“Wait, we’re riding on that? Without a sidecar? Or airbags, or a seatbelt?”
“You’ll be fine, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
And she believed him. She trusted him. He’d come for her, stood between her and that vampire, and threatened war between the two biggest supernatural bodies in the world. Aaron Keller had threatened to bring hell to earth to protect her, and every fiber of her being believed he would actually follow through.
Aaron slid his leg over the seat of his bike, jammed the kickstand up with his heal and turned the engine. It was much louder up close than she’d expected, but with only a second of hesitation, she slid her palm onto his offered one and eased onto the motorcycle behind him. Aaron adjusted the bag over his shoulder, pulled her hands around his waist, and told her to, “Hold on to me.”
The warmth had stopped trickling down her neck, and the pain had eased. Her adrenaline dump had left her feeling mellow and like she was floating outside of her body. As Aaron eased onto Main Street and toward the Smoky Mountains, she rested her cheek against his back and sent a silent thank you to the heavens that he cared enough to put himself between her and that monster. He’d told that vampire she was his claim, his mate, and though she’d been too scared at the time to realize what he was declaring, it hit her like a lightning strike to the heart now.
My claim, my mate.
Alana held on tighter to his taut waist as he hit the gas outside of town. When the wind kicked up and something massive blocked out the stars and moon, she tensed, terrified that it was the bats back to finish her off.
“It’s Harper,” Aaron assured her over his shoulder. “She’ll be watching over us coming in.”
But he was wrong. It wasn’t just Harper protecting them as they blasted toward her mountains. Alana smiled tentatively at the giant raven and snowy owl that glided alongside of them on the edge of the woods.
Alana tilted her face back and looked up into the sky at the golden underbelly of the massive dragon above. Harper’s wings looked dark, a forest green perhaps. She scanned the woods around them, snaking her long neck this way and that as she thrashed her wings against the air currents.
Alana should feel scared right now. Terrified even. Her neck still burned, and her muscles remembered how awful it was to be frozen in place. But Aaron had declared her his, and the Bloodrunner Crew being here said they accepted that. They accepted her.
She’d never been in more danger in her entire life.
But somehow, someway, Alana had never felt this safe either.
Chapter Twelve
The throaty pa-pa-pa of Aaron’s motorcycle slowed with their speed as he drove them through a gate Wyatt was holding open. His eyes were glowing brightly in the moonlight as he watched them pass with a nod of his head. When they were clear, Wyatt closed the gate behind them and followed the motorcycle at a jog. In a clearing up ahead, a cabin appeared surrounded by towering trees. The moon was full tonight and cast everything in a neon blue glow, so perhaps that was the reason Alana got chills when she laid eyes on the old log cabin with the sagging front porch.
“Is this your house?” she asked, awed at its ethereal beauty.
“No. Mine is up that trail.” Aaron nodded at a dirt track that wound around jutting black rocks. Up the hill, she could just make out a couple more cabins in the tree line. “This,” he said, jamming the kickstand down in front of the first house, “is ten-ten.”
The raven spread its wings and extended its legs, and in a moment, Weston landed near them in his human form.
“Oh my God, there’s a dick.” A giant one, eek! Alana ripped her gaze away from Weston’s tatted up, rippling, naked body only to land on Ryder, who was standing nearby with his hands on his hips and a giant erection at half-mast. The white of his teeth flashed right before she squeaked and looked away. Harper strode around the house, naked as the day she was born, perky boobs bouncing. She looked completely comfortable with her nudity, but Alana was not. “Tits and dicks,” she blurted out, then buried her face against Aaron’s back as he chuckled. “Can everyone put clothes back on. Please.”
“Naked bodies are completely natural,” Ryder explained.
She looked up to argue, but he was flapping his long pecker from side to side against his legs with a big grin on his face.
“Ryder, cut it out,” Aaron muttered, but his shoulders were shaking with laughter, and this was not funny!
She would simply close her eyes. That worked until Aaron got off the bike and escaped the range of her searching hand. With a growl of utter mortification, Alana eased her eyes open, angled them at the ground only, and stumbled off the bike. Her legs felt like noodles after the ride in, so she bounced this way and that, hands cupped above her eyebrows so she didn’t have to see all the swinging dicks. She followed Aaron’s boots up the creaking porch stairs and into the open doorway.
Inside, the warm glow of the lights urged Alana’s shoulders to relax. Harper was pulling on a pair of jeans near the kitchen table, and thankfully the beefy nudists outside didn’t seem inclined to follow them in.
“You’ll stay here tonight,” Harper said.
“What?” Aaron asked. “No, I need her with me.”
“Then you can stay here, too.”
“I don’t understand, Harper. I have a cabin right up the hill.”
Harper let off a long, terrifying growl that was so loud it filled every inch of the room. “Weston asked Wyatt and I to move out of here for a reason.”