Those dogs in question all rumbled a growl at Reece and I laid a hand on his rock-hard midsection to stop him from retaliating. Amelie caught my eye and winked, a small smile playing at her lips like she was enjoying the animosity.
“Thank you, Reece.” I smiled up at him and he scowled down at me. He knew full-well he was being dismissed, but he didn’t like it.
Too damn bad.
Something inside of me was urging me to make friends with the wolves and that wasn’t something I could do with a scowling autumn fae hovering over my shoulder and tossing insults at them.
“I’ll get you a fresh drink,” he muttered reluctantly, taking my surprisingly empty cup from my hand. I hadn’t even noticed myself drinking it.
Loud music filtered into the room through metal speakers placed at the four corners near the roof. It sounded tinny and garbled to my sensitive ears, but there were several people dancing and swaying to the noise, so I let it go.
“Some party,” Rafe said, leaning down, silver hair falling over his forehead, like beams of moonlight turned locks. “If this is how the fae celebrate their big victories nowadays, then maybe we’d best leave the Veil up and keep this taint away from Faerie?”
“What did you expect?” I asked him, watching as he sent the colored balls pinging across the green surface of the table. “What did you think coming here and insulting me would win you?”
“I’m not here to win anything,” Rafe continued, lifting his bloodred stare to mine. We locked gazes and I felt the pack members around me rippling with concern and agitation. I couldn’t remember much about myself or who I used to be, but I did have a general idea of the world around me. Dogs stared one another down in displays of dominance.
Neither Raphael nor I would look away first—I knew that instinctively.
“Okay,” Amelie said, covering my eyes with her palms. “That’s about enough of that, you two. Rafe, you did not come here to start trouble, did you?”
“Who says I’m the one starting trouble?” he continued as Amelie released me, and he leaned down to study the pool table as his beta took a shot. “And anyway, I didn’t expect to get a damn thing from this party. What I did expect was to see some of that fire, that spark that made the fae so goddamn great once upon a time. But maybe that’s all those legends are … faerie stories. They don’t mean shit anymore, do they?”
“Back in the day, my people would decapitate the heads of your people and roast them on spits. We’d play games and we’d make bargains. We’d torture and kill for fun, and we’d drink the tears of the weeping. If that’s what you came here to see, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“Don’t have the guts for it?” he asked, standing up to his full height and towering over me. He didn’t seem like a bad man, just a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. I wasn’t sure if he was intended to be friend or foe.
“Maybe I just don’t have a taste for cruelty?” I retorted, turning back to survey the room and hearing the alpha male sigh behind me.
“I didn’t come here to insult you or get in an argument—I came to offer my help.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I found Rafe watching me with a severe expression, one that spoke volumes as to the type of man he was. Stern, set in his ways, a leader, but also … an asshole. Both Ciarah and Gràinne knew what an asshole was.
And both of us loved … and hated them.
“In what capacity?” I asked, ready to walk away from the situation. I could feel that Rafe wasn’t used to dealing with equals. He was used to being the one and only boss. But he wasn’t going to boss me around.
“The full moon. You’ll need an escort to find Papa Cocodril.”
“I have many choices of escort,” I said, realizing that the room around me had devolved into drugs, drinking, swearing, and fucking. It didn’t much bother me, just a more modern version of what a faerie court used to look like.
A bacchanalian affair.
A den of debauchery.
I liked it that way … so long as my men knew to whom they belonged.
“Full moon. Werewolf,” Rafe continued, moving over to stand next to me. He smelt like earth and wild magic, like beast and burden. And he positively reeked of need, like he hadn’t mated recently and was in dire need of a warm body to soothe his. “You won’t find a better man for the job.”
“I’ll take Amelie then,” I said as his eyes narrowed on me. “A better man, perhaps I won’t find. But a woman? We both know what the wiser choice is here.” I turned away, shoving dark hair over my shoulder as I made my way to the open back door and found Reece standing on the dock, smoking and chatting with a group of other men.
He glanced over his shoulder as I stepped outside, waving his hand and sending the other men scattering.
“Wat you doin’ dere girl?” he asked me as I paused next to him, close enough to feel the heat of his body.
“Wondering why your father seems so bent out of shape?” I hedged, glancing up at the big man as his eyes roamed over the bayou, studying the distant shapes of sprites in the evening air. They hovered just outside the edge of my wards, waiting, watching.
“Some of da old-timers,” he started and then coughed, shaking his head and lighting up a cigarette, gray smoke curling over the thick curve of his lower lip. “They done gone and got used to bein’ in charge around here. They’re either too stupid or too slow to realize what your presence here means.”
A girl’s rowdy shout echoed from inside the building and I narrowed my eyes. There were more than just guests in there—there were strippers. I didn’t know who had hired them, but I let it go. For now. These men had been trapped out in the swamp for so long, they’d developed their own way of life. I wouldn’t break that in an instant, steal away their culture—even if it was foreign to me.
“Here’s dat drink I meant to give ya,” Reece said, picking up a red cup and handing it over to me. “But I saw you chattin’ with da alpha and I didn’t want to disturb you, me.”
I took the cup and held it in my hands, drinking down a sweet mouthful and feeling my head spin in the most pleasant way possible. I liked this faerie wine … very much so. And I liked the tingling feeling in my body, this promise of release from all the torture and pain of my own mind. The wine would set me afloat on a river to a different place, a different state of being.
“Are they planning something?” I asked Reece, studying the sprites in the distance and wondering what I would do if I found out my own men were plotting against me. But then, when a fae broke the rules, I should feel it—especially with my own hunt. And I could sense lies. I waited for Reece to speak to see if his voice would ring with truth.