Claiming His Need

CLAIMING HIS NEED

The Second Book in the Feral Breed Series

Gates is a legend among his fellow wolf shifters. For more than four centuries, he’s lived without a mate, something nearly unheard of in his breed. He’s spent that time mastering the art of the kill, becoming a lethal weapon for the Feral Breed Motorcycle Club, and earning a reputation as the Gatekeeper.

Kaija Wariksen grew up as the Valkoisus pack princess. The Alpha’s only daughter and a powerful Omega shewolf, Kaija’s beauty and place within the pack hierarchy makes her the focus of desire for many of the unmated males, especially one she’s desperate to stay away from. She’d rather wait for her fated mate than be just another bed warmer for a man with more attitude than brains.
 

But when a territory dispute turns into a kidnapping, Gates and his Feral Breed brothers are called to assist the Valkoisus pack in a rescue operation. Gates soon discovers there’s more in store for him than a fight. He finds his mate in the Alpha’s daughter, a woman targeted by a mystery sect kidnapping Omega shifters. To keep the Valkoisus pack safe, the Feral Breed must put Kaija in danger, risking the only thing Gates has ever needed, and igniting a rage that could destroy the entire wolf shifter population.

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Magnus was about to get his dick bit off.

Truthfully, that’s probably what he deserved for sticking that thing down the throat of whatever woman would let him fuck her mouth. The woman he’d chosen this time, though, didn’t seem all that thrilled with the aggressive way he was handling her.
 

Even after walking the earth for almost four hundred years, it still surprised me what people would do for money.

“Hmmm, fuck. Yeah, that’s it. Take it all, you filthy cunny.”

I held back a growl and slouched in my chair. Magnus set the tone and made the rules for our motorcycle club of wolf shifters. He may have been only the vice president of the den, but with our president, Rebel, on sabbatical with his new mate, Magnus stood as the highest-ranking officer in the club.
 

As his Sergeant-at-Arms, I helped ensure the rules were followed. One rule Magnus had set was to open the lower Detroit denhouse to the local prostitutes. He called it “supporting local business”; I called it putting the entire Detroit crew of the Great Lakes den at risk of exposure. And one risk the Feral Breed fought against was exposing wolf shifters to the human population.

But Magnus needed his dick sucked, and so the women were allowed inside the old warehouse on the city’s southwest side. The neighborhood a shithole, but Magnus favored it due to the lack of law enforcement. Not that the city had a huge police presence, but the southwest side was particularly industrial and therefore deserted in the evenings. Fewer homes meant fewer witnesses, which meant the two forms of business most prevalent in the area after dark were drug deals and prostitution. I much preferred the denhouse on the border of Grosse Pointe—the one where I kept an apartment on the second floor. But we spent an inordinate amount of time in this piece of shit building in a neighborhood that reeked of rendered animal fat and sulfur fumes because of Magnus. And his need to get his dick sucked.

Rebel needed to get his ass on his bike and his head in the game before I took a chunk out of Magnus’ hide.

“Ung, yeah... A little more. Take it...take all of it, girl. Oh, yeah.”

The sound of wood scraping across concrete meant one of my Breed brothers had decided to enter this particular level of hell. The poor sap. At a muffled chuckle, I whipped my head up from where I’d been staring at the filthy floor beneath my feet. Sandman spun the chair opposite and straddled it, setting his beer on the table as he did.

“Someday that asshole is going to find his mate, and I truly hope she’s the biggest ball-busting shewolf ever bred. He and Scab both deserve a little emasculation.”

I snorted even as the sounds coming from the alcove behind me made me want to gag. “I believe that would be called karma.”

Sandman’s face grew serious. “You could get up and walk away, you know.”

“It’s my job to be here.” I cringed as Magnus groaned in the background. “I’m supposed to protect the den, remember?”

“You’re a stronger man than I, Gatekeeper.” He tipped his beer toward me before bringing the amber glass to his lips.

“I’m here because that filthy fuck likes to get off with human women who can never know who we truly are. One slip and the entire den goes down.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s your excuse?”

