Wolves' Lair (A Werewolf MMF Bisexual Threesome) Page 3

  He either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, but Lucy sobered up in an instant.

  What was she doing, going out with a wolf, letting him kiss her here? They were dangerous and she knew it, even if he really was an electrician, she couldn’t get tangled up in that lifestyle. Drug running, motorcycles, god know what else.

  “I have to go,” she gasped, and then practically ran through the doors of her apartment building.

  For the next two days, Lucy tried to get Declan out of her head, but it was no use. It was like the more she told herself that he was dangerous, that his motorcycle would only get her hurt or killed or something, the more she wanted him.

  She felt terrible about running away Saturday night, and for what? Because some people had walked by and said something about them — what did those assholes know, anyway? Declan was kind, he was nice, and he was an electrician for god’s sake. Maybe the other wolves ran drugs from Canada or guns from Mexico, traded pharmaceuticals to the bored Mormon housewives in Salt Lake City, but Declan obviously wasn’t one of them.

  He was normal, for God’s sake.

  The problem was, he was a normal guy whose phone number she didn’t have. When they’d gotten drinks she’d given him her phone number and just assumed he’d call her soon and she’d get it that way, but now forty-eight hours had gone by since she’d practically run away from him, and she hadn’t heard a thing.

  It wasn’t until she was closing the store again, Tuesday night, that the solution hit her.

  Of course, she thought. He was at that bar once, maybe he’ll be there again.

  Once she figured it out, the hour until closing seemed to drag on forever: old lady after old lady came to her checkout and argued with her about yarn, or about needlepoint. She had to clean up a broken glass, and she had to reorganize the beads.

  It seemed like 9 p.m. would never come, but then it did. The sound of the store closing announcement had never been sweeter.

  Lucy and Amanda, the other girl working close, cleaned up in record time and they were out by 9:20.

  “I wish every night went this fast,” Amanda said, sauntering out the door and locking it.

  Lucy thought her heart might beat right out of her chest. She was certain that she other girl could hear it and just wasn’t saying anything.

  “Yeah, me too. Hey, I’m parked that way on the street, the lot creeps me out, I’m fine to walk alone, see you in a few days!” the words came out in a rush with practically no spaces between them.

  Amanda gave her a funny look, but said goodbye and headed for the lot, leaving Lucy alone on the sidewalk.

  Alone except for the knot of men, smoking and pooled beneath a street lamp. They all wore leather jackets, and even from her distance, Lucy knew what she would find on them: wolf tattoos, every one.

  She swallowed hard, straightened her back, adjusted her thrift store purse on her shoulder, and marched toward the bar, determined to act utterly unafraid.

  The men standing around on the sidewalk stopped talking and watched her as she walked by, and she pretended not to notice their stares, or their suddenly-quiet mutters.

  There was a bouncer, a huge, tall, beefy guy with a bald head and a wolf tattoo. When Lucy walked up to him, he looked her up and down for a long time, clearly a little uncertain about what to do with her.

  “You lost?” he finally asked.

  “No,” Lucy said. She adjusted her purse on her shoulder, nervously.

  “This is the Mangy Mutt,” he said.

  Lucy just nodded.

  “You twenty-one?”

  “Yes,” she said, and started to reach for her ID, but he waved her off.

  “Good enough for me,” he said, pushing the door next to him open. “Have a nice night.”

  It was dark inside, which wasn’t exactly surprising to Lucy. She had been in a bar before, after all, though this was a different dark than the refined, artisanal dark of the cocktail bar Declan had taken her to a few days ago. This was a sticky dark, a dark that smelled vaguely of stale smoke and stale beer, the sounds of pool balls clicking together and men laughing everywhere.

  She didn’t see Declan.

  “What can I get you?” asked a woman’s voice. The bartender was right there, looking at her, wearing some sort of leather halter vest that left plenty of cleavage free. She had dark hair, dark eyes, and a narrow, almost predatory face, but in a pretty way.

