Roth made a scoffing sound. “You know because your dick gets hard when you’re around her, you mean,” he growled. “I know you, Cad. You’re a horny devil. You always have been. I’d hoped that maybe you could curb your appetite while you completed this one assignment, but clearly I was wrong. This woman of yours now knows that Dragon shifters congregate here. She knows that the Dire Wolves meet here. She knows how you got here, too, I’ll bet. But you thought it was wise to bring her anyhow.”
“Even if she told Barton and his men, it’s not like they could get into this place,” Cad retorted. “No humans can, if they’re not accompanied by a shifter.”
None of the Alpha’s anger made sense. Roth had a gift for foresight—couldn’t he see that Cad and Phair were meant to be with Mir? Couldn’t he see a happy future for them?
But maybe that was the problem.
Maybe they weren’t meant to be happy. Perhaps Roth had seen something ugly on the horizon, something that would hurt his Pack.
“I didn’t send you to Barton’s to buy some attractive woman a few drinks,” the Alpha said. “I sent you there to help shifter-kind.”
Cad grimaced. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about, Roth? What’s going on here? Why are you being such a complete arse about my love life?”
The look that flashed across the Alpha’s face told Cad that if he asked one more question he’d lose his life. “You’ve defied my authority, Cadman. All for some woman you’ve just met, who’s probably using you for her own means.”
For a few seconds, Cad stared into Roth’s eyes, defiant. He wanted to punch him, to shout him down. To hell with him, and to hell with the Pack. Phair and Mir were pack enough for him. “It seems that you trusted me enough to send me into the den of a crime boss,” he said between gritted teeth, “but not enough to exercise my own judgment with matters of the heart.”
“The heart, is it?” Roth said. “Or is it the hard-on?”
“I can’t believe you’d say that to me,” Cad said. “I can’t believe that you of all people would judge my choice of mate.”
“She’s not your sodding mate, not yet,” Roth said, his tone curt. “Is she?”
Cad raised a fist, prepared to throw the hardest punch of his life, but he pulled it down to his side again when Lumen shot him a hard look of warning from the Guild’s table. Apparently Cad was on his own in this fight.
“She’s not my mate,” he replied. “Not yet.”
“So get her out of here and don’t bring her back. Finish the job I assigned you. Get me the information I asked for.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, you’re out of the Pack. You and Phair both.”
Chapter 17
“We’re leaving,” Cad growled as Phair and Mir stared at him, expressions of surprise on their faces. “Come on, then.”
For a moment Phair looked like he might protest, at least until he saw the I’m going to bury my fist in someone’s ribcage look on his friend’s face.
Cad led the way back into the tunnel, Phair and Mir following close behind. When the door behind them had sealed up, he spun around on his heel, his eyes bright with rage.
“It’s not right!” he ranted at no one in particular, his hands balling into angry fists.
“What’s not right?” Mir asked, stepping forward and reaching for his arm.
He looked down at her fingers, pressing into him so, so gently. This woman who’d been used and abused, who’d endured cruelty and servitude, still managed by some miracle to be kind, sensitive, sympathetic. And here he was, a ball of fiery aggression, ready to push a fist through the nearest stone wall.
All of a sudden he understood Phair’s concerns about his own anger.
“It’s not right that our Alpha wants us to stay away from you,” he said softly, his eyes meeting Mir’s. God, she was such a beauty. Such exquisite, perfect lines to her face. Such softness to the curves of her body. How could Roth ever expect him to resist her? How could he curse him and Phair with the cruel command that they walk away?
“He wants you to stay away because I’m human,” she said. “At least that’s what I assume.”
“Yes, that’s part of it,” Cad said hoarsely.
“I don’t particularly blame him,” Mir replied, letting out a soft laugh. “Humans really are the worst.”
“They’re the bane of our kind,” said Cad. “The bane of Dire Wolves, and now the bane of the Béorn.” He looked over at Phair, who was staring back with a look of pure understanding.
