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“Did motherfucking Danika send a message to everyone?”
“No,” the sweet, lovely faun replied, “but you’ve been on your date for only an hour. Since the recap calls usually happen the morning after …”
“We’re going to the Raven,” Bryce snapped. “Be there in thirty.” She hung up before Juniper’s quicksilver laugh set her cursing.
Oh, she’d find a way to punish Danika for telling them. Even though she knew it’d been meant as a warning, to prepare them for any picking up the pieces, if necessary. Just as Bryce had checked in with Connor regarding Danika’s state earlier that evening.
The White Raven was only a five-minute walk away, right in the heart of the Old Square. Which left Bryce with enough time to either really, truly get into trouble, or face what she’d been avoiding for an hour now.
She opted for trouble.
Lots of trouble, enough to empty out the seven hard-earned gold marks in her purse as she handed them over to a grinning draki female, who slipped everything Bryce asked for into her waiting palm. The female had tried to sell her on some new party drug—Synth will make you feel like a god, she said—but the thirty gold marks for a single dose had been well above Bryce’s pay grade.
She was still left with five minutes. Standing across from the White Raven, the club still teeming with revelers despite Briggs’s failed plan to blast it apart, Bryce pulled out her phone and opened the thread with Connor. She’d bet all the money she’d just blown on mirthroot that he was checking his phone every two seconds.
Cars crawled past, the bass of their sound systems thumping over the cobblestones and cypresses, windows down to reveal passengers eager to start their Thursday: drinking; smoking; singing along to the music; messaging friends, dealers, whoever might get them into one of the dozen clubs that lined Archer Street. Queues already snaked from the doors, including the Raven’s. Vanir peered up in anticipation at the white marble facade, well-dressed pilgrims waiting at the gates of a temple.
The Raven was just that: a temple. Or it had been. A building now encased the ruins, but the dance floor remained the original, ancient stones of some long-forgotten god’s temple, and the carved stone pillars throughout still stood from that time. To dance inside was to worship that nameless god, hinted at in the age-worn carvings of satyrs and fauns drinking and dancing and fucking amid grapevines. A temple to pleasure—that’s what it had once been. And what it had become again.
A cluster of young mountain-lion shifters prowled past, a few twisting back to growl in invitation. Bryce ignored them and sidled over to an alcove at the left of the Raven’s service doors. She leaned against the slick stone, tucked the wine into the crook of her arm, braced a foot on the wall behind her as she bobbed her head to the music pouring out of a nearby car, and finally typed: Pizza. Saturday night at six. If you’re late, it’s over.
Instantly, Connor began typing in reply. Then the bubble paused. Then started again.
Then finally, the message came.
I’ll never keep you waiting.
She rolled her eyes and wrote, Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
More typing, deleting, typing. Then, You mean it—about the pizza?
Do I look like I’m joking, Connor?
You looked delicious when you left the apartment.
Heat curled in her, and she bit her lip. Charming, arrogant bastard. Tell Danika I’m going to the Raven with Juniper and Fury. I’ll see you in two days.
Done. What about what’s-his-face?
REID is officially dumped.
Good. I was getting worried I’d have to kill him.
Her gut churned.
He quickly added, Kidding, Bryce. I won’t go alphahole on you, I promise.
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed again.
Danika, this time. HOW DARE YOU GO TO THE RAVEN WITHOUT ME. TRAITOR.
Bryce snorted. Enjoy Pack Night, loser.
DO NOT HAVE FUN WITHOUT ME. I FORBID YOU.
She knew that as much as it killed Danika to stay in, she wouldn’t leave the pack. Not on the one night they all had together, the night they used to keep the bonds between them strong. Not after this shitstorm of a day. And especially not while Briggs was on the loose, with a reason to get back at the whole Pack of Devils.
That loyalty was why they loved Danika, why they fought so fiercely for her, went to the mat for her again and again when Sabine publicly wondered if her daughter was worthy of the responsibilities and status as second in line. The power hierarchy among the wolves of Crescent City was dictated by dominance alone—but the three-generation lineage that made up the Prime of the wolves, Prime Apparent, and whatever Danika was (the Apparent Prime Apparent?) was a rarity. Powerful, ancient bloodlines was the usual explanation.
