Chapter 7 #2
Since Sammy didn’t have the first clue what to ask, he also looked to Dominic.
Valerie had been at the club. She’d left for the airport with the relique. What more did his mate hope to learn?
“Just tell us what happened,” Chapel suggested. Sashaying over to the bar, she slid onto one of the stools and crossed one leg over the other. “Start at the beginning and don’t skip the good stuff.”
“I, uh, was in the kitchen?” His voice pitched, making it sound like a question.
Chapel flashed him a smile and nodded. “Go on.”
“I was in the kitchen,” he repeated with more confidence. “I was dropping off a tray of empty glasses when Valerie strolled in like she owned the place. I told her customers weren’t allowed back there, but she ignored me.”
Sammy sighed. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”
“When she went to Tim’s office, I didn’t think much of it at first, not until I heard shouting.”
“Tim?” Dominic asked.
Kiev flinched at being addressed directly and hurried to explain. “The new owner. He was yelling at her to get out of his club, saying she wasn’t welcome here.”
Ownership had still been in legal limbo when Sammy had left, so he hadn’t met this Tim person. Shame. He sounded like a decent guy.
“But you didn’t hear what was said before that?” Dominic asked.
He sounded calm, if maybe a little direct, but Kiev flinched again and shuffled a little farther down the bar. “Uh, no, I didn’t hear what Valerie said.”
“How did you know who she was?”
“She used to be a regular here. I guess she was friends with Chandler.”
“The previous owner,” Sammy clarified.
Dominic nodded. “I remember.”
He jerked his head up, a rush of warmth spreading through his chest and into his neck. He had mentioned his old boss once in passing during their conversation at the bakery. It had been such a small thing, a footnote, but Dominic had thought his words worth remembering.
“You said she was wearing the locket,” Dominic continued. “How did you know about it?”
“Chandler used to wear it all the time.” Kiev’s gaze darted around the room, and he rubbed a hand up and down his forearm. “I saw him use it once to summon Sammy.”
Turning to his mate, Sammy opened his mouth to confirm the information, but before he could form the words, the room erupted into chaos.
Dominic growled, a low rumbling sound filled with threat. Then Chapel echoed him as she launched herself across the bar, grabbed a fistful of Kiev’s hair, and slammed his face down on the gleaming surface.
Sammy yelped, shocked by the sudden violence, and started forward. He didn’t know exactly what he planned to do, and he didn’t get to find out because Dominic caught him around the waist and hauled him off his feet.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, looking between his mate and the bar. “He’s telling the truth. That’s—”
“He’s not,” Chapel interrupted, her nostrils flaring as her upper lip curled over her canines. “The little weasel is lying through his teeth.” Grinding Kiev’s cheek into the wood, she leaned over him and inhaled deeply. “I can smell it all over him.”
Sammy stopped struggling, his entire body going rigid as her words registered. How much had Kiev lied about, and more importantly, why?
It was also in that moment he noticed Kiev hadn’t reacted to the assault. He didn’t yell or fight back, both of which would have been normal.
The color had drained from his face, and his pupils bled to the outer edges of his irises, but his breath remained steady. He was afraid, but not paralyzed by it.
There was something beneath the fear, though, an emotion Sammy couldn’t identify, but it made him uneasy.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Once he had stopped struggling, Dominic set him back on his feet, but he kept a restraining arm across his chest. “He’s lying.”
“I get that. About what?”
Dominic shrugged. “Valerie was here, and she has the locket. That’s probably the only truthful thing he’s said.” Then he snapped his head up, his eyes narrowing as they locked onto Kiev. “Knock it off with the siren shit. It won’t work on me.”
“I don’t know.” Chapel sounded quite casual, all things considered. “It kind of tickles. I like it.”
Dominic flexed the muscles in his arm, drawing Sammy back against his chest. “Valerie didn’t have the necklace when she arrived, did she? You did.”
Kiev didn’t answer, which spoke volumes. Well, it did to Sammy. Dominic, apparently, wanted to hear him say it.
“Yes!” Kiev screamed when Chapel tightened her grip, piercing the side of his neck with the tips of her dagger-like claws. “I had the locket.”
Sammy gasped. “What? How?”
“I took it,” Kiev responded through gritted teeth after more encouragement from Chapel. “At the funeral.”
“You stole it off a dead man?” The female shook her head. “That’s cold.”
Sammy tensed, his entire body vibrating with anger. He had trusted the siren, and this whole time, Kiev had just been waiting for an opportunity to betray him.
“Why would you do that?” he demanded.
Kiev remained silent, but it didn’t matter. Deep down, he already knew the answer.
Greed. It was always greed.
“It was useless,” Kiev said a moment later, completely unprompted, bitterness bleeding through every syllable. “I couldn’t make it work.”
“So, you contacted Valerie,” Dominic prompted.
“No,” the siren hissed, but only after Chapel shook him like a rag doll. “She came here looking for Chandler.”
Dominic growled, the sound vibrating through his chest and into Sammy’s back. “This is taking too long.”
Though he had never interrogated anyone before, Sammy had to agree. Getting information from Kiev was like pulling teeth. He kept that thought to himself, not wanting to give the wolves any ideas.
