Page 3 of Bad Blood Panther

Chapter 2

Xander sat in the darkest corner of the Wildcat Whiskey Saloon, surrounded by his crew—which was his favorite place to be. Despite the fact that that was sappy and pathetic and he would never have admitted it to them unless Jaz strung him up and toasted his balls over the grill, which she was always threatening to do.

He fucking loved these idiots. And he knew, deep down inside, that he was going to have to leave them.

He shoved that thought away. For once, his panther had been quiet—at least, not violently insane—for enough days in a row that it was safe for him to be out in public. And this was a shifter bar, so if things got a little…hairy…it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

As long as he didn’t kill anyone.

They’d managed to get the whole crew out tonight, even Flynn, their grumpy-ass lion alpha, who hated people and crowds and civilization. But mostly people. Most days Xander wasn’t even sure he liked the crew.

They’d shoved two tables together in the corner of the crowded bar, so he and Flynn and Sloan could sit with their backs to the wall, able to see any trouble coming at them. Paranoid sons of bitches, all of them.

For good reason.

On the opposite side of the table sat Tank, grizzly bear shifter and the crew’s Protector, with his black bear mate. The contrast between big hulking blond Tank and petite, bubbly, dark-haired Lissa always cracked Xander up. He’d named them after the bear constellations—Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Big Dip and Little Dip when he wanted to mess with them.

Which he so often did.

Tank was paranoid too, but he was too damn big to fit between the table and the wall, and he liked being hemmed in even less than he liked having his back to the room. Jaz—Jasmin—and her mate Brody had just arrived, since they managed a restaurant and had to close up before they came out to party. They were the fucking Odd Couple: Brazilian spotted jaguar and good old American wolf. Okay, mutant monster wolf, if you were being picky about it. But that was only sometimes.

Caitlyn, Sloan’s brand-new mate, was whispering in his ear. The owl and the pussycat—well, snow leopard. That was another odd couple, but they were happy as pigs in shit. Whatever she was saying made Sloan smile. It was probably sexual, the fucker.

Xander was happy for him. Really. Even though it sucked that his best friend was getting laid, and he was not. He was happy for all of them, with their true mate bonds and their constant fucking and their clouds of frustration-inducing pheromones they carried around with them.

Yeah. Happy. Except when he wanted to claw their faces off.

“Your turn, Jaz,” Lissa said. “We’re up to ‘p’.”

They were playing Alphabet Death, a drinking game in which each person had to name a way to kill someone violently, starting with successive letters of the alphabet. You had fifteen seconds, and if you couldn’t come up with one that hadn’t already been used, you had to drink.

Xander had made it up. Well, Caitlyn had actually made it up, figuring out ways to kill her ex when he’d captured and tortured Sloan. After they defeated the ex and Sloan did, in fact, kill the murdering psycho fucker, Xander had turned it into a drinking game. Because hey—homicide and drinking were pretty much his two favorite things these days, after being with his crew.

“Potato peeler,” Jasmin said. She was head chef at the restaurant, and had food on the brain.

Sloan snorted. “You can’t kill someone with a potato peeler.”

Jaz just smiled lazily. “Give me one and watch, pussycat.”

Everybody laughed.

“I hate getting ‘q’,” Lissa complained. “After ‘quicksand’ and ‘quarrels,’ there’s really nothing left.”

“Quantum physics,” Brody suggested. “You could bore somebody to death with that shit.”

Quantum physics was not accepted, and the timer ran out. Lissa drank.

“Rifle,” Tank said.

“Too easy,” Lissa muttered. “Not fair that I had to drink and you got ‘r’.”

Tank wrapped his arm around her neck and kissed her temple. “If you get drunk, I promise to take advantage of you and make you do evil perverted stuff while naked.”

She snuggled up to him. “Deal. Somebody pour me another beer.”

“Five seconds,” Flynn said.

Shit. It was Xander’s turn, and he hadn’t been paying attention. “Stairs,” he said quickly.