Wolf's Kin (Monstrous Hearts #3)

Chapter Thirteen

The nightclub didn't have a name, but everyone knew about it and called it The Hole. Its entrance wasn't particularly secret or difficult to find—a rusted door in a back alley that opened to a rough stone tunnel. No bouncer, no lights... no sign that anything waited beyond.

The descent was long enough and dark enough to sting the most audacious spirit, yet just as animal instinct threatened to overwhelm curiosity, neon stripes appeared, shifting from blue to pink as they scaled massive walls. Their harsh glow revealed the broken columns and stone arches of Roman ruins.

Music next. Modern, throbbing, and electric, its presence reassuring visitors that this experience would be the same as every other club. By the time the dance floor appeared, the soundstage glittering among the ancient remains like a neon crystal, even the gimmick of being far underground vanished against the crush of bodies. Fear lost to excitement, and most danced and drank and fucked without discovering what hid further beyond.

The coven had funded The Hole from its beginning, but the hag mother never enjoyed visiting it. The convenience of endless tourists that could be taken without a trace didn't outweigh the irritation of deafening music and bewildering lighting. She also hated the owner. Yet on this day, she needed to see him, and moved through the crowd with grim resolve.

She was recognized by the bartender as soon as she stepped up to his counter. "Where is he?"

The man was hardly more than a silhouette against the sullen, purple glow of the shelves behind him. The bottles of liquor glimmered like jewels. "In the back. He doesn't want to be disturbed."

Despite the warning, no one tried to stop her from entering the hallway of private rooms that could be rented out to the right people for the right reasons. The music faded to muffled beats, and then nothing at all. The walls changed into carved stone. Tallow candles replaced the neon, the one hint to humans who had wandered too far that this area wasn't for them. Their acrid smoke left the air hot and greasy.

Then the doors appeared, neat rows of red on either side. Muffled chanting could be heard in one of the rooms she passed. In another, scratching and snuffling. The hag mother smiled, already feeling back in her element.

Each door looked identical and could be locked from the inside, but she knew which one to go to and had the key for it. As she stepped inside, chains rattled. A muffled moan was answered by a growl.

Candles flickered in their stands, illuminating a massive bed and the two figures on it—a woman on her back, naked except for a blindfold and the cuffs restraining her hands and keeping her legs apart, and a man hunched over her like a beast, his tongue lapping at the sweat on her breasts as she panted.

"Not now," he said, without so much as a glance over.

The hag mother found the light switch and flicked it on. "Let's not play coy. I'm more important than any whore you found for the night."

At the sound of her voice, the woman gasped against her gag, limbs jerking against the chains in an attempt to cover herself. The man only thrust harder, his teeth now on her neck.

Then the hag mother spoke in a German dialect that had died out three centuries before. "It's about the wolf you recommended to one of our witches. He failed and now she's dead."

At that, he paused and looked up. In the modern lighting, his features were clear. Sharp and dangerous and all the more handsome for it, like a knife blade honed to perfection. When the hag mother noticed the bright yellow of his eyes, she kept her expression cold, well aware she faced a wolf on the edge of bloodlust.

The girl beneath him whimpered, cheeks flushing as if embarrassed there was another person in the room. A small noise, yet it drained all threat from the vargr. He shook his head while stroking the girl's hair. "You're such a pain in the ass. Wait in the other room."