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“No,” I grunted, then barreled through the crowd once I realized Denny had already begun to trudge away. “Denny! Wait up!”
Denny was headed toward the restroom signs, his head tilted back so he could sniff the air. He stopped so abruptly, I nearly bowled him over.
“She was here. She was just right here. Damn it!” he barked, his hands clenching to fists at his sides.
“Did the trail go cold again?” I asked.
“Not cold, no. Just…lost.” He growled with frustration. “Every girl in this place is wearing enough perfume to drown a rat in. And the men? God help me, I’ve never smelled more Drakkar Noir in a single room. Makes my fuckin’ head ache.” He raised a hand to his head and massaged his temples. “I’m sorry, Miller. I really thought we had her this time. I’m usually better at this.”
“I believe you.” This brief little misadventure was my latest clue that Melony was actively trying to shake people off her trail. Maybe us. Maybe someone else. If she was purely deep in her mommy delusion, she had no reason to come to a place like this. Chuck-E-Cheese, this was not.
Denny looked defeated, and I could hardly blame him. If I was a master tracker having this kind of bum luck, I would’ve been pretty down in the dumps, too.
“Come on. Let’s grab a drink.” I clapped him on the shoulder and turned him toward the bar. “Maybe she’s still here somewhere.”
It was a Hail Mary, if even that, but I wanted to give Denny the benefit of the doubt. More importantly, I didn’t want him to feel like a dick for dragging me in here.
Who knew? He’d been so certain, maybe she was still lingering around. If it meant soothing Denny’s pride, I was willing to drink a beer and entertain a shot in the dark.
I ordered a couple of IPAs, and we posted up at the corner of the bar. The seats gave us the benefit of being able to scan the club if we wanted to, while also leaving us free to turn our backs to whatever was going on up on the stage.
Felicity, if you could only see us now. Some women would’ve been pissed as all hell that their mate was taking a break at a titty club, especially while he was supposed to be searching for their missing son. But as we settled in, Denny looked even more uncomfortable than I felt.
Felicity probably would have just laughed.
“I don’t know how they do this,” Denny confessed, glancing over his shoulder at the rabbit who was working the stage.
“Twirling around like that, you mean?” I snorted. “One of my brothers frequents places like this. Strippers love him. He says the secret’s in the pole. You think it’s stationary, but actually, it spins.”
Denny stared at me like I’d just told him I believed there was alien life on Mars.
“You know, sometimes you’re almost amusing, Miller.” He shook his head, then jerked his thumb at a nearby booth. The fox and cat who had sidled up to us when we entered were now taking turns sitting on the laps of a big group of men. “I mean that. None of those people are mates.”
I had no argument for him there. They weren’t mates, no. I didn’t get it either.
Still, it was kind of surprising that Denny shared that take.
“Don’t tell me you’re some kind of fifty-year-old virgin,” I joked. “You’ve been with women you weren’t mated to before, right?”
“A few,” he admitted. “Didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”
Of course he didn’t. Thanks to his curse, Denny would never know the true identity of his mate.
“Were you ever with anyone else?” he asked. “Before Felicity?”
“I mean, I dated a little before I realized she was my mate.” I chuckled. “They all hated her, of course. Now I can kind of see why. Even back then, without even realizing it… I was always hers.”
He arched a brow. “You knew Felicity before you had your moon dream about her?”
“About eighteen years, yeah.” I took a sip of my beer. “We were friends for a long time before I had the dream. Too long, really. Always kind of wanted it to be more, but I didn’t want to ruin the friendship with a romance if I was bound to be fated to someone else down the line.”
“Huh.” Denny turned to face me. Eyes narrowed, he looked me up and down. “Didn’t realize you had a blood curse, too. You inherit that from your mother?”
I shook my head in confusion. “No, not at all.”
“Thought you said your mother’s curse was hereditary.”
“It only affects female descendants of the Morrow alpha,” I explained. “I’m a Miller. No connection there. No blood curse at all.”
