Chapter 1

"It's the glitter, that's why I make more tips," I explained, for the thousandth freaking time, and I couldn't quite keep the snap out of my voice. On another night, the solid stack of cash in my hand would've had me in an unshakeable state of Zen. But not today. "Girls love shiny things," I went on, trying to keep it light. It was that or start snarling. "They're like corvids."

"Cor—what the fuck?" Dominic glared up at me from where he lounged on the old leather couch in the corner.

Gross. Even in my current state of financial panic, I wouldn't have sat on that thing bare-assed in only Dominic's silver lamé jock strap for twice the money in my hand. I might be a stripper myself, and currently liberally dusted with iridescent sparkles that transferred to every surface in the most annoying way, but I knew what some of the guys did on that couch—like rubbing their sweaty naked asses on it, just to start with—and I had some standards, thanks.

We'd retreated to the locker room for a few minutes, both done with our first sets for the night. I'd wanted to stash my take so far, and Dominic had declared that he needed a break from entertaining the clientele on the floor, because it wasn't worth his time. While he was being more of a dick about it than necessary, it had actually been a pretty slow evening. We'd had one super enthusiastic bachelorette party, the source of my pile of tips, but they'd moved on to other venues. Besides that, none of our regulars had come in, and on a Tuesday in mid-January there weren't many conventions or tourists in town.

Nothing to write home about, in short.

If I'd been inclined to write home about my job at all. But my parents had a short list of occupations they considered respectable enough for a member of our family, and coating myself in body glitter to get groped by screaming drunk girls didn't qualify. As far as they knew, I'd moved to Vegas to work in the accounting department of the Morrigan casino.

Of course, they also thought, in no particular order, that I'd finished the bachelor's degree in economics that would've qualified me for such a job, that I'd paid off the wasted college loans they'd cosigned for with money earned from gainful employment and not borrowed from a loan shark, and that I would never in a million years have taken out a high-interest credit card so that my now-ex-girlfriend could get a boob job.

I mean, fuck, I didn't even particularly like huge breasts.

If my mom found out the truth…it'd start with her tail twitching, something she could somehow pull off even in her human form. Her green eyes would get that feral gleam. A hint of fang—and then the storm would break, and she'd bite my head off. Not literally, if I was lucky, but then my dad would start in on what was left of me.

No, I had to avoid that at all costs. Being a fully grown thirty-one-year-old man and an alpha gave me no edge at all in that scenario. Neither of my parents had alpha magic, and they'd still kick my ass. Worse, they'd be so disappointed, and it'd break my heart. Even worse than worse, they didn't have any assets except their house…

"What's a cor-thing?" Dominic went on, startling me into blinking back to reality, the glare of the ceiling lights and the crumpled texture of the damp bills I held, the bass pumping through the walls and vibrating the floor. They had it cranked up to a level that seemed exciting for humans who'd been pounding shots, which meant more than loud enough for alpha shifter ears to be ringing.

But that was what I'd signed up for. What I had to do to pay my ever-mounting debts in a way that waiting tables and construction work and a brief stint as a delivery driver hadn't accomplished. I ignored him and started to count again, the music and my edginess making it hard to focus.

He didn't take the hint. "Tony? Hey, Earth to Tony! Is that slang for like, a drunk bridesmaid?"

Okay, what? That was enough to have me looking up after all. Over three hundred so far, and he'd made me fucking lose count again .

"Slang for a drunk bridesmaid? Corvid? Does that sound like—why would I say ‘girls are like drunk bridesmaids,' Dominic? Drunk bridesmaids are girls. It's a whatchamacallit, there's a logical fallacy in there somewhere."

He glared at me, eyes glowing faintly golden, but it didn't impress me much. See above: the silver lamé jock strap that had one of his perfectly shaven balls sort of sliding out the side in a goofy-looking way, not to mention how he was sprawled across that disgusting body-oil-and-spunk-tainted couch in a smelly locker room.

Plus, Dominic was only a werewolf. An alpha werewolf, sure, but anyone who said shifters didn't have an interspecies hierarchy was trying to make our culture sound a whole lot more egalitarian than it really was. They should try walking into a werewolf bar and saying, Hi, I'm an alpha gerbil , see how that worked out.

