Wolven

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2013 Silvia Stancil

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-371-2

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: Melissa Hosack

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To all my loyal readers. Thanks!

  WOLVEN

  Club Heat, 3

  Silvia Stancil

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  “Hi’ya!”

  The short, blonde bartender didn’t look particularly happy to see Rachel McGee standing at the bar.

  Rachel brushed her short, fiery red hair behind her ears and gave her most winning smile to the skeptical blonde, whose cocked brow gave nothing away save for indifference.

  “Can I help you?” the blonde asked.

  “Yes!” Rachel said, hoping she didn’t sound too enthusiastic and knowing that she probably did. She leaned over to catch a glimpse of the blonde’s nametag. “Janika. If you don’t mind me calling you by your first name… You don’t, do you?”

  Janika shook her head. She examined Rachel as though she were crazy. “So, I can help you?” she said. “What is it, sister? A drink? A burger? Want to start a tab?”

  “Actually,” Rachel said, raising her index finger. “I was hoping to get a job.”

  “We’re not hiring.”

  “You’re not? But the ad in the paper said—”

  Janika laughed.

  Rachel was relieved to see a smile finally grace the blonde’s face. It made her about a thousand times prettier than she had been.

  “We are.” Janika’s tone lightened along with her expression. “Do you have any experience?”

  Rachel hesitated. Yes. No. No matter what she said, it would be a lie. Right? Everything that passed her lips was supposed to be a lie, according to…

  “Experience?” Janika repeated, snapping Rachel out of her whirlwind thoughts.

  “Yes!” Rachel raised her finger again as she rummaged through her purse for her resume. Samael, the leader of the fire vampires, had given it to her, and it was impressive to say the least. “Here we are.”

  Janika took it with a little smile and looked it over. Her expression went from one of skepticism to one of happiness as her eyes traveled from one of end the sheet to the other. “You are just chock-full of experience, eh?” she asked, swinging open the little, western-style door that led behind the bar. “Welcome to Club Heat, Rachel. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Rachel stared at the open door. “I should…come on back, then?”

  Janika grinned. “That’s the idea,” she said.

  “Here I come,” Rachel said cheerfully. She rubbed her eyes and tried not to panic. Her excitement had almost made her fire sight flare up. That last thing she needed was to show off her flaming vision on an undercover job. Samael would have her ass if she messed this up. Even worse, Janika seemed really nice.

  Rachel shook off the feeling as she slid herself back into evil mode. What she needed to worry about was losing her companionship with Samael, not some stupid friendship that hadn’t even started yet. And didn’t need to.

  “So, how long have you been in SoulCity?” Janika asked, drying a glass on her apron before she reached down to get some paperwork from beneath the bar. She slapped it down on the countertop and slid Rachel a pen. “You’ll need to fill all that out, and I’ll need a state ID.”

  Rachel nodded, her hand trembling as she filled in the paperwork. Lies, lies, lies. So many lies, she almost forgot to answer Janika’s question.

  “I just got here about two weeks ago,” she said, though Samael had actually brought her there about six months before. She had been living with him in New York since she was eighteen, and it was only natural that she should follow when he came to SoulCity. They’d been spying on the shifters ever since, waiting. He had taken care of everything, though. If Janika were to call any number on that application, somebody would pick up and verify the untruth. “I feel kind of lucky to have found something so quickly.”

  “I feel lucky you waltzed in,” Janika said with a warm smile that made Rachel feel guilty all over again. “Ever since my best friend, Kit, moved upstairs with the vampires, I’ve been down here all by my lonesome. Well, except for my boyfriend, Lance. He comes here just about every night and we shoot pool together.”

  “There are vampires here?” Anxiety reared its ugly head again.

  “Uh, yeah,” Janika said with an incredulous laugh.

  Her tone made Rachel wonder if her new boss were from California, or a valley girl. Both?

  “You didn’t know that SoulCity is crawling with supernatural creatures?” Janika went on. “And I tell you what. If you’re not comfortable around them, then Club Heat is not the job you want to be working at.”

  “No!” Rachel gave an awkward laugh, too loudly. The thought crossed her mind that she would have failed miserably as an actress. “Supernatural creatures, fine by me. Vampires, fine, fine.”

  They shouldn’t be able to smell out what she was, any of them. Samael had doubled her up on cloaking serum, a terrible, odorous brew she had to drink before every shift. Rachel screwed her nose up at the thought of it.

  “You okay?” Janika asked, looking to be legitimately concerned.

  Rachel looked up as she scrawled her signature on the bottom of the application. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Great.” Janika stood on her tiptoes. “Because here come the shifters. They’re really good friends of mine, and they’ll each have a draft Miller Lite.”

  Rachel turned to see the shifters and caught her breath. They were tiger shifters for sure, and each one had an olive complexion and feline eyes to die for. The pack was five strong, and each one of them was more unique-looking than the last. Rachel had never seen tiger shifters up close, and they were so gorgeous that the thought of killing them repulsed her for a moment. Rachel could see by the look on her new co-worker’s face that the last one to saunter in, the youngest-looking, was probably Lance.

