Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Lizette
T he man in black is back.
He looks like the very devil himself, just walking the earth. Compelling and hot like the kingdom he rules. Like he’ll drag a girl all the way down into those fiery depths with him.
When he looked at me twenty minutes earlier, a vacuum opened, sucking everything out except me and him, and tendrils of spice and salt, soft earth and the clean and wild scent of a storm.
I shut down, didn’t look, just concentrated on my drink. But now he’s back, and I swear that evocative scent is stronger. I can’t keep the thoughts at bay.
My heart constricts.
It’s him.
From the car.
My insides start a slow melt, but he’s not the alpha to answer to my heat problems. No.
He’s the one who reported me to the Council.
It takes everything, and I mean everything, to stop me going over and slapping him.
But I don’t think you slap a man like him.
Also, I’ve never slapped someone in my life.
I want to provoke him. Almost as much as I want to run and hide.
He burns into me. This time, I can’t stop looking. His eyes, which might be blue, seem to see into souls. They’re the eyes of a ruler, a leader, a man who takes everything he wants and leaves nothing behind, not even hearts.
I throb low. It’s hot, that throb. Thrills rise with each beat. And my thighs, if I rubbed them, would be wet with desire, right at the juncture.
This…this is something I’ve never in my life experienced. And even if Dad was around, there’s no way I could talk to him about this.
I try to look away, but I can’t. The alpha’s hunger is mesmerizing.
It sets it off in me, too. A deep, craving hunger.
And it doesn’t help that he's gorgeous in a hard, dark way. The beard growing in should look unkempt, but it doesn’t—same with the black hair in serious need of some scissors.
It should diminish the wanting, not make him more compelling.
Not make him like some ancient, pagan god. The devil in his natural habitat.
And the one he’s talking to?
Oh, he’s beautiful. Caramel curls and a dimple in his left cheek. The pretty one has an easy, cocky smile, and when he looks at me, I’m blindsided.
Utterly beautiful, yes, but the kind of approachable I think I might like. Yet he seems like a man in control, with eyes that say I see you. I understand .
Then my gaze goes back to the devil incarnate, the man in black.
He’d been alone when I first took note of him, but before…I’d actively been avoiding looking over, like another presence had been there, one that wanted to devour.
The one, I realize, I smelled earlier on the street. The ghostly smoke on the wind.
I didn’t see anyone then. Or when I arrived in this bar.
Then again, I wasn’t looking.
I know, I know I should have looked—really looked—when I walked in, for possible danger, but the thing is, this place soothes the soul with its mix of scents and sounds and press of bodies.
When I breathe in, there’s the scent of the devil man along with the elements of the unseen one. I search, but I don’t see him. I can only smell the rum-soaked tobacco, roses, and wild chases.
Then there’s a soft and seductive scent with lavender and leather. Something sweet.
There are three of them.
Three different alphas in the same room.
If I merged them, layered them, it would be almost too intoxicating, the kind of combination that would tumble me down, scramble my mind, make my blood rush and slick flow.
“Stop it,” I admonish myself.
The one with the caramel curls is sweet leather and lavender. All things nice and dirty.
I suck in more air, as the man in black gives me a cold, hard look that rakes down my spine, then leaves for the second time.
I turn and stare down into my drink, the noise of the bar coming over me, like it receded when I looked over there.
Pressing hot fingers into even hotter cheeks, I whisper, “Have your drinks, find a store to get a bottle, and then go home.”
“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be alone.”
I almost jump a mile.
The musk and funk of warm and woody oud and oakmoss suddenly overwhelms me like I’ve found myself in a damp forest cave. It makes me both want to scramble away and rub against the owner of the scent.
A wave of fear rolls through me.
The man’s nice enough looking, but he’s a different alpha and he’s zeroed in on me.
In my state, my base instinct, the thing that has no right to rule me, starts to surge.
I down my drink, letting the burn of the booze cut through the surge. “I’m not looking for someone, but thank you,” I say.
He laughs. “I’m Jake. And I’m not here to pick you up.”
“Oh, good.”
My nerves are spinning, prickling.
“Do you mind?” Jake points to the seat next to me and sits.
I shrug, deliberately borderline rude. “It’s not my bar.”
“Figured that.” He leans close.
I swallow down the tiny sigh of relief that his scent, while it still pushes at me, doesn’t bring about any of that rush of need.
Heat. Because now all he seems to do is overwhelm me with his cologne.
“I’m really sorry, Jake,” I say, turning my empty glass. “But I’m not in the mood for company.”
He motions to the bartender. “Beer for me, and a Manhattan for the lady.”
My ears burn. I don’t know what a Manhattan is, but I’m guessing some sort of cocktail, and I should turn the drink down, I know that, but I can’t. I’m too broke to do that. Any other evening, I would but tonight…
I need all the dampeners I can.
“And it’s nonsense,” Jake says to me, his hand resting on the bar near mine. “People say they don’t want company, but they just don’t want to bother people, and I’m not bothered. Besides, you’re not going to completely crush a man who just got dumped by his date, are you? ”
I look at him. “You did?”
He smiles. “Yeah. I know. His problem, right?”
