Abi yawned and rubbed her eyes. “You sure? I’m good to stay and help.”
“It’s all good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh my God, thanks. I’m so damned tired. I’ll call you in the afternoon for breakfast.”
“You mean lunch?”
Abi shrugged a shoulder as she walked out. “Call it what you want. Whatever I eat after I roll out of bed is breakfast. Even if it’s two in the afternoon.”
I laughed and waved as she left. The rest of the closing stuff went by pretty quickly. It was kind of nice to have the place to myself and allow myself to zone out and decompress. All thatwas left to do was empty the under-bar beer glass cleaner. I’d worry about polishing the water spots off the next day.
While I was bent over taking the glasses out, I heard the front door of the bar open. Shit, I hadn’t locked it after Abi left.
“We’re closed!” I called out, still pulling glasses out.
I could hear a multitude of boots thumping across the wood floor of the bar. I hissed a frustrated breath out through my teeth. Standing, I shouted, “I said we’re…”
I trailed off when I saw who’d come in. It was the guy from earlier in the night. The shifter. And he’d brought all his friends back. A knot of fear cinched tightly in my gut when I saw their faces. All of them, including the guy who I’d thought had been flirting with me, looked pissed. Like, ready-to-kill pissed. The worst part was the fact that they were all looking at me. Like I’d made them mad.
Trying not to let my fear show, I cleared my throat. “Sorry, guys. We closed over an hour ago. If you want service, you’ll have to come back tomorrow night.”
Ignoring me, the guy I’d been talking to stepped up to the bar and slammed his palms down on it. The impact reverberated through the bar like a gunshot. “You shouldn’t even exist.”
I took an involuntary step back, shocked by the disgust in his voice. He was looking at me like I was a smear of dog shit he’d found on his shoe. What the hell had happened in the last two hours? The jovial, charming grin was gone. All I saw now was the curled lip of loathing.
He looked back at his boys. “Smell that? Was I lying?”
The rest of his friends shook their heads, one of them sniffing at the air and making a deep, throaty growl. Cold sweat slid down my back, my eyes darting around at all the other men. None of their faces showed the slightest hint of compassion. Some had even moved to the ends of the bar, cutting off any escape I might have had. My breath started to hiss in and outmy nose in panicked bursts. What was about to happen to me? Robbery? Murder? Gang rape followed by robbery and murder? A thousand nightmare scenarios flashed through my mind.
The shifter leaned forward, getting as close as the bar would allow. “Your bloodline should have been completely wiped out. The whole lineage was supposed to be dead. It looks like some of that tainted blood slipped through the cracks.”
I bumped into the shelf of liquor behind me. A bottle of tequila and a pint of whisky fell off the shelf, shattering onto the floor. The pungent aroma of alcohol burned my nose. What the hell was he talking about?
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, my voice uncharacteristically low and quiet.
He shook his head and spat on the ground. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead soon enough. Go.”
At the word, his men leaped to action. They moved so damned fast, I could barely register what was happening. Blurs of motion, screams and growls, the shimmering, angry flash of their red eyes. The last thing I remembered was a searing pain in my sides, followed by an explosion of pain at the back of my head. After that, everything went dark.
2
NICO
“Bro, I’m not going out,” I said, leaning back into my couch.
“Come on,” Sebastian moaned. “You’ve got to. It won’t be the same without you.”
I laid my head back, already exhausted. I didn’t go out often. It wasn’t really my scene. I’d been trying to beg off this little excursion for days. Sebastian had gotten more persistent all day, though. He was wearing me down, and he knew it. There was blood in the water and he was circling, ready to snap me up and drag me out for an evening of debauchery that probably wouldn’t end until the sun came up.
“You don’t need me to have a good time.”
Sebastian flopped down on the couch beside me. “Nico, you’re my best friend. How the hell am I going to have a good time if you aren’t there?”
“I really wanted to turn in early tonight.” The argument was as limp as it sounded. I almost never went to bed early.
Sebastian glared at me with a pretty hilarious look on his face. It was the closest he could ever get to looking pissed at me. “You’ve forced my hand.” He put on a faux regal look and stood,pointing down at me. “Nicolas Lorenzo, I command you to come out, get drunk, have fun, and maybe if we’re lucky, bring a hot chick home to bang. I command this as my birthday present.”
“Are you being serious right now? Commanding me? Who the hell are you? Queen Elizabeth?”
