Hour of the Lion

by Cherise Sinclair

  Other customers had also required special service. He glanced at the corner table by the kitchen door and saw the dwarves‘ glasses were empty. Already. With a sigh, Calum built two more black and tans and carried them over. The satisfaction that the discriminating local dwarf population found his beer good was offset by the danger of having them frequent his bar, especially on busy nights.

  Like many magical beings, the dwarves generated a you-can"t-see-me aura. The RESERVED placard on the table and the slightly antagonistic waves coming from them repelled most humans...unless they were very drunk, like the old rancher last week who‘d plopped himself down on Gramlor‘s lap.

  And Alec—Alec had been laughing so hard he almost failed to wrench the axe away from the dwarf before Gramlor split the human‘s head open.

  At the table, Calum kept his back to the room and bowed. 'Gentlemen, your drinks. I trust everything is adequate?'

  Nurxtan smoothed his beard. 'You still have fine beer, Cosantir. I haven‘t visited here since your dam‘s lifemate passed on. My condolences.'

  'I thank you.' He set a mug in front of each dwarf.

  The other dwarf who came in often nodded his thanks.

  Nurxtan‘s attention turned away. Alec had just walked in, and his progress to the bar was hindered by greetings on all sides. 'Your brother appears in good health.'

  'He is that.'

  The dwarf frowned. 'He scatters his seed to many, many, yet has no formal lifemate. And neither have you, Cosantir.'

  'My mate died.'

  'Time has passed. Find another. Bonded Daonain are safer for all.'

  Calum‘s jaw tightened. Dwarves didn‘t lie, didn‘t hand out compliments, didn‘t have any tact, and those long noses of theirs poked into everything, including people‘s personal lives. 'I–'

  Nurxtan interrupted. 'And this time, share with your brother.'

  No point in discussing it. Calum rendered a tight nod and stalked back to his bar. Bollocks.

  Lenora had been frail and her timidity had kept her from accepting Alec, warping their mating to only her and Calum. Alec had understood, but guilt still rode Calum‘s shoulders, even so many years after her death. Putting it aside, he returned to working the taps.

  From the waitress station, Vic waved and caught his attention. 'I need three white wines and a Bud Light,' she called. As she reached for the water pitcher, her full breasts rested on the bar top like a prize to be gathered. With an effort, he averted his gaze, closing his hands around a cold wine bottle instead. Three wines. Right.

  Despite the noisy conversations, he still heard his brother‘s snicker from the far end of the bar. Obviously Alec had seen where his attention had lingered. Calum shot him a look of frustration, and Alec raised his glass in a toast of perfect understanding.

  'Your order is complete, Victoria.' Calum placed the drinks in front of her.

  'Thank you.' She set them on her tray and gave him a smile that flooded his system with testosterone. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling, and he couldn‘t help but wonder if she brought all that delightful energy to mating.

  'Ring them up to the Howard account,' she told him and hefted up the tray.

  The ease with which she carried the heavy trays hinted at strong muscles hidden under her smooth female padding. She had the prowling gait of a shifter, he noticed again. He turned and met Alec‘s look. After drawing a Guinness, he moved down the bar to hand it over. 'Here.'

  'Thanks.' Alec took a gulp. 'A human shouldn‘t affect us this way.'

  'Some trick of the pheromones. Shifters do bed humans, after all.'

  'Only because they‘re convenient—not because of any real appeal,' Alec pointed out. 'I don‘t know about you, brawd, but I‘m damned attracted.'

  'As am I.' Too attracted. The God was teasing him, keeping her constantly in his sight.

  Within his scent-range. But he knew it wasn‘t wise for a shifter to get entangled with a human.

  'After the Samhain Gathering, we should visit elsewhere.'

  'And check out some new females? Maybe even find a lifemate?'

  'Precisely.' His relationship with Lenora had been incomplete. Next time he‘d be able to share his mate with his brother.

  Vic‘s eyes were going wonky, she decided. In her peripheral vision, she could see two short guys sitting near the hallway. But when she looked straight at the table, it was empty.

  Hadn‘t she seen Calum deliver two drinks? He‘d stood a while and then returned to the bar with empty glasses. Had he sucked down two glasses of beer by himself?

