Otherworld Nights (8 page)

I didn’t know what was romantic about eating in the dark surrounded by strangers, but it matched Elena’s expectations and that
was all that mattered. She’d enjoy the fussy little portions, the fancy wines, the fawning waitstaff, then fill up on pizza in our room later. Which was fine by me … until the mutt showed up.

As I was returning from the bathroom, he stepped into the lobby to ask the maître d’ for directions. Our eyes met. He smiled and sauntered back out.

I knew I should walk away. Take care of him later. But there was no way I could enjoy my dinner knowing he was prowling outside. And if I didn’t enjoy it, Elena wouldn’t enjoy it, and we’d get into a fight about why I’d take her someplace I’d hate only to sulk through the meal. I was determined to make it through this trip without any knock-down, drag-out fights … or at least not to cause any myself.

I waited until the maître d’ escorted a couple into the dining room, then took off after the mutt.

I found him waiting for me in the lane behind the restaurant. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, eyes closed.

Who raises their kids like this? That was the problem with mutts. Not all mutts—I’ll give them that. Some teach their sons basic survival, and a few do as good a job as any Pack wolf, but there are far too many who just don’t give a damn. At least in a Pack, if your father doesn’t teach you properly, someone else will.

Here stood a perfect example of poor mutt parenting skills—a kid stupid enough not only to challenge me but to feign confidence to the point of boredom, lowering his guard in hopes of looking “cool.” Now I had to teach him a lesson, all because his father couldn’t be bothered telling him I wasn’t someone to fuck with.

Werewolves earn their reputations through endless challenges. Twenty-seven years ago, when I’d wanted to protect Jeremy on his rise to Alphahood, I didn’t have time for those challenges. So I’d sealed my reputation with a single decisive act, one guaranteed to
convince every mutt on the continent that this infamous child werewolf had grown into a raging lunatic. To get to Jeremy, they had to go through me, and after what I did, few dared try.

I could only hope this mutt just didn’t realize whom he’d challenged, and once he did, a few abject apologies and a brief trouncing would set the matter straight and I could get back to my honeymoon.

I walked over and planted myself in front of him.

He opened his eyes, stretched, and faked a yawn. “Clayton Danvers, I presume?”

So much for that idea …

I studied him. After a moment, he straightened, shifting his weight and squirming like a freshman caught napping during my lectures.

“What?” he said.

I examined him head to foot, eyes narrowing.

“What?” he said again.

“I’m trying to figure out what you’ve got.”

His broad face screwed up, lips pulling back, giving me a shot of breath that smelled like it’d never been introduced to mouthwash.

“So what is it?” I asked. “Cancer, hemorrhagic fever, rabies …”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You do have a fatal disease, right? You’re about to die in horrible agony? ’Cause that’s the only reason any mutt barely past his first Change would call me out. Looking for a quick end to an unbearable existence.”

He let out a wheezing laugh. “Oh, that’s a good one. Does that line usually work? Scare us off before you have to fight? Because
that’s
the only reason a runt like you would have the reputation of a psycho killer.”

He stepped closer, pulling himself up straight, just to prove, in case I hadn’t noticed, that he had a good four inches and fifty pounds on me. Which did
not
make me a runt. I’d spent my childhood being small for my age, but I’d caught up to an average size.
Still, mutts like to point out that I’m not as big as my reputation, as if I’ve disappointed them.

“You do have a daddy, right?” I asked.

His face screwed up again. “What?”

“You have a father, don’t you?”

“Is that some kind of Pack insult? Of course I have a father. Theo Cain. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

I knew the Cains. Killed one of them a few years ago in an uprising against the Pack. “And your daddy warned you about me? Told you about the pictures?”

“Pfft.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard about those. Photos of some dude you carved up with a hatchet.”

“Chainsaw.”

“Whatever. It’s bullshit.”

I eased to the side, getting my nose away from his mouth. “And the witness? He’s still alive, last I heard.”

“Some guy you paid off.”

“The pictures?”

“Photoshopped.”

“It was almost thirty years ago.”

“So?”

I shook my head. The problem with stupid people is you can’t reason with them. Trying was a waste of my time, while my meal was getting cold and Elena was spending our romantic dinner alone.