  Rachel cleared her throat and turned to fill the draft beers for the pack. Her heart beat fast as the damned heat started behind her eyelids again. She closed her eyes for a moment to gather herself before she turned back to the bar, drinks in hand.

  “There ya’ are!” she told Janika, happy that Samael had at least bothered to teach her how to bartend before he sent her undercover. The older vampire seemed to know everything, which was one of the things that had so attracted Rachel to him in the first place.

  “Wow, that was fast,” Janika said. “Think I can trust you to man the bar for a few minutes while I bring these over and say hi to the boys?”

  “Sure.” Rachel smiled. “Have fun.”

  Janika returned the smile as she sauntered over to the tiger shifters, her little hips moving in a side-to-side motion that Rachel had to smile at. Janika had certainly poured on the sauce when the shifters walked in the door, having been so business-like before.

  A buzz at Rachel’s hip caught her off guard. Shit. Samael was calling, already. How did he know she was alone? She swore he could see through the walls.

  Rachel squeezed herself into a corner behind the bar and picked up the phone.

  “Well?” he hissed.

  “Well, everything’s going fine.”
/>
  “Spotted the shifters?” he asked.

  “Yup. They just walked in and Janika wandered over there. She trusts me, I guess. Left me behind the bar all by myself and everything.”

  “Congratulations,” he said scathingly. “You’re a bartender. Next, the world.”

  “Ha,” she said, rolling her eyes at his derisive flirtation. “So, what’s next?”

  “Find out where they live. I better go. Meet me in the alley after work.”

  “What if Janika is with me?”

  She swore she could hear him smile over the phone.

  “You really think the shifter fucker is going to notice where a head fire vampire is hiding out?”

  Rachel wrinkled up her nose. “Shifter fucker?” she asked.

  “She’s a whore, Rachel,” he said snidely. “She screws that pack of shifters for protection from dangerous creatures.”

  Rachel chewed that over for a moment. “Well, what does that make me? I screwed you and your second in command before you took me in.”

  “A dangerous creature,” he said. “Gotta go, baby.”

  “I love—” Rachel started, but he had already hung up. For once, his rudeness worked in her favor. Janika was skipping back behind the bar.

  “Hey, Rachel!” she said breathlessly. If Janika had looked a thousand times happier after smiling, she looked a million times happier after having seen Lance.

  Rachel’s heart fell inside. She wondered what she would look like if she were that happy. She pretended to sneeze into her elbow as the sad thought made her fire flare up again.

  “Bless you,” Janika laughed. “All right, lady. That’s the highlight of my night. And now, we sit. Trust me, it’s more fun than it looks, because all kinds of sexy guys are going to start piling in. Would you say you’re more of a vampire or a shifter kind of girl?”

  Rachel paused. “I’ve never dated either,” she said. The shifters were pouring in, and the sight of them tightened up her chest. “But, I suppose I would be curious to hop in the sack with a shifter.”

  “That’s the truth,” Janika said, brushing a dramatic hand over her forehead. “Okay, let’s play a game.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I point out the people pouring in, and you tell me what kind of a creature they are.”

  “Heh,” Rachel said. The night might be easy, after all. Just so long as Rachel’s vast supernatural knowledge didn’t get her popped as a fire vampire. She gave a cheerful smile as she sat down on a barstool to play Janika’s game. She couldn’t help but to stroke her phone with her thumb. It was the only thing that kept her close to her lover at all. Rachel had noticed she always felt...well, cold, when she was away from Samael. As if a part of her were missing.

  “Right there.” Janika pointed to entryway. “Know what they are?”

  Rachel nodded. “Wolf shifters. And…wow. You, um, know them?”

  It was hard to not be single for the moment, despite the loneliness she felt when she was away from Samael. The glimpse of the wolf shifters made her question the whole thing for a moment, undercover fire vampire or not.

  “Yeah, I know them,” Janika said with a huge grin. “Charlie and Frank. They’re both, like, in their early thirties, I think. They age so well. How about you, Rachel? How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven,” she said quietly, her eyes following the wolves as they approached the bar. “Looks like I’m just about the right age, then, huh?”

  Janika giggled.

  “And the right status, I hope, because they’re both single.”

  “I’ll take care of them.” Rachel thought she’d stumble and fall as she hurried up to the bar. The wolf shifters exchanged a glance when they saw her, and she was certain that they’d checked her out. They introduced themselves and Rachel leaned back to get a better look at them.

  Charlie was the taller of the two and had dark, muddy-brown hair with silvery streaks the color of a wolf’s coat in the front. His eyes were slanted, giving him an almost Asian appearance, and it looked like he had silver crescent moons rather than pupils. His skin was a cool, alabaster color and one dark lock of hair was flopped over his left eye, giving him a mysterious appearance.

