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I felt something cool and wet touch the back of my arm, and it was the only thing that snapped me out of my haze. I turned and faced Sasha and Salvatore, seeing a glass with condensation in his hand as he held it out to me. I didn’t know what it was, but it was colorful with a little umbrella shoved inside.
I brought the glass to my lips and took a long drink, letting the cool, powerful alcohol slide down my throat. It burned on its descent, settling in my belly before causing a slow burn to consume me from the inside out.
“I was going to say bottoms up,” Sasha said loudly beside my ear, and I couldn't help but smile broadly. “But it looks like you’re ready to unwind.” I finished off my drink, and Sasha took it out of my hand before shoving it toward Salvatore’s chest.
He gave me a wink and turned toward the bar, and within a few moments he produced two more fresh cocktails for us.
“Down the hatches,” Sasha said loudly, and as I downed my drink, feeling the alcohol work its magic through my bloodstream, I already felt the stress of life start to fade into the background.
Once our second drinks were consumed, Sasha took my hand and led me to the dance floor, and I couldn’t help but laugh, feeling how light my head started to become as the haziness of the liquor moved through my veins.
Yet despite the world fading away as I let go and moved to the beat of the music, I still felt that intense sensation of being watched.
2
Adryan
Ilet the smile slip off my face as my office door closed and the wolf and his human mate left. Keeping up the facade that I gave a fuck was taxing, exhausting. There was a single knock on the door, and I knew it was Kane and Sebastian. I grunted for my cousins to enter before I turned away and walked back to the window that overlooked my domain.
The door swung open, and I sensed the two massive males step inside, not bothering to close the door.
“Everything go well with the Lycan?” Kane asked, and I mumbled my affirmation. I continued to stare out at the crush of humans and curled my lip.
“The other wolf has been asking about dealing with the Shepherds we captured,” Sebastian was the one to say.
I turned around then and inclined my head. “So give him a few of the bastards. What he wants.” I held my hands out, palms upward. “Let him tear them up. What the fuck do I care if a few humans get destroyed?”
Kane furrowed his brow. “Okay, but can I ask why the hell you’re giving the wolves anything? Seems like a gift to me, and although the truce between our two kinds is there, it's fucking thin at best.”
I didn’t hold back the low sound of warning that spilled from me. “That may be, but have you forgotten my sister, your cousin, is mated to Banner, the Scottish Lycan king?” The growl was thick in my voice. “You forget that as much as we may not like their kind, I have nephews and a niece who are half-wolf, and I’d die protecting them.” I bared my teeth. “So a war—even if you two fuckers may want some bloodshed—isn’t going to happen. Got it?”
Sebastian, the stoic fucker that he was, didn’t speak, just kept his hands clasped behind his back as he inclined his head.
“Like you don’t want a bloody fight as well,” Kane muttered. “Like you aren’t hard up to kill.” I kept still, quiet, as he kept talking out of his ass. “I saw the fearsome brutality toward those human Assembly fuckers on the road. I could smell how you got off on it, Cousin.”
I was in front of Kane the next instant, my hand wrapped around his throat, his body lifted up and off the ground as I pressed him against the wall and brought my face close to his. I kept my expression even, my voice matching the cold brutality I was known for.
“You forget because you’re family and I’ve been lenient with you, but I’m in charge, Kane.” I stared him in the eyes, and although all who were in this position would cower before me, Kane kept his face a blank mask. “I can’t control what you think, Cousin, but family or not, you'd do well to keep your thoughts to yourself, you feel me?” I tightened my hand on his throat to drive the point home, watching his face redden, his lips darken from lack of oxygen. And still he stared at me, not moving or fighting me.
I was off him a second later, his body sliding down the wall before he caught himself. He sucked in a ragged breath and rubbed at his thickly muscled neck. “Yeah, I feel you,” he finally muttered in a strained voice as he continued to rub his throat.
I looked at Sebastian—a year younger than Kane, yet the two could have been twins. Sebastian, ever the stone wall where emotions were concerned, smirked. I didn't have to tell them to get the fuck out. They left a second later, closing the door behind them and leaving me with my foul-ass mood still in place.
I walked back over to my desk, reached out and grabbed a watermelon Jolly Rancher from the skull bowl, and opened the little fucker before popping the candy in my mouth. I moved toward the window and stared down at the humans for long moments, my mind drifting to nothingness, this rare moment where shit wasn’t hitting the fan, a precious gift I latched onto.
I thought about Cian and his mate, about my sister, Luna, her Lycan mate, and their four hybrid children. Two had already found their Linked Mates, the term Lycans had for finding their fated ones. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that I’d ever be gifted my female. My Coveted One. I was too much of a killer, and my emotional capacity was fucking zero. I wouldn't be able to cherish a female who was deemed by fate as mine and mine alone.
But I was curious about such a thing, a connection two people in the Otherworld had. I’d watched Cian with his mate, saw the way he looked at her, that protectiveness and the possession in his eyes. He didn't care who saw. In fact, I was pretty sure he wanted others to see and know, to fucking feel that she was his.
What I knew for sure was if I ever found my female, she’d be sure to hate me, to loathe who and what I was. She’d look into my cold, dead eyes and know I didn't have a heart to give. Of course, instinctively I'd be drawn to her, the need to protect her taking over. I’d heard enough about the mating phenomenon to know how it worked. But to care for her wholly? To love her?
I wasn't capable of such emotions. I wasn't capable of any.
I stood there a few more moments, staring at the gyrating bodies, seeing nothing but livestock below, bags of flesh and blood, short life spans, and hollow dreams. The doors to the main club room opened and broke up the flashing lights and hazy atmosphere of the interior. The hallway from those doors to the front ones that led outside was short and allowed me a momentary glimpse of the long line of customers salivating to get inside.
Two patrons, a man and a woman, were allowed entrance, and the next two waiting to come in stepped up to the red velvet rope, blocking off the double doors.
I saw a flash of long golden-brown hair, glimpsed strips of too much alabaster skin on display. She was tiny, waiting behind those ropes, the bouncer Ivan dwarfing her so she looked like a fragile, breakable doll. Ivan unhooked the rope and gestured to a dark-haired woman to enter. And then she stepped fully forward. Every predator instinct in me fired up as I tracked her down that short hallway to the opening of the main club floor.