  She averted her gaze, and in the corner of her eyes, saw the two guys reappear at the table.

  Very, very short men with waist-length beards. They looked almost like… She snorted. Nah. No way. Then again, she was looking for werecats. So, maybe, maybe, right here and right now, she had two mini-men who were escapees from the casting room of Lord of the Rings. Dwarves.

  That had been a great movie, but the operative word was movie, not real life. God help her, was she going to have to investigate dwarves next? This task Lachlan had given her was turning into a complete cluster-fuck.

  She set the tray down on the women‘s table with a thump that rattled the wine glasses.

  Forcing a smile, she said, 'Here you go.' After setting out the drinks, she glanced around the room. It was too busy right now to investigate that corner table. Rosie had gotten sick and left work early, leaving Vic the only waitress in a packed tavern.

  And who had put on an Elvis Presley tune? Blue Hawaii—in Washington? That was just wrong.

  Who needed a drink next? First, clear off the table by the fireplace. Then swing by the pool room. Most of the people in the main room should be okay for a while. Her gaze lit on the table nearest the door and the two older men who Calum had been serving. One man was pudgy and short with drooping jowls like an overweight bulldog. The other was over sixty, but looked like a junk-yard dog—just plain mean and with the scars to prove it.

  The two glared at her as if she‘d keyed their favorite pick-up. She checked the bar, but it was surrounded by people, which meant Calum couldn‘t see their pitcher of beer was empty.

  Apparently, the table was her responsibility. Duty calls.

  She made her way over. 'Gentlemen, what can I bring you to drink?'

  'You can‘t bring me bird droppings, monkey face,' the pudgy one said in a low voice. 'Get away from my table before your stench makes me puke.'

  'Well.' Considering she was supposed to also be the bouncer, maybe Calum would let her toss the asshole out the door to see if he‘d bounce. No. Be good, Sergeant. Besides, starting a fight wasn‘t exactly considered covert. 'Fine, then. If you need something, please go to the bar to get it.'

  He didn‘t answer, just slammed his almost empty mug down so hard that beer splashed across the table.

  Stepping back hastily, Vic bumped the other guy‘s knees.

  Junkyard Dog shoved his drink away and rose to his feet, his deep-lined face distorted with rage. 'I don‘t want you in here. Not you'—his maddened gaze turned toward the table of three women—'and not them either.' Snarling like a rabid dog, he lunged at the wide-eyed college girls. 'Get out.'

  'Oh, fuck.' Vic tossed her empty tray on the table and caught the man by his collar. With a hard yank to pull him away from the shrieking women, she whirled, intending to push him out the door.

  Rather than pulling away, he slammed himself backwards and elbowed her in the gut.

  'Oof.' She lost her grip on his shirt. He took two steps, and back-kicked, trying for her gut.

  Jesus. She jerked sideways, and he missed. That was a very fast old man just spoiling for a fight. She grinned as adrenaline bubbled into her veins. A chance to play? Mustn"t kill him.

  When he tried again, she grabbed his foot and twisted sharply.

  Not wanting her to dislocate his knee, he hit the floor, rolled onto one shoulder, and kicked at her with his free leg. She let go before he could break her fingers.
r />   Sneaky move. With a respectful nod, she stepped back. Had he gotten the venom out of his system yet?

  She glanced over her shoulder to check her six. The other SOB had a knife.

  He lunged at her, the blade coming in fast. She sidestepped. A quick punch to Pudgy‘s face yielded a satisfying flash of blood. God, this was fun. A sweep of her foot took his feet out from under him, and he landed heavily on his side.

  The bitter old guy regained his feet all too fast, moving faster than a SEAL on speed, and dammit, her gut still ached from his elbow. He circled around her, looking for a hole in her defenses. She heard Calum‘s deep shout and ignored it. There were a ton of people between the bar and here.

  She studied Junkyard Dog, waiting for his move. His eyes didn‘t look right—he wasn‘t just drunk; he was crazy mad. When he sprang for her, she dodged without retaliation. He recovered fast and spun around. Fucking-A, but he really wanted to kill her. Now what? Her job was to keep the peace, not send drunken assholes to the hospital.

  The indecision cost her, and his fist slammed into her face in a blast of pain and light. She fell against a table, sending people spinning backwards with angry shouts. Mugs and glasses shattered; liquids spilled everywhere.