Screw this.

I surveyed the dark service lane. There was never a convenient Dumpster when you needed one. I eyed the garbage cans, eyed Cain, sizing him up …

“So when do we fight?” he asked.

“What?”

“You know. Go mano a mano. Fight to the death. Your death, of course. I’m looking forward to enjoying the spoils.” His tongue
slid between his teeth. “Mmm. I gotta thing for blondes with tight little asses, and your girl is fine. Bet she’ll fix up real nice.”

“Fix up?”

“You know. Get some makeup on. Get rid of that ponytail. Trade the jeans for a nice miniskirt to show off those long legs. You gotta keep after chicks about things like that or they get comfortable, let it slide. Not that she isn’t damned sweet right now, but with a little extra effort, she’d be hot.”

I shook my head.

“What?” he said. “You’ve never tried?”

“Why would I?”

“Why
wouldn’t
you?”

I opened my mouth, then shut it. Another waste of time. He wouldn’t understand my point of view, no more than I understood his. “So you think if you kill me, you get Elena?”

“Sure, why not?”

“If it didn’t require my death, I’d be tempted to go along with it, just to watch you tell her that.”

“Whatever.” He rolled on his heels. “Let’s get this over with. I’m hoping you brought your chainsaw, ’cause otherwise this fight isn’t going to be nearly as much fun as I was hoping, with your fucked-up arm and all.”

I stopped, then slowly looked up, meeting his gaze. “My arm?”

“Yeah, Brian McKay said you busted his balls last year for having some sport with a whore. He said something was wrong with your arm. You kept using your other one. Tyler Lake says he did it, as payback for what you did to his brother.”

“Yeah? Did he mention which arm it was? This one?”

I grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall, hand tightening until his face purpled and his eyes bulged.

“Or was it this one?”

I slammed my fist into his jaw. Teeth and bone crackled. He tried to scream, but my hand against his windpipe stifled it to a whimper.

I dragged him down the wall until his face was level with mine, and leaned in, nose to nose. “I’d say that will teach you not to listen to rumors, but you’re a bit thick, aren’t you? I’m going to have to—”

A thump to my left stopped me short. The restaurant rear door swung open. We were behind it, a dozen feet away, out of sight. I held Cain still as I watched and listened, ready to drag him into the alley if a foot appeared under that door.

Garbage can lids clattered. The bins were right next to the door. No need to step outside. Just dump the trash—

Cain let out a high-pitched squeal—the loudest noise he could manage. Then he started banging at the boarded-up window beside him. I tightened my grip, my glower warning him to stop. A foot appeared under that door as someone stepped out. I dropped the mutt and dove around the corner.

“Hey! Hey, you there!”

I pressed up against the wall. Footsteps sounded. A man yelled at Cain, mistaking him for a drunk. The mutt mumbled something about being jumped, struggling to talk with a broken jaw.

I gritted my teeth. Ending a fight by alerting humans was bad enough. Trying to set them on my trail? That toppled into full-blown cowardice.

I shook it off and retreated before someone came looking for Cain’s “mugger.”

Back in the restaurant, I longed to visit the washroom and scrub Cain’s stink off me. But I’d been gone too long already. So I grabbed a linen napkin from a wait station, dunked it into a glass of water, and carefully cleaned the blood from my hands as I strode through the dining room, then tossed the cloth onto an uncleared table.

Elena looked up from the last bites of her meal as I approached.

“Hey there,” she said. “Thought you’d made a fast-food run on me.”

“Nah.” I took my suit coat from the chair and slipped it on, blocking the mutt’s smell and covering the blood splatter. “Something didn’t agree with me.”

“Lunch, I bet. That’s the thing about buffets—lots of food, none of it very good. So, is dessert out of the question?”

I shook my head. “Just give me a second to finish dinner.”

Our hotel was a few blocks from the restaurant, so we’d walked. Heading back, I had to switch sides every time we turned a corner, staying downwind from Elena and keeping a foot’s gap between us.

That worked only until we got to our room. She leaned against me as she pulled off her heels, then ran her hand up the back of my leg, grinning upside-down, her hair fanning the floor. She swept it back as she stood, her hand sliding up my leg and into my back pocket.

