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Butch forced his way through the crowd and stood between the two fae and myself, blocking them from my view.
“This way,” he grumbled. We angled through the crowd on the dance floor, and when I looked over my shoulder to get a last look at the pair of fae, they had vanished. Frigging creepy.
I was led to a VIP room separated from the main floor by a crystal-beaded curtain. The lights in the lounge were darker than those of the club, which seemed impossible since the main dance floor was lit only by thin ropes of blue neon and a disco ball.
All the light I had to see by in here was a tea light in a purple glass vase. It cast an eerie and monstrous glow on the otherwise handsome face of one Gregory Hamilton. Figuring out who the big man in the room was didn’t take a genius. There were two chesty brunettes pressed against him, one writhing on his lap in a slow, sensuous lap dance while the other sipped from a martini glass before leaning in to kiss him and letting the alcohol dribble from her mouth into his.
Yeesh.
“Genevieve sent you?” he asked after swallowing the girl’s backwash.
“In a manner of speaking.”
In another time and place, I probably could have found the jaguar king attractive. He had a lean build and cunning green eyes that seemed to glow independently of the poor light in the room. The feline aspects that had translated into his human form did not give him the same feminine quality as they did Genevieve. I wasn’t sure why I assumed all the cats would be girly, but Gregory was about as womanly as a Siberian tiger with its teeth bared.
This kitty had claws.
He also looked none too pleased by my evasive answer. Shoving the girl off his lap and shooing the other away, he crossed his ankle over his knee and lit a cigarette with the clipped precision of a long-time smoker.
A cloud of purple-hued smoke floated across the room and chased the two half-naked girls out through the curtain.
“And what does her majesty have to say to me?” He exhaled another breath, and this one soared right up my nostrils. I wrinkled my nose and choked back the urge to cough.
“Where’s the girl?” I demanded, skipping the foreplay and getting right to the hot and heavy.
“What girl?” he asked, his lips curling in a sly smile. “I have so many.”
A chuckle that was more cruel than good-humored escaped my mouth. “I bet. One night is probably more than enough for even the dumbest bedwarmer to figure out you’re a scumbag.”
Gregory sat forward, his forearms braced on his knees. His eyes shone like flat mirrors, the way a house cat’s would in the dark. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“A king desperate enough to find a queen that he’ll resort to kidnapping.”
He pinched his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and took a deep drag before sett
ling back into the cushions of the couch. “I’m not desperate. She’s a fool. I could protect her people, what few there are left, and all she’d have to do is open her legs and give me an heir.”
“Was that your pitch? Because as proposals go, it could use some work.”
He snarled at me, and the sound was more cat than human. “What do you know about pack structures, girl?”
“More than I care to. Which is why I can tell you this. I am pack protector and king’s consort to the Eastern wolf pack,” I said. Gregory’s eyes widened, and the cigarette slipped from his fingers, singeing his black dress pants before he could swat it away. “So when I say I can rain a hellfire like no other on you and your little pack if you’ve done something to Lucy Renard, you know I’m not talking out my ass.”
“I-I didn’t know,” he stammered.
“Now you do. So I’ll ask you again. Where is Lucy?”
He jerked his head from side to side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell me the truth.” My hand grasped the handle of my katana, and Gregory clambered to his feet.
“I swear to God, I have nothing to do with it.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I gave him a withering glare, and after a tense pause I released the weapon. “If I find out you’ve lied to me, Gregory…” I let the threat hang open-ended, and he nodded his understanding.
Sometimes the best threats are only heard in the imaginations of terrified men.
Chapter Six
