The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) Read Online Free
Author: May Ellis Daniels
too many corpses, both living and dead, to have regrets about how I choose to live my life.
It’s been raining for days, but now I look out the cab window to see there’s a momentary break in the clouds. The streets are wet and gleaming, and there’s a hopeful anticipation in the air, like maybe this time the rain will actually stop long enough to reveal the morning sun. It’s early March, the air chill and damp. Everyone’s longing for spring. The sidewalks are busy even though it’s nearly one in the morning, kidless couples arm in arm, shiny club kids come in from the ‘burbs and flying high on anything they can get their hands on, stoop-backed drunks wandering in lazy circles with a palm up, underdressed working girls hugging themselves and strutting to tinted windows with a smile that says please don’t be a bad one.
I crack the cab window and the night air rushes in, curling against my neck, winding my bangs across my forehead. I ask the cabbie if he knows where a bar called the Wilds is. He flashes me a grim look in the rear-view, then nods.
I hold my phone up to silence Trish’s question.
She crosses her arms and settles into her seat with a pout.
It’s Wednesday night. The good people of Seattle are fast asleep. Safe in their beds. Dreaming about being free, or maybe dreaming about nothing since the dream of freedom is long gone. People are tired these days. Let them sleep.
It’s better that way.
I’m tired too. Only difference is I can’t sleep.
I feel like I’m standing at the cusp of something I can’t quite name. Like there’s a cliff in front of me and I’m about to leap over, except for fuck’s sake I can’t remember if I’m wearing my parachute.
I close my eyes and it hits me: a feeling of dread and blind anticipation as the cab rolls to stop in front of the bar Connor suggested.
“What?” Trish says, looking around the grimy neighborhood. “Where the hell you taking me, Lil?”
“There,” I say, pointing to a run-down bar with a sagging black and red awning guarded by a leather-jacket wearing meathead. There’s a long row of windows facing the street protected by a thick metal cage, but a few are smashed in and partially covered with sodden cardboard. The windows that aren’t shattered are filthy and steamed up so all you can see is an ugly orange-yellow glow from inside and a few edgeless shapes moving around.
“The Wilds?” Trish says, reading the faded sign. “Come on, girl. That joint’s a dive. A fucking biker bar. Full of fat middle-aged assholes and skinny meth-head wannabes.”
“You girl’s sure?” the cabbie says, eyeing the bar.
I’m already opening the door.
I step onto a sidewalk so splattered with trash and old gum and cigarette butts I can barely see the cement. We’re a few streets over from the shipping yards. The air smells of low tide and chicken rendering plants that run twenty-four seven. We were called to a body on this block a few weeks ago. Girl, as per usual. Got on her pimp’s bad side was the official decision. The charmer beat her to death with a tire iron, then left her body behind a dumpster. Classic. You find a body beside a dumpster there’s a ninety-nine percent chance it’s gunna be a woman. Like the killers drive the body around wondering what to do, then spot the dumpster and are all like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s perfect’.
Dead men rarely get moved after they’re killed, unless its a pro hit and someone’s trying to cover shit up. But the women?
Dumpsters. Garbage. Waste.
Used, abused and thrown out.
Except this one? I dunno. Had her eyes burned out of her head. Like with a blow torch or something. When I brought it up with Detective Sandra Bernard, the lead homicide supervising my training, she said, “Yeah. Fucking pimp’s warning the competition. You can bet he did that before killing her. Maybe even had his girls witness it. You know? So they spread the word about what
It’s been raining for days, but now I look out the cab window to see there’s a momentary break in the clouds. The streets are wet and gleaming, and there’s a hopeful anticipation in the air, like maybe this time the rain will actually stop long enough to reveal the morning sun. It’s early March, the air chill and damp. Everyone’s longing for spring. The sidewalks are busy even though it’s nearly one in the morning, kidless couples arm in arm, shiny club kids come in from the ‘burbs and flying high on anything they can get their hands on, stoop-backed drunks wandering in lazy circles with a palm up, underdressed working girls hugging themselves and strutting to tinted windows with a smile that says please don’t be a bad one.
I crack the cab window and the night air rushes in, curling against my neck, winding my bangs across my forehead. I ask the cabbie if he knows where a bar called the Wilds is. He flashes me a grim look in the rear-view, then nods.
I hold my phone up to silence Trish’s question.
She crosses her arms and settles into her seat with a pout.
It’s Wednesday night. The good people of Seattle are fast asleep. Safe in their beds. Dreaming about being free, or maybe dreaming about nothing since the dream of freedom is long gone. People are tired these days. Let them sleep.
It’s better that way.
I’m tired too. Only difference is I can’t sleep.
I feel like I’m standing at the cusp of something I can’t quite name. Like there’s a cliff in front of me and I’m about to leap over, except for fuck’s sake I can’t remember if I’m wearing my parachute.
I close my eyes and it hits me: a feeling of dread and blind anticipation as the cab rolls to stop in front of the bar Connor suggested.
“What?” Trish says, looking around the grimy neighborhood. “Where the hell you taking me, Lil?”
“There,” I say, pointing to a run-down bar with a sagging black and red awning guarded by a leather-jacket wearing meathead. There’s a long row of windows facing the street protected by a thick metal cage, but a few are smashed in and partially covered with sodden cardboard. The windows that aren’t shattered are filthy and steamed up so all you can see is an ugly orange-yellow glow from inside and a few edgeless shapes moving around.
“The Wilds?” Trish says, reading the faded sign. “Come on, girl. That joint’s a dive. A fucking biker bar. Full of fat middle-aged assholes and skinny meth-head wannabes.”
“You girl’s sure?” the cabbie says, eyeing the bar.
I’m already opening the door.
I step onto a sidewalk so splattered with trash and old gum and cigarette butts I can barely see the cement. We’re a few streets over from the shipping yards. The air smells of low tide and chicken rendering plants that run twenty-four seven. We were called to a body on this block a few weeks ago. Girl, as per usual. Got on her pimp’s bad side was the official decision. The charmer beat her to death with a tire iron, then left her body behind a dumpster. Classic. You find a body beside a dumpster there’s a ninety-nine percent chance it’s gunna be a woman. Like the killers drive the body around wondering what to do, then spot the dumpster and are all like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s perfect’.
Dead men rarely get moved after they’re killed, unless its a pro hit and someone’s trying to cover shit up. But the women?
Dumpsters. Garbage. Waste.
Used, abused and thrown out.
Except this one? I dunno. Had her eyes burned out of her head. Like with a blow torch or something. When I brought it up with Detective Sandra Bernard, the lead homicide supervising my training, she said, “Yeah. Fucking pimp’s warning the competition. You can bet he did that before killing her. Maybe even had his girls witness it. You know? So they spread the word about what
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