Conan was walking through, ahead of them. He worked the crowd and there were even a few women who flashed some rolled up wads of cash at him. He turned them away silently and continued to make his way to the bar. Raven took this as her chance to question him.
“Why are you the only one in your pack who thinks you’re responsible for the disappearances?” she asked, hopping on a stool next to him.
“Because I don’t know what happens after I smoke.” He shrugged, signaling the bartender. The guy serving them drinks was cute with curly blonde hair and shirtless body. He wiped a glass clean while asking them for their order.
“Seltzer water and cranberry juice,” Conan told him.
“Is there a number? Anyone in particular that you actually remember?” she asked him.
Conan huffed and groaned a bit. “Why don’t you order something to drink? You’re way too stiff for what you have on. You sound like a reporter, not an Enforcer.”
“I’m stiff? But you’re the one ordering cranberry soda.” She shook her head, turning around and putting her back against the bar. She set her elbows on top of the counter. It inadvertently forced her cleavage up and practically out of the bra top. Conan’s eyes found their way to them. He licked his lips and shuffled his stance a bit.
“You keep standing like that and I’ll show you what’s stiff about me,” he joked.
Raven looked down, suddenly remembering she wasn’t in her usual garb. “Shit!”
She stood erect, pulling her shorts down and the bra up. Michy sashayed over with a smile on her face. “Why are you two over here all alone? You should be out on the dance floor shaking it up and having a good time. Besides, Ivan’s out there.”
Hearing the man’s name piqued Conan’s interest and he craned his neck looking for him on the dance floor.
“I’ll be back,” Conan told them as he began to snake his way through the crowd.
Raven tried to keep her eyes on him, but her senses were becoming overwhelmed again. There was too much going on all at once. There were wolves and humans alike moving together, talking and laughing. It all seemed very innocent, and she began to understand what Alan was saying. So long as it remained this peaceful and innocent there wasn’t anything that needed to be fixed.
“Did you get something to drink yet?” Michy asked her.
“No.” She shook her head.
Michy signaled the bartender while Raven watched Conan talk to a guy, presumably Ivan. They exchanged something but all Raven saw was Conan light a cigarette.
“Here, drink this,” Michy told her, offering her a shot glass filled with an amber-colored liquid.
“What is it?” Raven asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Drink it. It’ll loosen you up and who knows? Maybe you’ll get a chance to dance with Ricky.” She eyed the bartender.
“I really just want to do my job and get back home,” Raven told her honestly.
“Go back home to do what? Stare at the old men and women of the Council? To be alone in your cabin in the woods? Girl, relax and enjoy yourself. You’ll do your job. Tomorrow, you will be right on top of everything. For tonight, you should let loose and have some fun. It might actually help your investigation to see what you’re looking for,” Michy reasoned.
When she explained it that way, Raven didn’t feel so bad about the minuscule part of her that actually wanted to have a good time. Fun wasn’t exactly a concept she grew up with. Being bred to become an Enforcer had been a childhood dedicated to perfection and a very strict curriculum of training. Raven forced herself to think about all the fun she had missed out on growing up, so it would be easier for her to take the shot. She downed it. The liquid burned her throat slowly, igniting a ball of heat in her belly.
“Good girl,” Michy said, signaling to the bartender again. “Another round.”
“No!” Raven protested. “I don’t know what kind of effect this is going to have on me.”
“I do.” Michy laughed, handing her another shot. They clinked the tiny glasses. “Bottoms up!”
Chapter Four
The music blasted around her making Raven sway her scantily clad hips from side to side. She shimmied and danced around Conan on the dance floor. Even he was in a better mood than when they first arrived. The man dancing with them, laughing and mildly conversing with others, was a little shorter than Conan. He danced erratically, without any rhythm or sensuality whatsoever. He handed Conan a lit cigarette, to which Raven pulled from his clutch.
“No!” They both shouted to her.
