“Yeah.” He turned as he muttered the word, and reached for a thick glass that sat on the bar just to his right, its glistening amber contents smelling like Scotch. As he gripped the glass in his large, battle-scarred hand, Morgan had to admit that she liked the way his cuffs were casually rolled up a few inches, since it revealed the thick lines of sinew that roped his powerful forearms, his skin darkened to a warm gold from the countless hours he spent training beneath the sun.
“How…unfortunate,” the other blonde said with an exaggerated pout, her free hand playing with the gilded tips of her high ponytail, while she inspected Morgan with a cold, calculating gaze.
“Funny,” Kierland offered in a tight voice, staring into the contents of his glass. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Then let’s just ignore her,” suggested the one on his left again.
“If only it were that easy,” he rasped, throwing back his head as he took a long swallow of the whiskey. His hair was damp at his temples, making the red seem almost black, his body throwing off a scorching wave of heat that made Morgan feel burned. Her own body temperature was on the rise, but she honestly couldn’t say if it was from the temperature in the club…or the searing intensity of Kierland’s gaze as he stared at her. Eyes that were such a light shade of green should have looked washed out and cold, but they didn’t—and within the dark fringe of his lashes, the outer rim of his irises were already beginning to glow with a bright, unearthly light, signaling the rise of his beast.
Oh, he’s pissed all right.
“So what exactly are you doing here?” Clipped, hard-edged words, but she still enjoyed the way they rolled off his tongue, the barest trace of a British accent molding the individual syllables. There was something inherently male about the way his mouth shaped words when he spoke, the almost cruel curve of his lips adding a wicked, sinful element to his rugged masculinity. What made it even sexier was the fact that it wasn’t an act or something he worked for. It was just Kierland.
“We need to talk,” Morgan said, wishing her voice didn’t sound quite so breathy.
The blonde with the ponytail slid her a haughty, condescending smile. “Actually, he’s here with us tonight, so you’ll have to run off and find your own. I should think something like a poodle might be more your style.”
“Or maybe a guinea pig,” the other one snickered. “She might have a chance of keeping it interested.”
Ignoring the women, Morgan kept her gaze focused on Kierland. “We have a problem.”
“Wrong,” he bit out, the deep shades of his auburn hair gleaming beneath the club’s pulsing lights as he tossed back the rest of his drink, his strong, corded throat working as he swallowed. For a split second, she had a fantasy flash, imagining how good it would feel to press her mouth against that hot, male skin and scrape him with her fangs, but then she quickly shook herself back to sanity as he said, “You and I have nothing, Morgan. Never have. Never will.”
The caustic words would have stung, if she’d been stupid enough to let them. But she’d prepared herself to hear that and worse tonight, knowing he was going to get nasty. He always did…with her. It was just the rest of the world who thought he was one of the most righteous, charming badasses around.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she took a deep breath and tried talking some sense into the jerk. “Look, I get that I’m not your favorite person, Kier, but do you really think I would have come here if it wasn’t important?”
“If there was a problem,” he argued, setting his glass down, “the others would have contacted me.”
“We decided this was something best explained in person.” So that he couldn’t go running off before she had a chance to find him. “And you’re acting like a real bastard.”
“What could possibly be so damn important that they would send you?” he suddenly growled, pushing away from the bar so quickly that his two companions toppled on their spiked heels, forcing them to clutch onto his powerful arms for support. Despite his attempt to appear casual, he was obviously seething with fury, all of it directed at Morgan. “What the hell do you want with me?”
“It’s not what I want that brought me here.” She craned her head back so that she could still see his face as he came closer, looming over her. “It’s what you’re going to need. From me.” His expression darkened with rage, but she held up a hand, speaking rapidly, before he could cut her off. “It’s about Kellan.”
He made a thick sound in his throat, and scrubbed one hand over the bottom half of his face. “What? You finally break his heart? Did guilt send you scurrying after me so that I can put him back together again?”
