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Today, the bar is empty. It’s usually packed for breakfast, but only one booth is occupied. I take a few steps back into the shadows, listening. Ryder is pacing the room, his long hair loose and unruly. He really doesn’t care how he looks, only wearing a leather vest over his bare chest. I’ll never understand Dark Moon, why they don't care about their appearances and mark up their bodies with ink like it doesn’t matter.
Every day I wake up I shower and style my hair, shave my face, put on a button-down shirt and slacks. These people probably sleep in the same jeans they wore the day before. I wrinkle my nose, trying to tell if they stink, but the only smell that hits my nose is vanilla and cherries. My brows knit together as Rachel comes out of the kitchen holding a platter of eggs and bacon. The smell isn’t coming from her, she smells like what she cooked. I peek around the corner and see a girl sitting at the booth where Ryder is pacing.
Her dark brown hair is French braided, wearing a black spaghetti strap shirt, her shoulder sunburnt from the early spring sun. She’s small, very thin, and she turns her face and her fragile features take my breath away. Her green eyes seem to sparkle as she looks up at Rachel and scoots down for her to sit.
“Tell me again,” Ryder demands, sitting across from them.
Something inside me writhes with anger. How dare he talk to her like that? Why does he have to be so rude? The woman clears her throat and tucks a loose strand of hair behind a dainty ear. Her hands are shaking, her features tightening as she looks at Rachel. She’s scared. He’s scaring her! I almost walk out of the shadows to say something about it when she speaks.
Her voice fills my senses and blocks everything out.
“Bea was my mom…she died last week. I found her diary and read that my dad lived here. I never knew him, although honestly after reading about him, I almost don’t want to. But I have to, I need answers. I need to know why he did that to my mom, I need to understand why she hated me my whole life.”
My heart breaks for her, and my fists tighten. Who could hate her? She’s practically perfect.
“And your father… In the diary she wrote his name was Richard Ashcroft,” Ryder grumbles and my blood goes cold.
If her father was Dick…
“That means I have a sister!” Rachel says excitedly, hugging the small woman from the side.
“That means I saw my sister being created.” Ryder’s face goes green and he stands up and paces some more.
“What?” the woman asks, looking from Ryder to Rachel in confusion.
“Richard was our father, Alpha of the pack,” Rachel says, taking a bite of her bacon and rolling her eyes at Ryder.
“Was?” The young woman swallows hard and scoots towards Rachel to get out of the booth.
She’s wearing jean shorts, a flannel shirt tied around her waist. She starts to pace too, but stops when she sees me in the shadows.
“I thought you said the doors were locked?” she says quietly as I step into the light.
She has to be a good two feet shorter than me, and as she looks up at me something in my soul clicks. Her eyes look like they hold the universe, like a forest exists inside the green shades. I can't speak, just look down at her as she shrinks away in fear.
“Jax, Ruby isn’t here. They snuck off this morning,” Ryder tells me, but I barely hear him. Certainly not enough to tear my gaze from the sweet beauty in front of me.
“Your name is Jax?” she whispers, and my name on her tongue almost undoes me.
“Ruby…?” I mutter, momentarily forgetting she even exists.
“No, my name isn't Ruby.” She chuckles lightly and for the first time in months I feel my cock start to stiffen. “My mother named me Olivia, but everyone calls me Cricket.”
“Cricket…fits you…” For once in my life I can't find words, even as Ryder’s eyes flash a warning at me for getting too close.
I step forward and tuck that loose strand of hair behind her ear for her. She turns her face into my hand, her eyes searching mine, her small chest heaving with heavy breaths. She’s so small, her voice so light and soft. She’s the complete opposite of my strength and dominating presence.
“I’ve…never seen you here before?” Where is the eloquence of my schooling, the gentleman I’ve been raised to be? Gone, gone and muted in the presence of this tiny woman who’s got a chokehold on my heart out of nowhere.
“I was raised in the city. I just got in today…” She bites her bottom lip.
I want to bite her bottom lip. Who the hell am I?
“Why don’t you give her some space, ya brute?” Rachel says, wrapping her arm around Cricket’s shoulder and pulling her away.
She looks over her shoulder and catches me watching her butt sway as Rachel takes her away. A possessive growl grows in my throat, but Ryder separates my view of her as Rachel takes her new sister out of the bar.
“Don’t you have a Princess to find?” he growls at me.
