Tor moved into the room. “So, now what? You went to see her, how does this link to birds?”
“Just before she kicked me out of her bar—”
“She kicked you out?” Jo released a new rumble of fresh laughter.
“She said I smelled too sweet.” Ladon sighed. “Anyway, as I left, the guys at the bar teased her about seeing birdmen again. They told me to run, or she would get the birdmen to hunt me down.”
The energy in the room changed instantly. It went from a light air of teasing to the thick, pungent, inkiness of danger.
V looked to Wyvern. “Vern, besides the oil rig, have you heard anything?”
Wyvern shook his head as he turned and started typing madly on the three different keyboards he had connected to the twenty different screens.
“What else did they say? How did she respond?” Tor asked.
“She brushed them off, threatened to shove a glass up one of their asses I do believe was the exact phrasing.” Ladon chuckled. “She is kinda badass.”
“But you definitely heard them use the word ‘birdmen’?” V clarified.
“I may have just gained a mate who hates the very scent of me, but my hearing is above average. I heard them say something about a bum who saw men turning into birds, but then they referred to Doug seeing them… honestly, I don’t know what to make of it. Hence, why I was coming to Wyvern before bringing it to you all,” Ladon answered them.
“But you were going to bring it to me, right?” V asked.
“Of course, I’m not stupid.”
V nodded, satisfied with the honesty in which Ladon replied. “Okay, Vern, find out what you can. Looks like we need to get someone to talk to Doug.”
Ladon held up his hands. “She doesn’t even want me in the bar.”
“Mmm…” V thought for a second or two. “One of the girls?”
“Which one?” Tor asked.
“Who did she have the best initial response to?” V asked.
Tor groaned. “Kylee. When we went there the first time looking for the right bar for Ladon’s party, she and Kylee seemed to hit it off.” Tor rubbed his eyes. “It’s definitely Kylee.”
“Kylee will be perfect. She’ll have the info you need within an hour. That girl could get information from a dead body.” Jo nodded.
“That’s what I am afraid of. We don’t want to scare her off,” Ladon replied nervously.
“Kylee will be fine. Jo, you can go with her,” V stated.
“V? Jo, really?” Ladon protested.
Jo grinned like a Cheshire cat and saluted V. “You got it, boss. I’ll go get Kylee and fill her in on the way. We’ll be back late tonight.” He left the room.
“You sure about this, V?” Tor asked with trepidation.
Volos nodded. “Absolutely. Those two will be the least threatening out of all of us. Their non-ability to have a serious conversation that doesn’t involve gutter humor or fart jokes will be exactly what puts Doug at ease. At least, that’s what I’m betting on.” He looked at Wyvern. “You know what to do, right?”
Wyvern nodded. “Complete family history check. Also, I might bring up any video I have around the bar or her address when I find it and scour for any shadows or discrepancies.”
“Good. Report back as soon as possible.” V walked to the door, stopping to look back. “As in like ten minutes ago.” He tapped the wall and walked out.
“This is like my first official duty.” Kylee grinned as she walked along the roadside with Jo. She hooked her hand through his arm and squeezed. “Do you realize how monumental that is?”
Jo shrugged. “It’s just work to me.”
“It’s not just work, Jo. This is me being accepted by your kind. This is me being useful to the clan. I can’t express how much this means to me.” Kylee was normally in your face and brash, but right now, her appreciation at being asked to help was far exceeding her need to crack a gutter joke.
Jo stopped to look at her. “We accept you. This is not a condition of that. We have accepted all you crazy babes.”
“The other crazy babes, as you put it, are mated. Payton is with Volos and Taryn with Tor. Now Doug for Ladon… I am the odd sheep. Not mated. No reason to be there, yet here I am.” She grinned. “As much as I want to smell the sweetshop on you, you sexy, beefcake of all that is black and scaled.”
“You couldn’t handle all that is Jo.” He scoffed. “Even the goddess knows that.”
“The goddess could have at least let me play.” Kylee laughed as she hooked her arm back in. “It’s just down there a bit further. Looks like it’s going to be a busy night.” The sun had started to dim for the evening. The street was beginning to come to life with nighttime activities. “What if she’s too busy to talk?”