  She didn’t have the wolf tattoo, though, and that gave Lucy hope. Maybe regular people could come in here and blend in, and it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

  Lucy had been so nervous about coming in and looking for Declan that she hadn’t even thought about ordering a drink. Her eyes flicked over the big selection of liquor behind the bar, almost an overwhelming selection, and the bartender was still staring at her.

  “What do you have?” she asked. Even as it came out of her mouth, she knew it was a stupid question.

  “All the usual,” the woman said, turning to look at the shelves behind her.

  Lucy’s heart sank when she saw that same tattoo that Declan had — snarling wolf, glowing eyes — right in the center of the woman’s back. She was a wolf after all and Lucy was still alone, the only human in the place.

  “On tap we got Coors, Bud, Michelob, and Sam Adams.”

  “I’ll take a Sam Adams,” said Lucy, just echoing the last thing she’d heard.

  As the woman poured her beer, Lucy looked around the bar another few times, hoping that Declan would magically come out of the shadows or something, come talk to her and tell her it was OK that she’d run away from him for no real reason.

  He wasn’t coming, though. Lucy was going to have to go through the bar, past all the men playing pool and darts and just sitting around tables, muttering with their heads close together. She could even see men going through a doorway to the back of the place, and every so often, a cheer would erupt from beyond the doorway.

  They were probably watching some sporting event back there, she assumed. Football, maybe. Was it even football season?

  “Four dollars,” the bartender said. Lucy gave her a five dollar bill, took her beer, and started walking.

  She practically held her breath as she walked by the first pool table, but beyond a few stares, nothing happened. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was expecting, if she was honest: that here, in this bar in Boise, she’d be kidnapped and sold into sex slavery? That she’d somehow be loaded up with drugs and shipping across the border as a mule?

  These men could barely be less interested in her. Lucy heaved a sigh of relief, and felt her shoulders relax down her back as she approached the other room.

  Then, out of nowhere, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Adrenaline shot through her, and she whirled around, grabbing her purse with one hand.

  “Whoa there,” said the man, lifting his hand off of her. “I don’t want your purse. Fancy seeing you here.”

  Lucy stared at him for a few moments, and then it clicked: it was the other man who’d saved her from the mugger, a couple of nights ago. Up close, he looked different, rugged and handsome, at least six two, six three, and positively stacked with muscle.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Lucy, was it?” the man said.

  She nodded.

  “It’s nice seeing you again,” he said, half-smiling. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I was actually looking for Declan,” she said. “It’s — I — we went for drinks, but I forgot to get his phone number and I thought maybe he would be here.”

  The man raised one eyebrow. His eyes were light brown, almost gold, though he had the same nearly-black hair as Declan, his skin tanner.

  “I didn’t know he was seeing anyone,” he murmured.

  Lucy caught the hint of something dangerous in his voice. She was beginning to have a bad feeling about this man whose name she didn’t even know. After all, the last time she’d seen him he’d broken a stranger’s arm. It was for her, and the stranger h
ad been about to rob her, but she still found that fact noteworthy.

  “I don’t think we’re really seeing each other,” she said, the words spilling out. “We just went for drinks, kind of a date I guess, but then I didn’t get his number like I said—“

  “I’m Heath, by the way,” he said, holding out one hand.

  “I’m Lucy,” she said, taking it.

  He knows your name already, dingbat, she thought.

  His hand was huge and warm and firm, and he squeezed her hand just a little too hard but Lucy forced herself not to make a face. She didn’t know why, but she was determined not to show any weakness while she was at the Mutt, where she felt like... well, she felt like a sheep among wolves.

  “You’re looking for Declan, huh,” he said. He was still holding her hand, just a tiny bit too hard. Lucy could sense the men at the pool tables glancing their way, trying to see what was going on without really looking.

  “If he’s around,” she said. “I just thought, since you were here the other night, maybe he comes here a lot?”

