"Isn't it delicious?" Chris encouraged, and she nodded hesitantly despite the fact that she was probably thinking a different word to describe the drink.
Chris shimmied his shoulders, setting his nipple tassels swinging and then did a twirl. "Come on, drink up and let’s go dance! Girls’ night, am I right?"
We all smiled, but there was absolutely no sense in arguing with him in this mood, so we threw our drinks back and coughed as they burned their way down to our bellies.
Following his lead, we all headed out onto the already packed dance floor to dance the night away. It was exactly what I needed to decompress after everything that had happened lately.
Several hours, and more than several potent drinks later, we limped our way out of the club. All four of us were laughing and falling all over the place as we navigated the badly paved street.
"Lookie what I grabbed," Chris sang, pulling a full sized bottle of vodka from Goddess only knows where. "Wanna go lurk in the cemetery like vampires and give Thea some crap about her new lovers?"
This question was directed at the other two girls so I scowled at him, even as Bex made a noise of annoyance.
"We do not lurk in cemeteries, Fae-Bitch!" She defended herself, and then shrugged. "Except for tonight. But only ‘cause you have more vodka, and I wanna hear more about these new lovers of Thea's." Her words were slurring and I rolled my eyes. For a vamp, she sure was a lightweight.
"No talking about Thea's lovers," I ordered, snatching the vodka from Chris and taking a swig. "How'd you get this anyway?"
He shrugged and gave me a saucy grin. "Let's just say, one of the bartenders is going home a satisfied man tonight."
Now that he drew my attention to it, his glittery pink lipstick was rather smudged ... lucky bastard. I hadn't sucked cock in forever, and I was actually pretty damn great at it.
"Well, good work," Bex commended him and took the bottle from me for herself. "Now, does anyone need a boost over this gate or are we all good?"
We had just arrived at the wrought iron gates of the Fairmount Cemetery. It just happened to be the closest thing to a park near the club we'd been at.
"Uh, babe?" I tapped her on the shoulder as she started to scale the tall gate. "They actually left the other side open."
She paused, and looked about three feet to her left where the gate stood ajar. "Oh. Well ... that's convenient."
Laughing, we slipped through the gate and wandered down the little path-like road between two grassy rows of headstones. We were heading for the pretty little rotunda near the middle of the burial ground, where Chris and I had hung out to drink many, many times before.
Before we even made it a hundred yards into the grounds though, the sounds of women in distress reached my fox ears, which were so much sharper than my human ones.
"Shit," I cursed quietly. "Someone's in trouble."
My friends didn't question me, instead following silently—or as silently as they could in Shelbi's case—as I headed towards the sounds.
We smelled them before we saw them, the stench of bourbon and dust wafting through the night air, leading us straight to the little gang of wolves who had a couple of terrified looking girls cornered against a dead-end surrounded by mausoleums.
The fact they were wolves was of no question. That distinctive doggy odor was mixed in with the sickly sweet cupcake scent of dust, and Shelbi immediately shifted into her wolf form. She didn't cower and present her belly, though, which told me these were not Vail Valley wolves.
"Can we help you faeries?" One of the wolves sneered at us, saying fairies like it was some sort of insult. Which was just stupid. Chris literally was a faery, in both uses of the word.
"Let the girls go," I ordered him. He was a seriously unattractive man, with big bushy sideburns like he thought he was Wolverine or something.
"Naw, I don't think we'll be doing that," he replied with a leer. "These pups should have known better than to wander around in wolf country without an escort."
I glanced to the two tanned, blonde girls who were cowering with fear. They must have been some variety of canidae shifter but I couldn't place what, until one of them spoke.
"Please," she whimpered, "don't leave us with these buggers."
I nodded slowly, hearing her Australian accent and understanding the tans. "Dingo?" I asked and they nodded nervously. "I won't leave you with these bastards," I assured them. "They were just about to leave anyway, weren't you boys?"
I speared them all with a death glare, even as I unwrapped my whip from my waist. Suddenly I wasn't feeling a fraction as drunk as I had a few moments ago. My focus was sharp, and I was ready to bash some skulls if these bastards didn't leave those girls alone.
Wolves weren’t known for their stunning intellect, though. Seconds later, two of them had shifted and we were in the midst of an all-out brawl. Bex could definitely handle herself, so even without Shelbi or Chris being much use, we could have these dickheads neutralized in minutes.
The alcohol did slow my reactions though, and by a stupid miscalculation, I caught a fist across my face from one of the wolves.
"Motherfucker," I snarled, snapping out my whip and catching him around the throat with it.
Just as I was preparing to yank him closer to me so I could beat the ever loving fuck out of him, a deafening roar echoed through the cemetery, causing everyone to freeze and the loose gravel to actually vibrate a little.
"Do not move a damn muscle," Bennett snapped, appearing as if from fucking thin air with two pony sized wolves flanking him. "Not a single fucking muscle."
My friends clearly weren't totally sure if this applied to them or not, and were erring on the side of caution by remaining frozen. I for one, didn't give two hoots what Bennett wanted, and yanked on my whip to drag my victim closer to me.
"Thea," Bennett growled. Literally growled. "Someone hit you." He was all up in my grill now, with his fingers gripping my chin and inspecting the split in my lip. "That's my job." He hissed this last part so quietly, I was positive only I heard, and fuck if I didn't get a shiver of arousal from it.
"No shit," I snapped back. "I was just about to beat his sorry ass for it when you so rudely interrupted us."
Bennett released my face, stepping back to glare at the wolf on the end of my whip. Without warning or hesitation, he drew his fist back and slammed it so hard into the man's face, I could have sworn I heard at least four bones break.
"Now get the fuck out of Denver before I take this as a personal grievance and demand your asses on a platter." He roared the command at the strange wolves and every one of them turned tail and ran. I didn't blame them, either. Bennett was one scary ass motherfucker.
"Who are they?" he asked me, jerking his head to the two girls cowering in the corner.
"Dingoes," I replied, "probably here on vacation for ski season or some shit."
"Please, mates," one of the girls begged, her voice shaking. "We didn't mean to offend anyone. We were just walking back to our hotel and that feral lot cornered us. I wasn't thinking real hard and told the ugly one he had the face of a smashed crab and ... well ..."
"Yeah, I think we can see how well that worked out," Chris muttered, shaking out his wings with a puff of glitter. "Funny though."
"Just get out of here," Bennett ordered the girls. "And be smarter in future. A dingo against a wolf is no match, clear?"
"You bet, cheers mate." She bobbed her head in appreciation, and the two of them tore out of the graveyard in the opposite direction to where the wolves had gone.
A tense sort of silence descended after the girls took off and I glared daggers at Bennett who just stared back at me impassively.
"What, you were just in the neighborhood?" I asked him sarcastically, winding my whip back around my waist and securing it.
"Fuck no," he grunted. "I clearly followed you after I heard the message you left Shelbi."
I gaped at him. "Seriously? That's stalkerish."