Somehow, in the midst of all of this madness, the two of them had become friends. More than that, even—they’d become two men who understood one another on the deepest possible level. They were two men who’d fallen in love with the same woman.
“I’m sorry,” said Mir. “I wouldn’t have come with you if I’d known it would cause problems.”
“It’s hardly your fault,” Cad replied. “It was my bad judgment. I suppose I—we, rather—wanted to show you off.”
Her fingers were still on his arm, and his words prompted her to move closer, to slip in front of him and to press herself close to his chest. “Show me off?” she asked. “Why would you want to do that?”
Coy little minx. She knew perfectly well why. She had to know how sexy she was.
“You’re really pretending that you don’t have a clue?” he asked, brushing her red hair away from her neck, stroking a finger over her ivory skin. He looked over at Phair. “Tell her, Béorn,” he said. “Tell her why we would want to show her to the whole world.”
Phair edged closer until he stood right behind her. He lay his hands on her hips and she arched her back, pushing herself into his massive body. “Because you’re a fucking goddess,” he growled. “Because you’re beautiful and kind, and because we want you more than either of us has ever wanted anything in this world. That’s why.”
“So take me,” she said.
A sigh escaped Mir’s lips as Cad pressed a line of kisses to her neck. From behind, Phair pulled off her coat, dropped it to the stone floor, and reached down to pull her dress upwards.
The next thing she knew, she was naked in a magical tunnel. Both men were in front of her on their knees, a mouth on each nipple.
With each stroke of their tongues, with each gentle suck, she felt something inside her tumbling down, down, into an abyss. A sweet, dark world of wonders where she felt a sense of delight, of glorious, wondrous belonging.
She pushed herself backwards into the wall. She wore nothing now but a her boots and a very tiny thong, which both men eyed hungrily when they’d pulled back to look at her. For once she’d allowed herself the pleasure of an undergarment, and now she was so pleased with her choice.
“May I?” asked Cad, turning respectfully to his friend as he gestured to the garment.
“Be my guest. I’m happy to watch,” Phair replied.
Cad edged forward on his knees. When he was close enough, he took a piece of the thong between his teeth and yanked it downwards, drawing a laugh out of Mir.
“You’ll rip it!” she chastised.
“Aw, that would be such a shame, wouldn’t it?” said Phair as Cad completed his task. When he’d pulled it down far enough, she stepped out, all too aware of the cool breeze that passed over her naked skin. Too aware that she was in some otherworldly, mystical place that might at any moment become occupied by more shifters.
“Are we okay here?” she asked. “I mean, we just came through the door…”
“We’re fine,” Cad moaned as he pushed his nose between her legs and inhaled deep. “Door’s gone.”
Mir turned to look back in the direction they’d come from. Sure enough, the vine-coated entrance to the Underground Club had entirely vanished.
“How? What?” she asked, her jaw dropping.
“Spells,” said Cad, burying his face between her legs. “Magic. Speaking of which, fuuuuck,” he muttered. He drew back and looked up at her, narrowing his eyes. “
Do you know how good you are?” he asked.
She shook her head. “You tell me.”
“I’ll show you. I’ve been wanting to taste this since day one.” He pressed a hand just above her sex and slipped his tongue over her ever so softly. Phair, meanwhile, rose to his feet and pressed his lips to hers.
As her head swirled with endorphins and a renewed sensation of drunkenness, Mir realized for the first time just how much she’d been craving these two men. How much she needed this, and them. How much she’d feared each day since they’d met that she’d never see them again.
Phair’s tongue met hers with a hunger that seemed to match her own, his kiss tender but aggressive, possessive and gentle at once. The big man was strong, but he seemed to read her body perfectly, just as his friend was doing between her thighs. The combined pleasure of both their mouths was almost too much to take.
Almost.
Cad sucked on her bud, his fingers sliding into her as he let out a soft moan. She knew how wet she was, and how much he loved that. She knew how turned on both of her lovers were, too.
