It was good to have friends in high places… or to have threatened them enough that they stayed away.
The door of the bar swung open with a bang. My shadows rolled down my arms, spewing along the floor, filling the room with darkness with every step I took.
The patron’s eyes jerked to us. The majority of them took one look at my face and scrambled out the back.
Cletus tried to run, too, but Tate stepped into his path, partially shifted so his eyes glowed yellow and his teeth sharpened. The two werewolves growled at the other, each trying to overpower the other in aura.
“Kyren,” the bartender, Mel, shook his head, his hands up in front of him. “Whatever beef you have, take it outside. I don’t have the funds to repair the damages again.”
“Don’t worry, Mel.” I held my hand up, and my shadows shot forward to wrap around Cletus’ ankle. “I’ll be sure to clean up my mess this time.”
With a hard yank, I pulled Cletus off his feet until he was prostrated before me. The wolf growled and scrambled across the ground. My shadows wrapped around each of his limbs, holding him flat to the ground.
“What do you want? I didn’t do nothing,” Cletus protested, his body starting to crack and shift with the change.
“Now, now, none of that.” I withdrew a silver pin and stabbed it into his arm, forcing back the change.
Most werewolves were so allergic to silver that they kept a wide berth from it. Even the tiniest bit would keep them from shifting, making them virtually powerless to anyone attacking them.
It was one of the reasons I was happy that Tate had acclimated himself to silver with all his piercings. It didn’t completelyremove the allergy, but it lowered his reaction to silver. After all these years, he told me his piercing barely even stung anymore now.
Cletus whimpered, breathing heavily. “What do you want? What? Is it that vamp whore? Cause she’s yours. Take h—”
He screamed as Tate’s boot slammed down on his arm, breaking it.
Tate bent down to growl in Cletus’ ear. “Talk about her like that again, and I’ll break every bone in your body.”
Cletus made a pathetic sound.
“Mi lobo,you broke him already.” My shadows tightened on his limbs, pulling them taut as his screams of agony filled my ears. “I had hours of fun planned for us.”
Tate stepped over the crying wolf and wrapped an arm around my waist. “I’m sorry, Kyren. I just didn’t like how he was talking about Jack. I know, let’s make it a game. Let’s see how far you can stretch him before he passes out from the pain.”
My lips twitched. “My boy does love his games.” I knelt before Cletus, lifting him by his neck to look him in the eyes. “Now, normally, I would draw this out, make a show of it, but that vamp whore you were pawing at earlier, well, she needs me or she has nightmares. So I want to keep this quick.”
“Please. Please. I’m sorry,” Cletus whimpered. “I didn’t know she was yours.”
His pulse fluttered under my hand and, for a moment, I wanted to let him run, to chase, then I remembered how he touched Jack. What he’d called her.
I bared my fangs at him. “Now you do.”
My shadows jerked. Cletus barely had a chance to scream before his limbs were torn from his body. His head rolled on the ground, face frozen in mid scream.
Tate rubbed a hand over his face, cleaning some of the blood off. “You let him die too easy.”
“Maybe.” Licking my lips, I grimaced. Ugh, Cletus blood.
“Uh… Kyren?” Mel called from the bar. “Don’t go ripping me to pieces, but are you going to clean this up?”
I looked around the room and regretted promising to clean up. All I wanted to do was get back to Jack and crawl into bed with her. Instead, I had to hang out here, cleaning up werewolf parts.
Mel looked at Tate and me and sighed. “It’s fine. I’ll have one of the part-timers do it.”
“Thanks!” Tate beamed at Mel. “We owe you one.”
The ride home felt like it took ten times as long as on the way there. Finally, we made it back to campus, and I zeroed in on getting to Jack.
Nothing and no one else mattered until I had my arms around her.
