Blaze of Glory - Liberty Parker

Prologue

Blaze

“Son of a motherfucking bitch,” I furiously hiss in despair when I see the mounds of papers spread out in front of me. Another human woman has been kidnapped, taken from our territory, I’m fucking livid and ready to blow some shit up. Human women have been vanishing in our town for the last six months or so, and I’m fed the fuck up with it.

We’ve been swarmed by the local law enforcement, begging us to assist them in this investigation. Folder after folder sits on my desk, stacked on top of one another, all containing pictures and information on what’s been gathered and processed so far. The women have absolutely nothing in fucking common with one another, and I’ve wracked my brain trying to come up with a solution to capturing these assholes.

Yet, I have nothing to work with, no place to begin and start my search. No leads are staring me in the face; causing my skin to crawl as fur breaks out, covering my arms and hands. My leopard is angry, vengeful, ready to annihilate the threat to his brethren and town folk.

Innocents lives are being shattered, bringing out the protector side of me. I can’t sit idly by and watch families being torn apart, women being stolen out of thin air. It’s as if they’ve vanished… never to be heard from again. And that’s wrong as fuck. It’s this sort of situation that has had me scared witless to bring cubs into our world. People vanish without a trace, and that’s a parent’s worst nightmare come to fruition. I won’t put my mate through that… not now, not ever.

My name is Blaze Montgomery, and I’m the president of the West Texas Chapter of the Dark Leopards Motorcycle Club. This club is my family, an indestructible brotherhood of shifters, some leopards, some not. Either way, I could care less if my brothers were purple unicorns, as long as they abide by our laws and enforce our ways.

We aren’t what you’d call a lovey-dovey sort of MC, we get down and dirty. We take no prisoners, and we make no apologies for the way we live. Our existence to the humans has been a well-hidden secret for generations.

We know what could happen to our kind if we were discovered. Scientists would use us as a way to weaponize the world. Each and every shifter is unique, have their own brand of specialized gifts, some that could end world kind, and some that would always keep us ahead of the enemy. Shifters will never sit back and allow ourselves to become used in an evil capacity. We’re all… one way or another, protectors… it’s written in our DNA.

There are some evil shifters born, they usually turn rogue and we have to hunt them then irreverently put them down. Not something we take lightly, not something that’s easily done. We weigh all of our options and try to reform them if we can. But sometimes, it’s impossible to do.

When our abilities are used against, instead of for humankind, they must be put down, for the better good. It hurts my soul every time we’re informed by the council that another shifter has been sent above. Some of our brethren’s shifter races are dwindling; they’ll be extinct soon; we need to figure out how to save their breeds.

There’s been talk of starting some sort of reform sanctuary. The details are still being worked out, however, but we’re supposed to be voting on it… and I’ll vote yes as long as it’s not torturing our kind in any way.

When the club was first started, you could only hold an officer’s patch if you were of the leopard breed; now, we’ve slowly begun changing that. If you are not a leopard, you can hold an officer’s patch, unless it’s that of the president or vice-president. It’s worked out in our favor, seeing as most of my officers are other breeds of shifters, my most entrusted group of men.

I couldn’t imagine my table missing these men. The shift that has happened in our club is the best thing that could have happened in my personal opinion. It’s a closely guarded secret, only being passed down to the two heads of each club.

Everyone else is left in the dark for a reason. It’s not that we enjoy keeping secrets from our brothers, it’s to ensure the survival of our club. We can’t have a shifter war happening, we have to protect our own at whatever that