Aside from the jock strap, Dominic might've been more intimidating than your average, or even above-average, gerbil.

But nah.

"We're all alphas here, that's kind of the point," I gritted out. My claws itched at my fingertips, but I kept it under control. A year and change of working at Lucky or Knot had kind of burned out my other alphas need to be put in their place instincts. "Don't waste your time."

Dominic made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a scoff and then pointedly held eye contact with me while he pushed his errant testicle back into its shiny hammock.

I couldn't help it; despite everything, I started to laugh. Dominic's face went red and his eyes glowed brighter, and I gave up on getting a few minutes of relative peace and quiet. Back to the floor it was, where at least the bachelorettes wouldn't stick their hands in their underwear while they stared at me in a pathetic attempt at displaying dominance—and would get kicked out if they did.

Anyway, I needed to make some bank this week, or that nightmare of my parents finding out about my situation would come true. Louie had called me earlier in the day, threatening to start calling them and harassing them for the money if I didn't start paying up. He knew damn well that breaking my kneecaps wouldn't accomplish anything, because I'd heal quickly enough to chase down his goons and beat the shit out of them before they could even get back in the car.

But if he got my family involved…

They'd sell the house to pay my debts. They'd feel like they had to. Which meant Louie had me by the balls.

Stashing the money in my magically secured locker only took a few seconds, and then I adjusted myself in my own faux-leather pants and headed out, ignoring Dominic grumbling behind me.

I had to brace myself before I opened the door from the back hallway to the main floor, and even so, the wall of sound that smacked into me nearly knocked the pleasant smile I'd plastered onto my face right back off of it.

In my absence, a few more patrons had trickled in. Like most all-male clubs, we kept the main floor female-only except when we had a pre-booked male group to fill it up, but the upper level had a few more men sitting there than before. One previously empty table held a wide-eyed, clean-cut trio in polo shirts, none of whom looked old enough to drink. But they must've been, because they'd gotten in, and our bouncers were good about checking ID.

Fuck, I really didn't want to go flex my muscles and leer at kids. No matter how much I desperately needed the money, I'd feel dirtier than that couch. But the other guys besides me and Dominic who were on the floor were already pouring champagne and strutting their stuff and flirting. No one was performing on the smaller stage upstairs at the moment, either, so the guys up there only had their more distant view of Cassidy on the main stage to keep them entertained.

As I hesitated by the hallway door, trying to work up the willpower to go up the stairs and do my job, Dominic pushed past me and took the steps two at a time, muttering something about easy money and how he'd show me.

Jesus Christ, what a douchebag. The bouncer stationed on the landing pulled a face at me as Dominic passed him, and I shook my head in answer.

As I watched Dominic saunter over to their table, the three young guys went from wide-eyed to bug-eyed. Fair enough. Dominic might be nothing like my type, but I could see the objective appeal, at least before he opened his mouth and started talking: he was over six feet of tanned alpha muscle, and the silver really stood out against his skin. I tended to stick to darker colors, myself. My natural tone glowed in the dark, unless you counted the freckles, and the one time I'd tried the fake tanning thing…well, red hair, golden-orange eyes, and orangey-bronze skin didn't go together.

To say the least.

When I'd come into the club the day after the spray tan, the bartender had screamed like a little girl when he saw me. That seemed like a hint to take the week off and buy some exfoliant.

The song playing ended with a final flurry of drumbeats, quickly drowned out by hooting and applause. I glanced over at the stage. Cassidy had been performing, and he grinned and bowed and scooped up money and the discarded bits of his firefighter costume, his bare buttocks glistening.

Dammit. We'd told him so many freaking times not to use that much oil on the stage. The next guy was going to slip and fall down on his own shiny ass one of these days. Since we were all alpha shifters, none of us would get seriously hurt, but no one wanted to look like a fucking idiot in the middle of a dance.

