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After a moment, however, she could feel the elixir taking effect. A slow warmth spread outward through her extremities, extinguishing the last sizzling embers of arousal which the alpha’s scent had ignited. That should hold her till morning.
It had to. She was out of suppressant now.
She could deal with that later. On her way in, she’d seen Dr. Widdershins’ apothecary wagon parked in its usual location on the outskirts of town. Thank God for that. Come morning, the old carpetbagger would be hawking his wares in the town square, and she would be able to purchase a fresh bottle of suppressant from him then. She had barely enough money for it.
Shannon dropped the empty bottle back in her pocket and continued up the boardwalk.
After another minute of walking, she reached her destination. A large building with a high wooden facade dominated the end of the street. Its windows were made of red stained glass, and the lamplight streaming through the bloody panes cast a blushing glow over the surrounding buildings. As Shannon stood there watching, a group of cowboys stumbled out through the swinging doors, and her ears were greeted with the raucous sounds of music and laughter from within. Above the entrance, an elaborately painted sign read:
~ Rosie Redbottom’s ~
Hotel, Saloon, & Burlesque Theatre
Shannon hesitated. There would definitely be alphas in there. Lots of them, probably. The mere thought of being around them made her blood run hot and cold in her veins. What if the suppressant elixir failed her a second time? What if the alpha musk sent her into estrus right there in the middle of the saloon?
Rapid-fire images flashed through her mind’s eye. Images of alphas,multiplealphas, descending upon her like wolves, ripping away her clothing, claiming her naked body while the other patrons looked on.
Shannon shivered. She should turn back now, while she still had a chance. This whole plan was beyond foolish. There was no way it could ever possibly work.
Then she thought of the ranch, she thought of the five hundred young women who were depending uponherfor their safety, and she knew what she had to do. With a sigh of resignation, she climbed the steps, pushed open the swinging doors of Rosie Redbottom’s saloon, and went inside.
In the distance, the wind howled through the stone arch.
CHAPTER 2
Tanner McBain suppressed a smile as he spread his cards out on the table in front of him. “Four of a kind. Looks like I win again.”
The grizzled cowboy sitting across from him cursed and punched the table so hard it toppled the stacks of gold and silver coins stacked in the center. The other players at the table cast wary glances in his direction. The man was mean, and he was drunk: always a bad combination, especially at the card table.
“Easy, friend,” Tanner said as he swept the small pile of coins to his side of the table. “No use getting angry.”
“I ain’t angry!” the man snarled. “And I ain’t yer friend neither.” He knocked back a shot of whiskey, slammed his empty glass down on the table, and shoved his cards at the dealer. “Another hand.”
Tanner almost felt bad for taking advantage of a poor drunk bastard this way—but then, it wasn’t his fault the man couldn’t hold his liquor.
Besides, he and Logan needed the money. They’d had to get out of Nogales in a hurry, and in the process they’d left most of their money south of the border. Now Logan was upstairs spending the last of it on a couple of the painted ladies who plied their trade up there. That meant it was up to Tanner to earn enough bread to get them through the coming weeks.
So far, he was doing pretty darn good.
While the dealer was shuffling, Tanner filled his own glass with whiskey and sipped it slowly as he scanned the room. Rosie’s was one hell of a place, and it had been far too long since he’d paid a visit.
The saloon was a spacious, two-story room with a balcony and a long mahogany bar that ran the entire length of one wall. An upright piano stood in the corner, and a genuine Coppelius brand automaton dressed in a bowler hat and white sleeves sat at the keyboard, tirelessly plunking out tunes with its brass fingers. Rosie must have paid a fortune for that thing, Tanner mused. But then, Rosie’s establishment raked in the dough.
For patrons who’d had their fill of drinking and gambling, there were playrooms upstairs equipped with all manner of erotic paraphernalia—saddles, swings, whips, crops, spurs, and a whole lot more. The women and men who worked up there were well-versed in the arts of pleasure and pain, and they could dish it out and receive it with equal skill, depending on the predilections of their customers.
The main attraction, however, was the theater.
At the moment, the doors to the theater were closed, but soon they would be opening, and everyone would be filing back there to take in the show. A traveling theater troupe from California was in town this week, and from everything Tanner had heard, they put on one hell of a performance.
He took another sip of whiskey, enjoying the bite of the liquor as it went down.
Suddenly, the doors at the front of the saloon swung open and a woman stepped inside, a woman unlike any Tanner had ever seen before.
She was dressed like a cowboy, with a wide-brimmed hat, a weather-beaten duster, and a pair of boots that were scuffed and dirty from use. But the ruggedness of her outfit only served to accentuate her feminine attributes—the long black ponytail that hung down her back, as glossy as silk, the swell of her ample bosom beneath the coarse linen of her shirt, and the way the faded denim of her jeans adhered to her curvaceous hips and thighs like a second skin.
Tanner’s groin panged with lust, and his cock went as rigid as a gunbarrel beneath his britches. He’d never felt such a sudden and uncontrollable desire for a woman in all his life.
Especially not for a beta.
