“With all those Breed Enforcers in attendance?” Emma looked at her as though scandalized. “I really don’t want my alpha jerking me home and shortening my leash to the point that I strangle. None of us do.”
“Just for dancing?” Gypsy tugged at her ear in confusion as she frowned out at the dance floor and the smooth, sinuous flow of bodies that moved in beat to the music.
“Our alpha is convinced we’re pure and sweet with no sex drive and damned sure we know none of the moves we use while teasing those cowboys. If he even heard of us dancing as we do, he’d never let us out to play again.” Emma even looked properly horrified.
“Is your alpha here?” she asked, looking around suspiciously. She usually heard when there were any alphas in the area.
“No, not the alpha, just every Breed who would ever tell on us.” Emma grimaced. “Wherever Cassie goes, Jonas’s best enforcers go. That means our alpha would be told because one of those Breeds this month is one of the Citadel’s team commanders. He would tattle on us in a heartbeat.”
They had sacrificed their own fun to give Cassie what she wanted, even knowing the total lack of fun the other girl would have.
Looking up, she watched as Cassie Sinclair stalked back to the table, lifted a glass of amber liquid and tossed it back furiously before giving in to a rough, shocked bout of coughing.
“There, there,” Ashley murmured as she smacked the other girl on the back a few times. “That’s it. Fine whiskey just makes everything better. Would you like another shot, dear?”
That gleam in Emma’s eyes was positively devilish as she indicated to the waitress that she wanted another.
It wasn’t going to make it better, Gypsy thought as she watched Cassie sit back in her chair, her gaze slashing mutinously to the dozen Breeds who moved to the table.
“They even have two female enforcers to go into the bathroom with her.” Ashley leaned across the table as she indicated that Gypsy should move closer. “Or we would have just slipped her out the bathroom window.”
She glanced at Cassie, seeing the damp gleam in her eyes as the other girl quickly ducked her head to hide the tears she had to blink back.
Damn, to let her go, then to send a dozen bodyguards to make certain she was miserable, was just cruel.
“Why not just slip her out of the hotel?” Gypsy asked, her gaze flicking to the furious Cassie. “They can’t follow if they don’t know she’s leaving.”
“It’s hard to slip away from six Breeds parked on your ass every minute of the day,” Ashley answered with a twinge of sympathy. “Besides, there’s not a bar in a hundred-mile radius that doesn’t have at least one Breed who would report where she was.”
Oh, they so didn’t know the area, or the bars, as well as they thought they did.
“What about the underground bars?” Surely Ashley and Emma had been to a few of them. “The Breeds there would die and go to hell before they’d tell on her. If she was caught there, so would they be. If there were even any there, which is damned rare. They might watch out for her, but they’ll damned sure not ride her ass like a herd of ponies after a prized female.”
Ashley’s eyes narrowed as the others, even Sharone, laughed in surprise at the description. “You’re kidding me. They have those here?”
Gypsy had to laugh now. “At least a dozen that I know of. Come on, bars are still strictly banned except along the reservation’s borders. Even then, they’re not allowed within the city limits. Do you really think we always want to make that drive? Especially those who live much farther from here?”