A mentally unstable werewolf sounded like a good time in the sack, but she wasn’t going to say that little gem out loud.
One week. It had been one week since she’d met Kade in the Harley Davidson store. A lot had happened since then. She’d taken her first riding class and ridden her new motorcycle to work every day. She’d slept seven times. She’d eaten twenty-five meals, watched three Netflix marathons, re-painted her bathroom, and had six work shifts at the GutShot. Basically, a week felt like an eternity. Add to that she couldn’t get the crazy wolf off her mind, and she was still in heat. Yeah, nothing was okay. She was an emotional basket case. Blowing a flyaway piece of blond hair out of her face, she frowned at the clock and muttered, “Why is it so dead today?”
Bart the Fart raised two fingers and stopped sipping his whiskey long enough to suggest, “Because you offend all your customers with your bitchiness?”
“Drink your whiskey and stop getting on my damn nerves, Bart.”
Bart pulled four one-dollar bills out of his back pocket and slapped them on the counter. “Each time you’re rude, I’m taking away from your tip.” He plucked the top dollar bill off the pile, arched his eyebrows, and shoved it back in his pocket.
Trina hated everyone and everything.
“It’s probably because the Wulfe Clan comes in here on Fridays, and they’re late,” Tenlee suggested. “There’s ten people in here buying. It just seems peaceful because there’s no yelling and mauling and bleeding.”
“Huh. You’re right,” Trina murmured. The Wulfe Clan did come in here at the same time every Friday. That was their tradition. They blew off steam after every work week. Now, she hated them and they were obnoxious, but they paid their tabs and kept her busy enough, so they were fine by her. Two more hours until the weekend rush, or it was sure to be a boring time if the Wulfe Clan didn’t show.
At the sound of a Harley, she straightened up and looked out the back window to the gravel parking lot. It was a single Harley engine, and a silly part of her hoped it was him—Kade. She’d been keeping an eye out for him around town ever since she found out that Ethan had started up his Blackwood Crow Clan in Corvallis, not too far from Darby.
It was Darius Wulfe, the Alpha of the Wulfe Clan, parking out back, not Kade. And a few moments later, she heard the engines of the others in the Clan. They parked in a line, right next to her Sportster.
Okay. Okay, it wasn’t the wolf she had hoped to see, but this was better. There was no chance of her cougar going ho and trying to bang one of these jerks in the ladies bathroom stall. Plus, this Clan drank like fish and actually paid for those drinks, so bonus bonus.
“Why do you look all disappointed?” Tenlee asked suspiciously from where she’d taken her seat at the bar top to study again. Her mouse-brown eyebrows were drawn down, and her soft brown eyes were all squinty and suspicious.
“I’m not!” Trina said. “I’m happy. I love…wolves. In my bar. Our bar. My bar and my dad’s bar. Because money.” Dear goodness, stop talking!
“Does being in heat make you horny and weird?” Tenlee asked.
Trina ignored her and began setting out shot glasses. The Clan always bought a round of whiskey shots the second they came in and, in general, werewolves were a predictable lot. Well…all but Kade.
Slamming his fist on the counter, Darius growled, “The usual.” His eyes were too light green to pass for human but oh, well. Shifters were out, might as well own it. Trina didn’t bother to cover up her eye color when she was working the bar either.
“How many you got comin’ in tonight?” Trina asked.
“The fuck does it matter?” Darius rumbled, scanning the bar as his Clan took the bar stools around him.
“Uuuuh, so I know how many shots to pour, you gigantic twat-waffle.”
“What did you call me?” Darius snarled.
Trina sucked in air and made the words real clear and slow for the idiot. “Twaaat. Waff—eek!”
Tenlee yanked her back. “Shhhh!” she demanded, her eyes roiling with reprimand. “You shouldn’t talk to an Alpha like that,” she hissed.
“He ain’t my Alpha.” She pulled at the low neck of her tank top and fanned her face. “Is it hot in here?”
“It’s the heat,” one of the wolves she hadn’t met before said.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Trina muttered. “Of course I get hot in the heat.”
“No, I mean your heat. It’s making you run hotter.”
“I’ll say,” rumbled another, a blond with dark eyebrows and silver eyes. It was Mick, Darius’s Second. His nostrils flared as he inhaled. “Way hotter.”
“Barf,” Tenlee said. “How many shots do you want, pervs?” she asked as she eyed three more Clan filing past her to take seats at the bar.
“All of us plus two more,” Darius said. “And since you’re probably real dumb, I’ll count it up for you. Nine in all. Make them doubles. The whole Clan’s here tonight.” He gave a feral smile. “We’re on the hunt.”
“First off, Tenlee isn’t dumb. And second…” Trina lifted a pair of scissors from the bar and made a quick snip sound as she closed them. “You aren’t hunting me if you wanna keep your werewolf balls intact.”
“God, you’re a pill,” Mick said, clutching his nuts protectively. “You’re usually nice and just get us drinks.”
Trina smiled brightly. “It must be the heat.”
“You’re the worst bartender in the world.”
“Thank you,” she muttered, pouring whiskey into a row of shot glasses.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“That’ll be eight thousand dollars,” she said, ignoring Tenlee’s look of utter bafflement at her.
The wolves ignored her and made a toast. “To the hunt,” Mick said.
Trina knew better than to ask what, or who, they were hunting. Those shifters closed up like little clams when they were sober. She just had to be patient, wait until they were a few drinks in, and then listen carefully for them to spill the beans. Which they did, but it took two doubles and a couple beers before Mick looked around and leaned closer to Darius. “He should’ve been here by now. This bitch should be drawing him in like a fly on a carcass. She reeks of pheromones, and he’s dominant.”
“So are you. Yet you’re resisting her,” Darius said low.
Trina moved a little farther away and knelt down in front of the ice machine with a clipboard, as if taking inventory. Of the ice cubes? Whatever, the wolves weren’t paying attention.
“I’m resisting her because you laid down an order.”
Whoo, it was getting hard to hear Mick, so Trina waddled backward a few steps, closer to the wolves.
“Because the longer she goes without being bred, the more desperate she will become. And so the more desperate he’ll become to take her.”
“Take who?” Tenlee asked, and now she sounded pissed. Uh oh, abort mission. The squirrel was a biter.
“Mind your own fuckin’ business,” one of the wolves, Gus, said in a growly voice. Oh, he must want to die today.
“I’ll mind my own fuckin’ business when you stop talking about girls like they’re objects, loudly, in a bar full of shifters, ya dipshit.” Uh oh, Ten was standing up now.
She was a buck-ten wet, about half the size of the smallest werewolf, but Mick scooted his chair loudly away from her anyway. Smart man.
“I know you aren’t talking about using Trina as bait,” Ten said loud enough for the entire bar to hear. “One, you couldn’t put your dick in her if you tried because she has standards and doesn’t fuck things that smell like wet dogs. You’ll be keeping your little Vienna sausages to yourselves. Two, she’s a motherfuckin’ mountain lion. She ain’t anyone’s prey.”
“Says the girl who helped destroy Trina’s whole Clan of mountain lions,” Darius growled, standing slowly.
“And who was it that survived all-out war?” Tenlee yelled. She jammed her finger at Trina. “I’ll give you two fuckin guesses because you’re super dumb, but you should only need one.”