I didn’t really want to walk past Gina and everyone I’d had to walk past on my way in and then come back inside to get her.
The sound stopped crisply, then seconds later then started again. Like driving underneath an overpass in rain. I stepped back into the bar’s hallway, changed course, and went for the bigger door.
It swung open into another crowd. The air was choked with the scent of musk and sweat. People’s attention was on something happening beyond, and none of them had a glance to spare for me. While I was tall, I wasn’t quite tall enough to see what was happening. I made my way around the edge of the auditorium until I found a gap I could elbow myself into.
They were watching a wrestling match. Two men were circling each other, hands out and low. Bruises covered both of them, and one had a cauliflower ear. One of them was huge, with red hair down to his shoulders, and then a layer of red hair almost like fur, flowing down his back, arms, and chest. The other was smaller, leaner, covered in tattoos.
I didn’t recognize him at first; I only had one of those feelings you get when you know you’ve seen someone before. It took me a moment to place him, and when I did I said his name.
“Lucas?” The surrounding spectators ignored me, wrapped up in the match. I recognized one of them too—the piebald man I’d seen that same morning, still wearing his fedora.
Lucas’s tattoos covered his arms, tracing up from his wrists to his back where they met across his shoulders. I couldn’t make out what they were because he kept moving, pressing in, darting out. He ran in, stayed there, and the bear clubbed him down.
Lucas rolled with the impact and resurfaced lightly behind the larger man. He lunged for his neck, and was again tossed away. He bounced as he landed, whirling upright with a manic grin. He knelt for a second, then leapt back in.
I couldn’t tell who was winning—Lucas seemed on the offensive, but he appeared to be losing, repeatedly. In between attacks and defending himself, the Bear-man was overly still, like a kung fu master searching within to find inner peace. But Lucas’s willingness to get thrown around was interrupting whatever the Bear-man was trying to do—until the taller, furrier man’s skin flushed darker, and his chest widened in all directions, like an expanding barrel. Then Lucas was there again, dancing forward, only to be swatted back. Lucas rebounded and the Bear-man raged—all progress toward his animal side lost with his temper as he grabbed Lucas up and threw him to the ground. Lucas skidded across the cement floor, picked himself up, and rushed back at the Bear-man, who still hadn’t recovered from his turn.
In a flash he was a wolf. There was Lucas, who’d begun the leap, and then the wolf who’d finished it. Lucas’s change had been fluid, magical, from one form into the other. He had been a human, and now he was a wolf even larger than I was, with fur the color of rust with streaks of gray. He had paws as big as dinner plates, teeth as long as my fingers. Lucas’s wolf shoulder checked the Bear-man, knocking him to the ground, and twisted to put fangs on the Bear-man’s throat.
“No!” I cried out, but all the other people in the crowd were cheering. I pressed forward as they did, to somehow stop what I thought was going to happen next. But the Bear-man, still not fully changed, slammed his paw-like hand against the ground, and wolf-Lucas let him go. Hopping back on all fours, Lucas changed back into a man again, instantly—all man, naked. The room was quiet as he stood.
“Are you going to offer me fealty, minor bear?”
The Bear-man, his bear-side completely lost with his defeat, got to his knees. “Not tonight, wolf.” He slapped the floor with both hands and laughed, shaking his head. “But I will buy you a drink.”
Lucas smiled and offered his opponent a hand. The Bear-man took it, and clapped Lucas on the back as he moved to stand.
I stood there, flushed at their nakedness, wondering what I’d just seen. And then I remembered Gina outside, and that I was definitely where I did not belong, even less than I had mere minutes ago. I dove out through the crowd of weres pushing in to congratulate Lucas, and made it to the bathroom, hopefully unseen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Asher picked up on the second ring. The background wherever he was sounded like the background where I’d just been. “Hey, it’s me,” I shouted into the phone.
“This is a surprise. Hang on.” The background noises, wherever he was at, lessened. “Let me guess—the single nurse needs a house call?”
“Um. In a manner of speaking.”
“In that case, your wish is my command.”
I thought about asking him for inappropriate things—then briefly remembered the naked men I’d just seen and Gideon’s parts at home. I really didn’t need any more random genitalia in my life, and Gina and I needed to go. I closed my eyes, and the words spilled out. “My wish is to come over to where you live—” Asher gave a malevolent chuckle as I continued“—with a drunken co-worker. Who can’t go home. And I can’t go home either.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“There’s no more room at the inn. It’s a long story. Can I tell you when I get there?” I bit my tongue so I didn’t add a please.
He paused to consider things, then told me his address, and I committed it to memory. “I’m downtown right now, though—”
I thought I might know the club he was at. “We’re even downer-town. You’ll beat us.”
“See you there, then.”
“Thanks, Asher.”
I went back to the Gina and the bar. “We have a plan now. Let’s go.” I started to pull her gently off her seat.
“I don’t know why I did it. I could have just gone through with it. I loved him. It wasn’t his fault—” There were three more empty glasses in front of her, and I gave the bartender an angry look. He saw me and shrugged. “I could have gone along with things. If I’d just stayed strong,” she went on.
Denial. I doubted Gina would make it through all the stages of grief in one night, but I wanted to get her out of here before she hit any more of them. “Come on, Gina.”
We were lurching as one through the growing crowd, and now our fellow bar patrons were looking at us smugly. I glowered back at them. Then the back door opened and the crowd from the fight surged in.
The bear and the wolf led the way, in their human forms, now with clothes on. Lucas wore a tank top, totally inappropriate given the the weather outside. Beside him was the Bear-man, still with a cauliflower ear, and behind them both, Jorgen. I started hauling Gina away faster, hoping we hadn’t been seen.
“Edie—” I heard a voice call from behind me. Gina started to turn around, and I pulled her closer. We were so close to the door. “Edie, wait—”
There was silence behind us, and the were-bouncer I’d seen outside blocked the door. He didn’t need to have changed to be menacing. I looked behind me. If Lucas was the one who’d sicced those girls on me earlier today—my mind ran through options. I had my silver-buckled belt on. I could—Lucas reached out a placating hand.
“Hey.” He was smiling, the first time I’d seen him look happy since I’d met him—although I realized that was less than forty-eight hours ago. “Why are you here?”
Lucas was close enough that I could see his tattoos. One arm was prison-style, dark and faded, the other Japanese-sleeved, expensive. He was glazed with sweat and still breathing a little rough. Jorgen stood by his side, radiating displeasure at me.