Page 54 of Dozer (Rolling Thunder MC #14)
Chapter 54
Daisy
I didn’t want to leave Champ, but Master took my speech privileges away before he told me what to change into, so I didn’t dare argue.
Also, he let me run around with our new puppy and get him really tired before we put him into his crate, and it’d been a few hours since he’d napped, so the hope was that he’d sleep while we were gone.
He put me in a long-ish dress without underwear. Until my piercings completely healed, I had to wear underwear beneath my short dresses and skirts, but this dress was long enough there was no danger of sitting my bare pussy down on an unknown surface.
Right before we got out of the Ramcharger, Master told me, “There’s something you don’t know about me, and it’s kind of a big deal, and maybe I should’ve told you right after we were married, but I guess I just wanted to enjoy those first weeks with you, when everything kind of changed. You’re more than just my slave now, you’re my wife, and you should know. I’m still me, and I always will be, but there’s a little more of me than…” He kissed my forehead. “C’mon. We have to do this all proper and shit.”
At least I wasn’t walking into a strange place. He’d brought me to The Billiard Club, and I had fond memories here from both the Girls’ Night Out evenings, and the times I’d met someone for lunch or dinner.
Angelica and Harmony were at the bar when we entered, and they both lifted their beer and came to us when they saw us. Harmony handed me a drink and said, “Peach tea. Maybe we can do my kind of tea later, but not yet.”
We all walked downstairs, and Brain was sitting in an office with Marco and a large man I didn’t recognize. He stood, and something was wrong with him. He was huge, and his proportions were off, somehow. He gave a small curtsy to us, and he left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Welcome,” Marco said from behind his desk. “Please have a seat on the sofa, and we’ll get started.”
I sat on a sofa between Master and Harmony, with Angelica on the other side of Harmony. I was used to thinking of Brain by his club name, now, and yet, he looked more like Thurston than Brain tonight, despite the fact he was in jeans and a t-shirt.
He wore regular shoes rather than riding boots, and when he stood and took his shirt off, Harmony told me, “Why don’t you sit in Dozer’s lap, instead of beside him. We need to show you something, and Brain needs to undress so we can. Nothing sexual, nothing bad, just something unexpected.”
Master lifted me onto his lap, Harmony moved closer so she was touching my leg over the top of my dress, and I waited for whatever was about to happen.
But it happened so fast, I’d have missed it if I’d have blinked at the wrong moment. As Brain pushed his pants down, he morphed into something furry, so he went to all fours and was suddenly shorter.
And then he lifted his head and looked at me, and he was a fucking wolf .
I tried to shrink backwards into Master, and Harmony said, “It’s still Brain. He knows who he is, he knows who we are.”
The wolf sat and stared at me, and I looked away because… I don’t actually know why I had to look away. I just did.
Marco was still behind his desk, and he said, “You knew him as Thurston first, yes? And now Brain? He first changed to wolf in his young teens, so he has excellent control. I can scent your terror, as can everyone else in the room, but I assure you, you’re perfectly safe.”
I just stared at him, and he said, “Look at Harmony and listen to what she has to say. You trust her, yes?”
I nodded and turned to look at my friend, who told me. “A while back, there was a big motorcycle wreck, and they say I broke my leg and hip, but it felt more like it shattered my hip. We didn’t get any x-rays though, because I asked Brain to bite me and turn me into a werewolf, because we knew that would heal the damage.”
“You’re… you’re… you’re…” I couldn’t get the words out, and she said, “Yes. I’m a werewolf, too.”
“Unlike Harmony, who was bitten,” Angelica said, “I was born into it, like Brain and Dozer.” She showed me her hand, and suddenly it was a paw, and then a hand again. My heart beat in my chest like it was trying to escape, but I was frozen in place. I wanted to run, but where would I go?
“I can’t do that,” Harmony said. “It takes so much control. I know I’m the wolf the second I change now, and I didn’t for the longest after I was bitten. I mean, I usually knew within a minute or two, but I was dangerous to others until I remembered. I couldn’t return home to my horses until I gained control, though, so I had a lot of incentive to fight for it.”
“Give her a second,” Marco said. “It was a shock to her system. Stop talking and let her work it through.”
Harmony went to the floor and crawled halfway across the room. When she stopped, the wolf walked to her, nudged her arm with its head, and then settled himself on the floor with his head in Harmony’s lap. She scratched around his ears the exact same way I’d done to Champ a few hours earlier, and I turned and looked up, to Master.
“You’re telling me you’re a wolf? That all of your friends are wolves?”
“I’m a wolf, and some of my friends are, but not all.”
“There’s a rule,” said Angelica. “I can tell you my secrets, but I can’t tell you anyone else’s secrets. Within the club, it’s up to the brothers to tell their human ol’ladies, and they get to decide on the timing of it, but once you know, and you’ve gone through the legal shit necessary so you can keep knowing, the rest of us can tell you what we are, if we want. Dozer wanted me and Harmony here to help tell you because he thought it would help.”
