Alessia Stocklin and Ezra Withers are polar opposites, but they can certainly agree on one thing: their mutual hate for each other.
He's an Alpha deadset on killing every rogue he comes across, while she's a vigilante - known as Nightshade - intent...
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"What's your name?" The disheveled bartender asked.
After the realization of recent events came crashing down on me — confronting Ezra, having my brother find out who my mate was, and telling everything to Link — I decided to go out for a drink. For a split second, I thought against it.
What if I allowed the urge to kill Ezra to become too overpowering with each drink? However, the sinking despair of my life quickly wiped my concern away.
In trying to run away from my problems for a night, I decided to travel to a bar in No Man's Land. Byron's pack backed up to the west coast of the United States. Since a lot of the area was patrolled and run by humans, it was hard to regulate who walked through the area, which left a lot of interesting folks filtering through.
Upon coming to the coastland, I pulled out my phone and navigated to the nearest bar. It was a dinky place called Sam's. The bar did not have the best reviews, and the pictures did not do the bar justice. The wafting scent of stale alcohol and smoke filled my airway, and for the first minute upon entering, I had to hold my breath.
The interior was what I had expected from a place with little to any five-star reviews. All the furniture was carved from wood — even the bar itself. There were two pool tables in the back of the bar and a dusty jukebox in between that played washed-out music.
Besides myself, a few people lingered about. One of which I could tell was a Vampire; I could smell the scent of decay before I even walked over the threshold. Paying no attention to the Vampire, I walked up to the bar and asked for a vodka water. The bartender grunted in response and then a minute later slid the drink toward me.
Lightly sipping on my alcoholic beverage, the bartender's gray eyes never seemed to wander too far from me. He was a stout and pudgy man. His facial hair was overgrown and unkept, in need of a good trimming. His arms were lined with tattoos, and he twisted around a toothpick that was placed between his teeth.
Swirling my drink around, ice rattling in the glass, I looked into the man's gray eyes and lied, "Esther."
Instead of telling the man my name, I used my mother's. Mom would never have approved of me blatantly lying like that, but she was not here to protest. Mom had always been pure of heart, detesting even the slightest hint of lying.
Her expectations — at times — felt suffocating to live up to, especially when I was pitted against Apollo, who could do wrong, but he often found ways to slip out of trouble. I, on the other hand, did not have the Alpha Gene to use as an excuse.
"You don't strike me as an Esther," his eyes roamed over my body, hovering over my chest.
"I get that a lot," I leaned my head to the side, taking a sip of the vodka water before picking up my drink and walking to one of the empty tables.
