Page 11

“Hey, Lothar,” I called over the music.

He turned to me and raised a dark brow.

A man of few words was Lothar. “I just want to ask your friend something.”

I tapped the woman’s shoulder, and she turned, scowling at me. “Go find your own guy.”

Lothar smirked, and I rolled my eyes. “I can assure you I don’t want…”

His eyes narrowed.

“Um…as wonderful as he is, he’s all yours.” The big male’s mouth twitched. Okay, the hound wasn’t totally humorless. “I’m actually looking for someone. Do you know Jane? She comes here sometimes.”

She shrugged as she dragged her hand down Lothar’s chest, over his stomach, and grabbed his dick through his jeans. Lothar remained completely unmoved. “Last I saw, she was with Maddox.”

“Right, thanks.” I turned, about to head to the doors across the room, the ones that led to the rooms where they took their females to bump uglies. There was also a door that took you to the lower levels, tunnels the hounds had dug out, vast and complicated, and where they lived and slept most of the time. They never took humans down there, keeping it hidden. I’d been down there, though, several times.

Lothar grabbed my arm, stopping me, and shook his head.

“I need to find this girl,” I said.

He shook his head again. “You wait until Maddox is finished with her.”

Delightful.

“I wouldn’t usually do this, but it’s important.” Goddammit, I was going to have to find Warrick. “Is your alpha here? I need to talk to him.”

Lothar’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed again, then he tipped his head down. I assumed it meant he was in his room below. “You can wait until War’s finished as well.”

I froze.

He was with someone?

Something unhappy squirmed in my belly, and for some reason my face flushed hot. “This can’t wait.”

“Yeah, it can.”

I don’t know what came over me, but an urgency slammed me in the gut, and I was on the move before I knew what my feet were doing, pushing through the hounds and their women, making my way to the door that led to the tunnels. I punched in the code to open it and shoved the door open, slamming it behind me.

Shadows closed in, firelight flickering from the torches that lined the passageways. It looked medieval down here, the way these guys liked it. Warrick’s room was the closest to the exit. As alpha, he put himself in the most vulnerable position of the pack, making himself their first defense. Something else he’d told me the last time I was here. I’d been recuperating after my first task. One of the times he’d found me injured and I’d been forced to share more with him than I’d been comfortable with.

His door was shut, and my fist was up and banging on it before I could think better of it.

No answer.

Visions of him and some other woman filled my head. It should be a deterrent, but it wasn’t. This couldn’t wait, that was the only reason I was pounding on his door, there was no other reason.

Keep telling yourself that.

I put more heft behind it.

The heavy, scarred wood swung open, and my knees literally went weak. Warrick filled the opening, close to seven feet tall, long, thick, black hair hanging past his shoulders, beard in need of a trim, and his tattooed, monster chest, bare and on full display under his leather vest. All the hounds wore them, with the Devil Dogs emblem on the front. Warrick’s said President, fully leaning into the whole motorcycle club ruse.

He also had more than a dusting of chest hair, they all did, and his carried on down, thinning into one of those trails, dipping below the waistband of his faded jeans.

His pale, gold eyes locked on me, and I had to force myself to breathe normally.

Pull your shit together.