Frustration drew her brows together. “No matter how many times we tell you, you refuse to listen. But I’ll say it again anyway. Kellan and I are just friends.” It was the truth, not that Morgan expected him to believe her. He accused her of sinking her claws into every man she came into contact with. His brother was no exception.
“It’s time you ran along now,” the blonde on Kierland’s left snapped, pulling ineffectually on his arm.
Tired of their bitchy interference, Morgan slanted each woman a hard look of warning. “And why don’t you try minding your own business?”
Arrogant blue eyes narrowed with outrage. “You’d better watch how you speak to me,” one woman hissed. “My family owns this club. I’ll have you tossed out on your ass before you know what hit you.”
Morgan arched her brows and smiled, a warm jolt of satisfaction flaring through her system when she saw Kierland’s eyes widen a little, as if he knew what was coming. “Is that meant to impress me?” she asked in a soft voice. “Because you should really let them know that the place could do with a bit of class. I could smell the sleaze the instant I stepped inside.”
“You bitch,” the woman sneered. She almost surprised Morgan with a swift, openhanded slap, but instinct kicked in and Morgan’s hand whipped up, her fingers wrapping around the woman’s wrist.
Rule number one. Never underestimate your enemy.
She smiled grimly as the words played through her mind in Kierland’s deep baritone, a memory from the days when she’d been a young, idealistic Watchman trainee and he’d been her instructor. But she wasn’t that awkward, gangly teenager anymore—and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let Blondie here get the better of her.
“What are you?” the blonde snarled, yanking her hand from Morgan’s grip and giving her wrist a shake.
She smiled wide enough to bare her fangs. “A little bit of everything.”
Silicone-injected lips curled with disgust. “Mongrel.”
Morgan lifted her brows. “Make that a mongrel who can kick your ass,” she offered in a dry tone, almost hoping the blonde would try to hit her again.
“Enough!” Kierland growled, grabbing hold of Morgan’s arm and yanking her back around. She crashed into his chest so hard that her breath rushed out, her senses suddenly overwhelmed with hard, hot, aggravated male. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Me?” she gasped, blinking up at him. “The swan started it!”
Though the music continued to blare through the room, the dancing had stopped, everyone moving closer as word of the “almost” catfight spread like a flame lapping at trails of spilled gasoline. From the corner of her eye, Morgan could see the blondes talking with their heads close together, and listened as one of them told the bartender to summon their bodyguards from downstairs. Judging from their prima donna attitudes, she thought it figured that the Barbie twins would have their own professional set of bullies. She also figured it was time they got out of there.
Locking her gaze with Kierland’s, she stated the obvious. “We should go.”
“You mean before you cause any more trouble?” he snapped, glaring down at her, six and a half feet of pure, enraged male.
“Don’t sound so bent out of shape,” she muttered. “You were just worried that I might break one of your new playthings.”
“Save you
r ridiculous jeal—” Morgan heard him say, but she lost track of the words when a beefy hulk of a guy broke through the crowd and launched himself at her, slamming her to the ground. She could hear Kierland’s indignant shout, followed by an eruption of sound as more guards showed up, attacking the Lycan, and chaos broke out all around them. The brute lying on top of her, who smelled like a sweaty cross between a grizzly and a badger, was obviously one of the blondes’ bodyguards. The swan-shifters were goading him on, shouting things like “She’s the one!” and “Show her a lesson, Frankie!”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll show you a lesson,” he sneered, his stale breath nearly making Morgan gag. His beady eyes focused on the shape of her breasts, a lascivious smile curling his damp mouth as he crouched over her, trapping her arms against the floor. Deciding to fight dirty, Morgan hiked her knee and watched his expression turn to one of comical horror as he clutched his abused testicles with both hands. She’d just started to shove him off, when Kierland was there, already having dispensed with the guards who’d jumped him. Growling a deep, guttural sound that was pure animal, he hauled the guy off her, his expression one of savage outrage as he tossed the heavy bastard behind the bar.
