Snatched: A Dragon Shifter MC Romance Read online

  I didn’t wait for permission. I leveled my gun barrel at the lock and pulled the trigger. The bars rang with the impact and sprang open. I whipped inside and turned her over.

  Her head flopped, and a trail of bloody snot smeared across her nose and cheek. A solid mass of clotted blood darkened what should have been her mouth. She wore a filthy black tank top and tight jeans around her petite body. Her eyelids drifted at half-mast to reveal unseeing brown eyes.

  Someone materialized at my side, and Carlos murmured in my ear. “Jesus fucking Christ! What a mess.”

  “What is she doing here?” Tomas asked.

  I laid hold of her shoulders. She didn’t respond when I moved her around, but I didn’t want to shake her too hard. All that blood around her nose and mouth, not to mention the darkened bruises on her temples and around her eyes, probably meant she had a head injury.

  My thumb slipped in blood on her arm. I pulled my hand away thinking to wipe it on my pants. When I did, I spotted a familiar image inked into her skin. A swirling banner rippled across her bicep with the words, Los Diablos, printed in italics.

  “What the fuck?” Tomas breathed.

  I scraped more blood away to reveal the rest of the tattoo. A dragon flexed its coils around the banner. Its curved wing points formed a circle shooting flame in a starburst pattern.

  “What kind of patch is that?” Cisco asked.

  I rotated my forearm to reveal my own brand. The dragon on my arm was a simpler tribal design with the same curlicue lettering, Los Diablos.

  Who was this girl? How could she be here, in The Desperados’ stronghold, wearing our patch? It wasn’t our patch, though. It was different.

  Tomas broke the silence. “Who the fuck is this?”

  “She’s Los Diablos,” Cisco pointed out.

  “How can she be?” Tomas returned. “That’s not our brand. Just because some Desperado bitch inked herself with our name doesn’t make her Los Diablos. She could have seen it anywhere and copied it.”

  “Who the fuck would do something so stupid?” Cisco countered. “Besides, she’s not a Desperado. Do you think they would lock up one of their own women in a place like this? They’ve obviously been torturing her. Jesus Christ, look at her! She’s no Desperado. I’d bet you any amount of money on that.”

  “Then who is she?” Tomas asked.

  Carlos interrupted. “She is Los Diablos.”

  “What?” Tomas and Cisco both whipped around to gape at him. “How do you know?’

  He pointed at the tat. “It’s an old design. We haven’t used it in years. I can’t think of anyone who ever got that brand in our chapter. In fact, I can only think of one person who ever wore it and that was Josiah Hunter.”

  Tomas gasped. “Our old Boss?”

  Carlos nodded. “He joined down in New Mexico before he moved out here. He got that tat from another chapter of the same club. He was the only one around here who had it. La Muerta killed him in a battle and three challenges for the leadership followed. First came Floyd Mitchell, then Ashton Sykes, and last Jude Elliott. All three men got ousted before they could consolidate their positions, but Sykes stayed in power long enough to change the design to the current one. Then I came along and challenged Elliott. I won and here I am.”

  All of us turned our attention to the girl. “If that’s true,” I remarked, “then how did she end up with Hunter’s patch?”

  “I don’t know,” he mused, “but the real question is how did she get down here. If they found out she was Los Diablos, that explains why they treated her as an enemy. One thing I know for sure. She’s the only one who can tell us what we want to know.”

  “What do you mean?” Cisco asked.

  “We’re taking her with us.” Carlos swiveled to face me. “Pick her up and carry her outside. Take her to the warehouse, and we’ll question her.”

  He turned on his heel and left the cell. The other men drifted off in different directions, but I stayed behind. I studied the girl’s face up close. I couldn’t see much of her features with all that muck and gore in the way, but she fascinated me for some reason. Her very disgusting condition made me want to look at her. Maybe if I looked long enough, I could solve the mystery of who she was.

  While I squatted there staring at her, she heaved off the floor and groaned. Her eyes rotated in their sockets. She made a half-hearted attempt to roll over and wound up retching on the floor.

