Flogged By the Ferret (Kinky Kritters: Las Vegas #3)

Chapter One

Friday nights at Kinky Kritters were Amani's favorite kind of chaos.

The music was loud enough to feel in his chest but not so loud that he couldn't hear orders from across the bar.

The lighting was low and warm, turning everything the color of whiskey, and the crowd was thick enough that he had to raise his voice to the regulars at the rail but not so thick that anyone was getting shoved into anyone else's scene.

It was the sweet spot, the club running exactly the way it was supposed to, and Amani moved behind the bar like it was the only place in the world he was meant to be.

Which, as far as he was concerned, it was.

Reza was working the service well beside him, faster on the basics than anyone Amani had hired in three years of turnover.

The otter had started six months earlier and stopped needing training after two weeks, which was either a miracle or a warning, Amani hadn't decided.

That night Reza was handling the servers' tickets and the beer pulls, which left Amani free to work the rail and the regulars, which was how they both liked it.

He slid a Shirley Temple across the bar top to a young deer shifter who was clearly on his first visit and too nervous to order alcohol. "Here you go, kitten. On the house."

The deer blinked at him. "I didn't order—"

"You've been standing there for ten minutes looking like you're about to bolt.

Which, no offense, is kind of on brand for you.

" Amani grinned and leaned over the bar, bare-chested and close enough that the deer's eyes went wide.

"Drink it. It's sweet, it's got cherries in it, and it'll give your hands something to do besides shake.

When you're ready to order a real drink, I'll be right here. "

The deer took the glass like it was a life raft. "Thanks."

"Amani." He tapped his own chest once. "And you're welcome. Stay off the main floor until you've watched for at least an hour. That's free advice, and I don't give a lot of that away."

He was already turning back to the row of waiting orders before the deer could answer.

Three Jack and Cokes for the wolves in the corner booth, a Moscow Mule for the anaconda who came in every Friday like clockwork and always tipped in cash, and something elaborate and embarrassing that one of the gorilla bouncers had ordered for his boyfriend involving blue curacao and an umbrella.

Amani built them all without looking at the bottles.

His hands knew where everything was. He'd arranged the bar himself at sixteen and reorganized it twice since then, and every bottle, every glass, every garnish was exactly where his fingers expected it to be.

He moved the way his mother moved through a boardroom, with the absolute certainty that everything in this space belonged to him.

Everyone who worked with him, understood, despite his age, and the nepotism of Kinky Kritters, he was the king of the bar.

The tiny black shorts he wore were technically a uniform, though "uniform" was generous for something that covered less than most people's underwear.

No shirt. That was his choice, not the dress code.

Bethany wore the same shorts behind the front desk with a crop top, but Amani ran hot.

Lion blood, his mother said. He liked the way the air felt against his skin when the club was going full tilt.

He liked being looked at, too, and he wasn't precious about admitting it.

Bethany called him an attention whore at least once a week. He took it as a compliment.

The gorilla's boyfriend lit up when Amani slid the blue monstrosity across the bar. "That's beautiful."

"It's a crime against mixology, but I'm not here to judge." Amani winked. "Actually, I'm absolutely here to judge. But you two are cute, so I'll allow it."

From his usual stool at the far end of the bar, Sero snorted into his Coke.

Amani didn't need to look to know the bat was there.

Sero had been coming in on Fridays for months, always the same stool, always nursing something.

He'd been coming in more since Halloween.

Since Trevor. The claw-mark scars over his heart were usually hidden under a dark button-down, but Amani had seen them once when Sero had reached for his wallet and the shirt had pulled.

He hadn't said anything. He didn't need to.

Some things you just held for people until they were ready to talk about them.

"You want a refill, or are you just here to judge my customers?" Amani asked, already scooping ice into a fresh glass.

Sero shook his head. "Still working on this one. Trevor's picking me up at midnight."

"Look at you two being all domestic." Amani set the glass down and leaned against the back counter. "How's the alchemy stuff going?"

