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Nate did not follow his lead. As always he hung back, and in all his black leather, he nearly faded into nonexistence in the deep-blue lighting. Flaring her nostrils, she breathed in, and somehow, even through the smells of the alcohol, the aroused humans, and Lyric’s perfume, the scent of the male’s own fresh blood registered—
Great. She was looking at him again. But he really was wounded. His palms were scratched raw, and there was something wrong with his shoulder, his left arm sitting lower than his right… except suddenly she wasn’t cataloging his contusions anymore. In the black light, his neck glowed with iridescent tattoos, and not for the first time, she wondered how far down his body they went. She suspected he had two full sleeves, but whenever she’d seen him, he’d always been in long-sleeved shirts, so she’d never seen more than his inked-up wrists.
Is there ink on his pecs?she wondered.Covering his chest muscles, fanning out to his powerful arms?
What about… lower.
Even though she didn’t want to, she imagined him stretched out on a table, the Black Dagger Brother Vishous leaning over his abdominals, the high-pitched whirring of a tattoo gun—
Nalla stiffened as she met his eyes for a second time, and when his dark brows lowered, she stood her ground and refused to look away. He was just like Mharta, living in his own world, expecting everyone to fit into it on his terms. But screw him. She had every right to be at this godforsaken club—
“Bitty should be here soon.”
Nalla forced herself to focus on Lyric. “Yes. Please.”
What the hell was she saying.
A drink was offered to her by a human waitress in a white towel and a pair of high heels, and she took it because it gave her something to do with her hands. A sniff told her there was vodka involved and some kind of fruit. She took a test sip and grimaced.
When she glanced back to the fire exit, Nate was looking out over the crowd, his eyes narrowed as if he were searching for something, but his expression disinterested like he didn’t expect to find it. Which was a contradiction. Then again, that was him. A quiet male whose every move screamed aggression. A loner who fought for the species, even though he didn’t seem connected to anybody or anything. A deadly warrior who trained like he still had things to learn.
His lean face was interesting rather than handsome, the hollows of his cheeks making his jaw seem extra prominent, those brows slashing across the tops of his deep eye sockets, his lips tight with the kind of disapproval that suggested at least he agreed with her opinion on Bathe.
And even as Shuli ordered a round for everyone, Nate stayed where he was on the outside of the sunken area, a watcher, not a participant.
Or more like a disapprovi-ant.
“I’m really glad you came out, Nalla. We never see you anymore.”
Lyric sat forward, so earnest, so lovely. And all Nalla could do was smile and nod as the music droned on.
Goddamn, she never should have come.
CHAPTER SIX
Not with a ten-foot pole. Nope. I like my balls where they are, thank you very much.”
In spite of the thump-bump-pump of the music, Nate overheard the pronouncement, but he didn’t bother deciphering which of the males seated on the couches below him was doing the talking. Standing over the sunken sectionals, draped in the dense black-blue lighting, his eyes were fixed across the VIP room to the opposite corner.
For one, because it was better than noticing that female—what the hell was she doing here, anyway? For another, the group of humans who were seated to the immediate right of the velvet-roped entrance was the reason he’d come.
Fun fact? He really didn’t want Nalla anywhere near them. Not that she was his business.
“You’re saying she’s not hot,” someone else said.
“Oh, she’s hot. Like, the slow-burn hot, the one you don’t notice first, but that’s got hidden talents, if you know what I mean.”
He continued to ignore the conversation, his focus locked andloaded on the silk-suited men who were lounging back like they owned Caldwell. No women with them, but that was a “yet” kind of thing. They were here for sex, scanning the room with restless, slicing stares, their bodies staying on those white leather sofas while their libidos roamed what he’d heard them call the buffet of bitches.
Classy. Real fucking classy.
Nate knew the men by name. Knew also that the one in the middle, who was too old to be in a place like this, surrounded by men fifteen years younger than him, was the one in charge.
It might be Shuli’s birthday, but Nate was here because he knew that every Thursday night, Mickey Trix’s uncle was in residence at this club: This was where Uncle, as everybody called him whether they were relatives or not, preemptively started the weekends, running his empire while he caught blow jobs from women half his age, his ego pretending like his biological clock wasn’t ticking—
“I’d do her.”
“Ha! You want to be on the run for the rest of your life? Her fucking father will kill you. Do you know who her—”