A bit of motion in my peripheral vision caught my eye: Scott beckoning me over to his DJ booth against the wall. I headed his way, pausing only to flex my arm muscles and smile flirtatiously at a couple of women at a nearby table. One of the other guys was already hanging out, but hey, two of them, two of us, maybe? And they had a bottle of the expensive bubbly in an ice bucket. They might be good tippers.

Louie's remembered laughter rang in my ears. Fucker enjoyed twisting the knife, maybe even more than he enjoyed getting his money back with interest.

I should've gone upstairs and milked it with those pretty little probably-college boys, damn it all. They were probably going to get sucked in by Dominic's smarmy charm and lured back to a VIP room.

Hopefully no one would get sucked off in the process, but I wouldn't put it past him. Dominic claimed to prefer women, but he had a few regulars who sucked his cock and paid generously for the privilege, and he was always open for new opportunities.

And while I liked blowjobs—in both directions, in fact—as much as the next sexually omnivorous alpha, and had been told more than once that the raspy texture of my tongue could send a sensitive recipient into the stratosphere, I never got that physical with customers. Just not a line I was willing to cross.

Whatever. Dominic wasn't my problem, thank every deity above and below, because I had enough of my own—and I wouldn't have wanted to be responsible for him even if I was bored.

The booth didn't have a ton of space in it, but I managed to wedge myself inside and push the door closed behind me, shutting out a lot of the noise with it.

Scott looked up from adjusting some kind of switch on the board in front of him, and a club favorite with a catchy beat started playing out on the floor. He had his headphones on one ear and off the other, and his sweaty black hair stood up in spiky tufts. One of the only humans in the place, and he looked more like a hedgehog than anything else.

"I know you just got off stage less than an hour ago," he said, "but Morgan's supposed to go on, and he's in the back. Actually, peek into room three if you walk by. Kind of an odd couple. Married, I think? I'm not sure which one of them wanted to come here, they both seemed weird about it. Whatever, they were tipping a lot."

Scott's gossip washed over me, but I nodded, actually kind of relieved. Going around and making nice with people at tables, or trying to get them to do a private session, sounded exhausting. Dominic's irritating conversation had been the cherry on top of my stressed-out sundae.

"I don't mind dancing again," I said. "I'll be ready in like two minutes."

"You gonna change?" he asked, looking me up and down. In addition to the pleather pants, which still showed the thick bulge between my legs just fine, I had heavy boots, and also a sparkly black G-string under the pants, although he couldn't see that. My chest was bare, except for the glitter. "Or you want to just do Closer?"

My usual persona was a lot goofier and more fun than that, and people loved it. My Nicki Minaj routine got a lot of cheers, especially the getting on the floor—and sometimes I even got everyone to do the hands up to touch the sky part, if I really worked the crowd. Once they waved their money in the air, they felt stupid not tossing it on the stage afterward.

But yeah. Tonight, Closer would fit my mood a lot better. Besides, I really didn't feel like getting dressed up in anything fun. For this song, I could rip the pants off during the song's first chorus, right on "closer to God"—they had Velcro down the inseams, because I liked the quick, hard reveal—and then use my boots, G-string, and my very own claws, fangs, and glowing eyes for the rest of the "costume." After all, that was why people came to Lucky or Knot in the first place. We were the only all-alpha strip club in the world, as far as I knew. And people went pretty nuts for it. When Vegas wasn't in a slump like it was now, we always packed the house.

Declan MacKenna, who owned the Morrigan casino on the Strip and this place and who knew what else, was a fucking visionary. If I had half his intellect and acumen, I wouldn't have been about to lose my parents' house because of a college loan I'd wasted by not graduating and a 28 percent APR on a pair of fake tits for a girl who'd cheated on me.

Fuck. Deep breaths.

"Tony? You okay?" Scott said, and I shook my head to clear it a bit and forced another smile. "I can have Dom go on if you're not. It's cool, dude. You look out of it."

"I'm good. No, really." I punched him on the shoulder—lightly, because human. "Seriously. Thank you. Closer's perfect. Give me a minute, okay?"

I slipped out of the booth before he could keep questioning me and headed for the same door I'd come out of a few minutes ago, on my way to the locker room and then backstage.

