Bounty Hunter- Ryder Read online

  Maybe he’s not so bad after all.

  But before he gave her a chance to speak, he continued running, this time dragging her along the pavement.

  Yup. Definitely that bad.

  “Give me a second,” she said, yanking him back and pulling him to a halt. “I almost cracked my head open!”

  He pulled his arm back that was attached to hers and she lurched forward. “We don’t have a second! He’s going to get away!”

  “I think he’s already gone.”

  The guy whipped his head around, looking from side to side. They were the only two in sight in the empty parking lot.

  Mr. Creepy-Bear-Shifter-Guy was long gone.

  “Goddamnit!” he shouted, stomping his foot like a petulant child. He reared his head at her and practically growled. “This is your fault!”

  “My fault?” she said, staring at him in disbelief. “I had him pinned, thank you very much. You were the one who locked us together.”

  He held up his wrist and Tempest’s wrist followed.

  “What kind of handcuffs are these anyways?” His chest was heaving up and down. Tempest glanced at the tattooed skin that was showing over his shirt and wondered if his entire torso was tattooed.

  “The kind that don’t fucking break,” she said, climbing to her feet.

  “There are no kinds that don’t break,” he said, stepping in front of her. Her eyes came up to his chin, and he dwarfed her with his muscular frame, but she stared him down anyway.

  “Well, these ones don’t.”

  “We’ll fucking see about that,” he mumbled as he grabbed the chain. He grunted, cursed, sweat, and turned red as he tried to rip the chain in two. He was practically panting when he finally gave up.

  Tempest just watched with an amused grin on her face. She knew they weren’t going to break.

  “Geez, they really won’t fucking break,” Ryder said, staring at them in disbelief. The anger in his face was gone as he looked at her once again. “Seriously. What kind of handcuffs don’t break?”

  Tempest swallowed hard. “The magic kind.”

  The anger was back as he shook his head. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” His eyes dropped to the wand in her hand. “Did you get that weapon in the same place?”

  Her grip tightened around it. She didn’t like talking about her mother’s instruments.

  He just rolled his eyes when it was clear that she wasn’t going to answer. “Fine,” he said, lifting up his cuffed hand. “Then unlock it so I can go check on my friends. The guy you let get away stabbed my friend with six spikes.”

  “The guy you let get away,” Tempest corrected as she slipped off her boot. She looked inside for the spell that would unlock the unbreakable handcuffs, but there was nothing there.

  “Shit,” she cursed under her breath as she shoved her hand in, hoping that maybe it got stuck up by the toe. Things always get stuck up by the toe, don’t they?

  There was nothing. Her heart was pounding as she yanked off her other boot and found it just as empty.

  The guy was watching her, and her face must have paled because his did too.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. “You lost the key?”

  “There is no key,” she answered, feeling panic rise inside her.

  “Where is the key?”

  “There. Is. No. Key.” She said it slowly to get it through his thick frustrating skull.

  He yanked the chain again, sending her jolting forward on her socks.

  “Stop doing that!” she shouted as she yanked him, sending him flying forward.

  “Then how do we get it off?”

  Tempest took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “They’re sealed with magic.”

  “You’re a witch?”

  She shook her head. “No. But a witch may or may not have given me the handcuffs.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “How do you open it?”

  “They can only be opened with a spell.”

  “Tell me you know the spell.”

  “I have the spell. In my apartment. In Santa Fe.” Her eyes were still closed. Maybe if she didn’t see the problem it would just go away.

  “Please tell me that Santa Fe is the name of a nearby street.”

  She shook her head. “Santa Fe, New Mexico.”

  “What?!?” he shouted in disbelief. “That’s three states away!”

  She slowly opened her eyes and when she saw the look on his face, she immediately closed them back up.

  “Look at me!” he shouted. “Look what you’ve done!”

  “You did this!” she said, ripping her eyes open. “This is your fault.”

  He just huffed in frustration. “Magic cuffs, huh?” He looked down at the red wand in her hand. “I guess that’s not a stun gun? What is that a magic wand or something?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of? Can it kind of unlock the fucking handcuffs?”

  “No,” she said, gripping it tight. “It only does one thing.”

  “What? Freezing and stunning people?”

  “Yeah.” Her mother would never have trusted her with more magic than that. It was a magic wand, but it was a one-trick pony.

  Tempest’s mother knew her well and she would never have given her a fully jacked wand. Knowing Tempest, she would have left it on the bus. Which, Tempest thought was fair enough. She had forgotten this one at the dentist one time and only remembered to go get it out of the lost and found three days later.

  In addition to being incredibly strong and incredibly fast and incredibly clumsy, Tempest was also incredibly ditzy. Hence, the forgotten spell in New Mexico.

  “So, you freeze and shock people with magic?” he asked, looking at the wand curiously. “What does that feel like?”

  Tempest gave a mischievous grin as she raised the wand and let him see for himself. She felt her hand tingling as the magic shot out of the wand, lifting him off the ground and freezing him in place. His eyes widened as his body trembled in the magic hold. He clearly wasn’t enjoying it.

