Nyle shakes his head in disbelief at the notion that the MC’s well loved and respected Navajo shifter has found the other half of his soul in the semi-rogue warlock, River Vann.
“Huh, who’d a thunk it?” he mutters as he drains his third beer while listening half-heartedly to Tank and Boomer talk about the new construction and magickal reinforcements that went into building the new MC.
A few of the newer club girls have sized Nyle up and found him a tasty morsel they want to devour. Nyle simply returns their appreciative glances, but kindly informs each in turn that he is taken. Before meeting Kazar, Nyle had been an equal opportunity man-whore. He loved sex, and adored the form of both women and men. He savored the soft and yielding flesh of a female, while equally reveling in the hard, muscled contours of a powerful male body. But whether his lovers have been male or female, Nyle has always taken the lead, has always been the top in any sexual relationship. His very dominant, very Alpha wolf spirit would have it no other way.
Nyle leans against the bouncer’s station near the front door, grinning as Boomer and Tank argue the merits of various mundane security measures. These two males are the primary force behind the MC’s security company, and while the subject seems to be fascinating to Boomer and Tank, Nyle is distracted when the scent of popcorn and cotton candy hits his nostrils. He looks up to see an unknown human female walk through the front door of the MC. She is a pretty, if average looking, human with big whisky brown eyes and rich cinnamon hued hair that looks as soft as silk. The female looks around uncertainly at the loud gathering in the MC clubhouse.
Despite her insecurity, Nyle sees a strength and determination in her spirit that many would miss. But Nyle is a Dom at heart, he may not go in for all the protocol and sexual play in public at the clubs that have become so popular in recent times, but he has the appraising eye of a Dom. And this reserved human female has the heart of a sexual submissive with hidden depths and passions just waiting for the right Dominant to unlock. When the pretty girl drops an old whale bone corset from the untidy wad of fabric in her arms, she leans over to pick it up and nearly loses her balance because of her awkward hold on her bundle.
The Celtic shifter is at her side in an instant. He gently grasps her upper arm to keep her steady before bending to retrieve the fallen garment. The electricity which zings almost painfully from his hand and throughout his body at the contact with this female is unsettling. Her sweet and homey scent tantalizes his nostrils and fires his libido. Nyle can’t help but appreciate what little he can see of her feminine form and he instantly feels guilty for experiencing this level of attraction for another.
After all, he is a mated male. A mated male who has been without his mate for five years and desperately yearns to have him back in his arms. He looks around, wondering when his beloved Kazar will arrive. But he licks his lips and looks back at the reticent human female before him. The connection and instant attraction he feels for this female is so reminiscent of his first meeting with Kazar that he feels like his heart has been punched by the cold hand of fate.
Have I been fooling myself all this time? He mentally shakes his head no. Kazar is my mate! There is no doubt in Nyle’s mind that he and Kazar are fated to be together, forever. But he cannot tear himself away from the gaze of the human woman. She seems to be equally enthralled by their instant connection and chemistry.
“Hello,” she says with a sweet smile that does funny things to Nyle’s heart, making him feel protective and possessive, but it also sends a very loud message of want and need to the rest of his anatomy, and his cock responds instantly.
“Can I help you find someone?” Nyle asks earnestly. He truly wants to help this female any way that he can. No, he needs to care for her, watch out for her, possess her, own her.
What the fuck? Where is this shit coming from? His mind rebels at the direction of his thoughts and the reaction of his body to her nearness.
She smiles sweetly and shakes her head. “No, I live here. Or at least, I have been living in the temporary MC. But Trinity told me that we were moving into the new building today.” She looks around as though searching for a familiar face. Her smile of relief could light up the Tulsa skyline when she spots Tank and Boomer. Obviously, she knows the males. The seasoned enforcers greet her warmly and Boomer comes to take her load from her arms.
“What’s all this?” Boomer asks gently with an engaging smile on his handsome face, indicating the bundle of clothing in his arms.
“I brought my work home with me,” she says with a sheepish smile. “Those need mending and restoring before I can offer them up in my online catalogue.” She casts another shy look at Nyle before returning her attention to Boomer. “Uh, do you know where my new room might be?”
