I pop the cap when the warning it emanates lessens and ease the bottle onto the bar. “Wait,” I say when Houndstooth tries to snag it. “This is the real stuff. If you grab it before it’s ready for you, you’ll be wearing it.”
Houndstooth huffs, trying to look tough for his friends and whips the beer off the bar. The brew gets angry and the lot of us end up sprayed.
From across the bar, a werehyena laughs, setting off his friends. “Brew Virgins,” he calls out.
I swipe my face with a clean towel, watching as the wolf and his boys lick the trickling beer from their lips. Their eyes widen and their pupils immediately dilate.
“Whoa,” Orange Polo says. “This is some good stuff.”
“You’ve never had witch’s brew before, have you?” I ask.
Houndstooth goes all red in the face. “No,” he admits.
“First lesson,” I say. “Respect it and the magic it took to make it.”
“Yes, sir,” he says. He passes me his card. I pass him a towel to clean up his mess.
I stop in place when I see the hyena make his way to Emme. He offers to buy her a drink. She politely declines, her attention on me. I’m not sure what the hyena catches in my face, but it’s enough to send him and his buddies in the direction of the band and away from Emme.
Good boy. Smart boy. Stay away and everyone will keep their limbs.
I bend and reach for the next brew. Emme looks damn sweet tonight. I mean, she always looks sweet, but it’s like, everything about her is different. She’s a woman, I guess. She grew up in front of me before I was ready.
Okay, that’s not right either. Emme was always a woman. A beautiful young woman. If I had a twenty for every guy I’ve had to keep off of her…Maybe it’s that top. It’s brown-gold, or gold-brown. Whatever it is, she looks nice in it.
Emme is just, different lately. I can’t put my finger on when it happened, she just changed. It might be when we went on that mission (the one we’re not allowed to talk about in front of her), and I saw how much that idiot wanted her. No, not wanted her. Wanted to do stuff to her. Wanted to hurt her like only men could hurt women.
It wasn’t like that when Emme was with Liam. They were closer in age. He was good to her and for a long time, she was everything to that wolf. It made it okay for them to be together. But then Liam was gone, and Emme went from that kid I would’ve busted heads for to, hell, someone I’d still bust heads for.
The first bottle reaches the Houndstooth without incident and Orange Polo handles the second bottle like it might bite. Good for him. I’ve seen witch’s brew sprout teeth and take off chunks of skin.
I steal another glance at Emme. She’s staring hard at her glass. The crowd size has doubled since she arrived and there are more humans now than weres. I can’t ignore her like I’ve been. No. Not this time.
Everything about her has totally bloomed. Her skin looks different. Was it always that soft? I don’t know. I haven’t touched her, and when she’s tried to touch me, my wolf warned against it. He shoved us away from her, telling us this thing I’m feeling is wrong.
It is wrong? She’s Emme. Emme with those tiny freckles on her face she’s so ashamed of. She doesn’t get that they add to her cuteness. I wonder where else she has freckles…
Man. Don’t go there. You don’t shit where you eat. If the old man taught me anything, it was that.
I place the last witch’s brew on the bar. “Can I touch it?” Red Polyester shirt asks. He points to it.
My gaze cuts to Emme. “Not without permission.”
I’ll be fine. Emme will be fine. All I have to do is keep my distance. So long as she doesn’t crinkle her nose in that sweet way of hers, we’ll all be fine.
Another glance at Emme, another wave of emotions when our eyes lock. Her soft green irises take me in, looking at me like I don’t think she ever has. I’d remember it if she stared at me this way before.
I do a double-take when I realize how many people are waiting for drinks. “Keep it together,” I mutter.
I manage to pass out two pitchers and am pouring a third round of shots when my phone rings, instantly swearing when I see a full moon flash across the screen. “Mother’s ass,” I mumble.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“We have a situation,” Koda growls into the phone.
My hand lowers when he spills the details. I march to Emme, startling her when she finds me in front of her.
“Emme, what was the wolf’s name you went out with tonight?”
She puckers her brow. “Ted Savante. Why?”
“They just found him ripped to pieces.”
Chapter Six
Bren
Emme turns a lighter shade of pale. “Ted’s…dead?” she asks.
“Totally,” I say. I lean in, whispering low. “That wasn’t you, was it?”
Her jaw pops open. “No.”
I hold out a hand. “Because if it was, you could tell me. We’ve got you, and it’s not like Aric won’t cover for you.”
“Bren, I didn’t kill Ted.”
“Or rip him to pieces, like, on accident?” I ask.
“No, Bren,” she says. “And before you ask, I would remember if I did.”
“Good to know,” I say.
The werehyena shoves his phone into the back of his jeans and ambles over with his friends. Yeah, they all got the call, too.
“We’re told you’re in charge,” the hyena tells me. “How do you want to handle it?”
I shoot him the best Tom Cruise Mission Impossible shit-just-got-real face I can muster. “The only way we know how.” I then give them my back and speak low into the phone. “What the hell do you mean I’m in