Jo shrugged. “We don’t go home till we get what we came for. So, I hope the band is good and the beer is cold. It might be a late one.”
“Just don’t cramp my style if Hottie McHottie wants my number, okay?” Kylee teased him.
Jo shook his head vehemently. “Not going to happen. We’re on a mission. That means this is all business.”
Kylee stopped walking to look at her self-proclaimed partner in crime. “Is this the serious Jo I’ve heard about?” She tilted her head. “Not from your brothers, of course, they all think you’re a massive goof-off. The ladies, however, they say there is a serious side to you.”
Jo leaned in. “Meh.” He shrugged. “I am whatever annoys people the most at the time.” Jo grinned. “If me playing the straight, serious type annoys you tonight, then that’s what I will do.”
Kylee smacked his arm. “Lucky I adore the very scales on your ass.” Opening the door, she bowed with a dramatic flourish of her arm. “Shall we begin?”
“Woman, I’m the one supposed to open doors and shit,” Jo growled at her playfully. “That’s the man’s job.”
“Thank you, but my balls are indeed bigger than yours.” Kylee chuckled as she ushered Jo into the bar in front of her with her head peering around his shoulder—he was a lot taller than her. “There…” shooting her arm out, she spotted a spare table in the corner, “… that’s the perfect spot to sit.”
The two of them wound their way through the tables, chairs, and humans to the spare table in the far corner. Sitting with their backs to the wall, they looked around.
“Good table, Kyls,” Jo said quietly. “I can see everything from here, ‘cept…” Jo twisted in his chair to see the full bar. “Oh, it’s all good. There she is.” Just then, if by instinct, Doug looked up and directly into Jo’s eyes. A bolt of energy shot through the air causing Jo’s hairs to stand on end. “Woah,” he said as he looked at his arm. “That was weird.”
“What’s up?”
“Not sure I know, but something’s definitely up, and it’s not me.” He grinned at Kylee on the last bit.
“That’s later.” She winked. “Beer?” Jo nodded as she stood and walked over to the bar. Sliding between two middle-aged men, she propped her butt cheek on the spare stool and waited for her turn.
“Hello, pretty lady,” the man next to her turned slightly, dropping his arm from the bar toward her knee.
Kylee’s eyes flicked to where his hand was directed, then back to his drunken glazed eyes. “That touches me, and you’ll need a nurse to wipe your ass.” The hand stopped an inch from her leg and quickly moved back to the bar. Kylee chuckled. “Smartest thing you’ve done today.” Turning her body toward the bar, she watched Doug make her way down.
“Hey…” Doug said, Kylee’s name caught on her lips.
“Kylee,” Kylee prompted.
“Yes, sorry, Kylee. So many names.” Doug grinned. “What can I do for you? You here alone?”
Kylee shook her head, turning and pointing back to her company for the night. “I have Jo with me. Do you remember him from the other night?”
Doug nodded. “Who can forget all that ink?” Doug looked over and smiled at Jo. He was wearing a tight-fitting black T-shirt an
d jeans. It not only showed off his incredibly large physique but also the fully inked arms and neck up to his jawline.
“He’s pretty dang unforgettable.” Kylee grinned as she turned back to the bar.
“Are you together?”
“Jo and me?” She cackled. “Nah, he can’t handle all this.”
“I could, though,” the man next her murmured.
Kylee’s eyebrows shot up as he issued a challenge. She leaned in closely but spoke loud enough for the few around them to hear. “You can barely handle sitting on that chair. What makes you think you could handle eight hours of spanking and torture, and that’s even before I show you some flesh.” She licked her lips slowly. “Go back to Mommy, little man, there ain’t nothing here for you.”
Doug burst into loud laughter causing more of the bar to turn and stare at the fast flushing face of a man who had just had his ass handed to him on a verbal platter by a beautiful woman. Kylee was wearing a blood-red tank top that barely stretched across her ample breasts. Together with her skinny black jeans, she was smoking hot, and she knew it.
