Keegan sighed. “Hey, Glum. New pack member. She got Nadine and Gear hurt. We need to see Eva about ahealing.”
Keegan’s words cut right through me. Keegan knew this man could tell a lie, so he could only speak truth. That meant that he thought I was at fault for Nadine and Gear’s injuries. My stomach knotted with guilt at the thought. Glum looked at Keegan for another moment, something swirling in his endless yellow eyes, until finally he must have felt satisfied and nodded, opening the large brass door to let usenter.
As we passed, Keegan shoved a hundred-dollar bill into a tip jar. Damn, that would pay my grocery bill for two weeks. I was tempted to snatch it back out and replace it with a lesser bill, but thought better ofit.
The moment we entered the dark room I was saturated with sights and sounds that were foreign to me. The music was beyond weird. Some kind of tribal drum and bass, but with a high-pitched live singer. It wasn’t bad, just different. The smell… was a mix of dog, metal and alcohol. The place was a pretty good size, with a large U-shaped bar off to the left, and a stage and dance floor to the right. I could see a second floor VIP area as well, with people leaning on the railing and looking down at the dancers. Up on the stage was a pencil-thin singer with purple-dyed hair and a half a dozen backup dancers. Now that we were inside, Keegan dropped my arm and Logan replaced him, clutching tightly to my upper arm and dragging me across the dancefloor.
“I know how to walk,” I growled. What was with this handoff? Logan, Keegan, Logan again. It was like Keegan was just the alpha for show but Logan really called the shots. Their dynamic was weird and hard toread.
“And I know how to keep you alive,” he countered, maneuvering through a crowd of burly men wearing business suits and holding scotchglasses.
As we passed, one of them looked right at me and his nostrils flared. Then just as quickly his face scrunched inrepulsion.
“Who are they?” I indicated the business-suited men after we had passed. Logan was speed-walking us to the VIPlounge.
He glanced at the men and then leaned into me. “Those are Collectors. Very powerful sorcerers that would cut us into a thousand pieces and sell us for parts if they knew what wewere.”
My gut clenched and I felt fear saturate my body. My dragon stirred in anxiety and I knew it would be suicide if I transformed now, so I took three deepbreaths.
I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. Logan will keep me safe,I chanted to mydragon.
The fear dissipated a little and her stirring lessoned.Shit, that was a closecall.
Logan seemed to understand. “After tonight, I need to train you, for all of our sakes,” hegrumbled.
I just nodded. I didn’t know where I saw myself tomorrow, next week, next year. I was living this shitstorm one day at atime.
Keegan and the rest of the pack arrived at my back as we reached the VIP loungestaircase.
“Logan!” A twenty-something brunette stick figure with boobs shrieked as she jumped up anddown.
Logan looked embarrassed. “Hey, Monica. Is Eva upstairs? It’surgent.”
Monica scrunched her nose up at me and looked beyond us at an injured Nadine andGear.
“Sure thing.” She unhooked the velvet cord that barred our access and let us upstairs. As we walked up the first few steps, I heard Sophie’s voice behind me as she muttered toMonica:
“Slut.”
Monica fired back: “Dog.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. It seemed Sophie wasn’t the friendlytype.
“Not tonight, ladies,” Keegan warned with a growl in histhroat.
Damn, Sophie didn’t hold back her feelings, did she? She had zero filter between thoughts to verbal utterances, and she seemed to have a lot of enemies. Includingme.
As we made our way up the stairs, Logan muttered to me: “Sophie is a tough nut to crack, but once she lets you in, she’s a fiercely loyalfriend.”
“Right. I’ll keep that in mind when we become besties,” I growled. I didn’t even want to think about her letting Logan “in.”
As we reached the top of the stairs, I saw that we had been transported to a plush and swanky velvet lounge. The walls, the couches, the table tops, everything was black and purple velvet. People milled around, some doing the gross making out thing and others just talking, but one couple caught myeye.
The man wore a suit and top hat, and in his right hand was yellow fire! It floated about a quarter of an inch off of his palm, and the woman he was with was using her hand to change the colors. The flame flickered from yellow to blue to green as she waved herfingers.
Logan saw me looking and yanked me away. “Lower class magic users. Just a party trick. Comeon.”
Just a party trick? That was the coolest thing I had ever seen. As we passed the low-lit tables I saw that above the tables were cutouts in the walls. Dancers wearing tiny purple velvet shorts and matching purple velvet bras thrust their hips out to the music. Most of the dancers were female but a few were male. Tip jars lay at their feet and were overflowing with twenty-dollar bills. Damn, I was in the wrongbusiness.
