Chapter 19

"Nobody move!" Cunningham's head minion shouted, and then there was a chaos of curses and more screaming and tables getting knocked over as patrons and staff alike did the exact opposite, the drum-and-bass from the speakers playing over it all for a few more seconds before the DJ cut the music.

He also turned on the house lights, and we were all suddenly bathed in an unforgiving glare.

It didn't do the shabby club any favors, or Cunningham, either, because if I'd ever seen a person intended to be viewed under flatteringly dim lighting, it was him. The lines starting to show in his late-middle-aged face hadn't been carved there by laughter and smiles, that was for sure—more by the type of expression he wore now, a scowl like a thundercloud, with an aura of vicious menace wrapping around him like static electricity.

Hatred hadn't ever been one of my primary emotions. I usually couldn't be bothered, barely even knew how it felt.

It turned out to feel like acid searing each and every one of my veins individually from the inside, rushing up to fill my face and my scalp with a roasting, roaring, teeth-gritting cold rage.

My eyes glowed, I could feel it, the shaman's spell burned out by the force of my alpha fury.

"Fuck, what the fuck is he doing here," Louie stuttered, sounding two seconds from a heart attack. He clearly recognized his uninvited guest.

"Shoot him," Cunningham growled, and Louie let out a shockingly high-pitched shriek for someone with his chest measurements and then dived under the table.

"He didn't mean you," I said, even though Louie had the right idea. Cunningham meant me, and Louie was close enough to be in the line of fire.

I took one step to the side, making sure Raven was completely behind me. A couple of bullets would barely slow me down. I'd take the first barrage so I could shield Raven, and then I'd charge. Maybe Raven could throw some magic into the mix.

But as Cunningham's men raised their guns, a new commotion broke out in the front of the club, Cunningham's men and someone else they were confronting. There were shouts of alarm, an argument, and cutting through that, a cool, sardonic voice I recognized.

"You won't like how that works out for you, believe me," Declan MacKenna said in reply to someone's threats as he stepped into the club, brushing aside one of Cunningham's bodyguards with total nonchalance and possibly more force than necessary. Right behind him clustered several of his own security team—and Blake, who had a look on his face like a kid who'd been caught with both hands stuck in the cookie jar.

I winced, both on his behalf and my own. If I lived long enough for Declan to chew me out for dragging his mate into this kind of fuckery, it'd be a humiliating half hour.

Everyone turned to look at the newcomers, even Cunningham.

"What the hell is going on?" Raven complained, shoving at my back. "Move aside!"

"Not until they put their guns away," I said, and shoved him back, a lot more gently.

Which they hadn't, although they'd been lowered in response to this new influx of high-profile witnesses.

Declan's eyes were sharp and assessing, darting around and taking it all in, and I recognized the flex of his hand: claws at the ready. His men were shifters too, and they also had guns. Killing our kind wasn't easy, but there might have even been enough combined firepower and natural weaponry in the room to pull it off.

Silence fell for a long, pregnant moment.

It was kind of like the famous standoff scene from that Clint Eastwood movie, with the music everyone hummed at times like this. Only instead of the good, bad, and ugly, we had the contemptuous, the frothing, and the naked—and the terrified, if you counted Louie.

"This has nothing to do with you," Cunningham said, his voice thick with rage. "This is a private matter. Get out before I deal with you, too."

Declan opened his mouth, but Blake stepped up to his shoulder, stared Cunningham down, and said, with the utter confidence and arrogance of someone who'd actually used that line in the past and gotten the reaction he felt he deserved, "You've got to be kidding me. Do you know who I am?"

"What?" Cunningham said, after a beat. " What? "

"Yes," Declan said, and his deadpan delivery didn't do much to hide the grin breaking out on his face, "you're never going to get away with this, not in front of one of the eminent Castelli pack." Blake made a face and elbowed Declan in the ribs. "Former, anyway. Now my mate, and I know you know who the fuck I am. Cunningham, this is over. You're not going to commit murder. Not in public, and definitely not with us standing here watching you. Enough."

"He stole from me," Cunningham said, and his voice had gone guttural, his shift starting to take over. "He stole my property. He's going to pay." He turned to shoot us a look over his shoulder that would've killed if it could. "They both are."

It was my turn to grin. Because Cunningham couldn't possibly have handed me a better cue if he'd tried. And while he'd have been able to refuse and have his guys shoot me with only his own people and some humans as witnesses, he couldn't possibly wriggle out of it in front of Declan and Blake, two other wealthy and prominent alphas who'd be only too happy to publicize his cowardice.

In some ways, shifter culture hadn't evolved much since the eighteenth century. We didn't use swords, but then again, we didn't need to.

"Happy to," I said, and stepped forward. "Clearly you want to settle this the old-fashioned way. I accept your challenge. Alpha to alpha."

Declan raised an eyebrow, Blake started to laugh, Cunningham stared at me in horror, and his men all turned to each other and muttered amongst themselves.

Behind me there was total, ominous silence. I turned to glance at Raven, whose expression had gone fixed, his posture rigid. "This isn't necessary," he said, strain in every syllable. "There are—I had plans for those thousand years of torment. We already discussed the reasons why you shouldn't do this!"