Sero's mouth did the thing where it almost smiled but stopped short, the way it always did when Trevor came up. Subtle. The bat wasn't exactly demonstrative. But Amani caught it because catching things was what he did. "Good. Miriam says he's a natural. She's got him doing tinctures now."

"A housecat making potions." Amani shook his head. "The world really is full of surprises."

"Said the lion in the booty shorts."

Amani laughed, a real one, loud enough that a few heads at the bar turned, and pointed at Sero with a cocktail stirrer. "These are not booty shorts. They're a performance garment."

"They're four inches of fabric."

"Four and a half. I measured."

Sero's mouth twitched. The closest thing to a grin the bat usually allowed.

There'd been weeks, right after everything with Trevor came out, when Sero hadn't smiled at all.

When he'd come in and sit at the bar and stare at the same drink for two hours and leave without finishing it.

Amani had never pushed. He'd just kept making the drinks and being there, because that's what bartenders did.

They held space for people who needed a place to sit with their damage without having to explain it.

It had taken Sero a while to come back from what Trevor had done to him.

Amani had been the one to sit with him the night it all came out, after the fury, after the bone-deep exhaustion of discovering that someone he trusted had been taking from you in ways he hadn't agreed to.

He'd said to Sero what he believed to be true: "What you felt was real.

What he took was wrong. Both things are true. "

He still believed it. And now Sero and Trevor were together, really together, working through it in the way that only people who'd chosen each other twice could.

It wasn't perfect. Amani didn't think it was supposed to be.

But it was real, and Sero finally smiled sometimes, and that was its own kind of answer.

A burst of noise from the main floor pulled his attention.

Two regulars were getting heated near the St. Andrew's Cross, a big grizzly who'd been drinking too much and a wiry coyote whose scene partner had apparently wandered off mid-negotiation.

The grizzly wasn't being aggressive exactly, but he was being loud, and loud near the equipment was how scenes went wrong.

Amani caught his mother's eye across the room.

Lady Leo was already moving, she'd spotted it before he had, because she always did, but she gave him a small nod as she passed, her heels clicking with the precise authority of a woman who had never once raised her voice to end a confrontation and had never needed to.

He watched her handle it. Two sentences, one hand on the grizzly's arm, and both men were headed to opposite sides of the room looking chastened.

Lady Leo didn't look back. She never did.

She just smoothed one hand over her already-perfect bun and continued her circuit of the floor as if nothing had happened.

That was his mother. All of her was like that: precise, controlled, ruthless when she needed to be, and utterly certain that the world would arrange itself to her specifications if she just kept walking. Amani admired it and feared it in roughly equal measure.

The elevator chimed and Bethany's voice came through the bar's sound system, clipped and professional: "Two new members verified. Coming down now. Bear and fox."

Amani straightened up behind the bar and put on his best welcome-to-the-jungle smile.

New members meant new drink orders, new faces to learn, new dynamics to catalog.

He loved that part. Every person who walked through those elevator doors was a puzzle.

What they drank told him what they wanted to project, how they held their glass told him how nervous they were, and where their eyes went first told him what they were really there for.

The elevator opened and two men stepped out. A tall bear with kind eyes and workman's hands, and a leaner fox with silver at his temples and the look of someone who'd been talked into this by a friend. The bear was scanning the room with open curiosity. The fox was already looking for the exit.

Amani poured two drinks without being asked, a dark beer for the bear, who had the look of someone who drank simply and well, and a gin and tonic for the fox, because nervous men always wanted something that tasted clean. He had them on the bar before the two made it across the room.

"Welcome to Kinky Kritters, gentlemen." He set cocktail napkins under both glasses. "I'm Amani. These are on the house for your first night. If I guessed wrong, tell me and I'll fix it. I never guess wrong, though, so don't get used to free drinks."

The bear laughed. The fox looked at the gin and tonic like Amani had performed a magic trick.

"How did you—"

"Trade secret." Amani leaned on the bar and dropped his voice conspiratorially. "Actually, it's a lion thing. We read people. Predator instinct. Also, I've been doing this since I was sixteen and I'm very, very good at it."