Broken Bond

Chapter 13

CALLUM

“Of course,” I mutter under my breath as I look up at the house in front of me, my navigation app confirming that I’ve reached my destination. I mean, it comes as no surprise that Nessa’s family home is picture perfect, but the literal white picket fence out front is a little over the top. Everything about the setting screams that a happy family resides here, and even from my spot at the curb, I feel uncomfortably out of place; like my mere presence will somehow darken the vibe.

I curl my fingers around the leather steering wheel of Levi’s truck- my borrowed ride for the evening- and look expectantly toward the front door as it swings open and Nessa steps out. I swear, every time I see this fuckin girl, it’s like the first time. She’s effortlessly gorgeous, the wintry breeze catching strands of her glossy dark hair like she’s a model on a photoshoot. She smooths it away from her face with a hand and starts down the front walk, my eyes lingering on the exposed skin of her bronze thighs as I hungrily drag my tongue across the seam of my lips.

She’s dressed the part of a girl going to a rock show in thigh high leather boots, a dark denim mini skirt, a faded cropped T, and a leather moto jacket- and damn does she wear it well. By the time she reaches the passenger door of the truck, I’m practically salivating, my heart banging around in my chest at a chaotic rhythm. 1

“Hey, handsome,” Nessa purrs as she climbs inside, fastening her seatbelt and hitting me with a megawatt smile.

I drag in a deep breath through my nose, reveling in that sweet cherry and floral scent that surrounds her. “You look like fuckin’ trouble,” I groan, giving her a slow and purposeful once-over as I shamelessly adjust my junk. Her eyes track the movement and her cheeks pink in a blush, her wolf making herself known through metallic shimmers in her irises.

“You look good, too,” Nessa smiles. She doesn’t even try to mask her roaming gaze, nibbling her lower lip while making an obvious show of checking me out. I square my shoulders and puff out my chest as I shift the truck into drive, not minding the weight of her appreciative stare one bit.

I punch our destination into the GPS as we roll down the street, hesitant about the evening ahead but eager to spend it with the little minx seated beside me. She almost bailed after her bestie wrecked her car yesterday, but Chase swooped in and stole Vienna away to recover at his packhouse, relieving Nessa of any duty to stick around to take care of her friend. Honestly, had she cancelled, I probably wouldn’t have bothered making the trip on my own.

“I hear Vienna’s doing better,” I comment as I pull out of her hometown of Riverton and onto the main road that winds through the forest.

“She is. Chase finally let me come see her this morning.” Nessa sighs dramatically, folding her arms over her chest. “I swear, that friend of yours had better get his shit together if he’s serious about Vienna. One minute he’s accusing her of being a gold digger, and the next, he’s begging to take care of her, threatening me to get out of his way…”

“He threatened you?” I growl, my head snapping in her direction as a wave of instinctive protectiveness rolls through me. It catches me off guard, but before the foreign emotion has a chance to escalate, she relieves it with a soft giggle.

“Well not literally,” Nessa laughs, tossing her hair over a shoulder. “He went all caveman on me at the infirmary, though. Said if I didn’t get out of the doorway and let him in, he’d forcibly remove me.” She punctuates her story with an eyeroll, flopping her head back on the seat. “What’s his deal, anyways?”

“He’s just going through a rough time lately,” I murmur, flexing my knuckles on the steering wheel. “Losing his dad really fucked him up.” That familiar pang hits me in the chest like it does every time I mention. Alpha Vaughn.

Nessa sinks her teeth into her lower lip, her eyes sympathetic. “I can’t even imagine,” she whispers, shaking her head.

We ride in a comfortable silence for a while, listening to the radio and navigating out of the six-pack territory and onto the highway. When we start to lose the station, she insists that we should listen to the band that we’re going to see, finding a few of their songs on Spotify, connecting her phone to the car stereo, and pumping them through the speakers. It’s not the genre that I typically listen to, but I enjoy the little show she puts on dancing in the passenger seat to try to hype me up. She shimmies her shoulders, throwing me suggestive little winks and waggling her eyebrows. It’s pretty fuckin’ adorable.

When we’re about ten minutes out, I reach

into the pocket of my leather jacket, fingering a joint and debating whether I need it to take the edge off. Just being around Nessa seems to level me out, but the situation I’m about to walk into is full of triggers- critical eyes on my art, wandering eyes on my girl, and drunk, aggressive humans that I absolutely can’t lose my temper with. Given my shifter strength and the restlessness of my inner beast lately, killing someone is a very real possibility; one I’d prefer to avoid.

