Page 8 of Property of Mako (Kings of Anarchy MC: Louisiana #1)

Moonblood and Fire

Lyra

He wanted me to come with him.

Surely, I heard him wrong.

He stood on the front porch of my small house, arms crossed, silver eyes burning into me like headlights through fog. If headlights could be on fire.

I stepped back for him to come in.

“Don’t!” he shouted as soon as I opened my mouth.

“You can come in, you know,” I begrudgingly offered despite his outburst.

“Goddamn it,” he sputtered. “You never should’ve done that,” he said through clenched teeth as he brushed past me and prowled into my home like the sleek jungle cat he reminded me of.

Even with the black T-shirt stretched across his chest and the dust of whatever battle he’d been in lately still clinging to his boots, he didn’t look out of place in my kitchen. That annoyed me more than it should have.

“I’m not going to your clubhouse,” I insisted, arms akimbo as I glared at him. “I don’t know you or your friends, and I have horses that rely on me.”

“It’s not a request, Lyra.”

“Then maybe don’t ask. Also, I don’t like that you know my name and I don’t know yours.”

The silence stretched between us like a fragile fuse, ready to spark at any moment. It matched well with the crackle in the air that seemed to make my hairs stand on end. Neither of us had spoken of what transpired on my darkened porch the last time he was here.

He finally looked away, jaw flexing. “Fine. Then I’m staying here.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

He moved past me like a shadow before he plopped his muscular ass in one of my kitchen chairs and settled in like he was taking root.

His thumbs flew as he tapped out something on his phone, then tucked it into the inner pocket of his leather vest. Then he crossed his arms and gave me a hard stare.

“You were just attacked in an alley. Your sister is missing. And there’s a black-market vampire ring auctioning off legacy-blood humans—which I highly doubt you have any idea what that means.

You really think I’m going to leave you here alone with nothing but a crowbar and horses to watch over you? ”

“You don’t get to make decisions for me,” I snapped.

I’d been on my own for a long time. Raising my sister and taking care of my rescue horses didn’t leave much time or energy for dating.

It had been forever since I answered to someone else, and I didn’t plan to start any time soon.

Fuck him and his high-and-mighty attitude.

“No,” he quietly replied, “but I do get to keep you alive—or, this time, die trying.”

This time?

I wasn’t sure what unnerved me more—that he meant it… or that it actually made me feel safer.

Three times I tried to convince him that I was safe and that he didn’t need to stay. Each time, he ignored me or blinked at me as if he was humoring a young child. I wanted to hit him over the head with the coffee pot I was washing.

We moved around each other in the kitchen like orbiting stars, both pretending not to notice the pull. At least I did.

I made coffee. He drank what I assumed was blood from a flask.

The tension grew, thick enough to cut with a blade.

He stood behind me at one point, close—too close. Still, the heat of him rolled over my skin like smoke, and when I turned, I nearly crashed into his chest.

“Sorry,” I muttered, dodging around him to grab the creamer from the fridge.

His hand caught my wrist gently. “You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he murmured.

“I’m not,” I insisted defiantly.

“Good.” He released me slowly, fingers lingering. “Because I’m running out of ways to keep my distance.”

My heart hammered at his softly spoken words. Again, I couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?” I gasped.

“Nothing,” he replied after clearing his throat.

Call me a coward, but I chose not to push the subject.

“I thought you people couldn’t be out in the daylight?

” I blurted out before pursing my lips and narrowing my gaze.

I doctored up my coffee with copious amounts of cream and sugar.

Honestly, I believed I was handling the fact that vampires were real quite well.

Then again, I’d always believed in ghosts, demons, and witches. What was a vampire tossed into the mix?

He snorted what I thought was a laugh. “Old wives’ tales. That belief came about because that’s when it was the easiest to feed without exposing ourselves. Now we have more sophisticated ways of living. Well, most of us anyway.”

“Oh,” I said, at a loss for words. I wanted to bring up what had happened the other night, but I was a bit at a loss as to what to say.

So, uh, the other night when you bit me… did I taste bad?

Or maybe Did you use some kind of vampire mind manipulation on me? Is that why I couldn’t keep my hands and vagina off you?

Instead, I kept my mouth shut, drank my coffee, and grabbed a granola bar. As I put my boots on, I ate the bar and washed it down with coffee.

