AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Three
“You should probablyleave,” one of the Atargarians murmured to the tall, attractive black man who’d been all but wrapped around Zee Day just seconds earlier.
He cracked his neck and rubbed his jaw, then glanced over at the pale, trembling woman. She huddled on the floor, doubled over as if in the worst pain imaginable. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
The Zee he saw curling in on herself, as if to hide, was a far cry from the hot, sweet thing he’d been cuddling up to only moments earlier. While Duke knew he’d be mincemeat if the Atargarians made a move on him as a united front, he didn’t feel right walking away from a woman who was obviously suffering.
A slender woman with skin as dark as his own separated herself from the others and approached. “We’ll take care of this, of her. It’s what we do.”
“Yeah?” His mouth twisted in a dismissive smirk. “Doesn’t look like that from here.”
“Well, then.” She gave him a cool look. “Then maybe you should hang around.”
Duke narrowed his eyes but before he could push for more info or move in to talk to Zee, a hush fell over the crowd. It gave him a chance to assess the situation and he took in the big, thickly built man who stood out like a sore thumb. Long, dark brown hair that fell in a sleek curtain to his shoulders, a face that was too fucking pretty to belong to a man and eyes the same color of blue as the little flowers that had decorated his mother’s favorite china towered over many of the others in the bar.
The big guy even had a few inches on Duke and at six feet three, Duke was not a small man. The other guy was built like a fucking tank, though, and Duke would have bruises to show it.
Save for the smiling bartender who’d been subtly teasing Zee when they thought he wasn’t paying attention, nobody in the entire building looked like they could hold their own against the newcomer.
The bartender, Donner, had his body between Zee and the other guy—Therian, Duke’s instincts whispered. A split second later, he pegged the man as a wolf, although he was damn far from home, a couple of hundred miles, easy. The only wolf pack of note for several hundred miles in any direction were the Wolves of Greylock, out near the Appalachian Trail.
Not all Therians lived in packs or dens, but most wolves did.
Everything he’d ever learned about Therian wolves indicated they didn’t do well separated from the pack.
Zee trembled again, her body all but spasming with the force of the tremors. Her nostrils flared as if catching the scent of something.
Fuck. He’d known she was Pretern—had thought she was some sort of Fae, hadn’t pegged her as a wolf. She didn’t put off quite that vibe, and why would a wolf be holed up in some Atargarian pub, so clearly part of the group?
A bad feeling settled in his gut but he didn’t have time to think things through any further as a coldly beautiful voice shattered the tense silence.
“Colby Winters, I hope like hell you have a good reason for causing trouble in my territory.”
The crowd separated to allow passage to a tall, trim black woman with skin that looked smooth and silken, a warm, burnished brown and eyes of a cool, clear blue that appeared to glow. Those eyes were living ice as she locked them on the Therian male who stood apart from all the others in the bar.
The man she’d called Colby a good six or eight inches taller than the woman. But he paled at the sight of her.
Duke bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling or drawing attention to himself in any way.
“Niko’s a fr—”
The sexy, lithe goddess with the unearthly blue eyes moved. It was like liquid lightning.
That was when Duke realized he knew who—and what—the woman was.
Meridia Blue. The Regnar of this territory—there was no word in the English language that fully described a Regnar. She was both princess and alpha, daughter of the Prime of the Atlantic Ocean, executioner when the need arose and basically somebody you did not want angry with you.
The speed of her attack was unlike anything Duke had ever seen.
And she smiled through it all. As she took the bigger man to the ground and shoved her booted foot to his neck, Duke studied her exquisite profile and found himself transfixed by the curve of her lips.
“Let me finish for you,” Meridia Blue purred, her voice haunting and pure, so beautiful and frightening, everybody in the building flinched. “You were about to say friend.”
Certain rules of engagement came into play when a Therian passed into lands controlled by others, ally or not. And while Meridia, the daughter of a Prime and next in line to rule, was an ally of the Therians, she was first and foremost a protector of those she called her own.
Colby stared at her, his gaze just off-center enough to make it clear he understood who was the biggest—and strongest—bitch here, not just in this room, but in this town, in this region. Even Colby’s acknowledged alpha, Phoenix, understood that.
Meridia was beyond him.
