Man, whatever that was supposed to mean... Something to do with the 'consorts'? Fuck no. This queen thing kept sounding worse and worse.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mina
The back alley behind the club was as sad a place as I'd ever seen, and as Alistair stormed ahead, looking at his phone, I tried to ignore the impressive variety of stinks that assaulted my nose. "Al...you're going too fast! I can't keep up in these shoes!"
"I could carry you over my shoulder," he said, and then he swept me up with one arm and did just that.
"Don't! I mean it--this is embarrassing!"
He picked up his pace, laughing a little. "But I'm not going too fast anymore, am I? I wouldn't want to blister your feet. You are, in fact, meant to fly."
"Yes! I am meant to fly! But it's you who keep me bound." I kicked, feeling real anger that was all too familiar--and futile. As long as he had me, he just didn't care.
"She stopped up ahead...somewhere..."
"Uhh..." We were passing some shady guys who stared at my body as Alistair passed by.
"Hey, should we call our guards to help?" I whispered.
Alistair put in the call but no one picked up. “Damn it,” he said.
"Where'd you find that pretty thing?" one of the guys called, just when I started to think they'd let us pass by.
"She's mine," Alistair said. "And just back off. I'm Alistair Merryweather."
"Oh, 'I'm Alistair Merryweather'," the guy mocked back in a British accent, even though Alistair didn't have a British accent. "Where are you going in such a hurry, Alistair Merryweather?"
"You looking for a good time?" the other guy said, taking a drag on a cigarette. "C'mere. You can go in for free. We won't tell."
"I'm in a hurry," Alistair said. "Thanks." He sounded awfully confident for a guy who didn't have his guards. Well, maybe they were behind us. Or..maybe Alistair was just rich enough to have turned stupid.
Or he was faking confidence. Maybe that one. Because he was almost running now. I was getting nauseous from being jostled around.
"I knew we shouldn't have just gone out the back!" I said. "This neighborhood is super dangerous at night!"
The guys were pursuing us now, although in a leisurely way. "Hey, hey," the first guy said. "We just want to party with a cute girl like you for a little while. Where are you going in such a hurry at an hour like this, in a place like this? Whatever you're hoping to buy, I bet we already got it inside."
"Nothing!" Alistair snapped. "I'm telling you to just back off! I'm looking for a girl."
“Looking for a girl? Another girl? What do you need two girls for? You rich kids are so greedy. Yeah, tell you what...leave the first girl here, then you can run faster.”
The guy jumped on a bike that was slumped against a trash bin and now he was gaining on us fast. Alistair looked back and groaned,
"God, this is so stupid." Alistair dialed the guards again and put the phone to his ear.
"That girl doesn't look very happy with you," the guy said, pedaling up to us and reaching out to swipe the phone out of Alistair's hand.
"Excuse me!" Alistair said. I struggled to get down and he slid me off his shoulder, but kept an arm around me.
"Did you get ahold of them yet?" I looked at him nervously.
"Hey, birdie, if you want to have a night with a real man, have a good time..." The guy scoffed at Alistair. "Not some rich fuck who treats you like a slave."
"Oh, and I really believe you're going to treat me any better." I knew Alistair didn't carry a gun. Mrs. Merryweather didn't want him getting involved in anything too dangerous, and with all their bodyguards I guess she assumed there was no need, but Alistair got so bent on finding Frankie.
I guess a girl could only rely on herself.
"I'll treat you much better. You kidding? When I'm with a woman as pretty as you, I treat her like a goddess."
"Don't touch her," Alistair said. He looked behind me. The other guy was coming too.
As the guy on the bike dropped his ride on the ground and came at me, I aimed my shoe at his balls. He doubled over and spat a few choice words at me before adding, "But then again...maybe I like you even more."
The other guy came at us and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him.
"I'm so sorry, Mina," Alistair said. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have been walking around here with you. You're right." His words had a hint of finality.
“What are you saying?" I cried. "You're not going to abandon me to them, are you?"
"Abandon you? Never in a thousand years!" Now he sounded annoyed, but he smiled like I'd also made him happy. "So you do like having my protection after all."
The bicycle guy punched him.
"Al!" I tried to get a hit on the other guy. He was holding my wrists tight.
Alistair tried to fight back, and he was certainly strong enough to put up a fight, but he didn't have all the brawling skill that these guys clearly did. He struggled to get in a good punch back. I stomped on the other guy's feet, but he was wearing some ugly boots with tough, worn toes. My platforms didn't do much. Should have gone for the stilettos, I thought.
One of the guys grabbed me suddenly, twisting my arm, and took one of my breasts in his hand. “I’m taking you back to my place.”
I shrieked.
Suddenly Alistair was gone and a wolf was in his place. He ripped into the guy he was fighting, gouging up his arm. The guy immediately pulled back.
“Fuck!" The second guy let me go, too. Clearly, they had thought they were just messing with a spoiled rich boy and his pet.
