"So you're the driver for the big cheese?"
The Twin who spoke was the one of dark, dusky skin and luscious purple lips.
Flair shrugged. If this had been some sort of test, or simply a means of demeaning him or the alpha wolf, Brazier Abraxis, through him, he decided he did not care.
He would not give these two that kind of power over him.
"So what if he is?" Flair asked.
"We wuss curious, is all, Mister Stiffy," said the light skinned Twin.
Despite himself, Flair felt a wash of heat roll over him and hoped his face did not gleam red under the flickering candlelight.
With no means of immediate escape, the idea of shifting to hide himself in the cloak of a wolf's skin came to him, but he dismissed it. That was a cowardly thought and he knew that these two women and all their friends respected only one thing.
Strength.
Flair reached for the clothes that lay at his feet and shrugged them on.
From his trouser's back pocket, he pulled out a small, well worn notebook. As if he was not standing in the middle of a stage after a performance that should have been perfectly humiliating, Flair flipped through the pages, then drew a short pencil from its spiral binding and scrawled something.
The dark skinned Twin's eyes narrowed.
"And just what do you think you're doing?"
Flair did not answer. He appeared lost in thought, then wrote something more before glancing up as if he had forgotten where he was or who was addressing him.
"Oh, this. I just wanted to make a couple notes for my report later. Just in case, 'the big cheese' would like to know what's going on down here in the warehouses with errant wolves who show him and his no respect."
The dark skinned woman nodded.
"In that case, be sure to note our names, pup. I'm Agate and she's Opal."
Flair made no move to write anything further in his little notebook.
"So you's not goin' to mark that down?" the one named Opal asked, frowning.
Flair chuckled.
"Of course not. I've already noted the most important part."
Flair surveyed them coolly.
"And just what was that?" asked Agate.
"'Nothing to see here'", he replied, then continued, "Unless it's a pair of bitches who need someone to show them how useless they are while playing foolish games with their fellow wolves."
Opal snarled. But Flair remained calm and nonplussed.
"Furthermore, I think you had better tell me how you found out that I work for Mr. Abraxis. I don't know any of you, which means someone has been up to no good and Mr. Abraxis takes a very dim view of those who spy on him."
"Nobody's done any spying, blondie. We smelt him on you is all."
Flair chuckled.
"Yeah, right. From across a crowded bar filled with a hundred other warm bodies. Don't make me laugh."
Agate stood and despite the anger Flair felt in that moment, he could not help but be surprised once more by her dark beauty as she came down a short stairway and walked to him until they stood practically nose to nose.
"This is no joke, wolf. We can scent anything and anyone. Even vamp's and no other wolf can say the same."
Flair fought the urge to back away, his own hackles threatening to rise.
Suddenly, he got the distinct feeling that he had played his cards a little too far and that the whole thing was about to come crashing down with him lying under it all.
He drew a breath and later on he would have no idea what he had meant to say, but his train of thought was cut clean by the shrill sound of his cellphone.
He fished it out of his pocket, glanced down to its display and said without looking up, "Yeah, I got to take this."
Flair turned his back on the threat of imminent female violence and if he did so, it was for one reason only...the alpha wolf, himself.
He listened to what was said on the other end, then he turned to glance back at the female glaring at him, before saying, "Uh...it's possible that I might know a way, sir."
He listened to the response, nodded to someone he could not see, then keyed the cellphone off.
"Ok, girls. Curious about Abraxis? Let's go meet him...."
Agate's long lashes flew wide as her expression shifted from anger to surprise.
"What do you mean...right now?"
"Yeah, right now," Flair replied, "Unless, of course...you're afraid."
That last phrase was all it took before he found himself walking briskly to his car with two of the most gorgeous women he had ever seen.
As Flair keyed the ignition, he spared a thought for the friend he had left behind, then decided Digger was much better off where he was, all things considered.
"Oh," he said without looking back at the two women seated behind him, "One last thing before we go. It was a scale of one to ten, right?"
He was not sure who answered, but the response was short and sweet.