Sandman grinned. “Numbers has a pool going to see how long the young buck lasts. It’s on some kind of sliding-scale progressive thing that I’m nowhere near smart enough to understand. The guys sent me over here to help pinpoint the exact moment of splooge.”

I glanced at the group of shifters across the room. They all avoided eye contact, preferring to look at the walls or the floor as I surveyed them. Two stood with their backs to me, their leather vests sporting only a Great Lakes rocker, no growling wolf patch or Feral Breed rocker.

“Pup One and Pup Two are in on the bet?”

“They think they are. Club rules will be honored, though—if a prospect gambles and wins, the money goes to the house.”

I shook my head and chuckled. “I’d hate to be standing next to you when karma catches up with
your
ass.”

“I didn’t make the rules; I’m only playing by them.” Sandman frowned and looked down at the table. “Besides, I’m pretty sure karma’s taken more than her fill from me.”

I grunted my agreement and tried to tune out the filth falling from Magnus’ lips. Tried and failed.

“Fuck...you gonna take it? Swallow me down? Yeah, that’s it. I like a little teeth. Yeah.”

I placed my elbows on the table and my head in my hands as I waited for him to blow his load. No man should have to hear how another man likes to get his rocks off. There’s something seriously fucked up about knowing what he was going to say and how close he was to coming based on the language he used.

“That’s it, that’s it. Yeah. Hot...so hot. Gonna come so hard. Swallow it, girl. Swallow me down.”

Finally.
I glanced at my phone. Eight minutes had passed since he’d dragged the poor girl past the guys with a smirk on his face. An eight-minute blow job from a halfway decent trick meant the boss probably wouldn’t bitch too much for the next three days. Overall, I figured it was almost worth listening to him spout off about how hot and wet her mouth was in exchange for those few days of peace. As my denmates and I had learned quickly, when Magnus wasn’t happy, we all paid the price.

A groan, a few whispered words, and the shuffle of fabric sliding into place told me my time in hell was almost over. I clenched my teeth and locked my wolf instincts down tight. I knew what was coming even before I heard the offer. It was the same every time. Magnus would die his little death and then...

“You up for it, Gates? She’s got a hot mouth just waiting for your junk.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the younger man and then to the woman still on her knees. No, not woman. Or if so, just barely. She looked like a child to me, too young to be dealing with men like Magnus for a little coin.
 

Making my point for me, Magnus grabbed her by the back of the hair and tugged, pulling her head back so her mouth fell open.
 

“It’s a pretty mouth. All wet and swollen from letting me fuck it. Didn’t even mind when I pulled her hair. Did you, sweetheart?”

The girl stared up at him but said nothing. Funny, who would’ve thought we’d have so much in common? I wasn’t going to say anything either.

I hated when Magnus acted like some kind of badass, hated his disrespectful attitude toward women. It was against our modern culture, against the very fabric of a society of creatures who mated for life, and I was sick of bearing witness to it. Not that a handful of the traditional packs didn’t still do things most of the rest of the species found reprehensible. Calling an Alpha Prerogative, forced shewolf breedings, violence toward the unmated males of the pack—our species as a whole had not always behaved in ways that would make me proud. But the tide had turned over a century ago after an uprising among one of the largest traditional packs in the country. Sandman’s former pack.

“So what do you think, Sergeant? You want in on this?”

Every inch of me burned and my muscles ached with the need to shift. The disrespect Magnus showed by calling me by my position instead of my road name made me want to beat the fucker into the ground. I was not “Sergeant.” I was Gatekeeper, feared executioner of the Feral Breed, brother to the Beast, and protector of the shifters in my territory. My denmates called me Gates. The men I hunted called me their biggest fear. The little fucker did not get to call me “Sergeant.”

I twisted in my seat and placed my elbow on the back of the chair, never taking my eyes off the younger, weaker shifter. I kept my chin tilted so the girl couldn’t see my face, and then I called forth my wolf spirit. I didn’t need a mirror to know what Magnus would see. The way my eyes would seem to glow with the power of the animal biding his time inside of me, how the black fur of my wolf form would begin to fill in like a mask across my face, a peek of the tips of my canines as they extended past my lips.
 