  The sound woke me from my trance. I had a job to do whether I wanted to or not. I wrinkled my nose and picked her up in my arms. I made the long trek through the bunker to the chute leading outside.

  Now I faced the problem of flying this wreck of a human being back to our headquarters. I laid her on the concrete floor and straightened up. At that moment, a massive red dragon exploded down the tunnel behind me. It zoomed past me going a hundred miles an hour and rocketed up the chute to the outside world.

  The speed whipped my braid into my face. Yeah. That was the way it was done. In a heartbeat, I shifted and flexed my wings. These tunnels vaulted high enough to leave plenty of room for the biggest dragon. I beat the air, picked up the girl in one talon, and launched.

  I catapulted out of the bunker and streaked straight up into the wild blue yonder. I soared as high as I could before I stalled and peered down. I spotted a handful of motorcycles creeping eastward along the highway. Our boys would beat me to the warehouse, but that worked in my favor.

  I fluttered along for a few miles before I found the large red wheel painted on the warehouse roof. I folded in my wings and dove straight down. I burned over the neighborhood and braked to a halt in the yard outside.

  I set the girl on a couch by the open door and shifted into my human form as the choppers thumped into the yard. The boys parked and our guards locked the high razor-wire gate behind them.

  Carlos whipped off his shades. “Bring her inside, Brayden.”

  He barged past me and left me to carry my charge into the building. I put her on a different couch near Carlos’s office and stood back to watch the proceedings. I leaned against the strategy table and felt something wet on my hand.

  When I looked down, I noticed blood on my fingers. It slipped and slithered at my touch. How curious. That was her blood. For some reason, blood never seemed all that interesting to me until now.

  Carlos fetched a first aid kit from his office and cracked a vial of smelling salts under the girl’s nose. The stench filled the warehouse and the girl lunged upright staring her bleary eyes in all directions.

  “Huh!” she gasped. “What the….?”

  The dawn of understanding crept over her shattered face. She locked her eyes on each man one after another. Her swollen eyelids drooped into her vision, but underneath them, the wild, primordial will to live blazed as strong as ever. Whoever she was, she could take one hell of a beating and still wake up ready to fight.

  Carlos stood back and pitched the broken vial into the trash. “You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you here. You’re in the headquarters of Los Diablos. I guess you know who we are since you’re wearing our patch. We found you unconscious in The Desperados’ bunker. No one is going to beat you up or torture you or harm you in any way, but you’re going answer a few questions for us so we know what’s going on here.”

  She leveled him with a piercing glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you don’t.” He sniffed and shrugged inside his vest. His countenance hardened in that way it always did when he set his mind to doing something no matter the cost. “You can start by telling us where you got that tat.”

  He pointed at her shoulder. Only part of the image remained visible under the smeared blood, but she didn’t even bother to look at it. She set her bruised lips in a line and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything from before just now.”

  “Is that so?” Carlos hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t be
lieve you.”

  She looked away. “It’s true.”

  “So you have no idea why The Desperados locked you up and beat you like this? You have no idea why they took you prisoner?”

  “No.” She hunched her shoulders like a petulant child. I couldn’t imagine any behavior better suited to inciting Carlos to do his worst.

  He pivoted to the side and whispered something in Cisco’s ear. Cisco nodded and advanced on the girl. She scowled at him, but he only gave her his usual innocent, kindly smile. That smile could melt iron.

  He approached the couch with a slow, sauntering gait. All at once, he descended on her. He shoved her back on the couch and pinned her arms to the cushions. He grasped her wrists over her head with one hand and dove the other into her jeans pockets.

  In a trice, he tugged out her phone and her wallet. “Hey!” she screamed. “Give that back!”

  He snatched them up and darted away before she could react. He retreated to his place and handed the goods to Carlos.

  Carlos popped the snap and flipped open the wallet. “Your ID says your name is Morgan Cole. Does that ring a bell?”

  “No,” she grumbled.

