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Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel(43)



Her eyes were wide and black mascara tears ran down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Flair murmured.

He took a step toward her with an outstretched hand.

But, she shook her head violently and made no move to accept the help he offered.

"Ok," he said, then shrugged.

The woman was not so well informed after all. No matter what the rumors did or did not say, werewolves are beastly in all respects.

"Sorry," Flair said again, "I lost control, I guess."

She nodded, then hugged her knees more tightly.

The young wolf looked about for his clothes. They were just beside him and he tossed the woman's to her first before he began shrugging on his own.

Just as he was buttoning his pants, someone pounded on the door.

Flair grimaced. Things could turn very ugly very quickly, he knew.

He gestured to the woman's things and said, "Look, just get dressed and then get over it. And next time, think twice before you come looking for a good time with one of us."

The pounding on the door continued and he knew the rest of what would happen hung in a delicate balance.

Then, the woman got shakily to her feet with her clothes clutched tightly to her. She did not say anything but she started getting dressed and Flair nodded grimly.

As she buttoned up her shirt, he pulled the door open ready for anything, but instead saw a young man with his own girl just beside him smiling back at him.

"Hey buddy. You guys just about done in there? 'Cause...you know."

He grinned a fool's grin, a very human grin, and jerked his chin in the direction of the woman beside him.

Flair smiled in return and did his best not to do so with a wolf's predatory mien.

"Yeah...we're done."

The couple exchanged even wider smiles between them, then pushed past Flair into the room. As far as he could tell, they did not notice the red eyed woman that left as they entered.

But Flair did.

He seized her arm and she spun around to face him.

"Tell your friends. Tell them what to expect."

She jerked her arm out of his grasp, defiance appearing in her eyes, then she spun on her heel and was gone in the next instant.

The crowd just beyond the corridor's limits swallowed her up whole and Flair did not think he would ever see her again. He doubted, even, that she would search for anything remotely like a werewolf ever again.

With a little luck, she might even convince her friends that they should not either.

Flair hitched his jeans up, then went out to the crowd and let it take him with it, carried away upon the endless rhythm that never changed, yet never stayed the same. And he did not mind for his was a wolf's life and it was one filled with pleasures of all kinds, but most especially those of the flesh.

The dance beat took him.

Boom, boom...boom.





~~~





The man stood before the city. And all that he saw lay beneath him, a twinkling, shining vista in the otherwise impenetrable darkness as the moon kept to her own devices this night.

One might have imagined that he surveyed the cityscape below, or that the minutiae of tiny people's lives held his interest.

But he looked beyond all these things as he stared out from his tower and his scrutiny was for nothing less than the future for all of his own kind.

Only everything that he had planned suddenly hung from a thread thinner than any spider had ever spun. All that mattered teetered in unsteady balance as his hunters hunted a prey that had proved far too slippery.

This time they must prove his trust in them was not misplaced or all might be lost.

As he stared out over thousands of building tops and thousands of streetlights, the man clenched his hands into fists that trembled with anger and frustration.

His knuckles grew white while darkness awoke to life upon his skin. He felt the prickle of it as patterns of long dead languages slithered over his skin like serpents from beyond the realm of the living.

The man stood there and waited for the lifeless words that would pronounce sentence upon him and all that he attempted.

Instead, the shrill sound of a cellphone broke the stark silence surrounding him.

Two quick steps brought him to his desk where he seized the phone and keyed it on at the same time.

He held it to his ear and listened without speaking.

The man stood in darkness and did not move as he heard what was said, then he slowly placed the cellphone back on the desk before walking back to his earlier position.

He surveyed the city below and it was as if all that he beheld contained answers to questions he had not yet asked.

"They lost him."

Dark patterns slithered over his body, a body that women would bow down before in worship if he so wished. But black runes rippled upon his skin and no woman's ardor could withstand the cold, unnatural presence that slipped into the room then and spoke with a voice from beyond the grave.

I know.

Brazier Abraxis nodded to no one.

"Yes. Of course you do."

He stood there waiting for the inevitable words of criticism to follow.

Instead, the ghostly voice took on a reflective tone.

Your hunters may have lost the quarry, but the same cannot yet be said of us.

"Oh, and how might that be?"

Patience, my son. The mists of the future have not yet parted to reveal the end of our plans.

Thus it would seem an alternative shall present itself and soon.

"Can you speak more plainly?" Braze tried to hide his frustration with his father's usual cryptic pronouncements.

I could, if it pleased me. However I will not have you rush in as you have with this ill advised effort by your hunters. Subtlety was called for. Instead, you strike with a bludgeon where a scalpel would have been far more effective.

For the moment, know that some slim hope burgeons and that it comes from within your own inner circle.

More than this, you do not deserve to know.

Braze nodded his head and let out a long steady breath as if to calm the anger boiling inside. But his hands remained clenched and a few moments passed before a pattering sound penetrated his fury at being thwarted on all sides.

It was only then that he opened his fists to see that his nails had driven deep into the palms and the sound came from blood that welled and fell to the floor in rivulets from his hands.

The night was early yet. Even if his father, long since gone to his grave, kept his own council for the moment, Braze thought he might see blood weep from someone else's wounds before night's end. If he would have any say in the matter, he would make sure of it.

Then, he would see to it that they burned.



