“Then get Todd. I only need a moment.”
He sniffed and knew I wasn’t waere. “Droppin’ names will get you nowhere tonight.”
I was too damned tired for this shit. “I’ll go around back,” I said, and moved away.
The bouncer caught my arm. “You can’t go inside tonight.”
“She must be deaf,” the other bouncer said. While not as tall as Mr. Clean, the wiry Asian guy had arm bulges that were just as impressive. He gripped the other man’s shoulder and plastered on a fake pout. “Ain’t that sad?” His pout evolved into a smirk.
Menessos drew his foot lightly across the sidewalk, making an unsubtle scraping that drew to him the attention of both the Overactor and Mr. Clean. “This lady usually gets what she wants, boys. One of you be a sport and ask the man who signs your checks to get his ass out here, or both of you will be in danger of not getting paid ever again.”
“We won’t get fired over this,” Overactor said.
“Unlike vampires, waeres don’t collect checks after they die,” Menessos clarified.
Both bouncers growled menacingly.
“Does your master reward obedience?” Menessos lifted another hundred. “I do. Now, who’s going to go ask?”
“We don’t fetch for fang-faces,” Overactor said.
“Only pack tonight,” Mr. Clean said.
“There were five members of your pack at my party tonight,” Menessos touted back. “No exclusivity on my part.”
Mr. Clean reevaluated Menessos, perhaps just recognizing him. He crossed his arms. “This is different.”
We didn’t have time for this. “I know Ig’s dead,” I blurted. “Let me speak to Johnny, then we’ll be on our way.”
Mr. Clean and the Overactor exchanged shrugs.
I stomped my boot. “Somebody go ask!”
“This isn’t an issue of permission,” Mr. Clean said. “We’re keeping you out for your own safety.”
“I can handle myself around waeres,” I snarled and pushed past. This time, neither made a move to stop me.
The bar was packed with people laughing, drinking, and dancing—a pair of women were dancing on this end of the bar. One of them could barely stand, and the men around them made no effort to hide the fact that they were staring up their short skirts.
Making my way toward the far end of the bar, I didn’t see Johnny anywhere. The more crowded my path became, the more my pushing lacked courtesy. By the time I’d fought my way to the middle of the room, my patience had run out. The odor of ale and whiskey and pine burned in my nose, ruining that last bit of sympathy I held for their loss.
Do waerewolves always mourn like this? I wondered.
“Witch!” someone shouted.
Stillness abruptly spread across the room. People backed away from me. A man nearby howled approval, but it was cut off by a woman elbowing him hard in the ribs. The jukebox had been silenced.
“Where’s Johnny Newman?” I demanded.
“Witch, witch, witch.” It started as a whisper, but it was soon picked up by many mouths and a chant ensued. The pack crowded close, encircling me but leaving an arm’s length open all around.
They were responding with pack traits: grouping, surrounding, snarling as if to make me cower. I didn’t blame them for reacting with a show of force; a witch has the power to send them all into life-ruining partial changes simply by stirring up energies.
Lucky them, I was too tired to stir any.
Lucky me, they didn’t know that.
Trump card: they were all at least half drunk, and I’d have bet a high percentage of them were well past the halfway mark. It didn’t take much for waeres to get drunk or high or overmedicated. That meant they weren’t likely to be thinking clearly. They might do something stupid.
“You’re Johnny’s witch girlfriend?” came an irritated but lilting voice behind me. Sounded like she wasn’t sure if she was making an accusation or asking a question.
It was one of the women who’d been dancing on the bar. The other dancer clung to her to keep from falling off the bar. As they both faced me, I realized they were twins.
Sammi and Cammi Harding, bank heiresses. They were the ones who had pawed Johnny after Lycanthropia’s set at the Rock Hall showcase. “I didn’t recognize you without your leather pom-poms.”
The one who’d spoken put her arms out and stepped off the bar. The men nearby caught her and made sure she had her feet under her. Her sister toppled down with less grace but the men helped her, as well. The first pushed her way through the crowd and gave me the once-over.
The two of them were identical physically, but they didn’t dress exactly alike and they displayed different personalities. This one was more aggressive and I pegged her as the one who had planted the lip-lock on Johnny.
She exuded only contempt, until she spied the boots. I recognized the covetous gaze of a window-shopper. “Bet you’re almost his height in those.”
Her sister stumbled up behind her. Her mascara was smeared at one end and she could hardly stand. “Oooo. Pretty. Bitch to walk in, aren’t they?”
“Where’s Johnny?” And where is Menessos, for that matter?
The first sister bared her teeth; it was too vicious to be a smile. “Busy.”
I’d read some puppy manuals when Nana got Ares. Maintaining eye contact was always key and using firm, low tones was important for reprimanding inappropriate behavior, so I did both. “Get him for me.”
“Eat shit.”
The bank heiress has a foul mouth? I knew better than to back down. She was trying to assert her dominance over me. “Now.”
“Or you’ll what? Spank me with a newspaper?”
A man in the crowd growled, “I’ll spank you, Cammi.”
She ignored him. So did I.
“Don’t make me rub your nose in it.” Oh, for a waere-safe charm that would make her pee herself right now. If I had known a spell for spontaneous incontinence, one that wouldn’t send her into a partial change, it would have been impossible to resist using it. Pressing her face to this grimy floor would leave no doubt of my dominance. Trouble was, if I did that, the rest of the pack would likely jump on my back and do worse to me. Tactically, I needed to posture more aggressively than she did.
A deep, deep growl erupted beside us. Cammi looked away first, as a huge black wolf leaped onto the bar and stalked down the length of it.
Johnny.
Cheers rose up around the bar. “Hail the Domn Lup!” People held their beverages aloft. The people crowded around me were mostly without their beer cans and shot glasses, so pumped their fists in the air. Johnny lifted his muzzle to the sky and howled loud and long. His cry ended to more drinking, shouting, and fist pumping.
Cammi thrust herself into my personal space and said, “With all that he is, he deserves a pack bitch, a haita catea, not a sange stricata like you . . . blood whore.”
A pair of women nearby heard and gasped, then burst into laughter. They were laughing at me. As I stood in The Dirty Dog, dressed in taped-on clothes and glossy red boots, after everyone saw Menessos drinking from me broadcast on TV and online, did I have any right to be surprised?
Moving forward, pushing into Cammi’s personal space, I put myself nose to nose with her. The move brought an end to the cheers around us as ears strained to hear. I could smell the bourbon on her breath. “He chooses to spend his time with me, so you’re going to have to find another bone to chew—but remember this: ‘all that he is’ has gone unnoticed. You and this pack are only aware of the truth now because he is allowing you to know. And there’s a reason I knew first.”
She tried to slap me. From the bar, Johnny barked and snarled. I caught her wrist and held it. Either I was able to restrain her because she was half drunk or his reaction had stopped her. It didn’t matter which, really; it reminded me that waerewolves only respect the power that dominates them.
“Give me a reason,” I shouted. A challenge.