BEARing it All (Wylde Brothers 3)

His chest was a bloody mess of open wounds and claw marks, and he knew his face wasn’t much better, but they were his war wounds, and he wore them with honor.2Kenzie Harlow stared out the window and watched as the sun set over the horizon. They were relocating once again, and although Rook never told her why they would up and leave, she knew it was because the heat was too hot for him where they currently were.

She glanced over at him, but only with her eyes. She didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention her way, especially when he was in a foul mood, which was more times than not.

“The distributors have pulled out. Now, I have half the fucking city hitting me up asking where their shit is. Where should we meet?” Rook all but barked in the phone, and even though he had never told her what his business was, she wasn’t a fool, especially for as long as she had been under his thumb.

He ended the call and murmured something to Marek, who was driving. She had seen enough cocaine around his home and watched him snort several lines before he grabbed one of the servant girls and disappeared behind a closed door. He was a drug dealer, womanizer, and her captor.

There were too many times to count that he had uprooted them and taken off in the middle of the night, although things must’ve been pretty bad, since he had gotten a call, told her to pack one bag, and all but tossed her in the car. The sun had been bright in the sky too, and Rook always preferred the cloak of darkness.

Yeah, things must have gone downhill very fast. His dark-blond hair was impeccably styled, and his eerie green eyes told of his panther-shifting genes. His attention was trained on the tablet in his lap. His starched dress shirt and pressed slacks made him look like someone important, but what he did was not something that benefited anyone but himself.

He was a big male, but it wasn’t his size that frightened her or others. It was his volatile temper. He could change at the drop of a dime, and when he did, all would scurry off to a dark corner. And when his anger was volcanic, he took it out on her. She even had a few scars to show for his voracious rage.

He disconnected the call without saying goodbye, and she quickly averted her eyes. They passed by beautiful scenery, and she saw a sign that stated they would be entering Sweet Water, Colorado, in the next five miles. For as smart as Rook was, he wasn’t very inconspicuous, not when he was driving around in the sleek black stretch limo.

“Come here, Kenzie.” His voice was pitched low, like smooth milk chocolate, but she heard that tone enough to realize he was furious. And besides, she hated chocolate. His plans weren’t going the way he wanted them to, and because of that, he needed to use her as a distraction.

Kenzie knew well enough that denying him what he wanted only ended up in her crying out in pain. She slipped from her seat and moved over to his side. Rook immediately pulled her into his lap and started stroking her hair. She rarely wore it up, not when Rook preferred it down and liked to pull on it. Not speaking or moving and just letting him pet her as if she was a prized possession, Kenzie felt the familiar tendrils of disgust wash through her anytime Rook touched her.

“You know how much I love you, pet?” Kenzie forced herself not to shiver in revulsion. “You’re the only one I care about.”

It was lies, all lies. He was the only one he cared about.

But she didn’t say anything. Kenzie closed her eyes and took herself away from the here and now.

She could still remember when Rook found her huddled in the corner of an alley, a filthy dumpster as her only companion. She had only been a ten-year-old doe shifter when her parents had been murdered in a random shooting. Before she could be taken into custody by the state, she fled. She had no food, no money, and only the clothes on her back, but even at such a young age, she would rather die in a gutter than let another family raise her as their own.

It probably had been the stupidest mistake of her life, because if she would have gone with the state, she would’ve never met Rook, and therefore wouldn’t have been in this situation.

That had been eleven years ago, and now at twenty-one years old, she knew far more, had seen more horror, and had lived a thousand lives already.

He had only been twenty-five when he found her. He’d coaxed her away from the dumpster, and it had been the first time, due to her normally skittish personality springing from the timid animal inside her, that she hadn’t felt frightened.