  “Yeah, well….” He stuffed the wallet into his own pocket and waved the phone at her. “We’ll just keep this stuff. I’ll go through your contacts until we find out what connection you have to Josiah Hunter.”

  She spun around and shrieked at him. “I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never heard of any Josiah Hunter and I don’t know what the hell Los Diablos is. I don’t remember anything before just now. Why can’t you let me go?”

  Carlos fixed his flinty gaze on her and his jaw clenched. “You don’t know what Los Diablos is? This is Los Diablos.”

  He thrust out his forearm to reveal his own tattoo. He tightened his fist and the muscles of his forearm rippled under the smooth skin. The dragon undulated around the wheel and the flames danced in a circle.

  “See?” he murmured. “This is Los Diablos. It’s not like yours, but you still know what it is. Either you know something about Josiah Hunter that no one else on the planet knows or you’re lying through your teeth. My money’s on the latter.”

  He wheeled away and strode to where I stood. “Take her to The Zone. Keep her there and don’t let her out of your sight until you hear from me. We’ll go clean out the bunker, so this might take a while.”

  My head snapped up and I blinked at him. He couldn’t do this to me. He couldn’t saddle me with babysitting this bitch while he and the boys got the fun of ripping off another club for all their valuable goods.

  Carlos caught my expression and arched one eyebrow. “Do you have a problem, Brayden?”

  I gritted my teeth and pushed myself off the table. “No, Sir.”

  He laid one hand on my shoulder and murmured in my ear so no one could hear him. “I’m trusting you with this because I know you’ll see it done. I don’t trust anyone else. I’m giving you this job because of the good work you did today. I’m proud of you. This is important. I wouldn’t give it to anyone else.”

  My guts flipped. He was trusting me with an important job. He wasn’t cutting me out after all.

  He barged back to his office and left me standing there looking down at this wisp of a girl. I would take her to The Zone and that meant no flying. I had to do this the old fashioned way.

  Christ, her face looked awful. I didn’t want to hurt her any more than she’d already been hurt, but I could see in her eyes she wasn’t going to make this easy on any of us.

  I opened a drawer in the table and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. With luck, that would hold her long enough to get her to a safe place. I advanced on the couch and she looked up to glare at me.

  I dangled the cuffs in front of her and cracked a grin. “How about you put these on for me?”

  “Go fuck yourself, asshole,” she spat.

  The other guys burst out laughing. “Good one, Brayden,” Tomas called. “Nice try.”

  I smirked down at the girl. Morgan. Her name was Morgan. “If you don’t put them on yourself, I’ll have to do it.”

  She curled back her lips and snarled like a cornered dog. “I’d like to see you try, motherfucker.”

  Cisco chuckled and sauntered toward me nice and slow. Tomas moved in from the other side. Even with all three of us looming over her, she gave me a queer pang of misgiving in my guts. I didn’t like our chances against this puny little girl. That feral glint in her eyes told me she would fight like a devil—like a Diablo.

  I sized her up while she sized up all three of us. The longer I hesitated, the more advantage I threw to her. I had to make this quick and sudden, shock and awe.

  The energy exploded out of my so fast I didn’t see it coming. I dropped the cuffs and pounced on her with all my strength. I never entered a fight against a man bristling with that kind of aggression, but it turned out I needed every scrap of it.

  I snatched her arms the way Cisco did, but I didn’t try to wrestle them above her head. I crossed them across her chest so her hands stuck out at either side. At the same instant, I threw myself on top of her and pinned her to the couch with all my weight.

  She roared in frustrated rage—or was that pain? I couldn’t think about that right now. As I expected, she erupted in a maelstrom of pent-up power. She screeched and writhed under me. She took all my effort and concentration to maintain my grip on her arms.

  I didn’t plan on her legs, though. She kicked one knee up and caught me in the groin. Thank the stars she missed the crown jewels, but she jabbed her bony kneecap into my thigh and made me flinch.

  The next instant, Cisco, Tomas, Kane, and Logan all tackled her at once. Two of them grabbed her legs. Kane scooped up the cuffs and succeeded in locking one of them on her wrist.

