Chapter Eight
Seth
I couldn’t lie, every bit as interested in going back to our accommodations and making love as Indy.
And when we came here, to San Diego, I felt like we were going to be doing just that.
Maybe a dinner out one evening, but we’d be returning home to our new, separate lives, so we had no desire to see other people.
So, why were we in line to go to a shifter club and be surrounded by hundreds of people?
Because we had to. It was as simple as that.
My unicorn was insistent, but more than that, I felt it in my bones.
Sure, it was a fun date for people who weren’t in the middle of an involuntary breakup.
But my desire to go to the club didn’t make any more sense to me than to Indy. But he agreed to come anyway.
After walking around for a while, with no more answers than when we arrived, we joined the end of the line.
I’d never seen such a variety of people as I did waiting to go into Animals.
A shifter club, but I overheard people talking about how they allowed anyone to go in as long as they were well-behaved and didn’t make a mess.
My interpretation, but from the wide variety of paranormal people as well as a few humans, it all seemed to make sense.
Clinging to Indy’s hand, I shuffled forward a few inches at a time.
Our fellow line-standers chattered and laughed and gossiped, their excitement scenting the air in a cacophony of odors and aromas.
Perfume, sweat, the musk of their animals, and a lot of patchouli from a group of bonobos, a sort of chimp they told me when I asked, who were all about getting inside and shifting to their true hippie selves.
Whatever that meant. But it did confirm shifting was allowed inside.
My unicorn sniffed at the idea. Not happening.
Still…what an interesting place.
After a half hour, we’d moved forward a good few feet, and listening to other people’s conversations was starting to pale.
Also, there was a faint scent tickling the back of my nose, above all the other smells, that had my unicorn prancing and demanding we get in there.
Now. A glance at Indy showed him tapping his foot and twitching a little. “Hey.”
“What?” he snapped.
I arched a brow. “Antsy much? Remember, we can leave if you want, but there’s something in there.”
“I know. I know.” He blew out a breath. “Sorry. But I can’t just stand here for the next two thousand hours hoping to get inside. I don’t want to leave. I want to go in.”
I’d never heard him sound like this. Our time together was so precious that even if we had been trying to pretend it wouldn’t end, we were still really nice to each other.
As in, last time we argued, it was over a toy crossbow when we were much shorter, probably cuter people.
“Then let’s see if we can’t do better.” Grasping his hand, I brought it to my lips and kissed the back. “Your wish is my command.”
He rolled his eyes but didn’t retrieve his hand or say anything snarky. Just let me tug him out of line and toward the front.
“We need to be cool,” I told him. “My unicorn is sure we will be fine. I don’t know how he has all this confidence about getting past a bouncer into a nightclub.”
“Has your unicorn ever lacked confidence in anything?” Indy squeezed my hand.
“Actually, no.” I gave him a grin. “Yours?”
“Not ever.”
We gave the line itself a wide berth, but that didn’t stop us from hearing the comments from those who wondered where we were going.
But none of them got particularly loud or offensive until we neared the front and moved toward the door itself.
By that point, the scent I followed was a bit stronger, still not really definable but bolstering my unicorn’s desire to get inside the building with no delay.
“Let’s ask the bear what to do.” A bear shifter stood with arms crossed at the door. “Maybe we can bribe him or something.”
Indy pulled his front pocket inside out. “Umm, how much money do you have because I spent a lot of my ready cash for the trip. If I had gone after much more, someone would have wondered why.”
“Good point. I have some, but maybe not nightclub-bouncer-bribing funds. All we can do is try, right?”
“Why not. My unicorn is also getting anxious. Worst case, we can ask if there is another way to access the shifting zone, wherever that is.”
“True, I—”
“Hey!” We were a couple of yards from the front door and anyone who was unhappy had a right to be, but the aggressive coyote planted himself between us and the bear. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To speak to the gentleman at the door.” Trust Indy to be the royal he’d been born to be. Sometimes I felt like a ruffian in his genteel presence. “If you will step aside, please.”
“Yeah? Who’s gonna make me? A couple of horny horses.”
My blood boiled. If anyone wanted to anger a unicorn, they would call them by our lesser cousin’s identifier. I liked horses, but my unicorn considered them barely in the same class with us. I dropped Indy’s hand and took a step forward, but he grabbed my arm.
“No need for anyone to get upset.”
Coyote boy’s sneering face was right up in Indy’s.
His fist drawn back, and no matter how nice an evening we hoped to have, there would be violence if he sought it.
My unicorn was trying to burst out, flooding my mind with gory images of sharp hooves pounding a coyote—this coyote for sure—into the ground.
The visual came with a rage and satisfaction that would have scared me if I was the coyote.
Not that he could see it, but when he met my gaze, he saw something because he faltered before lifting his fist higher.
I stepped in front of him. Nobody was going to lay a finger on Indy while I lived.
Then, a huge hand clamped around the coyote’s wrist, and he was spun around to face the very bear we’d been wanting to see.
The line, or at least the section of it near enough to see and hear, went silent.
“I thought I told you the next time you caused trouble, you were out.” More a growl than a voice, it still held an even tone. “Well, Willard?”
“I didn’t…you can’t… I want to see Zevo.”
The bear snorted. “He doesn’t have time for the likes of you.” Continuing to grip the coyote’s arm, the bouncer nodded in our direction. “Please go right in, gentlemen. We’ve been expecting you.”
We didn’t wait, just moved quickly for the door but still had time to catch a certain coyote slinking off to the parking area.
“You’re on the list now, Willard.”
“How long this time?”
“Try to come back and find out.”