The Mate Mistake(The Woolven Secret 3)(37)

She searched his eyes for a long moment. "Do you want me to wait here?"

"I'd prefer it if you were waiting in the limo, yes."

She studied him for a moment longer. "Okay."

"Really?" He was surprised.

"Of course. I don't have anything to prove. If this is what helps you do what needs done, I'll do it. If this is how I can best protect you and myself, I'll do it."

"Thank the goddess." He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her forehead. "I'll join you shortly."

He texted Ondrej. Have Imre escort her to the limo.

Done.

Relief flooded him, and he headed down the stairs toward the back of the spa and the employee entrance.

A myriad of scents assaulted him once he was on the street. The most prominent was the stench of death and decay. Something rotten. Walking corpses.

These were low level Asakku blood slaves. Nothing like the creature that had been waiting for Belle.

"Fetch, doggie." A deep voice emanated from below a grate in the street.

"Why don't you come up here and play?"

"I will. As soon as the sun finishes setting. You should run, baby Woolven. Run as fast as your puppy legs will carry you. Back to Aphelion and your witch. That's all that will save you."

Parker's ears twitched as he caught some sound beyond the alley. Movement. A slow shuffling. He lifted his nose to the air and the scent was almost overwhelming, but that was from the dead thing below. Not whatever waited in the alley.

"That's not for you, Baby Woolven. I'm for you. Come closer," the voice said. "Come and see."

Yeah, fuck that. "No thanks."

"You married my daughter. The least you can do is say hello."

Tirigan? Something cold splashed down his spine. He didn't know if it was awareness, or dread. Or something else altogether.

"The least I could do? The least you could do is allow her to live the life she's chosen without slaughtering everyone who offers her kindness."

"I've never been one to do the least, puppy." A horrible laugh echoed up through the vents.

Suddenly, the sky turned black with fat, puffy, dark clouds that looked like burning marshmallows. "I think it's going to storm," he said with a sound that Parker was sure was supposed to be a laugh, but sounded more like gargling with broken glass.

Strangely tan, yet sallow, fingers wrapped around the grate and popped it from the cement like a puzzle piece.

Tirigan emerged slowly, and to Parker, it seemed like an unseen hand pulling a long, skinny grub out of the dirt.

He was tall, and lean, rangy. His fingernails were black and thick, like talons. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans, which seemed to be completely at odds with what he knew about his age. Yeah, leave it to Parker to decide a dude wearing jeans was odd, but not the fact that he'd turned a sunny day to black and crawled out of the damn sewer like something from a Stephen King novel.

Goddess, his eyes were the most horrible.

They were red as blood. Or perhaps that was with blood?

Everything about him was wrong. In the stories mortals told each other, they whispered about the wrongness of supes. How they seemed out of place to humans. Something other. Parker had never known that feeling. Not in all the different kinds of beings he'd met. Not fairies, or sidhe…not even ghosts affected him like Tirigan of the Asakku.

Perhaps he was, in fact, a blood demon. Or a god.

But he kept his spine straight and his shoulders square. He wouldn't run. He wouldn't embarrass the pack or himself.

He understood why Belle wanted to run. Something about Tirigan triggered his primal fear switch, and his beast was torn between fight or flight.

No, that wasn't true.

It was his humanity that made him want to stay and fight. His beast was smarter.

Tirigan approached him, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. "Can you smell them?"

"Your get waiting for me?"

A smile curved his mouth and revealed the maw of blades. "My get? No, those aren't mine. The silver. They're hunters, afraid this war between the nations will spill out onto their streets. They're here to take you down, Parker Woolven."

Parker had begun to sweat, fighting to hold his beast at bay.

"Do you want to Change now, boy? Are you fighting it?" Tirigan seemed amused. "Perhaps you have some sense after all."

His claws elongated and pierced the palms of his hands.

Tirigan lifted his nose again. "Ah, blood. Will you gift it to me, son-in-law? A bride price?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He'd expected him to attack instead of having a conversation. But here he was, speaking with the oldest vampire on the earth, refusing the creature his blood.

"Because Belle isn't property. I won't pay any price for her, because she can't be bought or sold."