Riptide MC, Books 6
Date Published: June 6, 2026
Publisher: ChangelingPress
Wynter -- Scary Guy lived up to his name, threatening to rape me and sell me as a whore. Not happening. I reached for the hidden blade at my ankle just as a tattooed biker wearing a Riptide MC cut stepped in to save me. The dude knew how to handle an asshole like Scary Guy without breaking a sweat. Gorgeous as he is, this biker isn’t just eye candy. I find myself kissing him in the middle of a crowd of nerds and superheroes. I have a thing for tough guys with tattoos. My head tells me to run, but I want more. I want him.
Shadow -- I noticed her the second she slipped in front of us, alert and watchful like she expected trouble just for existing. When some ape starts pawing her, I step in. Nobody manhandles a woman in front of me. I pretend she belongs to me, and she plays right along. I’m willing to do more than just talk tough if the bastard won’t back off. When he proves how stupid he is, attacking her in the parking lot, I’ve got the excuse I needed to beat some sense into him. Wynter’s mine, whether she knows it or not. Trouble’s not finished with her, and neither am I.
Wynter
I glanced over my shoulder. He was still there.
I’d dubbed him Scary Guy.
I tried to convince myself I was just being paranoid and the guy just happened to be headed in the same direction as me. I’d never seen him before; I was sure of that. You didn’t forget a face like his with a jagged scar down the side of his cheek and a spider web with a skull in the center tattooed on his neck. There was no reason for him to be fixated on me.
I certainly wasn’t the kind of woman men liked to fantasize over. I was short, wiry, and dressed as a Browncoat, one of the characters out of my favorite sci-fi series. I didn’t have a spectacular rack or an hourglass figure and my hair hung in a single braid down my back, the only way I’d found to keep it from exploding into a messy tangle.
I assessed him out of the corner of my eye. He was big and solid, although at this distance it was hard to tell if that bulk was muscles or a beer belly. He had on some kind of dark costume with a black cape that fell to mid-thigh. This was a comic book convention, so his outfit wasn’t all that strange. I had no idea who he thought he looked like. I swear ninety percent of the people here wore capes of some type. It could be anybody or nobody.
He looked dangerous, though, the kind of guy you avoid being caught alone with. Unfortunately, I was well acquainted with the type. I grew up in the projects, daughter of a junkie too deep into her addictions to care about me. Self-preservation meant I’d developed a sixth sense when it came to creeps like this a long time ago.
I gave my head a mental shake. This may not be Dragon Con in Atlanta, but there were still several thousand people here. He couldn’t just drag me off to a dark room, even if he wanted to, so why did his stare send shivers of apprehension down my spine?
As if he could sense my attention, the asshole grinned at me and licked his lips. Yikes! If I had any doubt that he was focused on me, it fled right then and there.
“Excuse me.” I shouldered my way between a young woman dressed as Batwoman and a couple dressed as Shrek and his bride. Zigzagging back and forth, I headed for the doorway. Maybe I could lose the creep in the crowd.
“Hey, watch it!” A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle glared up at me when I accidentally stood on her foot. This section of the event was crowded, waiting for some promised celebrities to appear. I mumbled an apology and continued to wade my way through the crowd, trying to recall the map they’d handed me when I got here. The place was a warren of smaller rooms radiating off a central hall. I should be able to find a spot to hide.
A quick glance behind me showed Scary Guy was following me. My heart rate increased as adrenaline flooded my system. I had too much at stake right now to be caught in an altercation with anyone.
The crowd parted in front of the jerk with no effort from him. I got it. One glare from that face and no one wanted the kind of trouble it promised. I still didn’t understand why he’d singled me out. Just my bad luck? I felt like a rabbit being stalked by a coyote, looking for a hole to vanish into. I just needed to get out of his line of sight long enough to dart into one of those smaller side rooms and disappear.
