In nine months, she’d graduate and Tamara would have a baby.
I was so lost in thought that I bumped into someone by the entrance of the bar.
“Well if it isn’t my favorite Boulder bitch.”
I glared at Justin, my knee itching to make contact with his crotch. “Get out of my way, Justin.”
He grinned, nice and wide, putting all of his teeth on display. He looked like he had an abnormal amount of them, or maybe they were just all bigger than normal.
“Or what? You’ll call all those boyfriends of yours to the rescue?”
“Do you have the shortest memory in the history of shifterkind, or are you missing a brain completely?”
He smirked.”I don’t need anyone to rescue me, asshole. Now get out of my way.” I tried to shoulder my way past him, but he blocked me.
I shoved my elbow into his jaw, but he anticipated my move because he bent backward and swiped at my arm. A burn erupted over my skin. The bastard had clawed me!
“Gosh, dueling you’s going to be so fun,” he slurred.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flurry of movement. Cole seized Justin’s two buddies by the neck and clapped their heads together, and then Matt was jumping another large guy.
A hand dragged me back. Not a hand.
August yanked on the tether to get me out of the way, then stepped in front of me. “You just never learn,” he growled right before delivering a mean right hook to Justin’s ear that had the hateful Creek swaying a little.
Unfortunately, it didn’t make him stumble or fall.
“Fucking mutt.” Justin’s lips flapped, and spittle hit August’s forehead.
I drew my bleeding arm closer.
“What did you just call me?” August asked in a deadly whisper.
Lucas shoved past August, rubbing his palms together. “Justin, my man, I’ve been meaning to pay you a visit for some time now.”
Justin rubbed his temple. “That reminds me . . . Taryn’s no longer wrapped around my cock. But she’s going around the Creeks. If you get my drift.” He tossed Lucas a wink that made him pounce, but the shifter fell into a crouch, managing to get out of the way. When he lurched up, he headbutted Lucas in the chin.
I gasped at the sound of cracking. Lucas seemed stunned for a second, but then he narrowed his eyes and barreled into Justin so hard he backed him into the door of Tracy’s and right out into the street. I stood frozen for a second, but then I moved, heading out onto the street after them.
August hooked his finger into one of my beltloops and held me back. “Lucas can handle him, sweetheart.”
“But-”
“But nothing. You stay away from that asshole.” He pulled me to the side, along the windowed façade and then farther down the sidewalk, but then he stopped walking and cinched my wrist, slowly tugging it away from my leather top. As he took in my wounds, his eyes flashed with bloodlust. “He did this?”
As he started to turn, I grabbed a handful of his T-shirt. “Don’t bother.”
He listened to me-even though it seemed to take everything in him to do so.
A car alarm made us both look back at the scene unfolding outside Tracy’s. Lucas had tossed Justin onto the hood of a car, cracking the windshield. A police siren layered itself over the sound of the wrecked car. Matt and Cole gripped Lucas’s shoulders and peeled him off Justin, and then they shoved Lucas down the street in the opposite direction from where I stood with August.
“We have to go. The cops in Boulder are all dirty,” August hissed.
I remembered someone telling me they worked for Aidan Michaels. Did they know what he was? Would they still be loyal to him if they knew?
August gripped my fingers hard, as though afraid they’d slip out of his hold, and towed me down the road just as police strobe lights painted the pavement and the gathered crowd blue. Even though my arm hurt and my legs felt like a solid bruise, I lengthened my strides to match August’s. In minutes, we’d reached my apartment.
I dug through my bag for my key, but my fingers shook from a mixture of adrenaline and fear. My bag toppled, and everything inside spilled onto the sidewalk.
August crouched to retrieve my things. When he noticed how hard I trembled, he stood and cupped my jaw. “Sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”
That miserable phrase again. All those words ever did was herald chaos into my life.
Sensing I wasn’t reassured, he wrapped one hand around the base of my neck and pulled me to him. I let out a dismal whimper, because nothing was okay.
“I couldn’t even . . . I didn’t even manage-” My voice caught on a sob. “How am I supposed to . . . block Justin in fur when I can’t even . . . do that in skin?”
“Seconds don’t usually fight.”
“He said . . . he said”-I pulled in a shuddering breath-“that dueling me . . . would be fun.” I’d always suspected Justin was planning on doing more than standing guard over his new Alpha, but the realization that my suspicions might become true felt like salt in my veins.
August pressed me away and tipped my head up. “You think I’d let that happen?”
“You won’t be in the ring,” I murmured.
My navel pulsed and heated. And then my body slammed into August’s, and it felt like hugging a rock, except this rock hugged back.
He dropped his mouth to my earlobe. “Of course, I’ll be there,” he whispered.
My navel thrummed again. He was talking about using the tether to cheat.
“They must know what we are, August, which means they’ll keep you away from the fight.”
His gaze crowded with shadows. I gathered he hadn’t considered that.
“How about we discuss this off the street?” he asked.
Because my boots had become one with the sidewalk, he steered me up the stairs, and then he unlocked the door and pushed it open. After shutting it behind us, I dropped down in one of the dining room chairs while he went into the kitchen. He grabbed a dish cloth and wet it, then returned to tend to my arm. I tried not to wince, but failed.
August’s jaw slackened and tensed, as though he were working out a kink in his cheek. “Why are you still bleeding?”
I stared at the grooves Justin had etched into my skin. “Probably because I’m taking Sillin.”
August’s green gaze jerked to my face. “Why are you taking Sillin?”
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth before releasing it and sighing. “Because we’re experimenting with it.”
“Experimenting?”