Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel(44)

"Yeah," he said, nodding, "But, who in the hell are they?"

Digger started going on about how he had heard the two women hailed from the midwest, or maybe it was the west coast, and that they held the wildest parties where they lived. He said where they lived was as wild as they were, off in some enormous abandoned warehouse and that they got up to crazy sex parties that usually finished with everyone joining in.

"Ya know...orgies and all that shit."

This time it was Flair's turn to sit back and nod at Digger's words while he watched the two women come into the room. They swayed as they walked and there was no need to push their way to their destination. People simply separated before them, like the parting of a sea, before they took a seat with a group of people that Flair then realized had been waiting for them already.

The noise and music flooded back in as they sat down and the lighting diffused again as shadows seemed to lift while everyone in the bar remembered to breath back out again.

They were some distance away, but even at that, Flair could see that there was something about the two women.

They were like two halves of a whole. Dark and light. One with rich hues, full lips made fuller with deep violet color, and heavy breasts that swayed with her every movement. The other was as pale as the first was somber. Her skin was milky white as the constellations that turned overhead. And that one's eyes were a silvery blue that hinted of ice and flame entwined in eternal opposition, the threat of raging frost ready to burn a mere heartbeat away.

It was ridiculous, he knew, but Flair thought he could even see how long their lashes were from where he was sitting across the room.

"...meet 'em?"

Flair startled. Digger had leaned close to say something while Flair had completely forgotten the other shifter was even there.

"What's that?"

"I said, do you want to meet 'em?"

He was nodding his head before he could get his next words out.

"Oh yeah. 'Sure do."

Digger clapped him on the back, then said, "Wait here a minute. I'll see what I can do for ya buddy."

The wolf in him dared Flair to stand up and trail after his friend like a lost puppy. The man in him forced him to remain where he was and coolly look away in feigned nonchalance. Flair took in a long steady breath and let it out again as slowly as he could and told himself that he must not act like a young inexperienced beast around those two.

It was if he waited upon the pleasure of royalty and he did not doubt the least false move could ruin his chances at seeing the Twins up close...the chance at scenting the two most beautiful she-wolves he had ever laid eyes on.

And all of it depended on his foolish friend, Digger.

All pretense at looking coolly aloof fled as Flair flashed a panicked look toward his friend.

Alcohol had surely clouded his reason or he would have never let Digger be the one to introduce him.

But as he started to get up to signal to Digger to leave off, Flair saw the Twins and the entire table of their entourage stand up and begin filing out of the bar.

Digger, not even halfway there, caught his eye and shrugged. Flair grimaced, then his own eyes widened as the line of people came to an abrupt halt and one of the Twins, the light skinned one, turned to look directly at Flair, then lifted a hand to hook her finger in the air, beckoning him.

Flair cleared his throat then did what he could to walk calmly toward the group that had begun moving again. Digger stumbled as he forced his way through the crowded tables and chairs to Flair's side, then fell in with him as if he had been invited, too.

"What the hell...?" Flair said to his friend.

Digger simply nodded.

"I know. They're like that. I didn't even get a chance to tell them who you work for."

Flair groaned. He would have done much to be rid of his simpleton friend just then so that he might be rid of him and the foolish things he would say later. Things that might leave Flair looking like more of a lackey than anything else.

He stepped up his pace then got close enough to the trailing line of people following in the two beautiful women's wake.

"So, where we goin'?"

Red, glassy eyes turned to regard him and a flushed young man at the back of the Twin's group answered Flair.

"The girls have invited everybody over to their place. 'Said it's too noisy and not enough naked here."

Not enough naked.

Flair remembered what Digger had said about orgies, then grimaced. But then he caught another glimpse of the two she-wolves as their hips swayed while leaving the bar.

It might have been the alcohol talking again, but he shrugged and thought to himself that maybe his life needed a little more wildness in it. And if it would mean a chance at those two very fine women, it might even be worth it.

