First the bonding with Caleb, then the pain, Vic showing up, the news that Caleb—my Caleb—had been meeting my mom in secret... What I wouldn’t do for a memory erase spell of this whole evening. Alcohol would need to do instead.
“Here.” The green-haired bartender dropped a tall glass down in front of me. “Long island iced tea. Guaranteed to fuck you up but not taste like shit in the process.”
This, I cracked a smile at. “Doubtful. Iced tea?” Call me crazy, but I despised iced tea.
The girl laughed. “It’s not actually tea, dummy. It’s a mix of tequila, gin, rum, vodka, and Cointreau, then lime juice, sugar, and a splash of Coke. Trust me, you’ll love it by the time you finish that one.”
“Sounds perfect,” I sighed, fishing out my wallet. “How much?”
The girl threw me a wink. “It’s on me. You look like you’re having a rough night.”
I snickered a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.” I picked up my enormous drink and gave her a nod. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it; just try and have a better night from here on out, yeah?” The girl gave me a grin, then turned away to serve another customer.
Her random act of kindness had cut through the negativity and sting of betrayal that I’d been wallowing in, and my shoulders were just a fraction less heavy as I made my way through the crowd to find a place to sit.
It was late on a Saturday night, so the bar was packed with people. But it didn’t take long for me to locate a small table available, tucked away in the back and away from both the dance floor and the mechanical bull that a drunken girl wearing no bra was thrashing around on.
As I sat, I felt my pocket vibrate. Dammit, my phone must have been in this jacket too.
Placing my drink down on the table, I fished the little device out and ignored the call. As with the next one, and the next one. Right as I was about to lose my shit and turn the damn thing off, a text message came through from River.
Sent Vali after you but told him to keep his distance when he gets there. Understand your need for space, and we are here for you when you’re ready to come home.
Running my thumb over the screen, I reread the message a couple of times before powering off my phone to end another call from Caleb that had started ringing through.
Home. When I’m ready to come home. Seemed like such a strange concept to consider the hotel suite home, but I knew that wasn’t what River meant. Home was wherever my guys were, regardless of if that was a hotel suite in Los Angeles or a mountain cabin in Washington.
Tucking the phone back into my pocket, I yawned and took a sip of my long island iced tea. The first mouthful was a shock, sour and acidic and very strong. But a few more sips had me loving it. That bartender really knew her shit.
“Hey, sweet thing.” A greasy-looking guy sauntered up to my table with a smarmy look on his face. “You here all alone? Maybe I should keep you company?” He punctuated this suggestion with a lewd cupping of his genitals through his pants. Just in case I missed the implication.
My eyes narrowed at him. “Maybe you should back the hell off, buddy. I’m not looking to score, so trot on back to your friends. This one is a strikeout.”
The man’s expression twisted into something nasty, and he sneered at me. “You look like a frigid bitch anyway; I was just trying to do you a favor. Loosen up that stick in your ass.”
I heaved a sigh. “I’ll tell you one more time. Fuck. Right. Off. Clear?”
The guy curled his lip at me in disgust but, thankfully, retreated back to his table of friends who were howling with laughter across the room. Getting hit on by creepy dudes who reeked of bourbon from ten feet away was not my idea of a good night out, even if I had been here for a “good time.”
“Excuse me, miss?” Another male voice intruded on my thoughts, and a finger tapped on my shoulder. Groaning, I turned in my seat to tell this guy where to shove his propositions, but the words froze in my throat.
“Mr. Gregoric?” I squeaked in surprise. “What—”
“Nicholai,” he corrected me with a smile. “Do you mind if I sit?”
“Ah, sure.” I blinked at him in confusion but waited while he dragged a chair from another table and sat opposite me.
“‘Mr. Gregoric’ never really sat right with me, you know? I doubt I’ll ever try my hand at teaching again. High school students are psychotic; don’t you agree?” He smiled at me like we had actually arranged to meet for a drink and small talk. “Then again, it’s been a great many years since I myself was a teenager, so perhaps I have just forgotten.”
“What,” I tried again, “the fuck are you doing here, Nicholai? The last time we saw you was in Harrow after Gray and his men tried to kidnap all the shifter babies.”
He grimaced and took a sip of his own drink that he’d brought to the table with him. “Nasty business, that. I understand Richard has since been dealt with, though?”
Richard. I bit my tongue to suppress a shiver of revulsion and fear. Richard Liath was Gray’s real name, and just the mention of him made me want to empty my stomach onto the table. His face still haunted my dreams, so Wesley had been helping me by giving me other dreams instead. Safe, boring dreams with butterflies and puppies—the kind of sugar-coated, candy normality my real life had never possessed. I loved them.
Until recently, that was. His issues with the other dream-walker had really thrown a wrench into the works with that plan. Now I was finding myself waking in a cold sweat, feeling the phantom pain of my toenails being torn from my flesh or the crack of my ribs under Gray’s heavy fists.
“He’s been dealt with, yes,” I choked out, taking a long sip of my drink to try and clear the sour taste from my mouth. Denial and avoidance were my friends, and so long as I could avoid the subject of my abuser, I was good.
“Well, that’s good to hear. Granny Winter will be pleased.” Nicholai smiled at me again, and I frowned in return. What the hell was going on?
“Are you going to answer my question?” I prompted him. “What the fuck are you doing here? How did you even find me in this random bar in the middle of LA?”
He pursed his lips and stared back at me for a long moment. He was a good-looking guy, no doubt about that, but there was something... shady about him. Like he was constantly playing both sides to the point where he himself had no idea where his allegiance lay.
“I have someone who wants to meet you,” he announced finally, and my eyebrows shot up. That wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I didn’t know what I’d expected.
“Oh? And you decided to track me down... here... to tell me this? I’m sure you can appreciate, Nicholai, something smells like shit.” I gave him a shrewd glare. “So out with it. I have had e-fucking-nough of riddles and half-truths to last me a lifetime.”
Snatching my drink from the table, I leaned back in my seat and took a long sip on my straw. Disappointingly, my glass was almost empty already, and I frowned at the naked ice cubes.
“I already ordered you another.” The sketchy fox-shifter grinned, just as a waitress appeared, placing a full long island iced tea on the table in front of me.
I pursed my lips and eyed the drink skeptically, but when I glanced over to the bar, my friendly, green dreadlocked bartender gave me a nod of assurance.
“Thanks,” I said slowly, still suspicious as all hell. “So who is this person who wants to meet me? And why are you here instead?”
“I thought perhaps a familiar face might be more comforting for an introduction.” The reply came not from shady Nicholai Gregoric, but from a woman with a soft Irish accent who was, not even kidding, wearing my face. “Hello, daughter.”