  Tempest had felt it once and she could explain it like this—you know when someone tickles you so hard that it stops being funny and borders on pain, but ultimately it just sucks? That’s how it felt times about five hundred percent.

  Her grinned widened as she let him ‘experience’ it a little longer. Why does this feel so good?

  He fell to his knee, breathing in big gulps when she finally let him go.

  “Don’t. Do that again.”

  His fierce brown eyes darted up and glared at her.

  “You didn’t like that?” She tried to stifle her giggles.

  “No.”

  A few seconds later, he climbed to his feet.

  “Where did you get that thing anyway?”

  “Walmart,” Tempest said as she put her hair in a bun and slid the wand inside. “It was half off.”

  The guy rolled his eyes. His tattooed arm jerked back and forth as Tempest put her boots back on.

  “So, what do we do now?” he asked.

  “First, we go to the bank.” She slipped one black boot on then the other. “Then you take out the $1,500 that you owe me. Then, we go to New Mexico and I’ll get that spell.”

  How the hell did I forget that spell? Oh… right…

  Tempest had planned to take her running shoes for her first job and had tucked the spell in there, but at the last moment before she left, she had spotted her sexy black leather hooker boots and thought that they looked more badass than yellow and pink running shoes. Yes, they were uncomfortably too small, and they slowed her down, but she told herself that being a bounty hunter chick was all about attitude and changed them. Too bad she had forgotten the spell in her sneakers…

  “I owe you $1,500?” he said, staring at her in shock. “How hard did you hit your head?”

  “Pretty hard,” she said, rubbing it. It still hurt!

  “I was going to get paid $1,500 by the Littleton Police Department for bringing that guy in.”r />
  “$1,500?” he said with a chuckle. “That’s all?”

  That’s all? That was way more than she had. She was practically living out of her car. The ‘apartment’ that she had said was in New Mexico was more of a storage locker.

  Maybe she could ask the Littleton Police Department for more money, but they were only a police force of two cops in the small town. She would be lucky to get another fifty bucks.

  And what the hell was this guy laughing about? He must have been getting roughly the same amount.

  “How much were you going to get paid for the bust before you screwed it all up?” she asked.

  He sneered. “You mean before you screwed it all up?” They just stared at each other. “Two million.”

  “Two million dollars?!?”

  “No, two million hugs,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “Who the hell was going to pay you that?” she said, staring at him with her mouth hanging open. And where the hell could she meet him?

  He laughed. “I’m not telling you.”

  “Because you’re lying?”

  “No. Because I don’t want any competition.”

  Her lips crept up into a smile as pride blossomed within her. This guy thought she was a real bounty hunter. This guy thought she was competition.

  Maybe she hadn’t exactly ever brought in a mark—and maybe she had never heard the term ‘mark’ being used before he said it about ten minutes ago—but he thought that she was the real deal. And that made her happy.

  “Not that it’s going to matter,” he said with a sigh. “The guy is long gone now.”

  “I know where he is.”

  Her tattooed friend perked up. “You do?”

  “Yeah. I know where he’s staying. I’ve been following him for two weeks. Don’t you listen?”

  He rolled his eyes again. “Where is he?”

  “Who is your buyer?”

  They stared at each other for a few tense seconds, neither of them wanting to give up any ground.

  “Tell me your buyer,” she said. “You’ll never find him without me.”

  He lifted his cuffed wrist up, jerking her hand up too. “Ya think?”

  “You won’t find him without me telling you his location,” she corrected.

  “And you won’t get the extra one million, nine hundred and ninety-eight thousand, and five hundred dollars without my buyer.”

  Tempest glanced down at their hands. His right hand was attached to her left. They weren’t going anywhere without each other until they arrived at storage unit #73 by the Westhaven mall in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  No matter what, those cuffs weren’t coming off until she could retrieve that spell.

  “We’re going to be together for a while. We might as well work together,” she finally, reluctantly, hesitantly said.

  He sighed in utter defeat. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  She held out her hand—a peace offering. “Partners?”

  “My crew gets eighty percent,” he said, “and you get twenty?”

  “What crew?” she said with a scoff. “I get fifty percent and you and your imaginary crew get fifty.”

  “I need this money,” he said with a serious voice. “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand needing money,” she said. “I slept in my car for the past three weeks. Fifty-fifty.”

  He stared at her, and she stared back with a straight face, giving him nothing.

  “Or, we can put on some 90’s pop tunes, load up on licorice and start the long road trip down to New Mexico and neither of us will get anything.”

  He just stared.

  “Are you more of a Backstreet Boys kind of guy or N’Sync?” she said, rubbing it in. “Oh, you know what? We’ll have time to listen to both and New Kids On The Block on our twenty-three-hour drive.”

  He closed his eyes, breathing nice and slow, trying to find his calm place. Too bad for him, Tempest was chained to his calm place. There was no getting away from her.

  “Fine,” he said, opening his eyes. “You lead us to him and we’ll split the profits with you.”

  “Fifty-fifty?” She held her hand open.

  He swallowed hard and then shook it. “Fifty-fifty.”

  Wow. One million dollars.

