Page 2 of Bad Blood Alpha

A woman. That was a laugh. As if he could possibly meet anyone here who had any clue who he was or what he needed.

The phone buzzed again.

Have you gotten laid yet? Or did she see your tiny dick and run away?

Fucking Xander. He typed back:

How the fuck can I get laid if you won’t stop texting me? Go away and boink your mate.

He hit ‘send’, then added:

PS I’ll always be the biggest prick. Me 8===========> you 8--> so sad

His phone buzzed again. Nothing but a middle finger emoji. He wondered where Xander had found that—Flynn definitely needed it for his phone.

He copied it and sent it back double. The alpha always should have the last word.

He flicked back to his Home screen, shaking his head, smiling a little in spite of himself. His crew might be a bunch of idiots, but they were pretty damn funny when they weren’t bleeding each other. And in their own fucked-up dysfunctional way, they wanted him to be happy.

The problem was, Flynn didn’t do happy.

Flynn was one of the people who kept watch, all the time. Who fought and bled so that other people could be happy and oblivious.

He’d been raised with the ingrained knowledge that if he ever let his guard down, people would die. Hell, he’d seen it happen. A whole clan wiped out, because their watchers and protectors had failed.

That hard lesson had shaped the rest of his life.

His crew, all mated up and drunk on sex hormones, thought that’s what Flynn needed too. A mate to get all sappy over—someone who he could trip over his paws to please and make happy.

Good luck with that. Flynn was…what was that shit women called it? Complicated.

Which was basically code for ‘a fucking bastard.’

He was dominant. Irritating. Uncompromising. Paranoid. Fuck it, he liked shit his way. People who did things his way tended to stay alive longer than people who didn’t.

Flynn was a fan of the people he cared about staying alive.

Mates needed gentleness, and there weren’t any soft places left in Flynn.

And anyway, his chance was gone. He’d had a destined mate, once. Supposedly. According to the dragon seers, they were going to grow up and fuck happily ever after while saving the world in their spare time. Right.

That had turned out to be bullshit. His promised mate had been killed before she ever had the chance to grow up. Which just showed that prophecies didn’t mean fuck-all.

As Flynn checked his phone yet again, he suddenly felt goosebumps ripple up his arms, every tiny hair standing on end. All his senses went on the alert. His lion woke up and growled.

There was danger in this room. Danger, and power. He scanned the club, keeping his gaze casual. A guy looking for a hookup.

He’d already pegged the few shifters in the room. None of them were paying attention to him; they were mostly workers from the Nashville wolf pack’s downtown offices, and Nashville wolves had learned the hard way not to fuck with Flynn or his crew.

None of them were the source of the power—or the danger.

He let his gaze drift upward. There was a balcony around three sides of the room, with spiral staircases at the two corners. The center portion bowed outward in a curve, packed with more gyrating bodies, the neon lights of a small auxiliary bar blinking behind them.

The two sides were almost empty, with fewer lights and deeper shadows.

There.

She stood at the railing alone, on the left side of the balcony. He raked his gaze over her body, assessing. Slim, taut, with the graceful lines of a dancer and the poised wariness of a trained martial artist.