  Heath chuckled and finally let her hand go. “I’d say he does,” he said, his voice cryptic. “I could take you to Declan. You sure you want to go?”

  Something in his tone made Lucy pause. “Where is he?”

  “He’s downstairs.”

  As if on cue, a huge cheer erupted from the door to the back. Lucy looked through it, and realized, for the first time, that it led to a stone staircase. It looked old, almost ancient, though she knew Boise was anything but.

  She felt thrown off-kilter, all her fake confidence sapped. “What’s down there?” she asked, uncertainly.

  “The ring,” he said. The way he said it, she knew something odd was going on. He was starting to smile slightly, and Lucy could see his teeth, perfect and white and shining in his mouth.

  Even as she knew he was dangerous, even as she knew that she might be getting in over her head, she found herself impossibly attracted to him. Maybe she could just leave Declan behind and go somewhere with Heath.

  Lucy closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head slightly. That was insane. What was she thinking? She didn’t just go off with strange men, and definitely not with strange wolves. She straightened again, sticking her chin out.

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  For a split second, she thought she felt the men at the pool table next to them staring at her, all their activity stopped as they looked, but when she glanced their way she found that they were carrying on as usual.

  Just my imagination, she thought. Don’t be crazy.

  “Perfect,” said Heath, and now he smiled even wider, showing off his perfect, sharp, white teeth. “That’ll do. It’s nearly my turn.”

  Before Lucy could ask at what, he had turned and was headed down the old-looking stone staircase.

  The basement was cool. The walls were mostly cement, mixed with wooden beams arcing overhead, and Lucy kept one hand on the wall as she descended.

  Below the Mutt was a huge room, easily fifty feet by fifty feet. The center was fenced off with a big, five-foot-high chain link fence, and men were gathered around it, shouting and cheering. The only lights in the room were gathered around that fence, the interior of it lit bright, the rest of the huge basement room in varying levels of shadows.

  From inside the fence, Lucy could hear growling and snapping.

  She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes becoming the size of saucers. At the bottom of the stairs already, Heath turned and looked up at her.

  “You said you wanted to come,” he said.

  From the look in his eyes she could tell he was mocking her and her frightened, human ways. He was daring her, almost, to run back up the stairs, leave the bar and never come back. That was what he wanted, she thought.

  Lucy straightened her back again, steeling herself.

  “I did,” she told him, and descended the last couple of steps.

  There was a high-pitched, canine yelp from inside the fence, and Lucy flinched, despite herself. Through the gathered men she could just barely see flashes of gray-brown fur, hear intense snarling. The flash of teeth and claws.

  She bit her lips together, heart hammering.

  This was dangerous, actually dangerous in a way that going into a bar probably wasn’t. She knew that, while not many humans hung out with wolves, even less had ever seen one in wolf form. Hardly anyone had ever seen them shift, few enough that shifting was still in the realm of legend for lot of people. Even Boise, home to a huge pack, had people who didn’t believe that the wolves could turn from human to animal and back.

  And here she was, watching two animals fight with each other, snarling and snapping and growling. One had a big scratch across his snout, and the other had an ear torn ragged. They were really, truly animals, capable of nearly anything, and the only thing separating them from her was a thin wire fence.

  Lucy had never felt more human, or more vulnerable.

  She edged her way between two big men, her head not coming any higher than their shoulders. They each looked at her and then at Heath, then shrugged, and kept on watching the fight.

  It seemed to be nearly over: one wolf, the brownish one, seemed to be flagging, favoring one front paw over the other. As Lucy watched, the bigger, grayer wolf went in one last time, snapping at the other wolf’s neck, getting it hard between his teeth.

  Lucy covered her eyes with her hands, totally unable to bear whatever came next.

  She heard men chuckling at her, Heath loudest. Then he took her hands and uncovered her eyes, forcing her to look into the ring.

