Mundo

Chapter 1 Jimmy ‘Mundo’ Aston stared out the minuscule jail cell window and sighed mournfully at the world. Getting banged up never grew easier, no matter how many times it happened. This time, it was sixty days. The last time, it had been two years. The human authorities thought he was in his fifties, and technically he was, only for Shifters, fifty was like twenty. Soon, he’d have to be careful about getting caught. Lies about plastic surgery would only get a Shifter so far, and Mundo preferred to live under the radar. Shifters had been outed during the Second World War. They’d come out in droves to help the war effort, and special military units had banded together to help fight the cause. Of course, when the American Shifters had come out from the shadows in which they lived, so had the Nazis and the j**s. All in all, being outed had cost a hell of a lot of lives. Mundo thought the price had been too high, considering it had kick started prejudice among the humans for Shifter kind. Trouble was, Shifters had had to reveal the truth because on the battlefield, under extreme duress and with lives at stake, a weaker Shifter might have transformed. Poof. Like magic, out of the middle of nowhere, a wolf could have appeared where a man had once been standing. As a military tactic, it might have been useful, but on a larger scale, revealing the truth had its uses as well. Each Shifter had the right to withhold the truth of their origins, and Mundo was one of them. His parents were too. They weren’t on any register monitoring his people, and no Aston ever would be if he had a say in the matter. Unfortunately, he wasn’t completely off the radar. His rap sheet was a mile long thanks to a very rebellious start in life. Now, he was working his way up the ranks of the Nomads MC, and things had to start calming down. A lieutenant had to set an example. Getting caught wasn’t the way to go about doing that, but it was easier said than done. Rebellion had been a part and parcel of Mundo’s life since his earliest days, and letting go… well hell, it was boring as s**t. Scraping a hand over his jaw, he looked at the blue sky with longing. One more day. Christ, that day was feeling longer than the previous sixty. “You gonna start crying?” asked one of his cellmates, a schmuck by the name of Bruce who was inside for beating on his old lady. Mundo hated the bastard on principle. His daddy had been a mean son of a b***h, with fists that were constantly ready to strike at the most minor acts of disobedience. Mundo’s mom had rarely been without an evolving black eye. Be it black, blue, green, or purple, she’d often sported the look of a battered wife. As such, Bruce was his least favorite celly. “Am I f**k,” he gritted out, even though he did feel a little tightness at the back of his eyes. Freedom meant more to his kind than to the humans. He hadn’t shifted in close to seventy days, and his bear was more than ready for freedom. To the beast, his human form was a cage the animal had to constantly inhabit. That was in regular life. So, when Mundo was incarcerated, it was even harder on the creature. His last sentence of two years had been an experiment in torture. To this day, he wasn’t certain how he’d managed to contain the bear for that length of time. But neither did he care about finding out. He’d done it once and could probably do it again, just not if he could help it. “Why you sniffling at the window then?” Bruce asked, getting up off his fat ass to trudge across the miniscule cell they shared with two other dudes so he could stare out. The nosy bastard’s biggest flaw was his curiosity. It led him into a shitload of trouble. “I don’t need to sniffle at the window. I’m outta here tomorrow. Thinking about what I’m gonna do when I break out of this place.” Bruce shrugged. “Just another day for me.” “I never said it wasn’t, dumb ass. And I know your sorry behind is here for another eighty days, but mine isn’t.” Satisfaction laced his tone. Christ, it felt good to know he was out of this shithole tomorrow. Felt even better to know he’d be taking a crap without an audience and eating a dinner with a vegetable that didn’t herald from a tin can. “What ya gonna do, Mundo?” Louis questioned from his bed on the upper bunk. “Gonna get your d**k wet?” Mundo peered over to look at the only celly he could stand—because Harrison was a major d**k too—and saw Louis was looking as chilled as ever. Nothing seemed to faze the slick SOB. He lay there on his bunk, reading, writing sometimes, but mostly chilling. He’d been here the longest and would stay here far past any of his four cellmates. Rumors abounded about his incarceration. No one knew why he was inside. He’d never shared his papers, and by now, no one really wanted to know. Mundo didn’t really mind. Louis was cool as f**k. Mundo kind of wondered if Louis was a Shifter, mostly because there was something about him that resonated well, but he couldn’t say for sure. Shifters didn’t recognize other Shifters. He was a bear, and he’d have recognized another Shifter bear in his human skin, but he wouldn’t be able to discern a wolf from an eagle from a full-blooded human. So, the only thing Mundo knew for certain was that Louis definitely wasn’t a bear, and that was it. “Yeah. I think I’ll f**k one of the bunnies,” he said after a while, earning himself a grin from the other three men. “Wish I could,” Louis retorted immediately. “I’d f**k them so many ways they’d be walking funny the next day.” “That’s how I f**k them all the time,” Mundo teased, chuckling when Louis flipped him the bird. “It’s how I roll, bro. Ain’t you figured that out about me yet?” He pumped his hips forward and made a slapping motion with his hand. Louis snickered. “I’m learning, I’m learning.” They shared a grin before Mundo turned back to the window and stared out at the freedom that beckoned but was just out of reach. He hadn’t been able to look outside for the entirety of his incarceration. Not without his bear wanting to tear the bars down. Now that he was close to going home, the ache was bittersweet. Intolerable but bearable nonetheless. Rubbing a hand over his heart, he prayed for tomorrow to come. He had s**t to do the minute he got out because the one upside to being jailed was he’d met his mate. No way was he going to f**k a bunny. That was the last snatch in the universe he wanted now that he’d scented his woman. No, siree, the first thing he was going to do was claim his mate. Claim her, mark her, and f**k her until there was no doubt about whose woman she was.