CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Myra
The bar was more raucous than usual when I arrived, which was an omen I shouldn’t have ignored.
By noon it was standing room only, making it nearly impossible to navigate with trays full of food, but I managed as best I could.
Laney couldn’t handle the drink orders, so I pulled her onto the floor to expedite for me while Sasha worked her magic—metaphorical, not literal—behind the bar.
By the dinner rush, we’d settled into a nice rhythm, and a misplaced sense of optimism washed over me.
I pushed through the double doors into the kitchen with an armful of dirties from the table I’d just cleared.
Dumping them carefully in the sink, I spun around to grab the order for the big table in the center of the dining room; the one filled with a mishmash of supernaturals I’d never seen before.
“You good out there?” Curtis called as I plucked the plates from the warming shelf and arranged them on the tray.
“Wanna trade places with me and see?” I replied. “I think a couple of the boys at this particular table would be pretty excited about that—”
“I’m sorry I asked.”
“Go easy on Curtis,” Ravi said, pinning a parental glare on me from down the line. “He was attempting to be nice.”
“So was I,” I countered. “I don’t know what he’s into. Maybe the neanderthals at that table are his type.”
I winked at the new guy, then turned on my heels, tray in hand, and backed through the doors into the front-of-house.
Laney shot me a worried look across the room, then glanced back at that center table.
A couple of the males seated there were getting rowdy, which rarely boded well for anyone, and they only grew louder as I approached.
Before I could even get over there to start unloading plates, the duo shot to their feet and started swinging.
“For fuck’s sake, would you knock it off?” I yelled as I slammed the tray down on a nearby table and shoved my way through the crowd to get to them. “I do not get paid enough for this shit.”
The more punches that were thrown, the more others joined in the fray until there was a wave of bodies crashing into everything and everyone in their way.
I knew from prior experience that if I shut down those that had started the brawl, I’d shut down the whole thing, so I struggled through the melee until I found the original two still pounding each other to pieces.
Fucking shifters.
“Hey!” I screamed as I grabbed a cocked arm ready to punch the bleeding bastard in front of him.
“Enough!” Unwittingly, I threw a hint of the Siren’s Song into my words, stopping him short, but that didn’t do anything to stop the haymaker his combatant had already uncorked.
I turned just in time to see a fist the size of a sledgehammer careening into my face, sending me flying.
I crashed into someone and slid down the front of them in cartoonish fashion, holding my face as it began to throb.
Sasha was at my side in a second, helping me up, while Laney ran for Ravi.
My eyes were too blurry with involuntary tears to see how everything played out from there, but judging by the breaking dishes, loud voices, and thunderclaps outside, Ravi was taking the fight about as well as I would have expected.
Silence fell upon the building, and Sasha helped me to my feet while I pinched my bleeding nose shut. Together, we made our way to the office in the back.
“That could have gone better,” she said, helping me into Ravi’s chair.
“No shit, Sasha.”
“You’ve got to learn to stay out of things sometimes,” she said as she wiped the blood from my face.
“Probably, but—ouch!”
“Stop moving and it won’t hurt so much.”
“Aren’t you a witch?” I grumbled. “Shouldn’t you have something more helpful than that stupid rag that feels like it has glass shards in it?”
She pulled away from me and frowned. “I’m trying to help you, you big baby. As for your questions, yes, I am, and yes, I do, but I can't apply anything until you stop bleeding, so shut up and let me do this.”
I closed my eyes, took a breath, and tried to calm down enough to see reason. Sasha wasn’t to blame for my current state, and yelling at her wouldn’t improve it. Instead of arguing, I tipped my head back against the wall and let her work while I tried not to move.
But damn, my face felt like it had been hit by a truck.
“Is she okay?” Curtis asked from the doorway, his deep brown eyes filled with concern.
“‘Okay’ seems subjective, but she’ll live. For now.”
“Those are encouraging words coming from you, Sasha,” I deadpanned. When I cracked my good eye open, I found her smiling at me.
“I’ll be right back with something to make you look less like shit.”
Ravi shut down early that night, which wasn’t surprising given the state of the place.
Sure, he could have fixed it all with magic, but he didn’t like to do that with others around, so he booted everyone out, including most of the staff, then did his thing.