“Pizza now?” she asked. “Or after we work up an appetite?”

I tugged her hand out, lacing my fingers with hers, elbow locked to keep her from getting close enough to smell Cain.

“Hold that thought,” I said. “I’m going to grab a shower.”

Her brows shot up. “Now?”

“That problem in the restaurant? I’m thinking it might be something I rolled in this afternoon. My leg’s itching like mad. Let me scrub it off before I pass it along.”

Her head tilted, the freckles across her nose bunching as she studied me, her bullshit meter wavering. Normal-Elena would have called me on it, but honeymoon-Elena wanted to avoid confrontation, so after a moment she shrugged.

“Take your time. I’ll catch the news.”

I ran my hands through my hair and lifted my face into the spray. My forearm throbbed as the hot water hit it. Tomorrow I’d pay for overworking the damaged muscle, but it was worth it if Cain
took home proof that Clayton Danvers’s arm was definitely
not
“fucked up.”

For two years, I’d been careful in every fight, convinced no one would notice I was favoring my left. I should have known better. Like scavengers, mutts could sense weakness.

I squeezed the water from my hair as I moved out of the spray and looked down at the pitted rut of scar tissue. All these years of fighting without a permanent injury, and what finally does it? One little scratch from a rotting zombie. At the worst of the infection, I’d been in danger of losing my arm, so I couldn’t complain about some muscle damage.

But if rumors were circulating, I had a problem. Was Theo Cain’s son only the first in a new generation of mutts who’d heard the stories about me and fluffed them off as urban legends or, at least, ancient history?

I’d first cemented my reputation to protect Jeremy. Now I had fresh concerns—a mate, kids … and a fucked-up arm that was never going to get any better. So how was I going to convince a new generation of mutts that Clayton Danvers really was the raging psychopath their fathers warned them about?

I rubbed the facecloth over my chest, hard and brisk enough to burn. I didn’t want to go through that shit again. What the hell would I do for an encore? What
could
I do that wouldn’t have Elena bustling the twins off to a hotel while she reconsidered whether I was the guy she wanted raising her kids?

Elena understood why I’d taken a chainsaw to that mutt. If pressed, she might even grudgingly admit it had been a good idea. Anesthetic ensured the guy hadn’t even suffered much—the point was only to make others think he had. Still, only in the last few years had she stopped twitching every time someone mentioned the photos. Admitting I might have been right didn’t mean she wanted to
think
about what I’d done. And she sure as hell wouldn’t want me doing it again.

I shut the taps and toweled off, scrubbing away any remaining trace of Cain.

As I got out, I could hear the television from the next room. The news wasn’t over. Good. Elena would be engrossed in it, which meant I could have some fun distracting her, a sure way to clear my head of thoughts that didn’t belong on a honeymoon.

I draped the towel around my shoulders, then eased open the door to get a peek at the playing field. Through the mirror, I could see the bed. An empty bed, the spread gathered and wrinkled where Elena had sprawled to watch the news.

A sportscaster was running through scores. Shit.

I tried to see the sitting area through the mirror, but the angle was wrong. It didn’t matter. If she was finished with the news, I’d lost my chance to play. I gave my dripping hair one last swipe, tossed the towel on the bathroom floor, walked into the suite, and thumped onto the bed, springs squealing.

“All done. Still ready to work up that—?”

The room was empty.

I strode to the door, heart thudding as I sniffed for Cain. I knew my fears were unfounded. No way could he get Elena out of this room … not without blood spattered on the walls and carpet.

But what if he’d been lurking outside the door? If she’d heard him? She’d peeked out and he bolted? She’d give chase.

I opened the door and was crouching at the entrance when a yelp made me jump. Down the hall, a middle-aged woman stumbled back into her room, chirping to her husband. For a moment I thought,
Hell, I wasn’t even sniffing the carpet yet
. Then I remembered I was naked.

I slammed the door and stalked into the bathroom for a towel. Humans and their screwed-up sensibilities. If that woman saw Elena dragged down the hall kicking and clawing, she’d tell herself it was none of her business. But God forbid she should catch a glimpse of a naked man. Probably on the phone to security right now.