I pull the joint out of my pocket, holding it up and side-eyeing Nessa. “You care if I blaze before we get there?”

She gives a little shake of her head, watching me pinch the joint between my lips and light the tip. I drag in a deep inhale, holding the smoke in my lungs for a few beats.

“Can I try?” she asks from the passenger seat, and I choke on a cough, turning to her in surprise.

“You serious?”

She smiles shyly and shrugs a shoulder. ” Why not?”

I take another puff and pass the joint over to her, alternating between keeping my eyes on the road and stealing glances at the beauty beside me. Nessa raises it to her plump lips, wrapping them around the end and puckering as the cherry burns bright with her inhale.

For some reason, the sight of her sucking on the joint like that has my cock thickening beneath my zipper.

She lowers the J from her lips and immediately launches into a coughing fit, sputtering as she expels the smoke from her lungs. I chuckle, reaching over to pluck the smoldering joint from her fingers while she coughs.

“Oh my gosh,” she wheezes, clutching at her chest. “It burns!”

I take another drag while laughing at her expense, offering her another hit once she’s caught her breath. She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, so I take a few more drags before chucking the spent joint out the window, already feeling the calming effect of the THC relaxing my body and mind. 2

“Did I do it wrong?” Nessa asks, still stifling a cough.

“Nah, you just have to get used to it,” I reply as I slide her a smirk.

The Breckenridge exit comes up fast, and once we enter the city, the venue isn’t difficult to find. The band is playing at a popular bar downtown, and after exchanging messages with their frontman about the art he’s interested in, he said he’d put my name on a list so that we could use the back entrance rather than fighting our way through the crowd to get backstage.

Even though Nessa only had one hit, she’s giggly as she climbs out of the truck, her big brown eyes half-lidded. I grab the folder of artwork that I’d stashed in the center console and make my way around to the passenger side, scooping an arm around Nessa’s waist to steady her.

“You alright?” I ask, slipping the folder under my arm and brushing her hair out of her face with my fingertips.

She looks up at me through her eyelashes and nods solemnly, then cracks a mischievous smile. “I feel a little floaty.”

I snort, shaking my head. Fuck, she’s cute. ” Maybe letting you smoke wasn’t such a good idea.”

Her jaw drops in offense. “I’m fine!” she declares defensively, swatting at my chest with the back of a hand. “Let’s go in, I wanna dance.”

I chuckle to myself as I steer her toward the back entrance of the bar, dropping my name when we encounter the guy posted up outside. He checks his list and lets us in, passing us off to another guy inside who leads us through the back hallway and to a large dressing room, knocking twice before opening the door and ushering us inside.

The interior of the room is dim, the scent of stale smoke and booze clinging to the walls. within. There’s a large sectional in the far corner where three guys are posted up, one with a sleazy looking blonde draped over his lap. The other two are bent forward over the coffee table, shooting shots of clear liquor. As soon as they drink them down, they splash more into each shot glass from a large bottle, tipping them back again.

Two more guys are leaning against the wall nearby, chatting in low voices. They look over when we enter, and the shorter of the two pushes off the wall, advancing in our direction.

“Cal Conway?”

I nod, tightening my arm around Nessa’s waist and tucking her in closer to my side.

The guy flashes an easy smile, extending a hand as he approaches. “Slade. I’m the one you’ve been messaging with.” 1

I take his hand and give it a firm shake, holding eye contact. “Nice to finally meet you, man.”

“Likewise,” he drawls. His gaze drifts to the beauty beside me, raking up and down her form unabashedly. He licks his lips, grinning in satisfaction. “And you are?”

“Nessa,” she chirps, sticking out her hand. I grind my molars as he takes it, shaking it gently.

“Nice to meet you, Nessa,” Slade replies smoothly, his gaze lingering on her a beat longer than I’m comfortable with before he turns back to me. “You two want a drink? We’ve got vodka, or…”

“Vodka,” one of his bandmates from the couch provides with a snicker, lifting the bottle and sloshing the liquid around.

Nessa slips out from my grip around her waist, wandering boldly toward the sectional. “Any mixers?” she asks hopefully.

My jaw clenches. This girl is too damn friendly for her own good.

“For sure,” the guy drowning under the blonde provides. “Redbull, cranberry…”

“Cranberry,” Nessa answers immediately.