  Tempest grinned. She was going to be rich.

  That is, unless Mr. Creepy-Bear-Shifter-Guy or her new friend didn’t kill her first.

  And he was going to be attached to her for about a week at least…

  She gave herself a fifty-fifty chance of surviving.

  Chapter Four

  Ryder

  “So, what’s your name?” Ryder asked with a sigh. He was going to get nice and familiar with this random chick attached to him, so he might as well start with her name.

  “Tempest.”

  “Tempest?” Ryder laughed. How fitting. This girl had definitely burst into his life like an unruly storm.

  “What’s yours?” she said, narrowing her eyes on him.

  “Ryder.”

  She forced out a laugh. “That’s so… actually I kind of like that.”

  He smiled.

  “But you’re still a jerk.”

  They were walking back to the abandoned factory to meet up with the guys. They were going to love this. Ryder was usually the cool, calm one of the crew and here he went and got himself locked to a crazy chick who may or may not be a witch.

  “I have a question,” he said, turning to her. “How come that guy could break the chain on your other handcuffs?”

  “Those were ordinary handcuffs.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it got on Ryder’s nerves. Come to think of it, everything about this girl was getting on his nerves.

  Except of course, her smell. She smelled great.

  “Didn’t you see the size of that guy?” Ryder said, feeling frustration bubble up. “Why wouldn’t you put these magical handcuffs on him? You should have known that he could break through normal handcuffs.”

  She laughed. “Chain myself to that guy? Are you crazy? That was just a bluff that I thought would look cool. I didn’t want to be strapped to a murderous polar bear shifter!”

  Ryder rubbed his forehead. “Are you sure you’re a bounty hunter?”

  “It’s my first job.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Hey,” she said, frowning at him. Ryder couldn’t help but notice how her bushy eyebrows looked like two caterpillars kissing when she did that. “I did capture him by the way, and would have been successful if you hadn’t come along.”

  She had him there.

  “And how did you and your imaginary crew fair?” she asked. “You said something about one of your friends getting impaled by spikes?”

  Ryder’s chest tightened when he remembered Mack’s eyes widening as the large spikes pierced his lion. The old shifter was tough as they came and would probably be healed by the time they caught up with him. Well, mostly healed.

  “If you’ll notice,” she said, spreading her arms out. “I don’t have a mark on me.”

  Ryder took the opportunity to look her up and down from her black leather boots to her nice breasts pushing against her tight shirt. She was sexy, he had to give her that. Annoying, but sexy.

  “See?” she said proudly. “Not. One. Mark.”

  He pointed to her head. “You’re getting a bump on your forehead.”

  “Damn,” she said as her hand flew up to it. “I forgot about that.”

  Ryder laughed as they walked. Maybe she wasn’t so bad.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it down and looked at the text:

  Grant: Where the hell are you? Did you get him?

  He thumbed his phone, texting back:

  Ryder: He’s gone, but I have a lead to where he went.

  Grant: Good job. Hurry back, Mack is whining for a drink.

  Ryder: Everyone okay? How is Bryce?

  Grant: Shaken up, but good.

  He thought about t
elling him about the girl, but it was too long to explain via text, and Tempest was already looking over his shoulder, trying to read what was on his screen.

  “Let’s hurry up,” Ryder said. “My friend wants to get home.”

  He started to jog, but she dug her sexy boots into the ground and yanked him back. “I have my car here.”

  “So?”

  She scoffed at him. “So, I can’t just leave it here. We’ll drive to your place.”

  Ryder closed his eyes, picturing a pink Beetle or something equally weird. “Fine.” He was going to have to learn some patience and learn to compromise if this was going to work out. They were going to be stuck together for quite some time and Ryder really had to pick his battles with this girl.

  Ryder: Go on without me. I have a ride.

  Grant: ???

  Ryder: It’s a long story. I’ll explain at home.

  Grant: K. See you later.

  Ryder sighed as Tempest led them back to her car. As he feared it was an old Volkswagen Beetle, but it wasn’t pink. It was yellow.

  And it was full of all of her crap.

  “It looks like a thrift store threw up in here,” Ryder said as he looked in the window. “Is that a pizza box?”

  Tempest grinned with her cheeks blushing as she opened the door, reached in the back, and grabbed the pizza box. “I wasn’t expecting company,” she said as she tossed the box in the nearby dumpster. “I would have tidied up.”

  With the handcuffs, Ryder had to climb in through the driver’s seat. He grabbed a handful of her clothes and tossed it into the back with all the rest of her stuff. A black lacy bra caught his eye, making him pause.

  “Hurry up,” she said, shoving him in as she climbed into the driver’s seat beside him. He sat down and looked at the dashboard in front of him that was covered with junk.

  “Home sweet home,” she said as she started the car. It puttered to a start and then she took off like a bullet. An old pair of Homer Simpson slippers slid off the dashboard and landed on Ryder’s lap.

  She gave him a grin as he tossed them over his shoulder into the back.

  “D’oh!” she said, imitating the cartoon character on her slippers.

  “If you’re a witch you should put a spell on your car to change it,” he said as she pulled out of the parking lot.