“Thanks,” she rasped, moving back to her feet, but Kierland had already turned, exchanging blows with yet another thick-shouldered grizzly-shifter, and Morgan began to wonder just how many bodyguards the blondes carted around with them. Then again, considering their personalities, they probably pissed a lot of people off, so maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised.
“God, you still know how to cause a scene, don’t you?” Kierland muttered, once he’d managed to knock out the guard.
She grimaced, knowing he was referring to the time when he’d taken her academy class out to celebrate after they’d completed their combat training. They’d been having a great time at a local pub, when a group of Regan—one of the ancient clans who were well-known for their troublemaking—had shown up and started hitting on Morgan and the other girls in her class. When one of them had groped her backside, she’d responded with a cracking punch to the guy’s long nose that had resulted in a huge bar fight that Kierland had been forced to drag her out of.
“Wasn’t my fault then, and neither is tonight,” she argued, sounding suitably insulted. “All I asked for was a chance to talk to you!”
She doubted he even heard that last part, since another guard came after them, though Kierland knocked the guy out with one powerful blow to his jaw. Unfortunately, she could see that five more behemoths were right behind their fallen comrade, pushing their way through the crowd. Calls of encouragement were coming from the drunken, drugged-out, bloodthirsty group of onlookers, and the blonde with the ponytail shouted, “What are you guys waiting for? Rip her guts out!”
“Wow, those are some classy chicks you’ve got there,” Morgan drawled when Kierland moved closer to her side.
At the edge of her vision, she watched a flat smile twist the corner of the Lycan’s mouth as he rolled his head over his shoulders, his narrow stare locked on the approaching guards. “What can I say? After spending the last few weeks around you, they fit my mood.”
Before she had a chance to respond to his comment, she was busy defending herself again. Although Morgan didn’t have a lot of meat on her bones, what she did have was pure, lean muscle that had been trained for combat. She was used to fighting opponents who were bigger than she was, as well as stronger—but it was the crush of people that was messing with her mind.
She pressed her lips together and tried to control her growing sense of panic as the crowd seemed to pull in closer around them. While Kierland took on the brunt of the guards, two of the massive shape-shifters separated them and drove her back, coming at her hard and fast, their claws and thick, deadly incisors fully extended as they forced her deeper into the crowd on the dance floor.
“We don’t have to fight, little one,” one of them called out over the music, leering at her with a slick, sharp-toothed grin.
“That’s right,” the other one snickered. “We can go somewhere and play instead.”
As they began to circle around her, Morgan’s sense of fury finally overrode her panic. She wasn’t going to let these assholes bully her. Knowing she could take them off guard with some offensive moves, the female Watchman flew into motion, whipping her right leg around with a high, powerful roundhouse that cracked against the jaw of the stockier guard. She immediately pivoted, driving a swift side kick into the other one’s groin. The first had already recovered from the jaw strike, and she swung her body in a graceful dip to miss the sharp slash of his claws, then struck him with a hard jab to his kidneys that brought him to his knees. Breathing hard, damp with exertion, she then parried a savage onslaught of blows from the one she’d just nailed in the groin, nearly losing her footing as he got in a cracking backhanded hit across her face. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth, the inside of her lip broken open where it’d been smashed against the sharp point of her fang.
“You little bitch,” he growled, grabbing her while she was still reeling from the blow to her face. Damn it, she was screwing up, the effort it took to hold back her panic making her slow, making it too easy for this jerk to overpower her. She could no longer hear the music or the waspish shouts of the blondes, the thundering of her heart and racing pulse the only sounds that filled her head, as loud and thrashing as a ground-quaking storm. The shifter pulled her too close for her knee to be effective, and her lungs constricted at the feel of his heavy body mashed against hers.
