It was totally worth the angry werewolf currently growling at me. Caroline's rumbling stopped as recognition dawned. "Aileen! What the hell?"
I held up a hand, still drinking. I'd earned this, fair and square. She didn't know the night I'd had.
Nor, apparently, did she care.
Caroline yanked the beer away before I could finish it. "That's mine. You can't even get drunk off this."
I wiped my mouth and grinned. "Neither can you."
Yet that hadn't stopped her from ordering one—or three, if the other bottles on the table were anything to judge by.
Beer had little effect on vampires or werewolves due to our exceptionally high metabolism. Liquor might do a little better in creating a faint buzz if you downed it quickly enough, but usually it wasn't worth the trouble.
No, if one of us wanted to get drunk we needed alcohol mixed with magic or fairy tears. It was one of the many side effects of vampirism that was not in the plus column.
"I don't drink it to get drunk." Caroline crossed her legs as she looked around with an expression that was awfully close to a sneer. "I need something to get me through the next hour."
Caroline had always been described as the girl next door. Pretty with blond hair and blue eyes but in a non-threatening sort of way. That was before the bite that had made her a werewolf. Now, her beauty had a wild edge to it. Confidence mixed with danger that I was betting acted as catnip to the men around her.
Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't only women who sometimes went for a little bit of bad in their significant others.
Too bad for most that Caroline's personality was the complete opposite of her looks. Harsh and abrasive with an intellect that could be intimidating. She'd never cared much for what anybody thought of her. If you couldn't take her as she was, she had no use for you.
Perhaps that was why we got along so well.
"This was your idea." I grabbed the beer from her again. "If anyone should get to drink, it's me."
"Maybe if this wasn't considered toxic to your system, I would let you." She stole the beer back before I could take another sip. "But it is, and this is mine."
A sheen rolled over her eyes announcing her wolf's presence and the end to the squabble.
If I continued to push, she would take a swipe at me. Best to leave it alone for now.
Caroline wasn't like other wolves. Like me, she was considered so new as to be practically an infant. Only unlike me, she carried demon taint which made her abnormally powerful.
Friend she might be, but there was only so much she could do about her instincts.
"I'd have preferred the Blue Pepper," I complained, watching the walking happy meals—at least that was how I was trying to think of them. If I let myself see them as human, I'd start to assign back stories to them. Then I'd never get to the drinking blood part of the night. It was hard to get excited about biting someone when I worried about them getting up tomorrow to feed their cat or check in on their eighty-year-old grandmother.
"Too many spooks," Caroline said. "And you know Dahlia would rip out your fangs and add them to that jar she keeps under the bar if you bit any of her customers."
I grimaced. I'd seen the jar. It was filled with more than just the fangs of vampires. I'd spotted a snake's fangs and more than one set of claws from beings who had broken Dahlia's rule of neutrality. There was to be no violence on the premises—or else. That included taking blood from humans.
Caroline focused on the crowd, nodding toward a group of guys next to the bar. "How about him?"
The human she'd indicated was good looking in that fresh faced, sharply cut jaw sort of way. Young, but then everyone here was young. He looked like some sort of athlete, his physique fit and muscular.
He stood in a group of guys, beer in his hand as he bobbed his head to the music. His buddy nudged him, saying something and they both snickered.
My lip curled. The guy reminded me of Eric Thurber from our senior year of high school.
A douche of the first order, Eric had been convinced he was God's gift to women. He'd gotten handsy during a first date. When I refused to go all the way with him, he'd pouted like the giant-man baby he was then spread the rumor that I was a violent psychopath.
Admittedly, I'd kneed him in the balls and nearly broken his hand, so the second part might have been warranted.
I stole Caroline's beer from her. "I'll need a few more of these in me before I go there."
A chortle escaped Caroline. "You want to eat him; not date him."