  The brown wolf was on his back, all four paws in the air, tail sweeping back and forth across the floor — clearly still alive. The gray wolf paced back and forth a few times, then sat, looking surprisingly dog-like.

  “We’re not savages,” Heath said. That spark of malicious amusement was back in his voice, and Lucy blushed.

  “I didn’t think that—“

  “I’m teasing you,” he said, his voice softer than it had been before.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “It’s my turn next,” he said. “How about a good luck kiss?”

  “I don’t—“

  “Oh, come on,” Heath said, coming closer.

  Lucy’s heart sped up again. His lips were close to her face, and inside her she could feel the strange, burning desire to kiss them.

  What is wrong with me? She wondered.

  “Just a peck,” he encouraged.

  Face flushed, Lucy maneuvered around him, landing a peck on the cheek.

  Heath laughed.

  “I’ll get a kiss on the lips if I win, I guess,” he said, and then he was gone.

  Suddenly alone in the crowd, Lucy looked around the ring. She’d been so amazed and nervous and overwhelmed at being down there at first that she hadn’t even thought to look for Declan, but she did now.

  The place was full of male wolves, all human, all with the same snarling wolf tattoo on their forearms, milling around, drinking beer, and talking to each other. She saw money changing hands a few times, but over all, it seemed surprisingly tame for what was essentially a dog-fighting ring.

  Well, sort of. She supposed it wasn’t technically animal cruelty if the animals were part human and knew exactly what they were getting into. More like a fight club.

  Then, she spotted him, sitting on a metal folding chair at the far side of the ring. He was straddling it, his long legs around the back, his arms resting on it, relaxed and slightly hunched.

  He turned his head a little toward the light, talking to someone, and Lucy realized that he had a black eye and a deep scratch across one cheek.

  Declan fights too, she realized. She almost couldn’t process it: the sweet, charming, gentle guy who’d bought her cocktails, turning into a wolf and getting in the ring. Turning into an animal.

  Strangely, she felt an odd tingle at the thought, deep down inside.

  “Next fight!” someone bellowed, off to her
right. Men crowded against the fencing, though it seemed like they were oddly careful not to touch Lucy, or even get too close. It was like they were being careful.

  Either side of the wing had a gate, and at once, both of them went up, two flashes of fur erupting into the ring. The wolves looked so similar to each other, Lucy couldn’t really tell them apart: both yellow-eyed, gray, snarling canines who looked like they could easily rip her to shreds without a second thought.

  She swallowed.

  One wolf made a quick lunge, going for the throat, but the other caught him and feinted, sinking his teeth into the first wolf’s snout.

  “Oh!” Lucy exclaimed softly, caught by surprise. The wolf who’d been bitten was bleeding now, shaking its head, tiny droplets flying off. She covered her mouth with both hands and forced herself to keep watching.

  Was that Heath? She thought. She realized that she was rooting for him to win, even though she didn’t know which one he was.

  The wolves snapped and feinted, growling.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here,” said a voice in Lucy’s ear, making her jump and yelp in surprise.

  She turned to see Declan behind her, grinning. Even with a black eye and that cut he was handsome.

  “Sorry, I forgot how jumpy you are,” he said. He moved closer to her, putting one hand on the fence, his arm going over her shoulder and just barely touching it.

  “It’s okay,” she breathed. “I’m just — I’ve never been down here before, is all.”

  “Most humans haven’t,” he said. His eyes flicked from the fight to her face. “I saw Heath bring you in, though. I think he’s taken a shine to you.”

  Lucy shook her head, glancing nervously at the growling wolves on the other side of the fence. “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “I’m not that sure,” he said, that same half-teasing look on his face.

  He leaned a little into the fence, and Lucy could feel his body heat close to hers. All he wore was a white t-shirt with a little dried blood on the sleeve and jeans.

  “He’s winning,” Declan said. “This shouldn’t be too much longer. Jackson’s starting to flag, moving too slow. He won’t last.”