The thousand years of torment. Right. And if I believed that was really his problem with me doing this, maybe he had a bridge to sell me. He'd already watched me almost die once this evening, but he couldn't imagine this was a fight I'd lose. Not if Cunningham didn't get help from his men, and Declan wouldn't let that happen. So it couldn't be that, either.

I flashed back to that moment of clarity after I'd ripped up my bedroom wall, how I'd realized Raven might've been as afraid of me, in my blind rage, as he was of Cunningham's violence.

Retribution from Cunningham's minions aside, the possibility of prison time aside…Raven didn't want to see me become a killer. And I couldn't blame him for that, not at all.

"This is necessary for me," I said, because Raven deserved honesty. "But I won't kill him," I conceded, with a lot less regret than I'd expected. Raven's happiness and comfort and trust in my ability to control myself mattered more than my own visceral satisfaction. "I promise."

Raven tilted his head, examining me, and finally seemed to find what he'd been looking for, his shoulders losing some of their tension.

"Fine," he said, and then added, in a meditative tone, "You know, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to watch you beat him to a living but miserable pulp. As an appetizer for the thousand years of torment, of course."

"Your wish is my command." I winked at him, and he flashed me half a smile. Good enough, given how cheesy that wink had been. I turned and sauntered into the middle of the room. "Are we doing this or what?"

"No, of course we're not—me, waste my time with some lowlife?" Cunningham hadn't moved, and the stink of fear had started to waft to me across the broken-furniture-strewn space between us. "I wouldn't dirty my claws with the likes of you," he said desperately.

"Not much danger of that," some smartass muttered—Blake, of course.

Declan laughed out loud, and Cunningham went a ruddy purplish color from his collar to his hairline. "Go on, then," Declan said, still chuckling. "Or not, and every shifter in Vegas is going to be laughing with me by morning. And outside of Vegas. And in all the investment banking boardrooms—"

"Go fuck yourself," Cunningham snarled, and stepped forward out of the protective circle of his bodyguards at last. "Come on, you animal. I'll kill you while that little bitch watches."

Unlikely, but since Blake had already made that joke, I kept my mouth shut. Although "little bitch" was going to get him a few extra claws through the spine. He'd heal, but I had recent knowledge of how much that fucking hurt, and I wanted him to get the same.

We circled each other for a few seconds, while he drew his magic around him, the air crackling with it, and half shifted for the advantages of size and strength it would give him. The fangs and claws and glowing eyes gave him a strange look in his designer tux, and the way the seams were ripping along the sides from his increase in mass only made it weirder.

I hadn't been planning to bother, myself, because I didn't need any more advantages. But what the hell. Somewhere along the line, I realized I'd already made up my mind, and I wouldn't be going back to Lucky or Knot. Stripping had been fun, profitable, and a great way to kill some time while I figured out my life, but I wanted Raven more than I wanted anything else, and I suspected that he wouldn't want to stay in Vegas after everything that had happened here. Since this was going to be my last nude performance in a strip club, then, I might as well give it my all.

So I flexed—subtly, I had it down to an art form by now—and drew myself up to my full height of rippling muscle, letting my fangs protrude to their Smilodon maximum, holding my hands up to display the gleaming edges of my claws, widening my stance to show it all off.

Cunningham had gone from red to pale. Good. I wanted him afraid. Knowing how helpless he was, how he was about to get hurt. He needed a dose of that. I doubted it'd make him a better man, but if it made him a crying, broken, screaming man who'd gotten every bruise and moment of fear he'd ever inflicted on Raven back on him a few times over, that'd be enough for me.

Someone wolf-whistled. Blake again, I was pretty sure, dammit, confirmed when Declan said quietly, "And that's why we don't go to Lucky or Knot, darlin'," and then laughed.

"You're no fun," Blake muttered. "I'm just encouraging him."

"Don't think he needs it," Declan replied dryly.

And I really didn't. Despite everything I'd done and endured over the last few hours, I'd never had more energy coursing through me, more focused power, in my life.

Cunningham lunged first, in a move that was probably meant to appear bold and dominant, but that had more of an air of losing his nerve. I swiped at him, raking my claws down his back as I sidestepped, shreds of Italian wool drifting through the air and blood welling up in their place. He howled, spun, and went for me again, and this time I punched the claws of my other hand straight through his side, the sensation of scraping along his ribs setting my teeth on edge.

I ripped out my hand, his blood pouring off my claws in rivulets and splattering the floor. Cunningham staggered, shook his head, and came at me again, eyes glowing and wild, rationality gone, past the point of anything but rage.

Toying with him some more had its appeal—but I glanced up, over Cunningham's oncoming rush, and saw Raven standing there by the booth, his posture unnaturally stiff again and one hand gripping its back hard enough that his tendons stood out.

Shit. Fae appetite for vengeance or no, stated desire to see me beat up his abuser or no, he looked like he'd had enough violence and blood and alpha anger for one night. Possibly even forever.

