Her eyebrows rose in surprise, but she set the bottle down before him. Grabbing the bills, she brought her face close to his. “Baby, you can take whatever you want tonight.”
Her heavy perfume did nothing to camouflage her arousal. She was human and easy to read, unlike some people. She might not know he was a shifter, but in her eyes, he was mysterious and desirable. If he wanted to, he could take this leather-clad vixen back to her place and fuck her all night long. Hell, he could fuck her so hard he’d break her.
You got Broken Elaine. You were cheated.
Only Connor had never felt cheated. He’d felt like he won the goddamn lottery. He swallowed his measure of whiskey and poured out some more.
“I think someone hurt you,” the woman said.
He didn’t reply.
“Oh, yeah. Someone hurt you real bad. Let me give you some tips, honey, from one damaged soul to another. One, fuck ’em. Two, revenge sex is the best sex.”
This chick was deluded. The best sex he’d ever had was with Elaine. He’d never replicate that heady feeling, that sense of being completely in sync with the whole damn world. He wouldn’t find that again, not even if he took ten Goth girls home to bed.
“Come on,” the bartender persisted. Her rouged lips pouted. “Tell me your name. I bet it’s as sexy as you are. I’ll start you off. My name’s Skye.”
As Connor stared at the counter, his memories clouded before him, seeming to pool on the dark surface. Holding Elaine as she cried over Lloyd’s photo. Kissing Elaine after their wild run through the forest. Cradling her beautiful body in his arms for the first time. “Elaine.” He traced her imagined image on the counter. “Elaine.”
“Not Elaine, Skye.”
Was she still talking to him? “What?”
The bartender exhaled in frustration. Sashaying around the bar, she stood next to him and spoke in his ear. “Look, I don’t need your name. As it happens, I get off in five minutes, and I live down the road. You look like you need to exorcise some demons. Nothing better for that than a good, rough fuck.” She ran a red-tipped finger along his biceps. “I love it rough. Come home with me, stranger.”
Connor couldn’t even remember a time when that sort of offer might have appealed to him. He’d lost his mate tonight, the only woman he’d ever loved. Nameless sex wouldn’t cure him of this sickness.
He wracked his brain, trying to recall the woman’s name, but it wouldn’t come to him. “I’m sorry. I’m just not interested.”
Another pout. She might be trying to look sexy, but it struck him as childish. “Your loss.” With a swing of her hips, she returned to her spot behind the bar.
Riding a wave of numbness, Connor grabbed the whiskey bottle and found a dark booth at the back of the bar. He sat there and drank until the customers began to blur.
At closing time, another bartender let him know he had to leave. He didn’t put up a fuss. He left, two more bottles of whiskey in hand, even though he didn’t know where to go.
He walked until he reached a patch of forest. It had always seemed to him that the woods were never so lonely as in the winter. However, as Elaine had said, spring was on its way. The trees were bare, but he spotted some buds on the branches. Normally the sight would have cheered him.
Tonight, he couldn’t care less.
What was the use of spring if he couldn’t share it with her?
He opened one bottle of whiskey, toasting the woman who’d destroyed him, and downed it. Before long, the second bottle was opened and emptied. His head began to swim, but he wasn’t worried. As a shape shifter, he could hold his liquor better than a human.
The moon climbed higher in the sky, casting its soft light. In a copse of evergreens, shielded from view, Connor stripped and shifted into his mountain lion. Alone and defeated, he lay on the ground. His great cat mourned its loss, its deep voice reverberating in a lowouch, ouch, ouch.
Connor thought of Elaine, of the way her touch made him dream. And then he thought of Layla and Andy, the children of his heart. As his spirit fractured, he joined his spirit animal in its lament.
Sometime before morning, just as the sunrise was beginning to transform the indigo sky, he heard footsteps. He should probably move or shift…or something. He didn’t. He lay in cat form, uncaring.
The steps drew closer. He could tell by the heavy footfalls that several men were near. He tried to tell them to fuck off, but in mountain lion form, it just sounded like a hiss.
The evergreens parted. Jani, Bart, and Killian emerged.
“Baszd meg,” cursed Jani. “He’s shitfaced. I can smell him from here.”
“Come on, buddy.” Bart crouched in front of Connor’s cat and slapped him lightly. “Shift back so we don’t have to carry this mangy carcass.”
Without even trying, Connor shifted into masculine form, but mostly so he could tell them to fuck off. It didn’t quite come out that way. Somehow, he just managed to drool.