Nyle thinks that she must be a club girl, but she just doesn’t have the air of innate carnality of a typical sweet butt. This female is reserved in her demeanor and understated in her dress. It’s almost as though she is attempting to mask her true beauty instead of flaunting it as most females associated with the MC are wont to do.
Boomer laughs heartily at her quiet question. He may be a son of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, but the MC calls him Boomer because of that laugh. It’s a lot like the male himself, warm, loud, and just makes you feel good inside.
“Nah, Callie, I have no idea where Tara might have set you up.” Boomer looks around before carefully setting the bundle of clothing in the bouncer’s station. “Let me go find Tara and then we’ll get you settled in.” He pauses and searches the little human female’s face, concern evident in his examination. “You look tired, sweetie. I think you went back to work too soon.”
The girl ducks her head, but quickly meets the affectionate and concerned gaze of the MC Brother. Nyle’s inner beast snarls possessively because another male dares to show this female affection. “Maybe,” she admits quietly, looking a bit overwhelmed. “It was a very busy day at the shop and right now, I’d give my eye teeth for a hot bath, a meal, and a bed.”
When she reaches down to protectively cover her gently rounded abdomen with her hand, Nyle feels confused, and cheated? She’s pregnant? Oh fuck, and probably mated to one of your Brethren, asshole! And you’ve been lusting after her while waiting for your own mate to show up. He looks away from the appealing sight of the female to hide his own feelings of disappointment and guilt.
Boomer strides away in search of Tara, and Nyle listens in as Tank quizzes the female about her day. Apparently, she owns a consignment clothing shop in town and is under the protection of the MC for some reason, but is not truly a part of it. Strange. The Celt keeps stealing glances at the female, unable to resist the attraction despite his guilt over his feelings. And it doesn’t help one little bit that this Callie seems just as taken with him. She frequently looks up at him through her lashes, in a shy but blatantly curious way.
That’s it, Nyle. She is simply curious, and you are behaving like a randy, unmated male, the shifter mentally chastises himself. Despite his inner struggle, he cannot deny the fact that this very average looking and wary female enthralls him. He longs to reach out and stroke her hair to see if it is truly as soft as it appears. He longs to pick her up and carry her to the room he shares with Kazar to nurture and protect her.
Thoughts of himself and Kazar stripping this female naked to cherish and possess her ripe, lush body makes the shifter go hard in an instant, and his inner beast howls his approval with the plan.
But thoughts of Kazar act like a bucket of cold water on his runaway libido. Yeah, that’s right, asshole. Kazar? Ring a bell? You know, your mate, whom you have not seen in over five years?
Nyle is feeling confused and angry. He has not had sex with or even been interested in another person since meeting Kazar over twenty years ago. And yet, after a few years away from his mate, his fickle wolf and cock suddenly decide to go ape-shit over some human female? What the fuck?
Before Nyle can mentally thrash himself any further, a very familiar and beloved scent assails his senses and rips his attention from the human female, his brethren, and everything else in the entire realm.
Kazar!
The enticing aroma of Kazar’s natural sandalwood scent, along with the hint of the argan oil the male always uses on his hair, wraps around Nyle’s mind and heart, making him turn to face the entrance to the MC. And there he stands… Kazar! At just under six feet tall, wiry and strong, the olive-skinned male with angular features, a hawkish nose, and dark eyes is one of the most beautiful sights Nyle has ever had the honor of beholding.
“Mate!” he whispers. Nyle’s joy is boundless. His male, his mate, and his best friend is alive and standing there watching him with those wise and ancient eyes that have seen so much tragedy, evil, and struggle over the ages. Without conscious thought, Nyle’s feet carry him to stand before the keeper of his heart. The men clasp each other on the shoulder and for a moment, they become lost in each other’s eyes. Both men had feared at times over the last five years that this reunion would never come.
Without a word passing between them, because words are not needed in moments such as this when their souls are speaking so loudly of their joy, the males lean in to lovingly rest their foreheads against each other. Their souls entwine and soon their lips meet, and strong arms encircle each other as the rest of the world drifts away, leaving only the two lovers reunited after their horrendous separation.