  Flushed with shame, her cheek hurting like hell, she rolled out of the tangle and back to her feet. The bastard smirked at her, damn him. She sprang at him, faking a high punch. His block left him open for a side-kick to his gut and an immediate hard follow-through to his face with the same foot. The impact ran up her leg, and he flew like an overweight bird, landing on another table.

  She winced. More damages. Calum would be royally pissed-off.

  The pudge was up, and somehow, he‘d regained his knife. Even as she tensed, Calum grabbed him, yanked his head back by the long stringy hair, and curled his fingers around the thick neck neck. 'If I must rip your throat out, I will have an intolerable mess, and I will be even angrier than I am now.'

  Pudge froze, his eyes widening.

  'Well, hell, brawd, are you saying I can‘t gut this one?' Crouching, Alec had one knee on Junkyard Dog‘s neck, and a knife poised above his belly. The sheriff‘s face was cold and hard and furious. He looked fully ready to disembowel the older man.

  Whoa. A bar-fight around here got deadly awfully fast.

  Calum sighed, and his gray eyes lightened. 'I find intestines as unappealing as blood.

  Alexander, do please recall you are sheriff of this county.'

  'Well, hey, that did slip my mind.' Alec took an audible breath, and tension flowed out of his body. He spoke to the old guy, 'Thorson. Looks like you get to enjoy the hospitality of my jail. I need a word.'

  The man‘s voice was hoarse, not surprising considering Alec‘s knee was wedged against his larynx. 'My word is given.'

  'Albert?' Alec‘s frozen gaze turned to pudgy.

  'My word is given,' Pudge repeated.

  As Calum released his captive, Alec hauled Thorson to his feet and pushed him sideways so the two drunks stood together.

  Standing in front of them, Calum crossed his arms. 'I will forgive your debt to me, but this woman works for me and was doing only what she was hired to do.' His words were soft and sheened with ice. 'She offered no insult to you, yet you‘ve done her damage. By the law of reciprocity, she is owed.' He looked around his bar.

  Puzzled, Vic followed his gaze. Two men and the college girls appeared confused. So did the young couple by the fireplace and a man seated at the bar. Everyone else in the place stared at her with expressions ranging from coldly angry to assessing. A second later, heads bowed slightly, and a murmur came from the room. 'She is owed.'

  What the hell was going on? Vic opened her mouth to ask and reconsidered. Right now, Calum looked nastier than her first drill sergeant after a recruit dropped his rifle in the mud.

  When his gaze lit on her, she almost snapped to attention.

  Thorson‘s mouth tightened into a bitter line as he stared at Vic, repugnance streaming from every pore in his body. But he answered quietly, 'We will discuss the compensation with you, Cosan—uh, Calum.'

  'Indeed, I think not.' Calum nodded at her. 'Your discussion will be with the one who is owed. I‘ve found her honorable and fair for a—I believe she can determine her own recompense to achieve balance. Let us say, this Monday, your bookstore at one o‘clock. Miss Waverly, does that meet with your approval?'

  'Sure. Sounds fine.' What exactly had she approved? Feeling blood running down her face, Vic swiped a hand across the gash on her cheekbone and saw rage flash into Alec‘s eyes. The situation felt too volatile, and retreat seemed the best solution to defuse it. 'Excuse me while I get cleaned up.'

  She moved through the room, her eyes fixed on the kitchen door to escape the stares. Her face hurt, and the humiliation hurt worse than her face. That old guy shouldn‘t have been able to lay a finger on her. He‘d not only kicked her, but had actually gotten in a punch. From the look of him, he had to be approaching seventy.

  Seventy. God help me, I"m already over the hill and not even thirty yet. And what was all that about being owed? Some mountain custom or something? Calum had a few questions to answer.

  In the kitchen, she dropped into the chair by the setup table and worked on releasing the lingering adrenaline.

  Unfortunately for her state of mind, less than a minute later, Calum stalked into the room, followed by Alec. And didn‘t they both look like they still wanted to kill someone. Her, probably. She‘d handled the men badly and disrupted the whole tavern.