Time to end it.

I indulged myself with one powerful uppercut that took advantage of my own strength and Cunningham's momentum, snapping his head back in a way that would've instantly killed a human, the impact shuddering all the way up my arm and into my shoulder in an immensely satisfying way. Cunningham went flying, landing on his back on the ground.

He tried to sit up, failed, groaned, and went still.

Gods fucking damn it. I'd missed my chance to sever his spine a few times. Still, I'd splatted him pretty well.

The room erupted in noise and chatter and argument, Declan's voice above it all, taking charge, ordering around his own men and Cunningham's with equal authority. Two men rushed forward and started dragging Cunningham away. Louie had at last crawled out from under the table, and he'd started yelling at everyone indiscriminately.

But none of it really mattered. None of it mattered at all. Cunningham's still-warm blood on the dirty, gritty linoleum felt truly disgusting under my bare feet as I crossed the room back to Raven, but I didn't care.

Raven. His eyes wide, his cropped tux nearly in tatters, the scarf he'd had around his neck long gone, gazing up at me silently. He didn't have a trace of color in his cheeks or lips. Yeah, he'd had enough. What I'd done had been necessary, because to break a shifter's power and authority you had to do it our way. But I made a promise to myself, unspoken but as binding as any fae bargain, that he'd never have that kind of violence in his life again, not if I had anything to say about it. I stopped a foot away, so close, but not touching. I'd need a shower, maybe three, before I was fit to touch anyone, let alone him.

Well, maybe a little bit of touching.

I remembered to retract my claws before I reached across the gap, gently taking his hand in mine, squeezing his fingers. He squeezed back, and his attempt at an exhausted smile lit up his face and the room and my whole fucking life.

"Can we leave now?" he asked, voice unsteady. "We've run for our lives, fallen to our certain deaths down a stairwell, negotiated with a loan shark, and I can't imagine there's any more alpha posturing that could possibly be necessary. Not that you weren't extraordinary. That's a full night of activity. Even by Las Vegas standards." Oh, thank the gods, he'd left out the part where… "And you jumped through a flaming hoop to entertain a dinner party. We can't forget that."

Damn it.

Of course, I noticed he'd left out the part where I told him I loved him. Apparently he did want us to forget about that.

Fuck it. I could wallow in my rejected misery later on. Right now I had Raven, with no disasters hanging over us and all the danger in the rearview.

"Yeah, let's go home. Come home with me? It's not fancy. You'll hate it."

Raven squeezed my hand again, and it went straight to my stupid, aching heart. "I won't hate it. Yes."

We picked our way through the rubble of the club until we reached Blake and Declan, talking in undervoices by the front door.

"Thank you for showing up and evening the odds," I said, as they looked up at our approach. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Blake grimaced. "He figured out I was hiding something before I had a chance to confess, and then I had to tell him all of it. We had someone keeping an eye on Audacity. Your exit from the premises was hard to miss. And of course we followed along, because I wasn't about to get left out of this. Oh. I never made it to your apartment to drop off your stuff."

He dug around in his jacket pocket and produced my phone, keys, and wallet. I took them, freshly aware of having no pockets of my own, and of the air currents brushing my free-hanging balls. Good thing shifters didn't have a lot of modesty—our clothes didn't shift with us, after all.

"I know it was Blake who came up with the idea of getting you into Cunningham's little soirée," Declan said with a sigh. "If you're wondering if we're about to have another alpha challenge."

Thank the gods for Declan's common sense. It wasn't usually the most prominent alpha trait—case in point, literally everything I'd done recently.

"He was the brains of the operation," I agreed.

"That's a very kind way of putting it," Declan grumbled. "I'd have said the idiot-in-chief."

Blake turned on him and began to argue, and I chose that moment to pull Raven away.

"Someone's waiting to take you home," Declan called after us, and then immediately, "If you think there's a better description for setting up a friend to go into a rival hotel and pose as a fucking circus tiger, then I'd be glad to—"

The club's door slamming shut behind us cut him off, although Blake's reply, a little higher pitched and a whole lot louder, filtered through.

One of Declan's guys ushered us to a car very much like the one we'd stolen from Cunningham, and he didn't even comment on my naked ass on his leather seats.

Raven and I thanked him, but otherwise sat silently in the back during the fifteen minutes it took to get to my apartment complex. We didn't even touch. My hand that wasn't getting blood all over my wallet and phone rested on the seat near him in the hope that he'd take the bait, but he'd folded his own carefully in his lap. And then turned his head to stare out at the passing lights of Vegas, giving me his rumpled hair and a tantalizing glimpse of his long neck to gaze at.

If Declan's driver thought where I lived was a dump, he was too polite to say so, merely hopping out to open Raven's door while I climbed out the other side.

Raven followed me up the stairs, down the long breezeway, and through my door without comment. Finally, I shut it behind us and flicked on the light. Raven glanced around at the shabby couch and shabbier carpeting, the cheap, chipped fake wood coffee table and TV stand, a couple of dirty coffee mugs here and there.

And then he swayed, put his hands over his face, and burst into tears.