But it was too late, she took a long, slow pull, ingested the smoke, and held it in. Her eyes glossed over and her inhibitions fled. She slid the cigarette back between Conan’s lips, while wrapping her arms around his neck as they continued to party.
Conan smiled and Raven couldn’t help herself as she ran a hand over his head. Before she could stop herself, she kissed him. Softly on the lips, at first. The music kept playing, but Conan stopped dancing. He mouthed a few words to her, but Raven didn’t hear him. The music was too loud. She shrugged and pulled him back into her body. He smiled and shook his head as he danced the night away with her.
The more they danced, the lighter Raven felt on her feet. Conan’s strong arms were wrapped around her body and he kept his eyes only on her. She could feel someone tugging on her arm, but he shooed them away. It was as if they’d known each other for a thousand lifetimes while she swayed in his arms. The next time they kissed, it was Conan who bent down to her. She parted her lips only a bit, but Conan stuck his tongue between them drawing her deeper into him. With their mouths pressed against each other, she felt his hand grab her ass to pull her against his growing erection. It wasn’t hard to miss in his thin satin pants.
Raven dropped her hand, wrapping her fingers around it through the fabric.
Conan sucked in air through clenched teeth. “So that’s the magic grip they’ve been bragging about.”
He bent down and kissed her neck while she stroked him gently. The passion between them grew far more quickly than Raven anticipated. Whatever was in that cigarette had every inch of her guard down, and every inch of Conan’s cock up.
“We can’t do this,” she said backing away. Whatever it was, it was wearing off. Like a ton of bricks, all that was light, fun, and freeing came crashing to a halt. Her stomach churned, her eyes grew heavy, and suddenly her temperature rose to numbers that made her delirious.
That was the last thing Raven remembered. The next time she opened her eyes, she was outside The Barstow. It had to be late as there wasn’t anyone walking on the street. She heard a few howls off in the distance, but what came in clearer and closer were the sounds of Alan, Shana, and Devon.
“Drag those parts into the basement and throw her into the furnace,” Alan commanded.
Shana sighed. “I can’t believe we have to do this again. I mean, what use is she if we’re still cleaning up entrails!? Like we’re in the fucking wilderness. This is not what I signed up for Alan.”
“Just shut the hell up Shana and get it done. I’ll be back. I have to do fucking damage control,” Alan said to them.
“It’s not her fault,” she heard Michy speak. “She didn’t know how hard Conan and Ivan party. No one knows how crazy those cigs make you til you smoke ‘em.”
“No excuse,” Shana snapped. “She’s not here to party. I don’t know what Alan was thinking when he sent her down there!”
“He was thinking that she would help clear Conan’s name and his conscience. He really thinks he’s behind this!”
“Maybe he is!” Shana shouted, throwing her hands up. “Just take the pictures and upload them. I’ll figure out what we have to do later. I’m exhausted. Get her upstairs and out of our clothes. She’s an Enforcer. Let her be just that.”
Raven pulled herself up to sit against the building. The corpse was bloody, with an unrecognizable face and a mangled body. Its intestines dragging as Devon scooped up the severed parts and tossed them in a
basket beside the bin Shana placed the victim in.
“Does anyone know where Conan went?” Shana asked them.
“I was in the front all night.” Devon shrugged. “Whatever way he got out, it wasn’t past me.”
“When she started to lose it, she was all over the place. I was just trying to keep her head and our reputation intact. By the time we got out here to get her some fresh air, we found this. I really don’t think this is Conan’s work,” Michy said.
“Well, until someone finds him, we won’t know anything,” Shana snapped. “You two go out and find him. I’ll finish up here and help that one upstairs. If he has blood on him, don’t let him out of your sight and bring him right to Alan. I don’t want her to get her hands on him until we know what’s going on.”
“Would you really let her kill Conan?” Michy asked, with tears in her voice.
“If he has the bloodlust, then we don’t have a choice. There’s so much more at stake here than just our livelihoods,” Shana explained. Everyone went their separate ways.
