“Miss Fischer.” The blonde quicksteps over to me. “Are you okay?”
Wren takes my arm. “Of course she’s okay.”
“She could be talking about you,” I retort.
“You know she isn’t,” Wren says.
I share a look with my sister. “Yes, I’m fine. My sister’s fine. We’re all fine.” I push my shoulders back and wobble just slightly. I’m not drunk, but I’m far from sober.
“We’ll take you back to the inn,” the blonde crossword-puzzle-doer says.
“Over my dead body,” Mary says. “The dragons are coming down off the mountain, and if she’s not here––”
The man in the corner of the room steps closer to Wren and me. He’s not regular tall; he’s stare-at-me tall. Like as tall as Roark tall. Which I suppose is also incredibly yummy tall. Oh, I’m definitely not sober. No way should I be driving. But then I wouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car even if I hadn’t had anything to drink. I hold back a laugh.
The group of what have to be security guards—mysecurityguards—glare at the men.
Mary points at the door. “Oh, cheese and crackers, lads! If you want to knock heads, take it outside before my schnitzel gets more twisted! Out... out, I say... Take your shifter selves outside before I go all Scottish play on your behinds. The whole lot of you—go. I finally got my pool table fixed after last year’s brawl over which Kunyon team was better, Italy or France. Damn shifter rugby-sport. I can’t understand any of it, bashing into each other the way they do.”
Neither side moves.
“Out!” She points again.
The two males from the corner thud across the room. One’s a good six inches taller than the other. So tall that when he crosses under the center support beam of the pub, he has to duck. The floor shakes. There’s something aboutthem that reminds me of the guys. Wider shoulders, taller, just bigger all around. They both have hair so dark in the dim light of the pub it’s almost blue. They’re wearing black T-shirts with khakis, as if they’re ready to go on safari. And they’re both wearing similar colognes with a smoky, woody scent. Like a really good campfire.
The taller of the two looks down at the crossword woman. He inhales deeply. “Wolf, you should keep better track of your charges. You never know when a bigger, badder wolf could snatch them up.” His dark eyes turn back to me and then to Wren. They move out the door.
Wren’s fingers grip my arm. “Whoa,” she whispers. Whoa in a “how hot was that and please come blow down my house” way. Not scared.
Honestly, I’ve never heard her say whoa over a man before. Wren never has an issue finding a date. The other girls laugh when she only gets two phone numbers per flight.
“You good?” I whisper to her.
“Yeah, but is it wrong that I want to rub myself over big, dark, and scary?” Wren asks in what I’m sure she thinks is a whisper but is anything but.
Crossword blonde laughs. “Let’s get you ladies back to your hotel. I’ll make sure the gentleman knows where they are.” She crosses the bar to us. At the same time, there’s a loud crash outside the bar, a roar, and then a car alarm sounds. The other two security guards race out the front door. There’s another thundering crash out front. The blonde puts her hand on her ear. “I’ll take them out the rear.”
“No, you won’t,” I say. “I don’t want Mary to have any trouble.”
“If Mary wants to live, she should come with us. Is there a back way?” the blonde asks.
“Yes,” Mary says and leads us out the way we came in all those hours ago.
47
ROARK
“We should have flown,” Evander says.
“Hard to take a human woman back to the castle without a car.” And people think he’s the smart one.
I pull the Rolls into the very empty for a Friday night car park outside one of the village’s two pubs. I haven’t been here for a while. Ten years. The last time I was here, it wasn’t Mary’s English Pub but Die Kneipet. It’s not so much of a dump now. The car door vibrates from me closing it. I smell the air. My head snaps to Evander.
“Firested,” he growls.
“Indeed.”
They’re coming out of the bar. We round the corner to the front entrance. I don’t recognize the two of them, but they stink of lava.