I hung around to do prep work because I felt bad about how things had gone down and didn’t want to leave it until the next morning.
“You sure you’re okay to stay?” he asked as he peeked out from the kitchen.
“Yep. Totally fine. Just lock the side door behind you when you leave.”
He hesitated for a moment, mouth open like he was about to argue with me. Instead, his lips pressed to a thin line as he nodded, then disappeared behind the swinging doors again. “Goodnight, Myra.”
“Night, Ravi.”
The sound of the heavy metal side door slamming behind him announced his departure, and I stood in the silent bar, relishing the quiet.
My head was still pounding from the blow I’d taken, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was shaken, too.
Just another reminder of how easily I could be taken down, living in a world I wasn’t built for without all the power I’d been born with.
The Siren’s Song was strong magic, but it alone wasn’t enough to survive the Playground.
You needed brute force, and speed and abilities above my pay grade, despite my unwillingness to accept that fact.
I glanced in the mirror behind the bar and saw the truth of the matter shading my right eye.
“Hopefully, Sasha’s shit will make that fade by tomorrow,” I muttered to myself as I sprayed cleaner on the bar top and began wiping it with a rag.
“Hopefully what fades?” a voice called from behind me, and I wheeled around to find Yael standing in the doorway looking as smug as ever—until he took in my appearance. That permanently amused curl of his lips that drove me nuts fell away in an instant.
“How did you get in here?” I asked, knowing full well I’d locked the front door before Ravi left.
Yael’s brows pinched together as he pulled something out of his pocket. “I still have a key.”
I groaned out loud. “Of course you do.”
“Rough night?” he asked as he wove slowly through the tables toward me.
“Listen, if you could just go ahead and say whatever sarcastic remarks are running through your mind right now and get it over with, that’d be great, because I’m really not in the mood for you or your bullshit right now. My head is killing me.”
He didn’t reply, but instead continued over to me in silence and gently took my chin in his hand to angle my shiner toward the light for inspection. After a second or two, he said, “looks painful.”
“It is,” I replied, pulling away from his hold, “but I’m not going to chew on your wood-chip bullshit again to take the edge off, so don’t bother.
I’d rather feel the throbbing than pull splinters out of my gums all night long.
Sasha’s voodoo helped with the swelling and bleeding. The rest will fade soon enough.”
His thumb brushed over the bruise blossoming around my eye with surprising tenderness, and in its wake came a cooling sensation that numbed my face in the most welcome way.
I sucked in a breath, surprised at the relief I felt as his hand lingered against my cheek.
He stared at my injury, and I couldn’t help but squirm under the intense weight of his gaze.
I eventually shied away, turning my attention back to the bar top that still needed to be cleaned.
“You should see the other guy,” I said with a nervous laugh. When he didn’t respond immediately, I looked up to find him still staring.
Something dark flashed through his eyes. “I’d like to,” he replied, his voice low and cold and devoid of its normal amused edge. “Tell me where he is and I’ll pay him a visit.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Never seen him before, and I doubt I will again. Not after the way Ravi ejected him from the place.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, eyes narrowed with malice. “I was looking forward to meeting him—to see your handiwork, of course. I’m sure it wouldn’t disappoint.”
The silence that stretched out between us made me want to jump out of my skin, so I quickly went back to cleaning the bar.
“I just have to finish this, and then we can go. It’ll only take a couple minutes.
You can wait outside if you want to. If I remember correctly, you hate the smell of this cleaner. ”
Instead of walking out the front door as I’d expected, he stepped to the bar and pulled out a stool right in front of me.
“I think I’ll stay here so I can keep a closer eye on you.
” He watched me like a hawk as he sat down with regal elegance.
“We wouldn’t want any more chaos to befall you tonight, would we? ”
“No, we sure wouldn’t.”
He gave a tight nod, then turned his attention to the front door. “I’d make an exception for the one who blackened your eye, though,” he said, his casual tone camouflaging his implied threat. “I really would love to meet him…”
Something deep in my chest tightened at his words, and for a fleeting moment, a sense of security coursed through my veins.
But any involuntary romantic notion I’d suffered was cured when I remembered who’d said it and why he had.
I was an investment Yael couldn’t afford to lose—the ticket to finding his long-lost sister—which made me worth protecting. Nothing more.
Not that I wanted there to be.