  She raised a hand, realized her knuckles were bleeding on Calum‘s clean floor. God, I can"t win. 'I‘m sorry, guys. I didn‘t—'

  'Shut up,' Alec said, the shortest sentence she‘d ever heard from him. Yeah, he was pissed off. He yanked a paper towel off the roll, stuck it under the water.

  Fine, okay, shutting up. But Calum stood on her other side, and she really needed to tell him how sorry she—

  'Look at me,' Alec said.

  She turned back, caught the full effect of blazing green eyes. He knelt in front of her, so close she could see faint scars across one cheek. Parallel lines. She stiffened—lines like the ones around her ribs. Claw marks.

  He grabbed her chin, his fingers firm. Warm. 'Hold still. This is gonna hurt, baby.' He pressed the cold, wet paper towel against her cheekbone.

  'Ouch,' she murmured.

  'Listen,' he said, 'there—'

  'Move.' Calum nudged Alec over with his knee. He yanked a chair closer with one foot and seated himself before taking her hand. His gray eyes were almost black, his mouth tight. Muscles flexed under his white shirt—he was ready to wade into a fight, all right.

  'I didn‘t mean—'

  'Shut up,' they said, almost in chorus. Calum held out a small bottle to Alec. 'Put iodine on that rag.'

  'Hey, no, wait.' Her grab for Alec‘s wrist was a little too late, too weak. He forced her hand down on her thigh and pressed the cloth to her face. It burned, napalm in a bottle. She‘d hated the shit since she was a kid. 'Jesus, I survived the fight and now you‘re trying to kill me,' she muttered. 'What kind of archaic medicine is this?'

  Alec grinned, and his grip on her hand eased, turned to almost a caress. 'You‘re too tough to die, woman.'

  A compliment? His words slid through her humiliation like the sun through fog. She glanced at Calum, just in time to see him dump half the bottle of iodine on her knuckles. She yelped.

  'Shit! Fuck!'

  Whups. Not a diplomatic way to talk to a boss. She bit down on her lip, ignored Alec‘s snigger. 'Um. Sorry.'

  'I do hope you refrain from that language when my daughter is present,' Calum said mildly.

  His eyes had returned to gray, and his lips twitched upward.

  She relaxed back into the chair with a whuff of relief. Calum used a finger to smear antibiotic ointment on her knuckles, and then handed the tube to Alec. They acted like she‘d been broken into pieces instead of barely dented.

  Both of them
were intent on making sure she was okay. Nobody‘d ever done that before.

  Oh, in the Marines, a buddy would slap a field dressing on you. But when undercover, she handled her own injuries. Funny how she‘d gotten so used to the protocol: If you"re caught, you"re on your own. We won"t know you. No rescue, no aid.

  Alec grinned at her. 'Want me to kiss it and make it better?'

  She snorted. But as she looked at them and saw the very real concern in their faces, something seemed to snap inside her. As a child, she‘d heard that if she swallowed a watermelon seed, one would grow in her stomach. She‘d spent a week, patting her belly, waiting…for nothing.

  But now, looking at Alec and Calum, she could feel something deep inside start to unfurl and grow.

  *

  The rain had stopped, and the crescent moon rode the clouds like an ancient drawing of Herne, the horned god of the hunt. Cold air flowing down the mountain slopes into town brought the scent of snow, of pine trees, of tiny damp glades and the deer that stepped silently through them.

  But tonight Alec felt no hunger to run the wild. Tonight, his hunger was for the young female quietly walking beside him. A female both beautiful and deadly.

  During the fight in the Wild Hunt, he‘d been terrified for her. Worse, he‘d almost lost control and shifted, something he hadn‘t done since a teenager. He glanced down at his small companion and shook his head. His fear for her had been sadly misplaced; he should have worried for her opponents.

  When Thorson had kicked at her, Vicki had actually grinned, her delight obvious. He‘d been shocked—hell, he was still shocked. Female shifters fought only for home or family and went straight for the throat or belly every time.

  What kind of female enjoyed brawling? And got herself in a deadly fight and still pulled her punches. Even as he‘d shoved his way through the customers to her, he‘d seen how she‘d moved her target to a jaw rather than the thorax and then softened a kick. She could have killed either of them.

  Alec grinned. Once he sobered up, Thorson, with his years of brawling, would know that too. Wouldn‘t that pull the old werecat‘s tail?