The two guys who were shooting the vodka when we walked in exchange devious glances, then get to work mixing a drink for Nessa. I watch their every move like a hawk to ensure they don’t try to slip anything into it, their sleazy leers at my girl putting me on edge. :

“Wanna show me what you brought?” Slade asks, gesturing to the folder still clutched under my arm.

I wait until Nessa has her drink in hand before turning back to him, clearing my throat and nodding. Sensing my apprehension about taking my eyes off Nessa, Slade claps me on the shoulder, offering me another lazy grin. “Don’t worry about your girl, Greg and Marco will take good care of her while we talk business.”

Every muscle in my body tenses until he removes his hand from my shoulder, spinning around and gesturing for me to follow him to a high-top table on the other side of the room. I slap the folder down on the surface and another guy rounds my other side, boxing me in between him and Slade.

“Steve,” he introduces himself, offering me a hand. “I manage the band.”

I shake it firmly. “Cal.”

Nessa giggles, and I glance back over my shoulder to see her ambling around the coffee table, taking a seat on the empty side of the sectional with her glass of red liquid clutched in both hands. Her gaze lifts to meet mine and she tosses me a flirty little wink, then turns back to the guys, resuming whatever conversation they were embroiled

“So can we see them?” Slade presses, and I steer my attention back to him, flipping open the folder on the table and spreading out the pages inside. After these guys contacted me about what pieces of mine they liked and what they were looking for, I worked up several new designs that fit their specifications.

Steve and Slade both lean over the table, staring down at my sketches critically as they thumb through the pages. I watch the expression on Slade’s face carefully as he eyes each one, scrunching up his nose and frowning at a few, sliding them away. He finally lands on one that has his eyes lighting up, the corner of his mouth lifting.

“This is sick,” he murmurs, dragging it closer. “Could you do something to make the skulls pop? Make them neon or something?”

I shrug a shoulder. “Sure, whatever you guys want.”

“Stop,” Nessa laughs, the sound of it verging on uncomfortable. My hackles raise and I turn over a shoulder to look in her direction, her eyes immediately locking in on mine. The stupid fucker who offered her a drink is now seated right beside her, his palm squeezing her bare thigh as she tries to squirm away.

I see red.

“The fuck’s going on over here?” I spit as I wheel around and stomp across the room toward them.

The guy is clearly as dumb as he looks, because he glares back at me in challenge, digging his fingertips deeper into Nessa’s thigh. “Don’t worry about it, artist boy,” he sneers, turning back to her leaning in close, his lips hovering beside her ear. “Nessa and I were just getting to know each other, weren’t we, sweetie?”

She responds by elbowing him hard in the ribs, scrambling away and getting to her feet as he doubles over with a shocked cough.

“Fucking bitch,” he sputters, and that’s all it takes. The whole situation in this room already had me on edge, and when those words leave his lips, I. Fucking. Snap.

I pounce over the coffee table, my fist connecting with the guy’s face in a sickening crunch of bone and a hot spray of blood. The blonde girl screams and the other guys rush in to pull me off, fists flying at me from all sides. I’m like a machine, pushing and punching and kicking, my knuckles splitting and my vision tinting red. One of them manages to yank me backwards and I crash down onto the coffee table, pain shooting through my limbs as my spine makes contact. I fight him off with a hard crack to his jaw, fueled by pain and adrenaline as I spring back up, chest heaving and the strong coppery taste of blood coating my tongue.

Bodies lunge at me from both sides, and I fight them off with ease, fists flying and my wolf dangerously close to the surface. I’m not sure if it happens as fast as it feels or if I black out for a few minutes.

“Callum!” Nessa screams out, and the terror in her voice pulls me from the fog, dragging me back into reality.

All five guys in the room are laid out, groaning and struggling to right themselves. The blonde girl is cowering in the corner, and Slade is pushing to his feet nearby, wiping blood from his lips. “I’m calling the cops, you fucking psycho,” he snarls weakly, yanking his cell phone from his pocket. 2

I feel Nessa’s hand slip into mine, giving it a little tug. “Let’s go,” she whispers sharply, tugging harder on my hand when I don’t budge.

I turn to her, blinking, still trying to settle the darkness raging within. When our gazes collide, those big brown eyes of hers are rounded in fear, panic written all over her face as she stares back.

Something inside of me breaks. 2

This is exactly why I warned her to stay away. It was only a matter of time before I showed her this side of myself, and I know that after this, she’ll never look at me the same way again. 2

I should’ve known.

I should’ve kept my distance. Nobody could ever love a monster.