she could already feel slipping.
He searched her eyes. “Still a little blood-thirsty, huh?”
Managing a nod, Briana fisted the blanket in her hands. “So if he wasn’t looking to kill you…” she trailed off, biting down on another snarl that caught her hard in the chest. She inhaled through her mouth, doing her best to filter out the scent of the Fae’s blood and Lucan that shredded her control.
“He was playing with me.”
“How do you know?” It had looked like a genuine attack to Briana.
“A couple millennia of experience.”
“Your injury… He wanted to see if he could hurt you,” she guessed.
“Probably.”
So why had the Fae vanished instead of finishing Lucan off? “Whoever he is, he clearly wasn’t afraid that tangling with you might anger Rhiannon.”
Lucan shrugged, wincing as the movement caused him pain. “Assuming she didn’t put the Fae up to it.”
“She would do that?” It was no secret the goddess loathed Arthur’s knights, but it didn’t make sense that she’d allow another immortal to find a weakness with them. Rhiannon gained too much power—mystical objects, territory, loyalty—by hiring out her wraiths as mercenaries to risk losing them.
He offered another half-hearted shrug and a wince he almost managed to mask.
She touched his good arm. Blood still continued to ooze from his wound. “You sure it’s really healing?”
Fierce and dark, his gaze darted from her hand to her eyes. He jerked his head at her wrecked car. “I’ll let Mac know that you’re going to need a ride.”
“Wait—” That was all she got out before Lucan retreated, his shadow leaving behind only the sudden chill on the air.
Alone in the lot, she finally gave her bashed-in car a good once-over and tried not to cringe. What else could go wrong tonight?
“I can’t remember where I parked my car.”
Sighing, Briana ignored the redhead who’d come back to her senses none the wiser, and went to wait for Mac.
“Hundred bucks says he only lasts five minutes before being tossed out on his ass.”
“Two minutes.” This was followed by a giggle heavily influenced by too many shots of absinthe. The potent alcohol was a favorite among the immortals who frequented Pendragon’s.
Tonight Briana had more than her share of it buzzing through her veins. After spending the last couple of months buried in work, and then the last few days obsessively researching the mysterious Fae glyph from Lucan’s attacker—and finding nothing—she needed a night out.
At least Sorcha and Emma had thought she needed a night out.
Since Briana’s mind continued to replay what happened with Lucan in Vegas, she either hadn’t had enough to drink yet, or no amount of alcohol would let her forget that he’d deserted her without so much as a second thought.
That should tell her all she needed to know right there. Forget him and move on.
Except she couldn’t—not without picturing him with the stupid redhead. The female had been nothing to him but a means to an end—hadn’t she?—and yet thinking about his hands on her fueled Briana’s anger like nothing she’d experienced before.
“If you want to hit someone, just ask.” Sorcha rested her back against the bar and waved a hand at the crowd. The former huntress had started more than her share of brawls in Pendragon’s since she’d been reunited with Briana’s oldest brother. “I’m sure we can find someone foolish enough to tangle with you.”
“And give my brothers another reason to hover over my shoulder? I’ll pass.” Cian’s unspoken threat to do exactly that all evening had prompted her to take Emma and Sorcha up on their girls’ night out suggestion to begin with.
Now that she was out, though, and surrounded by a couple of hundred humans and immortals jam-packed in Pendragon’s, all Briana wanted to do was leave. At least at home she could work or surf the net. Something that didn’t involve pretending she was fit company.
If she stuck around much longer she would end up tangling with someone, and it would probably be one of her brothers. She knew they were worried about her, and she loved them for it, but if they didn’t take their suffocate-her-until-she-talks show on the road, she would end up lashing out at one of them.
“B?” Sorcha prompted. “Five minutes or two?”
Briana glanced up from the sketch of the Fae glyph she’d been doodling all night on napkins. Since the showdown in Vegas, she’d been showing the glyph around, hoping someone might identify it. So far only Emma had found it familiar, but couldn’t remember why or where she’d seen it before. “Who are you guys talking about?”
The question had barely left Briana’s mouth when she picked up on the familiar scent nearby.
“What?” Even drunk, Emma was a little too intuitive, picking up on Briana’s reaction.
“Nothing.”
Sorcha nodded to the stairs leading up to the office that overlooked the club. “The same nothing that has Cale watching over you like a papa bear?”
“Papa cat,” Emma corrected, then frowned. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?”
Briana refused to follow Sorcha’s gaze. Her oldest brother hadn’t pushed her to talk nearly as hard as Cian had. Cale preferred to say very little, waiting until she couldn’t take any more of his silent observation and caved.
The tactic may have worked when she was younger—and more than once she had dragged Cian down with her when she’d confessed whatever she’d been up to—but that was then.
Instead of confirming Cale was watching her from above, she swept the bar, trying to decide on the best escape route. One that wouldn’t give any of her brothers—or Lucan—the opportunity to corner her.
Pendragon’s was busier tonight than usual, the bar packed with bodies, some tucked close together in conversation, others gyrating against each other on the dance floor. Pulses of flashing color—red, blue, green, yellow—drenched the crowd, interspersed by flickers of a strobe light that made everyone appear to be moving in slow motion to the beat of the house band.
She wasn’t looking for Lucan, but knowing he was close made the cat stir restlessly inside her.
“Lucan has balls, I’ll give him that,” Sorcha continued as though he had been the sole topic of conversation all night.
“He’s not that bad,” Emma chimed in. She hiccupped a moment later and slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Told you she couldn’t hold her liquor.” Briana said absently, holding her hand out. If she focused on her friends then she wouldn’t wonder if Lucan’s presence had anything to do with the concerns that were thankfully keeping her brothers from focusing entirely on her.
Sorcha dug a twenty out of her pocket and handed it over.
“I’m fine.” Emma slid off her stool, surprising all three of them by not even staggering. She smoothed her hands down her slinky black dress. “Cian thinks I’m fine too.”
Briana didn’t need to look to know her friend’s gaze had found Cian, who was no doubt standing right next to Cale. The pair’s mate bond was still so new they were rarely apart. Only one thing could pull Cian’s attention from his new mate—could pull the attention of all three of her brothers.
“I think they’ve spotted him.” Sorcha finished off her drink, her fingers flexing where her sword was supposed to be. Given how intimidating the ex-huntress was to even the most lethal immortals, Sorcha’s sword had been deemed bad for business.
“They won’t start anything in here.” Her brothers had a low tolerance for aggression in their club and every immortal in the place knew it.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Sorcha grinned proudly, knowing she’d started her own share of bar fights.