Oh, hell. Here I go…
Her vision darkened…going hazy, the panic growing, swelling, just seconds away from crashing over her in a black, suffocating wave. Morgan opened her mouth, ready to scream for Kierland, her pride willing to take the blow if it meant getting free…getting out of that closed-in hellhole and away from the jerk-off who was about to do God-knew-what to her, when a fist suddenly shot past her head, connecting with a hammering blow against the bastard’s thick nose. Her assailant immediately let go, sprawling unconscious on the floor, his partner crawling away with the rest of the guards, and a new pair of hands grabbed onto her, spinning her around. In her confusion, she continued to struggle, but the muscular chest she was suddenly pulled up against smelled warm and delicious, the gaze that snared her wide eyes burning the brightest, most breathtaking green she’d ever seen.
Kierland.
His big hands were like manacles around her biceps, nearly lifting her off the ground, his body so close that she could feel the violent pounding of his heart pressed hard against her breasts. For a split second she was trapped in the scalding, fiery violence of his focus, thinking he would shake her or shove her away in anger. But he did neither of those things. Instead, he made a rough, animal-like sound low in his throat, and then he was…kissing her.
Kissing? Me? Oh my God…
CHAPTER TWO
MORGAN FOUGHT TO MAKE SENSE of her dazed, disorienting thoughts, but it was no use. Her abilities to reason or apply logic to the situation had been obliterated, first by the encroaching panic attack…and then by the shocking, searing touch of Kierland Scott’s mouth against hers. She knew he could taste the blood from her smashed lip as he deepened the devastating invasion, and it was an explicit kind of intimacy that made the carnal kiss even more than a physical melding of mouths. A scintillating wash of anger and hard male aggression hovered at its edges, but its main force came from something even more potent…more savage than fury, though it eluded her. In that moment, trying to grasp any kind of thought was like trying to hold on to an ethereal wisp of smoke.
His breath came in sharp pants as his mouth worked over hers, slanting for a deeper penetration as he licked inside, past her lips, seeking and tasting with dark intensity, pulling up an unwanted, frightening wave of pleasure from the churning depths of her body.
In a way, his effect on her—that magical, purely masculine way that he’d always mesmerized her—was even worse now than it’d b
een when she was that shy, gangly girl of eighteen. It didn’t matter that he was a jerk and a jackass, her traitorous body still wanted him. That part of her that had always hungered…always wondered what it would be like to kiss him, wanted so badly to get lost in the physical details of him. The heat of his skin. The rich, clean scent of his sweat. The hot, honeyed flavors of his mouth and the aggressively possessive way his fingers clenched around her arms, lifting her onto her toes. It was all beautiful to her, as painfully erotic as it was seductive.
Nearly out of her head with the accelerating burn of lust, Morgan was actually trying to crawl her way up his body, desperate to get as close to him as she could, when she caught a whiff of the blondes’ perfume clinging to his clothes.
And just like that, the fire went out.
From one second to the next, anger rose up like a deep, boiling geyser, obliterating the pleasure haze in her brain. Wrenching her mouth away, Morgan jerked out of his hold, fully aware that she was only able to break free because he’d let her. Then her palm cracked against the side of his face before she’d even realized she was going to hit him, snapping his head to the side.
“Don’t even think about kissing me when you smell like a couple of cheap hookers,” she panted, working to get her breath back.
“Don’t worry,” he muttered, pulling the back of his hand over his wet mouth as he stared down at her through the thick veil of his lashes. “They weren’t hookers. And they sure as hell weren’t cheap.”
Her lip actually curled. “And to think I honestly thought you had better taste than that.”
“Don’t sound so outraged.” His drawl was smooth and lazy, but the color in his dark face was still fever high. “I wasn’t looking to marry them.”
She gave a soft snort and rolled her eyes, not wanting him to know just how deeply the kiss had affected her. “Yeah, I know exactly what you were looking for.”
“Careful, Morgan,” he murmured, clucking his tongue, his eyes suspiciously narrow. “You almost sound jealous.”
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