I totally thought that too. As they hauled ass back into their club, Alistair turned back, grabbed my hand and ran for the next little alley between clubs to the main street.
I guess chasing Frankie was no longer a priority.
He ran back to the guards. He had blood on his face. One of the guards saw it and gestured for him to wipe it off.
"What happened?" a guard named Sam asked. "Mr. Merryweather..."
"Two guys behind Club Bloc jumped us," Alistair said. "I had to fight back."
"You shouldn't have been there without us."
"I know, but why didn’t you pick up the phone?” Alistair shouted.
"I'll take care of it.”
“No, forget it,” Alistair said. “Let’s just go home.”
We got in the back of the car and Alistair lifted the privacy screen between us and the driver and bodyguard.
"Al..." I couldn't stop staring at him, too speechless to demand an explanation, but...what the hell? “You're--a wolf?”
"I'm a half-breed," he said, with a tight, troubled frown, but that was pretty much his normal frown. Still careful and distant, like he never wanted me to see too much of him. He was the master and I was the beloved pet.
But now I knew that was all a lie.
A half-breed.
Worse than a wolf. Alistair was part animal.
A mongrel.
“So...your mom is..."
Alistair cupped his hands around my face. "You will never say one word about this to anyone, including me, ever again. All that matters is that you're safe. I'm still me."
"Are you going to explain?"
He stared at me, and I had no idea if he was angry. He looked far away from me for a second. Like he'd lost me, somehow, in those last few moments.
This was the first time I found myself truly needing to be closer to him. Just long enough to know his story.
“Not another word, my pet,” he warned.
*
I hope you enjoyed Stray! This is the first in a series I’ve been planning for a while and I’m exciiited. I wanted to do two things that were really different from my other series…
One, I really wanted three different ladies and their harems to all join together as a team. I always loved it in previous books I’ve written when I would get to check in on old characters or characters from two series would work together. So I kept thinking…how f
un would it be for three different groups to stick together through the whole series? And how fun is it to try and guess which guy will end up being the consort of which queen??
The other thing I wanted was for magic to be more “realistic” and difficult. Waylon and other sorcerers have to seriously plan to cast a spell and can’t just shoot lightning bolts out of their hands. But they can still be very dangerous… It’s fun making them work for it, though, after writing a lot of books where magic comes more easily.
Book 2, Shadow comes out just three weeks after Stray and that’s a promise because it’s almost done. It’s already up for preorder, so buckle up!
Make sure to join my Facebook group and come hang out! Updates, contests, and neurotic ramblings galore! And sign up for my mailing list to get a free copy of the Witch Among Warlocks prequel novella, The Wild-Eyed Boys! That is the prequel that kicks off my other paranormal reverse harem world, which has an overall story arc told across five different series.
More Romantic Fantasy from Lidiya!
Shifters Among Us marks the start of a new paranormal world. I also have a set of paranormal reverse harem set in a world of witches and warlocks and familiars who can take animal or human form, plus demons, other shifters, and fae. It all kicks off with A Witch Among Warlocks, the story of Charlotte, a gamer nerd girl who finds out her mom was a witch, her usual internet gaming partner is actually her fox-shifter familiar who lives one hill over, and she’s accidentally (or not so accidentally) been enrolled in a university for warlocks with a sexy incubus roommate…
1. A Witch Among Warlocks
Complete Series Box Set
Available in audio too!
2. Either of these can come next in the story…Fae Brides is light and funny, while the vampires have some dark, rip-your-heart-out emotions (along with some happiness too).
So You Want to Be a Fae Bride?
Box Set
The Vampire Clan’s Thrall
Box Set
3. Paranormal House Flippers
Book One: Demons in the Bedroom
Book Two: Wolves at the Door
Book Three: Phantom of the Library
4. Promised to the Demons
Book One: Sympathy for the Demons
Book Two: Bat Out of Hell
Book Three: The Devil Went Down to Florida
Side story standalones:
Brides of the Sinistral Realms
Book One: Tempted by Demons
Book Two: Captured by Dragons
Book Three: Guarded by Wolves (Coming soon!)
The Sky and Shadow saga, a reverse harem fantasy with epic world building, dragon shifters, and steam:
Guardians of Sky and Shadow
Complete Series Box Set
Available in audio!
Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow
Complete Series Box Set
Fairy Tale Heat
Every book is standalone and can be read in any order, although some characters might pop up in later books!
Book One: Beauty and the Goblin King
Book Two: These Wicked Revels (A retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses)
Book Three: Rapunzel and the Dark Prince
Book Four: The Beggar Princess (A retelling of King Thrushbeard)
Book Five: The Goblin Cinderella
Book Six: The Mermaid Bride
Book Seven: Tasting Gretel
Book Eight: Taming Red Riding Hood
Surrender of Sleeping Beauty (Darker romance set in the Fairy Tale Heat universe)
Complete Series Box Set
Shifters Among Us
Book One: Black Queen: Stray
Black Queen: Stray: Fated Mates Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifters Among Us Book 1) Page 16