“Pete, put your teeny weeny away and treat my friend with respect. You know how I feel about manners.” Doug’s chortling dropped with every word as she centered her eyes on one of her regular barflies.
“Yes, Doug.” He briefly looked up at Kylee then back to his beer. “Sorry.”
“Beer?” Doug asked Kylee.
“Yes, please, hon. Two.”
“I’ll bring them out to you,” Doug said with a smile.
“You never deliver to me, Doug,” a man seated at a table close to the bar cried out with a fake pout.
“I don’t like you, Dan. Simple,” Doug replied coldly as she turned and nodded to Kylee who started to make her way back to her table.
Jo and Kylee sat for a few minutes as the band adjusted their instruments and made sound checks. They were halfway between the bar and the stage, positioned in the perfect vantage point without affecting either of the crowded areas.
Doug slid up and sat on the spare chair. Placing two beers on the table in front of Jo and Kylee, she flopped back in the chair with a sigh. “It’s madness tonight. This band always draws in a huge crowd.” Doug looked over as people kept piling through the door. “You picked the right night to come down.”
“Yeah, looks like it will be standing room only soon,” Jo said.
“We kinda want to talk to you,” Kylee added.
“Yeah? Well, that won’t be for hours. Within thirty minutes, I won’t even have time to pee, so if you’re still around later… maybe. Can’t imagine what you want to talk about, though.”
“Just stuff, and we will be sticking around,” Jo said with more aggression than he intended.
Doug’s head jolted slightly as she was taken aback at his abruptness. The silence hung like a hangman’s noose for a few beats before Doug’s tone changed from friendly to defensive. “Yeah, I don’t really react well to dominant male stuff, sorry.” She looked to Kylee and smiled. “He’s lucky he’s with you. Otherwise, I would have dropped him for that.” She got up from the table. “Beers are at the bar if you want more, but I wouldn’t stick around, I just lost my interest in conversation.” Without waiting for any response, she turned and walked back into the abyss that was the crowd who were all now dancing and singing to the band.
Kylee looked at Jo, her eyes flamed with anger. “What was that shit? Seriously? What. The. Fuck. Jo?”
“I didn’t mean…” Jo ran a hand through his hair. “I just—”
“You’re supposed to be the ladies’ man. Did you even engage your brain before speaking?” Kylee growled at him. “Leave this to me, okay?”
Jo nodded, and Kylee got up and went back to the bar. This time she sat at the end where there was a last stool free. Doug looked at her and frowned, but Kylee sat firm. She knew she needed to talk to her, and damned if she would fail like the knucklehead of a dragon she came with.
“Seriously?” Doug came back down after what seemed like an hour, but from the clock on the wall, it was about thirty minutes. “You don’t go away, do you?”
Kylee smiled. “Nah, never been a quitter. Besides, it’s the dick I came with who was rude, not me. I can’t be held accountable for him being raised by Neanderthals.”
Doug looked for a second before laughing. “Men, can’t live with them…” she let the pause draw out before she added with a snort, “Nup, just can’t live with them.”
Kylee joined in. “Preach it, sistah.”
“Hey…” the man a few stools up protested.
“John? Go home to your wife. For some crazy reason she still wants you,” Doug scolded him. John nodded as he got off the stool and walked out the door.
“Do they always listen like that?” Kylee asked in awe.
“Mostly. These guys are like family. I’ve known them for so long now.” Doug grabbed a cloth and started wiping the spilled beer off the bar top. Doug looked up the bar to see her two assistants tending to the clients, so she stopped and leaned against the dark wooden top. “What do you want to talk about?”
Kylee thought for a second, she hadn’t expected to be the one leading the conversation. She had actually intended to play second fiddle, wingman to the mighty Jo as he did what he was good at and worked the ladies. Yet, here she was, Jo having busted out on his first bat, leaving her to bring in the home run.
Should she approach Doug from the side, and slide it in gently with the delicacy of an experienced high-class escort? Or should she skip the lube and flop it out on the bar hoping for a strike, like a virgin’s first time.
Delicate or direct?