“Matty and Razor are upstairs, and I’ve asked Razor to bring his boy down,” Marco said. “I believe having another human in the room with her might help.”
“We can hear the same frequencies wolves hear, even when we’re in human form,” Angelica told me. “And even in the human frequencies, we can hear so much better.”
“We can smell better-than-human, too,” Harmony said. “I mean, it’s best when I’m the wolf, but even as a human, I can scent fear, joy, arousal. The born wolves are better at catching people in a lie than I am, but most of the time, I pick it up.”
I looked at Master, suddenly pissed. It was like he’d had this huge cheat sheet, and I hadn’t known.
“Yes, that’s how I know when you’re lying,” he told me.
The door opened, and Razor and Matty walked in.
“Oh man,” Matty said, “Brain has the most beautiful wolf, doesn’t he?” He looked at Master and said, “It just occurred to me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dozer’s wolf.” He looked back to me. “I mean, it isn’t like they have the habit of just changing in the clubhouse, but sometimes, Brain goes to the woods in the back of the compound and hangs out as his wolf for a while. Daddy always has to work the three nights of the full moon, because—”
Matty stopped talking as if he’d been shocked, and he looked at Razor as if he needed help.
“An example of what happens when a human tries to tell a secret another human doesn’t know,” Razor said. “What my boy was trying to say, is that I shift into a raven, which means I’m not ruled by the moon. Since the wolves all go run on or near the full moon, it means those of us not ruled by the moon have to step up and keep our businesses running.”
“A bird? You’d have to be huge!”
“You’d think so, right?” Matty said. “And he is a pretty big bird, but no larger than the biggest of the natural ravens. I have no idea how that works. It’s magic, I guess.”
I stood and paced away from Master without getting too close to the wolf, and then turned and looked at Dozer. He’d told me as we walked in the door I had free time with my speech once we were around the others, and I could say exactly what I wanted without fear of punishment so long as I didn’t disrespect his friends and acquaintances.
I wanted to demand he explain why he waited so long to tell me, but he’d already done so, in the truck. I just hadn’t understood what he was saying.
“I’m mad at you,” I told him, because it was the only thing I could think to verbalize, and it felt as if I needed to say something .
“I think that’s a valid feeling, and I’m sorry I waited so long. I don’t think we’d passed all the litmus tests for me to justify telling you until after we were married, but I fully admit, I should’ve told you soon after we became husband and wife.”
I shook my head. “No, this is something I should’ve known before I oathed my life to you. I gave my oaths to a human, not a monster!”
Once the words were out of my mouth, I realized I’d just called everyone in the room except Matty a monster — because I was assuming Marco wasn’t human, either.
“While we’re on the subject of monsters,” Marco said, “it’s probably time to tell you what I am, and then we’ll need to figure out whether you can handle knowing what your husband is, or not. Please turn and look at me, little Daisy.”
I turned as if my legs were controlled by puppet strings, and he told me, “I’m not a werewolf, nor am I a shapeshifter. I mean you no harm, and I promise I won’t physically touch you on this night. Let that sink in a second, okay? I won’t physically touch you on this night. You’re always safe from me causing you lasting harm so long as you don’t break certain rules in my territory, but you’re absolutely safe on this night.”
The room was silent until I nodded, and then Marco said, “I’m a vampire, and that means I have access to not just your thoughts, but your memories. If we decide you aren’t mentally strong enough to handle knowledge of werewolves, I can make you forget you were told.”
Terror gripped my heart, and I thought I was going to be sick.
No, there was no thinking about it. I saw a trash can, raced to it, and puked the meal Master had fed me before we left into it, and the peach tea.
Marco tossed something to Master, and he was to me in an instant, wiping my face with a baby wipe. “Marco’s having someone bring you some ginger ale, to help settle your stomach. I’m sorry, Daisy.”
“The wolf needs to eat,” Marco said. “Harmony, take him outside the room and follow Julian, who’ll make sure he’s well fed in whatever form he chooses to eat, though I believe he wants to come back to human, so he can talk to Daisy.”
The wolf stood, and before Harmony could stand, Brain was standing before me again, naked. He grabbed his jeans and stepped into them while he talked. “I’m sorry you’re upset.” He pulled his shirt on and looked to Marco. “Can you clear the room, please? So it’s just me and Daisy?”
“I’m not leaving her when she’s sick,” Master said.
“Trust me?” Brain asked. “She isn’t just mad at you, she’s hurt. She’s a little mad at me, too, but not as much.”
“Brain is correct,” Marco said. He pointed to a door behind him. “Take her in there. This is Etta’s office, and her living space, so don’t go past the sofas, but it’s fine to use the seating area for the two of you to talk. If you need the bathroom, you’ll need to use the one down the hall though, and not Etta’s personal bathroom.”