It seemed like forever before I finally reached the doorway and plunged out into the main hall. The crowds were thinner here, and I took advantage of the opportunity to dash across to the far side and slide into the Marvel Comics section.
Not surprisingly, the room was crowded, people packed in shoulder to shoulder. For once my lack of height played to my advantage. Anyone scanning the area from the entranceway would have a hard time seeing me when most of the gathering towered over top of me. Making my way to the center of the room, I turned to scan the area behind me.
Nothing.
Scary Guy was nowhere in sight. I let out a ragged breath and put a hand up to my chest. I could feel my heart racing beneath my fingertips. So much for being a brave member of the Resistance. All it took was one creepy guy to send me scurrying for cover. He hadn’t even been that close to me, let alone within touching distance.
I inhaled deeply, trying to remember the meditation class I’d once attended. I needed to calm down. It’s not like this was the first time I found myself running from the hint of danger. As a kid, my life had been chaotic at best. My mother might have been a junkie who cared more about her next fix than me, but in order to stay out of the foster care system, I’d had to make sure she stayed alive.
Sometimes that meant doing things that could get me thrown into juvie, like pick-pocketing for rent money. It was more luck than skill that I never got caught. I became an expert at shoplifting and begging long before I hit double digits. I had a plan, and I clung to it like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. All I had to do was make it to sixteen without drawing the attention of Child Protective Services, and I could split. Free from the threat of foster care, I could do anything I wanted.
A simple plan, but a workable one.
Then my mom got pregnant again.
I have no idea who Star’s father is, and I doubt Mom did either. She was at that point in her addiction where she would sleep with anyone for a fix so there were lots of candidates to choose from, and none of them had names.
My little sister was born on a hot July day, in the back of a dealer’s van, and I was instantly smitten. Somehow Child Protective Services didn’t get wind of the birth, or they were too overworked to care about one more kid who wouldn’t amount to much. Mom brought the baby home, and I took over, making sure Star was fed and clothed and stayed alive.
I already knew how her life would go if I didn’t stick around, so it’s not like I had a choice. Star blinked up at me with those big blue eyes, and my heart melted. I promised myself then and there that I’d look after her.
Star wasn’t exactly a normal name, but then neither was Wynter. Mom had a thing for weird names. Maybe it came from having such a boring name herself, or maybe she thought naming my little sister Star would give her a chance in life. In her own way, when the need for a fix wasn’t consuming her, I liked to think Mom cared about us.
My attention snapped back to the present. Something was happening in the front of the room. A buzz of excitement swept through the crowd. I stretched up on tiptoe to see, but there were three big guys in front of me blocking my view. They laughed and joked with one another, oblivious to me or anyone else in the crowd.
Gritting my teeth, I squeezed between them.
No wonder the crowd was so excited. From a partially hidden door up front, four of the Marvel Avengers stalked into the room. Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk all took their seats at the signing table while the Black Widow stood up and swept the room with a piercing gaze. With a theatrical flourish, she picked up the microphone from the table in front of her. Laughter and excitement rippled through the crowd as she introduced herself and her companions as if everyone present wasn’t very aware of who they were. Showing off her agility with an impressive back flip, she landed in her seat and indicated the signing was now open.
The crowd surged forward, carrying me along with it. I had no intention of paying to have someone sign a comic for me, no matter how famous or agile they were, but the crowd’s excitement was contagious. It didn’t cost anything to watch, and if I got close enough, I might even be able to get a picture of one of the fabled Avengers on my phone. Star would love that. She was eight and loved comic books the way I loved to draw. I fished my phone out of my pocket and let out a sigh of relief when I saw I’d actually remembered to fully charge it the night before. Now I just needed to get close enough to that table to snap a picture or two.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I glanced behind me, expecting to see Scary Guy. Instead, my gaze landed on the three big guys I’d seen earlier, still laughing and joking with each other. I’d noticed that they all wore leather cuts with some kind of logo on the back, and I’d spent enough time on the streets to know what that meant.