  Frank looked like he was probably the younger of the pair. His hair was white blonde and he wore it to his shoulders. The top of his black dress shirt was open and revealed the top of a tattoo that appeared to be a full moon. His skin was as pale as Charlie’s, and his eyes were slanted likewise. Frank’s eyes were a deep brown and carried the hint of a mischievous sparkle. Rachel figured that like most supernatural creatures, the slanted eyes were probably the solitary trait that set them apart from human beings.

  “What can I get you?” she asked.

  They exchanged a smile with one another.

  “Two shots of Jack,” Charlie said. “And, um, maybe a pool game with you?”

  Rachel shot an inquisitive look at Janika.

  “If it slows down,” Janika said with a nod. “You can knock yourself out. Usually, Friday nights don’t carry any recreation for us bartending folks.”

  Her words rang true. By the time Rachel and Janika were finished cleaning up the mess that Club Heat had become, all Rachel could think about was falling into bed with her boss, er, boyfriend. Whatever he was, it didn’t matter anymore, because like all her time that evening, the wolf shifters had disappeared.

  Janika seemed cheerful as they closed the place up, dancing and shaking her hips to Everybody Got Their Something as it played overhead on the satellite radio. Rachel found her mood somewhat infectious, and when Janika offered her a shot, she couldn’t help but to accept. The two women took seats on barstools.

  Janika let her hair down and released a huge sigh. “Best part of the evening,” she said, raising her shot of whiskey in a toast. “Closing time!”

  “I thought the tiger shifters were the best part of the evening?” Rachel giggled as her

  shot glass met Janika’s in the toast.

  “Eh.” Janika laughed. “That’s just something I like to tell myself all night. That every passing moment is the best I’ve had.”

  Rachel cocked her head. “I like that. I’ve never looked at life that way.”

  “You should,” Janika said. She shook her head and giggled as she refilled their shot glasses. “There’ll be no negativity in my establishment.”

  Rachel laughed, and a buzz from her cell phone made her grimace. Shit. She’d completely forgotten to probe Janika for information, not that she’d had a moment to. “So,” she said casually, clearing her throat. “Where do all the shifters stay around here, anyway? Do they all live together or what?”

  “Well, aren’t we curious.” Janika smiled. “Most of them live in those new condos on fifth. They all pretty much bunk together, at least, the younger, unmated ones do. Pack mentality. Kinda reminds me of my sorority in a way.”

  So that was where the valley girl accent had come from.

  “I wonder if that makes me a pack animal?” Janika said thoughtfully. “Or maybe just a ditz?”

  “A pack of ditzs?” Rachel offered, and the two burst into laughter. Another buzz at her side broke her cheerful mindset. “Shit,” she whispered, reaching down to silence Samael’s follow-up text. “Um, was there anything else that needed to be done?”

  Janika examined her in seeming curiosity. “No. You want another drink? Or you got a hot date or something?”

  “Something like that,” she muttered. “When should I come back?”

  “Hmm.” Janika’s eyes drifted to the calendar on the bar wall. “Tomorrow is good. It’s Saturday and the place will be loaded. Did you have a good time tonight?”

  Rachel grinned. “I did,” she said cheerfully, and then caught herself. What the hell was she getting attached to the job for? Happy for? It was nothing more than a ruse, which was just about what she felt like herself these days. A lie inside a body. “But I’d love to get out of here, if you’re offering.”

  Janika stoo
d and gave a sweeping bow toward the exit. “After you, my lady.”

  Chapter Two

  The two women giggled together as Janika opened the back door to let Rachel out into the alley. They exchanged goodbyes and Rachel pulled her cell phone from her side to check the text message. The first one read:

  Any info yet?

  And the second:

  Look up.

  Rachel screwed up her nose and looked up as the message had indicated, nearly jumping out of her skin when spotted Samael sitting on the fire escape of Club Heat, a sneaky grin plastered on his face. His second in command, Chadwick, stood in the alleyway, a smirk of equally devious proportions spilled across his features.

  “Hi’ya, babe,” Samael said, hopping down to greet her with a kiss. His eyes had come to life with flame vision as soon as he’d spotted her, and Rachel wondered again if he really did care about her. Something in the back of her mind always nagged at her, told her the older vampire was using her.

  He had to be at least a hundred, but he didn’t look a day over thirty. Samael stood about five foot ten and looked like he had probably been crossbred with Native Americans or Islanders somewhere down the line. His skin was clear and soft to the touch, his arms covered in lightly etched occult symbolism beneath his crimson dress shirt. Samael’s hair was a deep, golden brown that looked much darker than it actually was in the low lighting of the alleyway.

  Rachel pulled away from his kiss and breathed in the incense-like smell of him as she always did, a fragrance she had never been able to nail despite all the nights they’d spent together in the sack.

  Chadwick was truly twenty-eight years old and stood about six feet tall. He looked like he might be related to Samael, but his skin was paler and more luminous in the glow of the moon that slivered in and out of the gray clouds overhead. His eyes were huge and charcoal-colored when he wasn’t using his flame vision, which turned them a terrifying shade of raven. He was well built and wore his dark brown hair slicked back. Like most of the fire vampires, Samael and Chadwick were entertainment moguls, and it showed in their dress, speech, and mannerisms.