Dire Warning WC0.5 Read Free

everything. They couldn’t die.
    Getting shot still hurt like a bitch, though, Rifter mused as he finished off a beer and ordered another, hoping it would be enough to take the edge off. So would a run, and he realized that’s exactly what he needed. It was time to let Brother Wolf take the reins, scent the danger. He tapped Jinx on the shoulder, hard enough for the wolf to look up from his current act of near copulation on the bar stool.
    “Dude, a little busy here,” Jinx murmured, his eyes already changed to lupine.
    Definitely time to roll out, especially when he heard the new disturbance behind him and had little doubt where it had taken root. When he turned, all suspicions were confirmed.
    Vice and Stray were in the middle of a circle of angry Hells Angels. What the biker gang members were doing here on Valentine’s Day was beyond Rifter, but he guessed that bikers needed love too.
    Vice had no doubt flirted with one or more of their old ladies, just for the hell of it. And he looked pleased as shit to be surrounded by four angry meathead humans who had no idea how close they were to slaughter.
    “I’m on it,” Jinx slurred, more from arousal than alcohol.
    “We don’t like people who try to infringe on our territory,” one of them told Vice.
    “Us either. And trust me, we’ve been around a hell of a lot longer than you,” Vice said calmly. That calm was so deceiving, could turn to rage at any second.
    Rifter saw Jinx clamp a hand on Vice’s shoulder even as the calmest wolf of them all spoke. “You should all go now, before you get hurt.”
    The crowds, the impending fight and the soon-to-follow police would usually give him a rush akin to shifting. Tonight, it gave him a headache, and the urge to leave.
    Not soon enough. Vice flipped the pool table toward the plate glass front window, and the humans moved in, excited as the testosterone rose in seconds and the sounds of shattering glass obliterated anything else.

Chapter Two
    The fight was short-lived. Human testosterone was no match for wolfkind and the crack of fists against flesh quickly got old.
    Wolves liked fighting wolves, but few humans proved to be up to the challenge. Judging by how easily the human bikers fell, they were really all talk.
    Vice was having a blast, though. He’d need to be talked down from the ledge and Rifter did not have the patience for that tonight. His senses—and Brother Wolf’s—were still on overdrive and he felt ready to pop out of his skin.
    Clyde was pissed, even after Rifter peeled off bills for him to fix the window and the pool table.
    He wouldn’t dare ban the Dires, though. That would be stupid as shit, and that’s exactly what Clyde wasn’t.
    “You fix this and meet me in the woods,” Rifter growled to Jinx, who still looked slightly dazed.
    Yes, a run would do them all good. He pushed past Chrissy and Penny, who were still angling for time with him, made his excuses and headed out into the night.
    He circled around the outside of the bar, sniffing the cold winter air. Wolf scent mingled with human, but that didn’t mean anything was awry. He jogged around back, checking things out. Saw some Weres shifting behind trees and a human couple making out on a car parked around back, obviously unaware of what was happening around them.
    Maybe the night air was carrying too much of their scent. He tried not to be in places where there were so many of them packed in at once because it bothered Brother Wolf. And so he walked around to the front, his boots crunching on broken glass. Inside, there were still the usual sounds accompanying a good, old-fashioned bar fight. He ignored it all and revved his custom built Harley, taking off out of the lot at a high enough speed to satisfy his wolf.
    Brother Wolf loved fast. Rifter, almost as much. This close to a full moon, the need for it was magnified.
    Unlike the Weres, the Dires weren’t forced to shift during a full moon, and they could remain unshifted for a lot