Phair pulled back and smiled at her, his gorgeous eyes glowing with a beautiful golden light that reminded her in no uncertain terms that he was from a different world from hers. A world she wanted so badly to live in that it hurt.
He slipped down and took her right nipple between his lips again, even as Cad kneaded her sex with his fingers and lips.
“Keep doing that,” she moaned. “Keep doing it and I’ll come for you both.”
Never in her days at Barton’s club had a man brought her to orgasm. She’d faked it, of course; given them what they wanted by pretending they excited her. But even with the least offensive of the club’s clients, she’d never allowed herself the pleasure of letting go. It was too much to think of letting her body succumb to pleasure under the touch of men she despised.
But for Phair and Cad, it was the most natural thing in the world to release her body to them. They weren’t clients, they weren’t cruel users of her body.
They were her salvation.
When the orgasm exploded inside her, she grabbed at the wall behind her, grasping its uneven stones, her fingers gripping so hard she thought she’d shatter the hard surface. She cried out, a primal, erotic scream.
She’d been freed momentarily from her shackles, as though a gateway to her new life had just opened and was telling her to step through.
Except for one thing, she thought as her breathing calmed and the violent pulses of her body quieted down.
She couldn’t begin her new life. Not while Bry was still at Barton’s club. Not while her sister was vulnerable.
Her sister…
“Oh, no,” she blurted out. “What time is it?”
Cad let out a laugh, wiping his mouth. “Let me guess: time for another go?” he asked.
“I’m serious,” she said, her voice panicked, sweat beading on her forehead. “What’s the time?”
He stood up and pulled out his mobile. When he looked at it, his eyes went wide for a moment. Phair, who had pushed himself against the wall, said, “What’s going on? What’s the matter?”
“It’s ten-fifty,” Cad said. “We need to get back to Barton’s.”
Chapter 18
“Oh, God. If we’re too late…” Mir moaned as the car wove in and out of traffic, drawing angry honks from London’s myriad night-shift cabbies. “If we miss our curfew, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“We’ll talk to Barton and explain,” Phair said in a calm tone. “We’ll tell him it’s our fault. It’ll be fine.”
“You don’t understand,” she replied, trying but failing to avoid staring at the clock. It was ten fifty-five. “At precisely eleven, I know exactly what he’ll do. He’ll send…” She shut her mouth. Best not to say it. Saying it made it real, and she couldn’t bear for it to be real. Couldn’t bear to be the cause of more pain.
Damn it, why had she been so irresponsible?
“Wait, Mir—what will happen at eleven?” Cad asked.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard, hesitant to reply. Cad was doing as good a job as he could, manoeuvring the car in and out of an insane amount of traffic. But there wasn’t much he could do now. It was too late.
“It…it doesn’t matter,” Mir said. Except that it does. It matters more than anything in the world. “We just…we have to get there. Please, do everything you can.” She swallowed hard. “This is all my fault. God, I’m such a selfish idiot.”
“Shite, you’re worried about your sister,” Phair exclaimed as though a sudden moment of enlightenment had flickered to life inside his mind. “Oh, bollocks. I’m sorry, Mir. You’re not the selfish one; we are. I don’t know how it never occurred to us that Barton’s men might take this out on her. At most I thought he’d give us a stern reprimand.”
“Of course it wouldn’t occur to you,” she choked out. There was no point in holding back the tears anymore. “Because you don’t know Barton, not really. And you haven’t met Bry. You haven’t seen what they did to her. She isn’t real to you, not yet. But she’s real to me, and I can’t think what might happen to her if I don’t walk through the front door by eleven.”
“Don’t worry, Mir. There’s no way he or any of those bastard miscreants of his is laying a hand on her. If I have to lose my license to make it happen, I’ll get us there.” Cad hit the gas, shooting the car into the oncoming lane and tearing by the slower traffic like an ambulance on its way to the scene of a heart attack.
