“What the fuck is this about?” a platinum-haired douche beside Cowboy Hat demands.
“Take your seat. Where’s William?” Ellery asks instead of explaining.
I like his style. I call it flicking a dick. Instead of stroking them off and feeding their egos, you remind them who’s in charge. It’s a personal fave.
The blond mouthpiece for the group huffs irritably as he flops into his chair. “His aunt died. He’s up north making arrangements and getting her house sorted. That’s where we were headed too, until one of your pissants pulled us over and informed us our presence was requested here.”
“I’m sorry for your den’s loss, Mitch,” Fife offers.
Mitch, the blond prick, rolls his eyes. “If you pulled us in here to offer useless condolences, I’m going to be pissed. This is already a waste—”
“Where were you the night of the Hunt?” Ellery interrupts, getting right to the point.
Mitch studies the sheriff, a taunting smirk spreading slowly across his face. “Here and there.”
“Be more specific,” Ellery encourages flatly.
“We spent most of the night with the Gullvieg murder,” the third member of the boy band offers.
“Wait. What?” I stare at him for a beat before Ellery clarifies in my head.
“A murder is a den of crow shifters. The Gullvieg murder is full of females.”
Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’s far less creepy than I originally thought. I study the third guy, who’s got a Roman nose. He seems to be the tag-along in this group. Asshole by association, at least if my assumptions are right. He rolls his eyes at Mitch like he’s sick of the tough guy routine too.
Farther down the wall, Bucky goes still. “What were you doing over there?” he demands a bit protectively. “Shouldn’t you have been running in the Hunt?”
Mitch laughs and leans back in his chair. “We don’t need a bitch nipping at our heels just yet.” His hazel eyes move to me. “Then again, if we knew there was fresh meat running, maybe we would have.” His eyes trail all over me, and the ick is almost overwhelming.
“And where were you two?” Ellery asks the other guys sitting at the table.
Cowboy Hat continues to eyeball me as he answers. “Tony”—he jerks his chin in the direction of the guy with the Roman nose—“and I closed up shop a little late, and then we met Mitch at the Gullvieg’s. That Hunt ceremony always gets the ladies all kinds of rowdy, and we took full advantage.”
Bucky huffs in disgust and I agree. One-night stands aren’t an issue, but this guy’s attitude toward them makes me feel sorry for any woman he’s ever touched. I guarantee he’s never given anyone other than himself an orgasm in his life.
Cowboy Hat’s smarmy grin drips with menace. “You smell unfucked,” he sneers. “Your new mates not up to standard, cupcake? Need me to bend you over real quick and show you how it’s done?”
Ellery’s roar is deafening, and he explodes out of his chair so fast I almost can’t track it. He leaps across the table and has Cowboy Hat pinned against the wall by his throat quicker than I can say eat shit to the guy. Cowboy’s hat goes flying, and Fife and Bucky are on the other two guys before they push out of their chairs to interfere. Meanwhile, Karen’s stepped protectively in front of me.
“Don’t you ever speak to my mate like that again,” the sheriff snarls into the other shifter’s face. I check his veins for black lines, but none appear. There’s just the raw, feral nature of his fury. He looks unhinged…he looks fucking hot.
I swallow hard against a ripple of attraction that surges down my body from head to toe.
Cowboy Hat tries to laugh, but Ellery’s hold on his throat tightens and the sound is choked off. “She doesn’t smell like she’s yours, Celestial,” he gasps out defiantly. “She smells needy.”
“Did you hurt her?” Ellery demands, pushing Cowboy Hat up the wall until he’s on his tiptoes. “Did you attack her and throw her into the Hunt?”
“Why the fuck would we do that?” Mitch shouts, growling when Bucky tweaks the arm he’s holding behind the shifter’s back.
“Because you’re assholes,” Karen offers, while she examines her black nails like all of this is no big deal.
“From where I’m sitting, Sheriff, you and your den bit her, so how do we know you didn’t throw her into the Hunt and now you need someone else to pin it on? That’s what you Arcans like to do, right? Walk around like you shit gold and can do whatever you want.”
“We didn’t touch her,” Tony insists, and Ellery’s nostrils flare like he’s scenting the shifter’s answer.
After an easy few seconds, Ellery tosses the cowboy. His yell is more animal than human when he orders, “Get the fuck out!”
Cowboy Hat scrambles to his feet, and Fife and Bucky let the other two go. The den scurries away like roaches fleeing light, cowards despite all their bravado and shit talking.
Ellery turns to the rest of us, his eyes glowing and furious and repeats the order. “Out.”
His staff scramble around the sides of the table, and I move to follow. But the sheriff’s arm shoots out and grabs my wrist, stopping me.
“Karen—the crystals,” he growls.
“You sure—” she starts.
“Take them.”
She carefully picks up the bowl of red crystal shards and carries them into the hall. Bucky shuts the door behind her, careful not to meet my alarmed gaze.
Why do I have to be stuck here with the furious alpha and they all get to escape?
“You need a minute?” I shakily ask Ellery, whose veins started to blacken the second the bowl left the room.
His pupils dilate and he licks his lips as he stares down at me. All that anger converts to something else.
Oh shit.
“I need—” Ellery steps forward into my body, and I take a step back, bumping up against the wall. He presses in close to me, so close that the heat of his body soaks into mine.
The world around us stills, and a devious little threat of desire ties me up in knots. My hands don’t know what to do or where to move, and suddenly they’re on his chest. I can feel his heartbeat underneath his uniform, and it’s meteoric. Inhumanly fast. Mine speeds up to match his as my throat dries out.
“Can I, please?” He doesn’t finish his sentence, almost as if words are too hard for him to form right now.
I can’t blame him, because my vocabulary has shrunk to basic sounds. Nerves skitter through me at his proximity, and yet I want him closer. I feel this visceral need to know that he’s alright, but for some reason, words don’t seem the best way to do that. No, my body is pushing me to shove my nose into the crook of his fucking neck and wrap myself around him.
Insanity.
And then he leans down, planting one hand on the wall next to my head, my wrist still gently but firmly locked in the grip of his other hand. Our eyes meet and the pent-up desire pouring from him floods me as if it’s my own. Or maybe it is my own. I can’t tell.
I stop breathing.
There’s an intensity to this moment that goes beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before. It feels like diving into an ice-cold lake and having every nerve in your body come alive at the same time.