By the time Shana finished picking up the bloody mess, Raven was sober enough to stand up on her own. After snapping a few pictures of the scene with her own phone, she eyed the Barstow sibling before looking down at herself. Still wearing short shorts and a leather bra, Raven shook her head. That’s when it began to throb.
“Come on.” Shana sighed. “Let’s get you upstairs. You’ll do better not to mention this part in your report.”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I can barely remember what happened,” Raven told her honestly. “Do you really think Conan did that?”
“No, I don’t want to believe that,” she said sincerely. “I’ve known Conan since he was a kid. We’ve been looking after him ever since. This isn’t him. Granted he has a bit of a troubled past, but nothing that warrants this.”
They took the private elevator up, opening into Alan’s penthouse suite. He could be heard on the phone talking to someone. Raven sighed as the idea of her undressing right there in the entryway made sense. Conan’s temper tantrum from earlier had a lot more perspective now that she had a taste for what he felt like, especially if the clothes were going back in the closet anyway.
“Can you elaborate on that past of his?” Raven asked wearily.
“You look tired, honey. Why don’t you go and get some rest? When they bring Conan back here, you can ask him yourself. That's the kind of information you need to hear from the source’s mouth,” she told her, and pursed her lips together.
Raven could tell that while Shana didn’t outwardly despise her, she didn’t quite like her either. That was fine with Raven. She wasn’t trying to be a member of their pack anyway. So with a deep breath, she decided to take Shana’s advice and make her way toward Michy’s apartment.
Stepping out of Alan’s condo, there was a circular space in which all five doors looked back at her. Raven knew which one was Michy’s, but the scent hitting her was all too familiar. While everyone else was scouring the city for Conan, he’d never left the building. She walked up to the door and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked and she stepped into his place.
The space had a far more rustic feel than Raven anticipated. It made her think of home. Wood beams straddled the ceiling while a large window overlooked the city. There was a bar in the corner and his kitchen lined the back wall next to it. On another wall, there was a bed with a furry comforter. It was soft to the touch as she ran her hands over it. There was a door that she opened, following the scent trail, but all she found was a closet. No Conan.
It could be the drugs, or whatever was in that cigarette, throwing her senses out of whack but she didn’t want to believe that. She knew Conan was in there, somewhere. She could feel his energy. They were linked from the moment they’d kissed.
Raven circled around his apartment one more time before ending up back in the closet again. She stepped in to see a bunch of jackets and shirts hanging up. Then she saw it. It was simple. It was discreet. It was a silver handle along the corner seam of the back wall. It jutted out after she touched it. Pulling it toward her, the soft click of the hidden lever echoed around her.
The coats and shirts moved with the wall as she pulled it open and stepped into the secret room. It was dark, cold. The feeling of the floor under her feet was a reminder that she wasn’t outside, it was warm. She could smell dirt, pine trees, and even more so…rock. The scent of granite, slate, all of those familiar aromas made her feel warm. A light turned on.
In the corner of the room was a massive piece of rock. It looked like a cave but where the opening would be lay a hot tub, built into the floor. It was bubbling. Steam rose from it.
“What are you doing in here?” Conan asked.
Turning around, he was laying on a bed of leaves and dirt with a pair of thin spandex boxers on. His beautiful green eyes were red and tired. She imagined that's the look her eyes often contained that drew out people’s unnecessary opinions on how exhausted she looked on a regular basis.
“What is this place?”
“My home away from home in my home,” he said nonchalantly. “Shhhh. Don’t say anything. Come lay with me, Raven. Come lay with me.”
Chapter Five
Raven felt a little uneasy lying down next to Conan in his present state. She was still buzzed and he was obviously more inebriated than she was. His pupils were dilated. His hands wouldn’t stop moving. They landed on her ass quite a bit, but she enjoyed the attention of a man that didn’t require her to kill him in that moment. At least she hoped she wouldn’t have to kill him.
