Chapter Three
Treffon couldn’t explain why he was in Donnelle, at a bar in one of the shadier areas of downtown. He hadn’t gone out and socialized in years. When he’d done so in the past, single females had flocked around him and rubbed up against him, desperately trying to catch his attention – and it had made him angry and nauseated.
But tonight, after hours and hours of brutal sparring in the arena, he was still restless and irritable, snapping at pack members who even dared to glance his way. And he’d run out of sparring partners; everybody was in the infirmary, healing.
He’d changed into his animal form and run through the forest, hoping to give his beast some release in an area where it couldn’t harm anybody. The restless energy inside him was boiling like a volcano about to erupt.
He’d gotten dressed and headed downtown, wandering through the back alleys for hours, hoping that somebody would try to accost him. Nobody was that foolish.
Finally he found himself wandering into a dark, smoky bar, as if tugged by an invisible string.
Staffed by a many-limbed Kra’aal that handled orders at a bewildering pace, slinging bottles, pouring shots and dispensing blown-glass bubbles of intoxicating gases, the bar was noisy, lively and grimy. The crowded space smelled of spilled liquor and the tang of alien sweat. Discordant music over a growling bass line set Treffon’s teeth on edge, competing with laughter, drunken shouting and cheesy pick-up lines in a dozen languages. These days, Wor-Lan and Thorolf mingled freely in the bar, although they still congregated on opposite sides of the room. They drank and played games of chance and flirted with alien women.
Thorolf muscled his way through the crowd, towards the bar.
As he moved, somebody stumbled into him and spelled their drink on his crotch.
A flash of fierce joy burned through him. Finally! A reason to start a fight!
Then he looked down and saw who’d spilled the drink on him.
A human. A curvy, sexy human female who was gaping up at him. Her soft, pillowy lips formed a perfect “O” of dismay. Her face was adorably round, and her thick, curly brown hair hung loose, rippling down to her shoulders. She smelled delicious, her own sweet aroma mingling with the scent of some kind of exotic Earth flower.
Not only that, but she’d stumbled up against him and – wonder of wonders – he didn’t feel the usual crawling of the flesh that plagued him whenever a female touched him these days. In fact, she sent blood rushing to his crotch, and a hot rush of arousal flared deep inside him. Thorolf resisted the urge to step closer, to lower his head to her throat, press his lips against her pulse point, and inhale her scent. He shook his head to clear it, but held on to the fragile bubble of excitement in his chest.
She might not be his true mate, but even finding a woman he could bed would be an absolute miracle.
“Oh, my God,” the human female said to him. “I can’t believe I just did that. Actually, yes, I can – I do that kind of thing all the time. I was born with two left feet.”
Two left feet? What a terrible deformity; how difficult her life must be.He glanced down, feeling sympathetic.
No, they looked normal. Two adorable little feet in strappy brown low-heeled shoes that the humans called sandals. He found himself with the urge to run his fingers lightly along her instep, to see whether it would make her squirm and curl her toes. He’d heard that human females were ticklish.
She saw where he was looking and laughed. “No, no, that’s an Earth expression! It just means I’m clumsy. Hey…can I buy you a drink?”
“You want to buymea drink?” Treffon was amused.
She nodded vigorously, her curls bouncing. “Absolutely. As an apology.”
He looped his arm around her shoulders and steered her over to the bar. Her skin was warm and alive and silky-soft under his fingers.
My flesh is touching a woman’s flesh, and I have no desire to hurl her away from me at all. In fact, I desire to touch more of it. To touch her all over. To taste her…
His dark mood lifted somewhat. “I will buyyoua drink,” he said firmly. “To replace the one I spilled when I accidentally bumped into you.”
“Oh, that’s very nice of you, thanks.” She flopped onto a chair, and he sat next to her and waved at the bartender.
The bartender paused in its multi-limbed service, stopping with several bottles of brightly colored, sticky-looking liquid suspended in mid-air. Some were ruinously expensive off-world liquors for the more discerning denizens of the Donnelle underworld, some were little more than bathtub gin – which brought new terrors when you knew about the bathing habits of some alien species – and at least one would kill seventy-five percent of the bar’s customers. The other customers shouted and waved empty glasses, but the bartender ignored them. Treffon tended to have that effect on people.
“What would you like?” Treffon asked the human woman.
“Oh shoot. Good question.” She squinted up at the holographic menu that floated above the bar and giggled, a musical sound. “I don’t recognize any of those drink names. I like drinks that are sweet and fruity and…um…do you have any ideas?”
Treffon ordered her a Leeflemar, and ordered himself a Keera, a dark bitter draught that was fermented from the Keera tree. Her drink came in a spiral flute, its color starting out as a luscious syrupy purple at the bottom, then fading up the coils of glass to an effervescent pink at the top.
She took a sip, and her face brightened. “Oh, that is very tasty. Excellent choice.” She took a bigger gulp.
He offered her a sip of his drink.