“What do—”
The words died on his lips when Dominic suddenly appeared on the other side of the bar, directly behind Kiev. Chapel glanced at him, nodded, then extracted her claws.
“Damn it,” she muttered, inspecting her nails as she settled back down on the barstool. “What a waste of a perfectly good manicure.”
Sammy blinked at her. He had suspected the female might be a little crazy, and this solidified it. Not that he would say so to her face. Although, she would probably take it as a compliment.
Instead, he turned his attention back to Dominic. “What are you going to do?”
“Dig out the truth.”
Well, that sounded ominous.
In reality, Dominic just palmed the back of Kiev’s neck and jerked him upright. No claws. No fangs. No pointy weapons.
Instead, pale gold light emitted from the tips of his fingers, and a ring of pure white glowed around his pupils. It was a little eerie, but also kind of cool.
Then Kiev stiffened. His muscles strained. His eyes rolled back in his head, and an animalistic scream ripped from his throat.
Sammy hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot, unsure what to do or if he should intervene at all. Across the room, Chapel met his gaze and shook her head.
A heartbeat later, the scream cut off, replaced by a high-pitched hum that seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The lights flickered. A haze distorted the edges of the room.
Behind Dominic, shadows moved inside the mirror.
Slowly, they began to take shape, revealing familiar people and places like reels from a movie. Kiev’s memories.
Transfixed, he watched a hand with long, elegant fingers reach out to toy with the locket around Chandler’s neck. He couldn’t make out what was said, but he recognized the slightly glazed look in Chandler’s eyes.
The scene evaporated, morphing into another. Then another. He recognized old coworkers. Clients who probably spent more time in the Sky Lounge than they did at home. Flashes of his old apartment—a one-bedroom he shared with three other people.
Suddenly, the memories slowed again, and his mother’s face filled the glass. She looked exactly as he remembered her. Fiery red hair pinned back at her crown. Soft blue eyes that had a way of looking right through people. That arrogant smirk on her red lips.
Then she was gone, the memory dissolving until the mirror reflected only the Mezzanine and his own face back to him.
Sammy blinked and turned away to wipe the moisture from his eyes.
Stupid.
Weak.
He hated how much just an image of her still affected him, and he hated himself for allowing it.
“See?” Chapel sang. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“You really thought she’d sell you the relique?” Dominic scoffed. Releasing the siren, he turned away with a disgusted sneer. “You’re pathetic.”
Kiev shrieked, the sound born of rage and resentment. Grabbing the knife from the cutting board, he held it in front of him and lunged at Dominic.
“Watch out!” Sammy yelled, but it was too late.
The blade pierced his mate’s back, the serrated edge disappearing as it sliced through muscle and sinew between his shoulder blades.
Dominic roared and spun around, blood spraying from his mouth to splatter across the mirror. He reached for the siren, canines extended, but Chapel was faster. Leaping over the bar, she caught Kiev by the throat, her claws slicing through his skin.
One swipe was all it took to end it, and Sammy gaped in horror as the male crumpled, disappearing from sight.
Fuck, he had never seen so much blood.
“Sammy?” Dominic called to him, his voice weak, strained. “Come here.”
He didn’t hesitate. Rounding one of the leather sofas, he hurried across the room, reaching for his mate’s outstretched hand. The moment he made contact, the Mezzanine—and the carnage left behind—vanished, and he found himself standing outside the pack house in Louisiana.
Adrift in a sea of conflicting emotions, he barely even noticed the intense discomfort that accompanied the jump. He felt cold, and his head spun, but that could have been from shock as much as from teleporting.
And Chapel wasn’t with them.
“Are you okay?” Dominic asked, the words laced with effort and pain.
He rushed to his mate’s side, catching him around the waist when Dominic staggered forward. His pulse quickened, and his legs shook, panic flooding him when his hand came away wet and sticky.
“I should be asking you that.”
“I’ll heal.” The stubborn fool started trudging toward the porch, dragging Sammy along with him. “I just need to rest.”
“You need a doctor,” he argued.
“When did you start working at the club?”
The question was so unexpected and so completely separated from the situation, Sammy could only blink at him.
“Sammy?”
He rattled off the date, the ten-year anniversary less than a week away. “Is that really important right now?”
“Kiev tried to summon you with the locket,” Dominic told him. He sounded stronger, and every exhale no longer ended on a faint whistle. “That’s what he meant when he said it wouldn’t work.”
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, he stood upright, and blood had stopped seeping from the wound on his back.
“What does that have to do with when I started working at the club?”
“The contract is time-based.” He paused at the door and turned, a smile tugging at his lips. “Not even your mom can summon you before the contract is up.”
That explained so much, like why she hadn’t come for him after Chandler’s death. And why he was walking free even when she had the relique in her possession.
More importantly, it bought them time.
“We can talk about it later.” Right then, Sammy wanted to get his mate inside so he could rest and finish healing.
Dominic caught his hand when he reached for the door and cradled it gently. “I’m really okay. You don’t have to worry.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. “But you—”
“Besides,” Dominic interrupted. “We have something to do later.”
Sammy tilted his head in question.
“It’s the full moon.”
And he lived, at least temporarily, with a pack of werewolves. “What happens on the full moon?”
His mate smirked. “You’ll see.”