Taking a deep breath, she turned onto her side. Looking Conan in the eyes, he avoided her gaze.
“Do you remember what happened between us?” she asked him.
“Of course, I do. You touched my cock in the club and then I killed someone.” He sighed.
Raven brought herself closer to him, she inhaled deeply but the only scent she smelled was his own. “You don’t smell like the woman Alan and Shana just cleaned up. So, no...I don’t think you did.” She pulled away from him slightly.
“I did, and I’ll tell you exactly how,” he said, and smiled.
“Fine.” She sighed, leaning back into him. She didn’t believe him. There wasn’t enough evidence on him for her to do so. But she appeased him anyway. “Tell me how you did it.”
“Well, after you pulled away from our kiss, that delicious kiss. You’re a wonderful kisser by the way. You should kiss people more often. We should kiss more often.” He chuckled, running his fingers through her hair. He inched closer toward her face, his lips supple and yearning for her mouth.
Raven shook him away. “Finish telling me what happened.”
“I wanted to touch you. I wanted to touch anyone with a pussy, honestly. I was so fucking horny, thanks to you. Then Ivan tells me he has three women primed and ready to go.” He gestured as if he were grabbing breasts.
“What does that mean primed and ready to go?” she asked him.
“That means that when I party with Ivan and I want to have sex with a woman, there are women who party with us that would also like to have sex. They don’t expect the extra stuff like the people at the Wolf Den. We can have as much sex as we like. But most of the time, this is what I want. This right here, just me and my mate laying in the forest, looking up at the stars.”
“There are no stars in here, Conan,” Raven told him, with a light giggle.
“Not true,” he said, reaching over to a switch on the wall. A motor turned on and a skylight opened up. It was about three feet by three feet, with the moon shining down so brightly it lit up the specks of glitter in the paint on the wall. It looked like a night under the stars inside a penthouse condo. Raven smiled.
“Now that’s what I like. A woman to smile. You know how hard it is to make these women smile. They come in night after night, and I can make them cum but I rarely make them smile,” he lamented.
“If you made me cum, I’d be grinning ear to ear,” Raven mu
mbled.
“Nope you wouldn’t,” he told her bluntly. “You’d ride my tongue, beg me for more and then when I refuse, you’d be mad. They all get mad because they can’t have all of me. I can sex a woman six ways to Sunday, but because I don’t, they get mad.”
“You’re talking gibberish, Conan. Tell me about the girl from tonight. The girl you killed,” she asked him again.
“I already told you, she was primed and ready to go, only when we got outside Ivan disappeared. He was the ride. I don’t bring women upstairs. Alan don’t want no one up here but us.”
“Isn’t that a bit off seeing how he’s running a club that promotes the very idea of co-mingling the species?”
“Shhh...No business talk.” He waved his fingers leisurely in front of her face. Turning to her, he eyed her. There was something in those green eyes of his that made Raven forget what her actual job was. She hated the effect he was having on her. She’d let him distract her again. Now he moved in closer to her, nuzzling against her neck. His lips on her skin made her lose her train of thought. The answers she needed, they were fading with every pass of his tongue against her neck.
Moaning and groaning, his hands roamed over her thighs, inching closer and closer to her center. She was panting; wondering if he actually made her cum, how big would her smile be?
Raven got a hold of herself and grabbed his hand. “Conan, please. Tell me about the girl. She was primed and ready. Ivan disappeared. You killed her. How did that happen? Where’s all the blood?”
Conan snarled a bit before rolling over, grabbing Raven around the waist he moved on top of her with the widest grin on his face. He wasn’t interested in talking about a kill.
She placed her hand on his chest and with the slightest amount of her strength, she pushed him onto his back. She straddled him, pinning his arms to his sides with her legs. Raven gripped him by the chin. “Dammit, Conan, tell me about the girl!”
The Wolf's Temptation (Alpha Wolves of Myre Falls Book 2) Page 3