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Phoenix raised a brow to me in question. My eyes narrowed at Chains, then returned to Phoenix. “No. Not until we know where they are and we get the go-ahead from Venom and Raptor.”

“You sure?” he offered again.

“Much as I’d love to say yes, I know I can’t,” I said with a sigh.

“Then let’s hit the road. We’ll drive around and see what we see.” I was pretty sure Ghost knew we wouldn’t see anything but was appeasing my need to be active. There was no way we could hope to cover every mile of the Des Moines metropolitan area and Ankeny. We all knew it.

I nodded, and we climbed in the truck to drive. It was better than nothing.

Dawn was starting to peek when we pulled back into the clubhouse lot, tired and defeated.

Squirrel, Blade, and a prospect were on guard duty inside. Asses dragging, we quietly headed to ours rooms to get a few hours of sleep.

Kicking off my boots, I curled around her body. A soft mewl escaped her as she snuggled back into me, then dropped off again.

Lost in my thoughts, I drifted to sleep.

“WhereAngelsFeartoTread”—BryanAdams

I’d never been so terrified in all my life. Part of me wished I hadn’t been so damn stubborn and had gone with to see the baby. Instead, I’d had to argue with Chains about riding on his bike. Except if I’d done that, my nephew would’ve been here alone with a sweet but damn near crippled older woman.

“Aunt Jazzy? I’m scared,” he said as he clutched my hand in his dirty one. His brown eyes looked exactly like my brother’s and threw me for a minute. It was still so strange to suddenly have a nearly eight-year-old nephew—especially one that looked exactly like my brother. Yet he’d already captured my heart.

“I know, sweetheart.” I didn’t have anything better to offer him. Until that moment, I’d forgotten how young he really was. Over the past couple of weeks, he’d blown me away with his maturity, making it easy to forget he was just a little boy.

After they had shoved us in the small room, I’d immediately looked for a way out. The single window was boarded up, so that option was out, unless I could find something to pry it open with. More rummaging had turned up slats of wood from under the plaster of the walls, but mostly just trash. The place was obviously condemned for a reason.

“Maybe when they come in, I can distract them and you can take the boy and run,” Lynda said to me, pulling me out of my head.

I glanced in her direction. “No. We’re not leaving you here.”

“With my knee, I can’t run, Jasmine. Even before they tackled me, I was recovering from surgery.” She shook her head. We’d been sneaking across the field from the clubhouse to the farm when the assholes had caught up to us. I still couldn’t believe they mowed down two women and a child like we were in the NFL.

“I don’t know why you didn’t let Angel help you out to begin with,” I muttered to the stubborn woman, who huffed at me.

“Because when I fell and hurt myself, I ended up in the ER. They had all the X-rays, and I couldn’t even walk. How would it have looked if I was suddenly right as rain?” She gave me a frustrated shake of her head.

I sighed. “I suppose, but you could’ve let him fix you after.”

Glancing down, I saw that Trace was listening to our conversation with concern on his young face. “If your leg was better, we could go home?” he asked.

“Oh, baby,” I said as I pulled him against my side. “It’s not that easy.”

He broke free of my embrace to crawl over to Lynda, where he tugged at the hem of her leggings. Lynda gave him a fond look as she humored him and pulled her pant leg up over her swollen and bruised knee.

Why had it never occurred to me, nor had anyone bothered to tell me, that my nephew would have his father’s abilities? Yet as we watched dumfounded, the little boy laid his hand on her knee, and the bruising began to fade as the swelling diminished.

“Trace! Wait!” Too late, I realized I should’ve stopped him. My brother still got weak after a serious healing, but when he was a child, it damn near knocked him out cold for the better part of a day.

“Oh my God,” Lynda said as I grabbed Trace right as his shoulders slouched and his head dropped. I was pissed that no one had thought to mention Trace’s abilities. It wasn’t like that shit was a secret within the club, and I was family, goddamn it!

“We can go now,” he said on a whisper as his eyes closed and his body became deadweight in my arms. Lynda and I stared at each other with wide eyes. Tentatively, she stood from where she’d been seated on the dirty floor.

“Holy shit! Girl, this old leg is better than the one I didn’t injure.”

We heard the doorknob rattle, and she dropped back to the floor, hurrying to pull her pant leg back down. The door swung open with a crash, and there was a guy in a motorcycle vest pointing a gun at us.

“What’s wrong with the kid?” he asked with a suspicious sneer.


Tags: Kristine Allen Royal Bastards MC: Ankeny, IA Fantasy