He spotted her a short distance away, talking animatedly to Sable. Olivia was beautiful with her chestnut hair cascading around her bare shoulders, a dark purple halter-top clinging dangerously to her breasts and the flat plane of her stomach, and her delicious long legs encased in black jeans.
He had never seen her dressed so provocatively. She had been embarrassed when he had visited her apartment to collect her and had set eyes on her. Perhaps the fact that he had growled, drawing the attention of a passing pair of hunters, had made her awkward. They had stared at him, and then Olivia, and then whispered about them as they had moved on down the corridor.
They knew that Olivia had given herself to him and they knew her history, and he had wanted to kill them for daring to insult his female behind her back.
It had been difficult to stop himself, and only Olivia moving closer to him, her eyes on his face, had drawn him out of his dark rage.
She hadn’t stopped being shy around him since then, and he hadn’t stopped staring at her like a boy wet behind his ears who had experienced his first spark of desire for a beauty.
Olivia’s dark eyes drifted across to him, the coloured lights playing across her skin, highlighting just how beautiful she was. Mine. He had never desired anyone so fiercely, so completely. He had never needed anyone as he needed her.
She caught Sable’s hand and moved towards him, the crowd seeming to part for her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, transfixed by her beauty and the way she looked at him alone, even though she passed many males, and several of them turned to watch her.
Mine.
He wanted the world to know it, beginning with every male in this club.
She halted before him, a shy edge to her expression, and he breathed hard as he wrestled with himself, torn between pulling her into his arms and kissing her and keeping things on a less intimate level.
He feared that if he tried to kiss her, she would pull away from him, increasing the distance between them. He wanted her closer, and that meant he had to figure out how to show her that she could trust him and he wouldn’t betray her as the other male had. He was not that male. If she gave her heart to him, he would cherish it and keep it safe forever. He would never allow anything to happen to her.
He lifted his hand, drawn to touching her cheek, knowing it would reassure her. His black armour peeled back to his wrists. Her awkwardness wasn’t only because of the things that had happened between them and the events of her past. It was because she felt self-conscious without her white coat, her armour. It was because she feared that he might lose control in the club and draw attention to them.
She didn’t need to fear in that respect. Demons or fae ran this club, and most of the people sharing the room with them were non-human. The staff behind the bar and clearing the tables were a mixture of demon and fae, including some rarer species.
He had spotted the blond jaguar shifter male serving drinks behind the bar. They had a unique scent. All shifters did. This one was different though, unlike any jaguar he had encountered before. He smelled not quite right. Stronger somehow. Darker.
All feline species of shape-shifters were highly territorial, but that wasn’t the only reason there wouldn’t be another jaguar male amongst the crowd or staff. They were rare now when once they had flourished. Demons had decimated their species, driving them back into the rainforest.
Loren was surprised to find this one living in a large urban area.
Normally, jaguars preferred to surround themselves with expansive dense green forests or wide open fields, places where they could let go of their mortal form and unleash their natural cat one. Unlike other species of shifter, cats had difficulty keeping control of their animal instincts and felt driven to transform on an almost nightly basis so they could run wild and hunt. Was this male’s strength the reason he could live in such a built up area and work during the hours of darkness without losing control and revealing himself to mortals?
“Stay close,” Loren said over the noise of the music and Sable tossed him a bored look. She would get herself into trouble if she ignored his warning.
He scanned the crowd and the more he looked, the less he liked the situation. Olivia and Sable were two in only a handful of humans in the club, and many of the demons and fae were already eyeing Sable with suspicion. She had left her combat gear at home, dressing in tight black leather trousers and an equally tight black t-shirt that had dragon wings in gold on the back. Like Olivia, she wore her straight black hair down, and she had no weapons on her.
Or at least none that he could see.
“Chill out. We’ve been here before.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, revealing a stylised tribal cross on the inside of her wrist. “I need a drink.”