~~~





"The thing is that groovin' hicks rig buses."

Flair cocked an eyebrow at the young man seated across from him and did his best not to laugh.

Whatever Digger wanted to say was probably not exactly what he thought he had heard, except that the noise in the bar was just as loud as the rest of the club. Worse, maybe, since it was a confined space with an open ended entry that gave directly onto the dance floor.

After his latest experience in human shifter sex, Flair had let the tidal pull of the dance floor take him for a time until he found himself washed up on the shore of the bar and the chance to sit down for a while.

Momentarily stranded on his own deserted isle, Flair found he was terribly thirsty. He wasted no time in ordering a drink only to turn around and see someone waving wildly at him from the back of the bar. His wolfish vision glimmered for an instant and in the shadows he made out a shifter known to him, an urban wolf as he was, who went by the name of Digger.

"What was that?" Flair shouted over the clamor of voices and music.

"Groovin' hicks, man....rig buses...ya know?"

Flair thought it over, then laughed outright when he had it figured out.

Human chicks dig us, ya know.

Digger looked perplexed and frowned at the way Flair laughed.

It was understandable, but given the circumstances Flair could not resist. So, he leaned toward his friend and said, "Frengle lizard, ketchum lips."

The other shifter sat back to think over what he had heard, then he nodded at Flair as if what he had said had been the wisest words ever.

Flair snorted, then took a long pull from his beer. Digger was a good guy, but, as they say, probably not the sharpest tool in the box.

The two of them were seated at a small, high table with taboret style bar stools. They were comfortable enough and the best part was they spun full circle on smooth ball bearings which meant no one actually had to pull them in and out in order to get up in search of something else to drink. And that was a good thing, since the servers were always overwhelmed on Friday nights and if one waited for them to take an order, death by thirst might likely be the result.

Flair was thinking of some other nonsense phrase to tell Digger when he saw them come in.

Later, when he thought of that moment...and he did think back to it often...he would tell himself that it had been like magic. As sure as any magic that might exist that can bring silence to a room filled with shouting people and pounding music. A magic that felt like someone had just draped an enormous velour coverlet over everything and shadows and silence fell so that all eyes saw them and no one else.

The Twins.

Flair did not know how he knew, but the two women who stepped into the bar could have been nothing else, and every head swiveled to fix upon them. From men whose pupils flew wide and black, nostrils flared and light sweat making a sheen across their brows....to women, whose lips raised in contempt while still others ran moist pink tongues over their already wet lips.

"The Twins."

Digger had leaned over and spoke so closely to Flair's ear that he felt the shifter's lips drift across his skin.