Page 39 of Pistols & Peonies

I salute him with the shot and toss it back, welcoming the burn as the tequila scorches a line down my throat. Char does the same, then jerks her chin toward me. “Another?”

“I’m good,” I say, rolling the tension out of my neck. One is plenty. Anything more would dull the edge, and I can’t afford that. Not tonight.

We don’t linger. The excitement isn’t up here with the club kids and spilled drinks, anyways. The real draw is buried beneath all this noise, accessible only to pack members through a door at the back. The bouncer posted there sizes us up as we approach, then lets us through without a word.

The hallway beyond is narrow and covered in a decade’s worth of graffiti. The door at the end has no handle, just a little window with a metal grate over it. Char knocks, and a set of eyes appear behind it, assessing us. Then the door swings open.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite bit of mischief,” the bouncer waiting on the other side says with a chuckle, grinning as Charlotte steps into his arms.

“Missed you, Mack,” she giggles.

He squeezes her longer than necessary before letting go, then turns his attention to me, giving a low whistle. “You look ready to kill tonight, Violet.”

“Always am,” I reply, letting him hook me into a hug with one beefy arm.

“Go on down, then,” he says gruffly, moving aside and gesturing to the stairwell.

Char blows him a kiss, then links her arm with mine, the two of us starting forward.

The air changes the second we descend. Up top, it’s club chaos and manufactured fun. Down here, it’s something dark and primal, pulsing with raw energy.

The room is all cinderblock and rusted metal, fluorescent lights flickering overhead. A tight crowd presses in, faces flushed, eyes wild. No dance floor, no DJ. Just the ring at the center.

Waiting.

Cheers ripple as we push through the mass of bodies, recognition spreading fast amongst the regulars who know what’s coming. Anticipation crackles, thick enough to taste.

“You ready?” Char asks, turning toward me.

I shove a hand into my pocket, pull out a wad of cash, and slap it into hers. “I need to hit something,” I say. “Might as well get paid for it.”

She laughs, already peeling away toward the betting booth. “Never change, Vi!” she calls back to me.

I head for the locker room, the weight of a hundred hungry eyes following my every step. Mack wasn’t wrong– everyone here is expecting a show.

Because it’s fight night, and I’m the main event.

CHAPTER 14

Kane

Sleep is a fucking joke tonight.

No matter how many times I shift positions, how many breaths I count, or how many sheep I mentally massacre, my wolf refuses to let me rest. All because Violet’s gone.

She snuck out around midnight, and my inner beast has been pacing ever since, like he knows something I don’t. I keep trying to shove him down and tune him out, but he’s more insistent than ever, gnawing at the inside of my skull to the point of near madness.

I’ve never been so tempted to inject myself with wolfsbane just to get some damn peace. The sting is brutal, the effects worse, but at least it’d shut him up so I could get some rest.

I roll onto my side and glare at the clock on my nightstand. It’s almost two thirty in the morning. The city outside has settled into that deep, uneasy quiet that only comes in the dead hours before dawn. Meanwhile, I’m lying here wide awake, every nerve strung so tight it feels like one wrong move might snap me in half.

Lying here like this is pointless. I know it, my wolf knows it. This is an exercise in futility, and I’m done pretending otherwise.

The pack armory is only a few floors up, stocked with pre-filled syringes of wolfsbane. I’m just about to haul myself out of bed and go get one when I hear it.

The muffled chime of the elevator.

The scrape of a key sliding into the lock.