At precisely eleven o’clock, he pulled the Peugeot up in front of the club. The three leapt out of the car and dashed in through the front door, past the tables of late-night stragglers. Past confused-looking women and bartenders.
Mir slammed her hand into the door leading to the basement stairwell and tore down in her high-heeled boots, praying silently that she wasn’t too late. The shifters were right behind her, ready to spring into action. She only hoped that there wouldn’t be any need for violence tonight.
She sprinted into the kitchen.
Oh, God, she thought. I’m too late.
Gunner was standing over Bry, pressing her left wrist to the counter. A butcher knife was clasped in his right hand, ready to fall. When he heard Mir, he turned and glared at her as though he’d been waiting to see her eyes before committing the pending atrocity.
“You’re late,” he growled.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Traffic was bad. But we’re here now. Please—let my sister go.”
But Gunner only raised the knife higher in the air.
Mir shut her eyes, waiting for her sister’s scream to hit her ears like an explosion.
“Put the knife down, you bastard,” bellowed a deep voice from behind her. “Or I’ll rip your spine out through your sodding mouth.”
Mir opened her eyes, hope filling her like liquid fire. Gunner had frozen in place, the blade high in the air. But he didn’t seem to have done it of his own volition. It was almost like Phair’s voice had petrified him, turned him temporarily to stone.
She darted forward, grabbing Bry, who was still in one piece, and pulled her free of Gunner’s grip. The two sisters held each other while Phair walked up to Barton’s henchman and pulled the knife away from his hand.
He poked the man on the shoulder. “You can settle now, you wanker,” he said. Gunner’s arm dropped to his side and he stared, terrified, at the Béorn shifter.
“Jaysus, what did you just do to me?” he asked.
“Luckily for you, nothing,” said Phair. “But if you’d hurt the lady, I would have followed through on my threat. Now, go tell your boss that if he harms any of his ‘employees,’ he’ll have me to deal with. If any of you ever lays a hand on either of these two women again, I will make you suffer for it like you’ve never imagined. Do you hear me?”
Gunner nodded and sprang out of the room.
Cad stepped towards the two women. “Are you all right?” he asked, looking at Mir before settling his
eyes on her sister. Mir watched nervously to see how Bry would react to the shifters.
But she didn’t seem afraid, or even stressed. If anything, she looked remarkably calm for someone who’d just lived through a trauma.
Bry nodded. “I’m fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been threatened, as you can see,” she said, looking up at Cad. For once, she wasn’t trying to hide the left side of her face behind a wall of hair.
“It’s the last time, though,” Cad said. “I promise you that.”
“Bry, um, this is Cad,” said Mir. “And Phair. They’re the men I was telling you about.”
“It’s our fault,” Phair said. “Our fault your sister was late, and we can’t apologize enough for it. We put you in danger, and that’s the last thing we ever wanted.”
“It’s all right,” said Bry.
“No, it’s not.”
She turned slightly and looked at him for a moment before narrowing her eyes thoughtfully. “You two don’t care that I’m burned,” she said. Her tone told Mir that she was happy. Delighted, even, albeit in a subdued sort of way. A day ago she hadn’t wanted these men to know about her existence, but somehow, she’d accepted them into her life the moment they’d met.
More magic. That’s what this was.
Happiness was an emotion she hadn’t seen on her sister’s face in a long time.
“We care very much that you were injured,” said Phair. “We care that someone did this to you, that is.”
“But what I mean is, it doesn’t bother you that I have scars.”
Phair smiled. “You want to talk about scars? I have an enormous, out of control killing machine living inside me,” he replied. “A beast with fangs larger than that knife.” He nodded towards the would-be weapon on the counter. “I would never judge a lovely woman for a meagre flesh wound. Scars are maps of the places we’ve been. The things we’ve seen and done. Scars are badges to be worn with pride.” He pointed to the one on his left eyebrow. “This came from a Panther shifter some years back—who, by the way, has a very large set of slashes on his right cheek. Neither of us is ashamed to have been injured.”
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