Which way would be the best approach with Doug?
Kylee’s eyes were brought up to Doug’s as she coughed to gain her attention. Her tiny frame tilted as she swung her hip out impatiently.
No lube it is, thought Kylee.
“Birds. I want to talk birds with you.”
Kylee watched Doug’s hip straighten as she creased her brow. “Now what would you want to know about birds?”
“Birdmen specifically.”
She popped the rag back out and started to clean again. “Nothing to know. It was all in the mind of a troubled friend.” She shrugged not wanting to dwell on the dreams that have been plaguing her ever since. She knew deep in her soul something wasn’t right, and with every fiber of her body, she knew that what Charlie saw was probably real. She just didn’t know the whys yet.
“You sure about that?” Kylee asked quietly.
“What I’m not sure about is you.” Doug returned the question with, “Why would confusing talk on the streets of men turning in to birds concern someone of your obvious stature?”
“Stature?”
“You heard me. It’s not like you’re from around here. I’ve lived here all my life, and yet, until a week ago, we’ve never crossed your path. As for the company you keep...” She flicked her eyes over to Jo, who was staring intently at them both. “They aren’t guys you forget seeing.” She placed her hands on the bar, just wider than her shoulders and leaned in. “So, why don’t you stop asking me questions and start telling me what has you so interested in me?”
Kylee loved this girl’s tenacity. Honestly, it was like looking in a mirror. If Kylee were shorter and had a pile of red hair curled on top in a messy bun, they would be twins. “Here? Right now, for all to hear?”
Doug looked around. “Possibly, not right now.”
“That’s why we’re going to stick around till later. Is that still possible?”
Doug thought about it for a few seconds. “I’ll give you ten minutes after closing time. Make sure you have your questions ready because I will.”
Kylee nodded. “Deal.” She walked back to Jo, sat and told him to enjoy the music because she took care of business.
Jo watched the band pack up, and the numbers slowly dwindled to a few men hanging onto the bar, literally. “Hope they aren’t driving,” he said. Jo loved a good drinking s
ession. However, seeing these men to the point where they needed an inanimate object to hold themselves up disgusted him.
“Nah, cabs have been called.” Doug pulled out the chair, swinging it backward and straddling it. Leaning her chest forward onto it in exhaustion, she said, “That was one hell of a shift.” Sighing as she set her tired eyes on Kylee and Jo. “You have ten minutes.”
“Is your real name Doug?” Jo blurted out.
“Jo?” Kylee gasped. “What is with you tonight?”
“No, it’s not,” Doug replied as she stared Jo down. “Are you really that insecure, you need to ink every inch of your body in some weird pitiful attempt at being a real man?”
“Oooh, dang girl,” Kylee cooed as she saw Jo recoil. “You’re totally giving me a lady-boner right now.” Kylee turned to Jo. “She is perfect, isn’t she?”
“Glad it’s not my fates this time,” Jo snorted. “Ladon is going to get his ass handed to him night after night with this one.”
“I have no idea what you two are talking about. If this is some kinky set-up-date thing, count me out. The only male I have time for in my life is black, furry, and currently sitting at my door waiting for me to come home and feed him,” Doug said as she started to get up.
“No set-up,” Kylee told a white lie, technically the set-up was already done. They weren’t actually doing anything regarding Ladon and her. “I want to ask about the birds, that’s all.”
“I wish I’d never heard about the damn birds. They have haunted me ever since Charlie saw them,” she said exhausted.
“Haunted you?” Jo asked quietly.
Doug’s shoulders dropped slightly. “I guess it doesn’t matter if you know. Ever since Charlie said he saw them, I’ve had nightmares about them. Well, I think it’s about them. It feels like it’s about them.” Doug rubbed her eyes. “I just want to sleep, but when I do…” her voice trailed off.
Kylee reached out to her arm, squeezing it gently. “I want to help.” She looked back to Jo before returning to Doug. “We… want to help you.”
“Help me what? It’s just a bunch of silly dreams. A seed planted in a tired mind by a troubled man. That’s all.”
Submerge (Apalala Clan Book 3) Page 7