  She lashed out with her legs harder than ever. She kicked Cisco off and smashed her heel into his jaw with the next blow. He toppled like a bowling pin and crumpled to the floor. Tomas did his best to restrain her other leg, but now that she got one of them free, she set up an unholy fight he couldn’t manage.

  Kane let go of her wrists to help him out. Between him and Tomas, they locked her legs down on the cushions and held them in place with all their bulk. The girl bellowed and contorted in every direction. Her eyes rotated around the warehouse in maniac abandon. I never saw a woman fight like that out of sheer terrified desperation.

  Logan made a grab for the cuffs and twisted them toward her other wrist. He missed his grip and she whipped one arm out from under me. I thundered over the noise to make myself heard. “Hold her, boy!”

  “I’m trying!” he yelled back. “Fuck, she’s strong!”

  This couldn’t go on. I grabbed a fistful of her tank top. By main strength, I forced her over on her side and crammed her arms into the couch. She wrenched out of my grip and her shirt twisted aside to reveal her bra.

  “Now, Logan!” I bellowed. “Do it now.”

  He dove for the cuffs and hauled the last one toward her other wrist. I almost passed out with relief when it snapped into place. I checked over my shoulder to see Kane locking another set around her ankles.

  The three of us eased off panting for breath. Just then, Carlos strolled out of his office and frowned at us. “Is everything under control out here?”

  I propped my hands on my knees puffing and sweating. “Yeah. It’s under control.”

  Cisco sat up on the floor and rubbed his jaw. He shook his head and looked around before he spotted the girl. She wriggled and struggled on the couch, but no matter which way she turned, she couldn’t get away.

  Kane stretched his back and ran his sleeve across his forehead. “Now what do you want to do?”

  I waved toward the open door. “Give me a hand carrying her outside, will you?”

  Logan gasped. “You’re not gonna ride with her like that, are you?”

  I took a stance next to the girl’s head. “I sure as hell am not going to walk her across town if that’s what
you had in mind. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  “You son of a bitch!” the girl screeched. “I’ll kill you for this! Let me go! You have no right to do this to me.”

  I did my best to block her screams out of my ears. No wonder The Desperados beat her so badly. She must have driven them out of their senses.

  I nodded to Kane. He joined me at her head. I got under one armpit while he took the other. Logan scooped up her legs, and Cisco supported her hips. We hoisted the shrieking girl off the couch, but it still took all of us working our utmost to carry her out of the building.

  The boys stood her on her feet next to my bike. I scowled at the vehicle. How did I get myself roped into this? I took out my keys, slung my leg over the saddle, and plugged the key into the ignition.

  I settled there for a moment just to get my bearings. Of all the dangerous jobs I undertook for this club, this capped them all. I would rather go into battle against armed thugs with a slim possibility of survival than transport this sprite across town on my own ride.

  I never avoided a job before, and I wasn’t about to start. I gave the boys a clipped nod and they grabbed the girl. They spun her around and shoved her down on the seat in front of me.

  She snapped her teeth at everyone trying to bite them. She seized a handful of Cisco’s hair and nearly ripped it out of his scalp. She punched and kicked as bad as ever. The cuffs did nothing to quell her spirit.

  She plunked down on the seat in front of me screeching and snarling, “You motherfuckers! You cocksuckers! You sons of bitches! I’ll rip every last one of you to pieces. Get the fuck off me! Don’t you touch me! You can’t do this to me! Get away from me! Don’t you dare!”

  I closed my arms around her gathering my willpower to do what had to be done. I let her scream herself hoarse. The minute she stopped, I ducked in and smashed my brow against the side of her head.

  I hissed low in her ear. “Listen to me, little girl. You listen to me real good. Understand? I’m gonna start this bike and we’re gonna drive across town to a safe place. No one will hurt you or bother you. The Desperados won’t come after you there, but by Christ, you’re gonna sit still on this bike, or we’re both gonna be paste on the highway. Do you hear me?”