He’s gay? It floods me with relief because what better foil for me against the world right now than an alpha who isn’t into women.
“I’m Liz,” I say.
Jake sweeps up my hand, kissing it. “Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m sorry you got stood up.”
“His loss, my gain. Now I have some pretty company to protect against the troublesome alphas.” And he winks. Then he adds, “Do you have to be at work tomorrow?”
“No. I…I’m between jobs.” What's that phrase I heard? “I’m fun-employed.”
He laughs. “Better than working in real estate. Starlight City’s got some great spots but also some hard sells. Don’t let me bore you.”
When the drink arrives, he hands me his phone and asks me to put in my number—because he might know of a job in his office—which I do.
Not my number, though. I put in one that’s a pizza place Dad and I used to order from. The man might be harmless, but I’m not that na?ve. I’m not going to give him personal information not even if I’m dragged to another state to pair with an old pack alpha.
Besides, rule number one, never give out our number.
The pizza place knows me, and they knew Dad. They don’t mind getting the odd call and they’d never pass my details on.
I hand him the phone and he calls the number. “Now you’ve got mine.”
“I left my cell at home,” I tell him as he looks at my bag.
“I don’t mind. I’ve got something better. You. Here.”
And he laughs again.
I sip my drink and it’s good. By the third sip, my mind is nice and fuzzy and the conversation flows.
But soon my head starts to spin and my stomach turns. The walls close in and Jake’s concerned face shifts in and out of focus.
“Liz, are you alright?”
“What?” My tongue’s thick, too big for my mouth and I try to stand, but I stagger and have to grab hold of Jake.
My heart’s beating fast and my thoughts jumble and slide until I can’t make words form properly.
Is this part of being in heat without the drugs?
Panic claws at me, and I can’t breathe. He takes my arm and helps me up, and he drags me across the room. Things get darker and then a door thumps and cool, fresh air washes over me. I stagger back, hitting something solid.
“What…?”
“It’s okay, baby,” Jake says, gathering me to him. “I’ve got you.”
I cling, and he rubs my back and the booming beat of his heart is against my ear. And my thigh’s warm, he’s rubbing that too, sliding his hand up and around.
“Wh-What are you doing?”
He takes his hand from my back and kicks out one of my feet. I pitch sideways, grabbing him as Jake pushes me into the wall. “Helping you, baby, making you feel good. You don’t want that nasty, nasty pain by denying your nature. You’re made to fuck an alpha. I’m made to fuck and knot. I bet you’re wet, releasing slick everywhere for me.”
His words flow through me with a weird base pleasure. And need beats hard even as revulsion thrums inside me at the same time.
“No…”
He laughs. “Yes.”
His fingers push up at my panties, and a wild throb races through me. He groans low, grabbing my face and plundering my mouth in a wet, sloppy kiss. His fingers rub my panties.
I wrench my head away and start pushing him. “I don’t want to.”
“Slower? We can take it slow. You’re sweet, baby, so fucking sweet. And I’ll protect you.”
He’s still rubbing my pussy, over my panties and my heart’s wild in the wrong ways. Panic fights the sluggishness, the darkness that keeps sweeping in. I push at him and try to run.
Jake pulls his hand from my covered pussy and clamps down on my thigh, making me cry out.
He kisses me softly and it’s all saliva, all tongue. I start to make strange sounds, sobbing like a wounded animal.
This is my first kiss.
I don’t want to kiss this man. I don’t want him touching me. But even as I try to fight him, I sink into the darkness, and he starts to stroke my thigh.
“Out here will do. Open those legs, baby.”
He pushes and my foot skitters wide. I feel a breeze across my core. Then his hand’s there, cupping me.
“No, no, stop, please,” I cry. “I don’t…I don’t want you, please, please stop .”
Jake punches me and stars explode. The pain’s a momentary relief from the storm inside, and my head hits the wall, sending another burst of agony through me.
The world pulsates, and I can taste coppery wetness in my mouth.
He hauls me against him, teeth grazing my skin.
“Don’t.” The word pushes free. My lips are numb, the syllable thick in the air like it both belongs to me and doesn’t.
He tries to bite me this time, mouth open, and coming for my throat.
It takes strength I never knew I had to move my leaden limbs, to lift my hand to hit him.
But the strike’s weak. It bounces off him.
He laughs. “I was going to claim you, then take you, but I think I’ll have my fill first. A taste.”
“No.” I move my head, hitting his with mine.
Now he grabs me by the throat, slamming me into the wall. His eyes glitter as he starts to shift and move. Shadow to light. In focus and out.
“Yes, bitch.” Jake starts to ease up the fabric of my panties. “I think I’ll just keep going. I want that cunt.”
Suddenly the panties snap back into place, and he’s gone. Something hits bricks on the other side of the alley.
“I think,” says a sonorous voice, “you should listen to the lady. She said no.”
Jake snarls. “Who’s going to stop me?”
I breathe hard and look up the veil lifting a little. It’s the man with the caramel curls.
He grins, the dimple flashing, and my insides flare up into life. I throb with real need and desire.
“I am,” he says.
And then his fist smashes into Jake’s face.
I try to say something, but just a note of a wordless song breaks free before everything goes black.