“That’s all you’re going to eat?”

I glanced over my shoulder and jumped, slamming my hand over my racing heart. He was right behind me, and I hadn’t heard him move. “You can’t be doing that sneaky vampy shit, asshole!”

He gave me a droll stare before he arched a single eyebrow. “Vampy… shit?”

First, I glared at him, then, when he continued to give me that judging look, I rolled my eyes and went outside.

“You need to eat better than that,” he continued in my ear, and I spun around again.

“Stop doing that! You don’t need to be up my ass! I have things to do,” I huffed out and continued on to the barn. I’d already fed everyone before he had arrived on my doorstep.

“My name is Calix,” he called out from behind me. “Not Asshole. But they call me Mako.”

I stopped in my tracks. Then I slowly spun back around to face him.

“Well, Calix , it’s not exactly nice to meet you.

But if you’re going to insist on being underfoot all day, you might as well make yourself useful.

I have chores to do,” I said with a sweet-as-pie smile.

Then I resumed my trek to the barn, where I could hear the soft nickers and snuffling of the horses.

He was right on my heels, so when I stepped into the cool interior of the old barn, I grabbed a manure fork and held it out to him.

The look on his handsome face was comical, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s not going to bite you. You mean to tell me that in all the years you’ve been alive, you never had to clean up after a horse? How old are you anyway?”

A low rumble emanated from deep in his throat as he snatched it from me. “Of course I did. But we didn’t exactly have these things.” He wiggled the fork in front of me.

“I need to turn them out first. Then I need to clean stalls. After that’s done, I need to exercise a few of them. I’ll start putting them out, and you can start on an empty stall.”

“Why don’t I help you turn them out, then you work the ones you need to while I clean? Things will get done faster that way.”

It was my turn to snort. “You probably haven’t cleaned a stall in ages—you still didn’t tell me how old you are—and you don’t know where the manure gets dumped.”

“First, no, I haven’t, but I think I can manage. Second, none of your business. Third, the manure pile is out back, and it gets picked up every other Tuesday.”

My jaw dropped, and I could only blink at his gorgeous, smug face.

“F-F-Fine,” I finally stuttered, trying to sound gruffly disinterested.

After putting the halters on the first two mares, I led Gertrude, the twenty-two-year-old flea-bitten gray, out.

I stopped at Sally’s stall and grabbed her too since they were pretty much besties.

Sally was missing one eye because her previous owner hadn’t had the cut she got seen to and infection set in.

She was miserable when I went out to pick her up.

They told me I could take her, so I loaded her up and swung by my vet to get her looked at.

She lost the eye, but it didn’t slow her down. She was the sweetest little thing.

I removed their halters after taking them into their pasture and watched for a moment with a smile as they sauntered off to the shade and began to graze.

Bonnie, Hope, and Sadie joined them.

Then I moved on to the geldings. Clyde, Titan, and Fred went into the gelding pasture.

Winston got saddled up, and I went through his routine. I was confident I’d be able to place him once he had some more time on him. He was a sweet boy; he’d just been left to roam in a pasture for almost four years, so he needed some refresher work.

When I was done with him, I brushed him down and turned him out with his buddies.

Then I rode Sunny for a bit before letting her join the girls.

Copper was last. He was the chestnut stallion I’d gotten from a small breeding facility.

Their barn had caught fire, and several of the horses had perished.

He’d gotten loose and was missing in the swamps for months.

By the time he was reported by a gator hunter, he was in bad shape, and no one could get near him.

“He’s quite beautiful,” I heard Calix say from the edge of the arena.

Copper spooked and bolted to the side for a moment before I got him under control. He eyed Calix warily as his nostrils flared and he snorted and huffed.

“Sorry, I didn’t know he was so skittish,” Calix apologized, actually appearing sheepish.

“He’s come a long way, but yeah. It took me about six weeks of patience before I could even touch him, really.

He’d been badly traumatized by a fire in his barn.

That night, he escaped, but he had burns on his legs that healed badly, and he was practically skin and bones when I got him.

He’d been roaming in the swamps for months.

It was heartbreaking. The owners were going to put him down, and I offered to take him.

They signed him over to me. He’s the only papered horse here.

” I chuckled softly so as not to startle Copper too much.