It only took me the promised minute to get myself ready: a little more glitter, silver and black this time to fit the song's darker fantasy, and some leather armbands, because why the fuck not.

Scott announced me as I jogged up the short flight of backstage stairs, and then I was under the lights and center stage, the distinctive staticky opening beat of the song accompanying me.

Fluid movements, getting them enticed, prowling…I'd started stripping simply because it paid the best out of the jobs that depended mostly on my having muscles for days.

But when the audience stopped their conversations mid-sentence, their drinks held poised in the air as they forgot to take a sip, their eyes fixed on me with complete focus…well, that gave me a certain amount of satisfaction. Not an erotic type of satisfaction—luckily, because Nevada law wouldn't let me take everything off on the stage in a club that served alcohol, and some genius in a bureaucratic hellhole somewhere had decided that erections, even clothed, counted as nudity.

So since attention didn't really turn me on, it didn't take me too much effort to keep my cock under control, and honestly, not to brag or anything, but even totally flaccid it made itself known under any type of fabric.

But the crowd's reaction did give me a bit of a frisson, a charge of energy that fed my alpha shifter magic. My eyes started to glow, and my claws were a millimeter from sliding out. My gums tingled where my fangs wanted to drop.

My hips gyrated, Trent Reznor rasped his way through those X-rated lyrics, and I reached down, groping my groin, really massaging my balls, getting more than a few gasps and little screams from the audience. Someone right up front had already thrown a handful of fives, fucking sweet.

And even sweeter, those guys up above were hanging over the railing with their mouths wide open, a scowling and ignored Dominic standing behind them with his hands on his hips. Ha! I resisted the urge to blow him a kiss.

I turned my back to the audience right as the first chorus started and spread my legs wider, ready for the reveal, getting my fingers in position to yank off the pants…

…And then, as if Scott had flipped one of his switches, Trent's voice faded into a meaningless hum, the noise of the crowd became a murmur, and the lights on me seemed to dim. My body froze, fingers rigidly digging into my thigh.

Jesus fucking Christ, that was…

The scent of love, of home, of desire and want. It washed over me, teasing me, wrapping around all my alpha senses: wild, fresh, tantalizing, a sweet-tart aroma, lemon blossoms and honeysuckle and oxalis flowers, like my parents had in their garden.

It stirred a hopeless craving in a part of me that I usually suppressed in order to get along in society: my instinct to hunt and capture and claim and possess, to have something that was mine . Some one , actually. Someone as beautiful and alluring and sweet as that scent…

All the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my cock was trying to get hard, pushing insistently against the G-string, throbbing as if in response to a physical touch. My claws pushed out, my fangs dropping. My heart pounded.

Fuck. This wasn't natural or normal.

It had to be magic. Literally. Someone was using magic on me. But fucking why? I didn't have any enemies that I knew of. Or stalkers, either.

A prank? Had Dominic hired a warlock or someone to hide out in the audience and screw with me and ruin my dance, or worse, make me flip out and get fired? Or even arrested?

No. Hell no. Damn it, I'd been doing this and doing it well for three years, and I could do it now, no matter how tantalizing that scent might be.

I forced my brain and body to reboot almost instantly, barely missing a beat of the song, quickly enough that no one probably even noticed. But as the music blared into full volume again, and the lights flashed in my eyes, and I tore my pants off in one go to a shrieking wave of applause—seriously, fuck you, Dominic—and spun around to show off the front of my G-string and its alpha bulge, the combo of being angry, off-kilter, and drenched in that magical scent slammed into me all at once.

More critically, my foot found the body oil residue on the floor at the same instant.

My leg flew out from underneath me as I flung my pants aside, and I went straight down and landed on my alpha ass with a thud that shook the whole stage.

A tiger. Tripping on his own feet and falling over.

I'd never live this down.

The hate that it brings , Trent wailed.

Truer words. I was going to stuff Cassidy's body oil bottle down his throat, or maybe up his ass, and then I'd fucking kill him.

Right after I got up off my own ass and figured out who'd brought that incredibly distracting magic into the club, and fucking killed them .

Damn it.