Digger stayed close enough that their elbows practically rubbed and did not seem to notice that Flair frowned back at him when all he wore on his own face was his usual wide, goofy grin.

"Ketchum lips," Flair said to no one and hoped Digger would just get lost before he said something Flair would regret.

Digger must have heard him. He nodded back at Flair with the same grave visage as before, looking for all the world as though Flair was the wisest shifter he had ever known.

For all Flair knew, it might have even been the case and, if so, then that was a sad thing, indeed.



~~~



Flair and Digger followed the snaking line of cars down dark streets that quickly left behind the urban sprawl. But rather than transform little by little into some sort of orderly tree-lined suburbia, Flair made out long low buildings and chain linked fences topped in barbed wire that ran in humorless rectangles with the arc lamps overhead few and far between.

His window was down and occasionally he heard growls and snarls as they rolled by some of the warehouses. He had no doubt there were very large and very violent watch dogs within those rusted fences.

Still, if it came to it, they would be no match for the least of the wolf shifters. Nevertheless, the feeling of having left behind one kind of wilderness for another only grew with each passing building.

There was no sign of life in the surroundings and the buildings showed more signs of disuse until they finally came to one that stood away from the rest.

It was just as barren as all the others, but there was an aura, some subtle touch of wolfish presence that made him prick up his ears.

Flair pulled his car in alongside the rest of them as they passed inside the chain linked fence. In some ways, he would have preferred to be driving his employer's car. Or cars. The man had enough that he could choose a different one for every day of the month, but it was almost always some nondescript black sedan of custom European make.

If he had been driving one of those horrendously expensive pieces of rolling steel, it might have lent Flair a little authority or given credence that he was not just another male panting after the Twins. Or, it might well have done the opposite if someone should question him and oblige him to admit that kind of car did not belong to him after all.

As it was, he was in his own car of modest make and it might have been just as well. For whatever reason he might have imagined as the motive for the Twin's apparent interest in him, Flair still hoped it was somehow for him alone and not in the shifter who ruled most of the wolves in the city.

For they were, one and all, urban wolves and in most every respect a species apart from their forest dwelling counterparts. To make their differences even more pronounced, urban wolf and forest wolf looked upon one another with suspicion, or even with open derision at times.

Forest shifters thought of themselves as a purer, unadulterated kind of beast that acted in the way their father of legend, Galgallin, had always intended. Of course, the urban wolf would contend that Galgallin had disappeared in the mists of time and that the dispossessed forest wolves refused to adapt to a modern world which changed and evolved, often at a lightning strike pace.

Flair did not think either side had more reason than the other for the way they lived. But, he supposed, even that kind of thinking would be reckoned as a man's reasoning and not the merciless, direct logic of a real wolf if one asked his wild cousins living far from the city and its jungle of concrete and macadam.

They had hardly come to a stop before Digger popped out the passenger side door like a jack-in-the-box wound overtight.

Flair followed but with what he hoped looked like more reserve and at least a little elegance in comparison to his friend. The same friend who then wore a decidedly doggish grin and whose eyes sparkled with thoughts of what might happen next.

"Hey Flair. Can we talk now? I mean, you don't have to concentrate anymore on driving and all that, right?"

Flair simply shrugged in answer and walked past Digger to fall in line once more with the Twin's entourage then lining up to pass through a smaller, normal sized door inset in a very large pair of warehouse doors surely meant to allow full sized cargo trucks to offload their affairs directly within.

Digger fell into place beside him and the two quickly came to the door where two hulking figures stood on either side, barely seeming to take notice of those who filed within.

At least until it came to their turn.

One of them reached out a massive, meaty hand to stop Digger cold.

His ever-present grin lifted into an unmistakeable snarl.

"Hey...what's your problem?"

Suddenly, Flair had the distinct impression they had simply left one kind of club for another and that the two sentinels were, in fact, bouncers charged with keeping out undesirables.