“No, thank you, sir.”
 

Magnus froze for a moment, eyes wide and jaw tight. It would have been comical had this not been the man who’d been assigned to lead us. He was no leader.

Shaking off his instincts, Magnus forced himself to relax, releasing the natural fear a full challenge from a stronger wolf shifter released. The stupid fuck. He thought I didn’t have the balls to throw a challenge at him. Truth was, I simply didn’t care anymore. I’d been walking the earth for over four centuries, had watched better shifters than he rise and fall as the power within our breed ebbed and swelled, and I’d killed a lot more men than any other Feral Breed member. Magnus was as significant in my life as a single thorn on a rosebush. One little prick among thousands.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, Gates.”

I gave Magnus a toothy grin as I imagined all the ways I could eviscerate him in my human form. It’d be quicker if I partial-shifted. Perhaps just a paw. Or the tip of a paw. A single claw would do the trick.
 

An arrogant chuckle and a pat to the poor girl’s head and Magnus was striding past me, shades in place and leather cut on his back. I hated seeing him with a fully-patched vest. He didn’t deserve to be a patched member. He hadn’t earned those colors, in my opinion. But Blaze had thought otherwise, and as national president of the club, he outranked us all. Magnus was the one officer in all of the Feral Breed Motorcycle Club who was not voted in by his denmates, which made him the most ineffectual leader in the country. And with Rebel gone, we were stuck with him.

As soon as Magnus disappeared into the crowd of Breed members by the bar, the girl stood on shaky legs and pushed her hair off her face. “Can I interest either of you gentlemen in a date?”

“No.” The word came out on a growl. Sandman shot me a hard look. I shrugged. I wasn’t interested in anything she had to offer, and I didn’t want her in the denhouse.
 

“No, thank you, hon. Why don’t you head on home?” Sandman stood and led her to the door while whispering in her ear. He shook her hand before she left, which I found odd. When he turned and met my scrutiny, I tilted my head and waited for him to answer my unspoken question.

“I gave her some cash to get home.”

I huffed. “This isn’t Chicago. That cash isn’t going to help her get home because there’re no fucking cabs. She’ll be lucky if she’s able to find a bus running anywhere near where she needs to go. Besides, she’s probably from this neighborhood.”

“I had to do something.” He looked away, avoiding my eyes. “She reminded me of my Margaret.”

I swallowed hard and ran a hand over my face. Sandman invoking the name of Margaret let him get away with things no other shifter could. But the story of the death of Sandman’s mate was legendary among the Feral Breed; hell, it was a legend told in warning to traditional packs.
 

My cell phone vibrating across the table made the memories of darker times evaporate. I grabbed the device and stepped away from the table for privacy.

“Gates here.”

“It’s Half Trac.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. A call from Blaze’s vice president always meant the same thing. We were needed. And while normally the idea of a new mission would give me an adrenaline rush, those few words from Half Trac, along with the memories of how we’d come to have Sandman in our den, did nothing but make me feel every long year I’d been alive.
 

Not wanting to keep Half Trac waiting, I spun and glanced around the room. Finally, my eyes landed on my road captain, a shifter by the name of Klutch. He caught my gaze quickly and hurried over as I turned my attention back to the phone.

“Good evening, sir. What’s the situation?”

“I need a team to ride as soon as possible. Alpha Wariksen of the Valkoisus pack called regarding a possible territory dispute. Many of his pack are leaving for a fishing run, so he’s asking for backup should things go sour.”

“Any particular reason he believes he needs backup?”

Half Trac paused, telling me more than any words could. “He didn’t say, but I got the feeling there was something he was withholding about the need for protection. I would recommend you go with a full team to be on the safe side.”

“Five riders heading to the Upper Peninsula.” I glanced at Klutch, who nodded and pointed to his watch. “How soon should we be there?”

“Wariksen wants protection as soon as possible.”

“Of course he does.” I mouthed
now
to Klutch. He spun and hurried toward the rest of the crew to assign the team. “It’s a nine-hour drive from here. Let the Alpha know we’ll be there first thing in the morning.”