It showed their motorcycle club affiliation, and not the granddaddy going for a Sunday ride kind of club. That alone should have twigged my survival instinct, but for some reason it didn’t. They certainly looked the part of outlaw gang members. Tough, tattooed, leather-clad guys with muscles to spare, they had that aura about them that spelled danger. Not a bunch you’d want to mess with, especially if you were trying to convince the courts you were a responsible, law-abiding citizen.
The biker in the center looked directly at me, and a slow grin spread across his face. He lifted one brow as if questioning my attention. Damn, he was mouthwatering, although maybe that wasn’t quite the word. Appealing? Sexy? Tempting? Definitely not hard on the eyes. I could picture myself licking my way down his…
I blushed, but I didn’t look away. He looked like the kind of guy who wouldn’t be shocked by my home life or my mom’s abdication of her parental responsibilities. Maybe a carnal distraction might help settle my nerves before the court date.
A commotion erupted in the entranceway, pulling me out of my daydream. Scary Guy and his buddies were pushing their way into the room, knocking other attendees out of their way like might made right or some other stupid macho shit. Abandoning my silent exchange with Sexy Biker, I pivoted to face the front of the room. Hopefully Scary Guy wouldn’t be able to pick me out of the crowd if he couldn’t see my face. Not like we were old buddies or anything.
The Marvel characters were hamming it up, signing, and occasionally posing for photos. A couple of conference workers dressed in shirts with the Marvel logo on them were collecting money from the fans as they handed over comics to sign or the fee for having their picture taken with one of the celebrities. When the characters stood to pose with the fans, I managed to snap some shots with my phone, although I wasn’t close enough for details. I could tweak the pictures when I got back home, editing out the fans. With any luck, I’d have a few usable pictures for Star to gush over.
I jumped as an enormous hand clamped down painfully on my shoulder. “Thought you could get away, did you?”
Shit.
Scary Guy.
I couldn’t afford to just knee the asshole in the balls, tempting as that was. The courts would definitely frown on that. Plastering a calm expression on my face, I twisted around and drew my brows down in a puzzled frown. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
His grin was pure evil. “Not yet, but I plan to fix that. You’re coming with me to a place where we can get to know each other real well.” Keeping his hand on my shoulder, he swept my body with a glance that left me feeling dirty. “Real, real well.”
I shook my head, trying to resist the temptation to pull my knife out of its hidden ankle sheath. “Sorry, but I don’t think my boyfriend would like that.” I tried to shrug his hand off my shoulder. “He’s a bit old-fashioned when it comes to things like that.”
Scary Guy dismissed my imaginary boyfriend with a flick of his hand. “Where is he? My boys can take care of him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m flattered you think I’m worth that much trouble, but I’m going to pass. I have things to do today.” I shrugged out from under his hand and took a step toward the back of the room. The people around us were too wrapped up in the excitement of the Avengers to pay any attention to my discomfort and shifted to let me through.
Scary Guy reached out to stop me, hooking one meaty hand into the belt at my waist. I twisted in his grip, and anger mottled his expression. “I don’t think you understand, bitch. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”
So much for playing the model citizen.
I reached for my knife.
* * *
About the Author
Anne Kane lives in the beautiful Okanagan Valley with a bouncy little rescue dog whose breed defies description, a cantankerous Himalayan cat, and too many fish to count. She spent many years trying to fit in and act normal, but finally gave up the effort. She started writing romance in 2008, and her fate was sealed when she won a publishing contract with Red Sage Publishing and just a month later Changeling Press accepted her first submission. Since then she has published more than thirty stories in a variety of sub-genres, all with a happily ever after.
She has two handsome sons and six adorable grandchildren and enjoys spending time with them whenever she can. Her hobbies, when she’s not playing with the characters in her head, include kayaking, hiking, swimming, playing guitar, singing and of course, reading.
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