by Eva Chase
I’d picked this bar for exactly that reason. If she came, it’d be somewhere low key, not too noisy or crowded. At least, that had felt like the right idea. It wasn’t as if she’d shown up anyway.
“Not exactly,” I said to the bartender, leaning my elbows on the counter. The smell of wood varnish and booze tickled my nose. “And if you’re going to call me anything, call me Ren.” Most of the times I’d heard “honey” in the last seven years, it’d been followed by a leer and a grope.
The bartender didn’t take offense, just grinned. “No problem, Ren. Can I get you anything, while you’re ‘not exactly’ waiting?”
I was feeling too restless to want a drink for pleasure, but maybe that was why I should have one. It’d take the edge off my nerves. “I’ll have a Bloody Mary.”
“That I can do.” His grin turned apologetic. “I do have to ask for ID. Take it as a compliment?”
I shrugged and pulled out my wallet. When I flashed the card at him, he chuckled. “Birthday girl, huh? It’s an honor to serve your first drink.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or at least your first legal drink.”
Yeah, we wouldn’t get into the amounts of cheap vodka and rum I’d gulped for a buzz over the last several years. When you were crashing on the streets, there was always someone passing around a bottle in a paper bag. But I was done with that part of my life now.
There was only one thing still missing.
“Make it extra bloody,” I told the bartender. He saluted me and grabbed a glass. As he mixed the cocktail, I looked toward the door. Beyond the window, the headlights of Brooklyn traffic streaked by through the darkening evening. No one walked in.
My hand rose to the locket that dangled just below my collarbone. I traced the delicate vine pattern etched in the warm gold. My chest still tightened a little when I flicked the locket open, even though I’d done it already a dozen times today.
The necklace was the last thing my mother had given to me. Seven years ago, but I could remember so vividly the way her dark eyes had shimmered with a hint of tears as she’d pressed the locket into my hands. She’d clasped her fingers over mine and leaned close. The perfume she wore, like smoky roses, had filled my lungs.
“I have to go,” she’d said. “If what I’m about to do works out the way I hope, I’ll be back before you know it. But if I’m not... You hold onto this locket. Don’t take it off for an instant. And keep it closed until your twenty-first birthday. Then, if I’m not here, you open it.”
At the time, turning twenty-one had felt so distant I’d hardly processed what she was saying. She’d left before on her little trips, but she’d never been gone more than a week or two. When she’d pulled me into her arms, I’d hugged her back a little harder than usual, but I hadn’t really believed she wouldn’t come back. She was the one sure thing I’d always had.
But she hadn’t come back. And here I was, twenty-one. I snapped the locket closed, nudged it open, snapped it closed again. There was nothing inside but another etching, this one a symbol like an upside-down flame at the heart of a spiraling line. It didn’t mean anything to me. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I’d had the idea that the second I’d open the locket, Mom would know. She’d know, and she’d come find me. Whatever had been stopping her before, it’d be over.
I’d braced myself and popped it open for the first time twelve hours ago. And here I was, still twenty-one, sitting alone in a half-empty bar on a Thursday night.
Not alone for long. The bartender set my Bloody Mary down in front of me, and a guy who’d been sitting at one of the tables ambled over. He plopped onto the stool next to mine, called to the bartender for a gin and tonic, and looked me up and down.
“You seem to be a little lonely tonight, sweetheart,” he said. His voice sounded as greasy as his hair looked. The armpits of his dress shirt were ringed with sweat stains. “Maybe I can help with that.”
Hard pass on that one. “I’m good, actually,” I said. “No assistance required.”
He shuffled a little closer. He smelled like sweat too—sweat and the three to four drinks he’d already downed. Ugh. “Aw, come on. No harm in a little conversation.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that, I thought. The truth was, even if he’d been remotely appealing, I’d have steered clear. Me and guys didn’t seem to mix well. I’d had a few hook-ups over the years, but nothing that had gone past second base. As soon as things took a hot and heavy turn, a strange sensation rose up inside me. Like claws digging into my innards. And I’d suddenly feel as if I could rip the guy apart.
As if maybe I wanted to.
There’s nothing like visions of gruesome murder to put a damper on your libido.
That wasn’t the only time I felt the stirring of those claws inside me. The greasy guy tapped me on the shoulder with a smirk, and a prickle crept up over my ribs. The picture he was presenting snapped together into sudden focus. I could almost taste his bruised ego in its sauce of desperation.
“I’m not any more interested than your ex is,” I said, and took a sip of my Bloody Mary. “So how about you leave both of us alone?”
The guy’s face turned sallow. “Bitch,” he muttered. He snatched his drink off the counter and stalked away.
I swallowed another mouthful of the spicy, tomatoey cocktail. The bartender had made sure it packed a good wallop, exactly the way I wanted. Enough to wash away most of the discomfort of that encounter.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and smiled when I saw the name on the screen. “Hey, Kylie!” I said. “Are you really supposed to be making calls in the middle of your shift?”
“I made a deal with my supervisor that I’d cut out early tonight in exchange for an extra long shift tomorrow,” my best friend said in her chirpy voice. “Birthday surprise! Where are you, Ren? We need to rock tonight, hard.”
I laughed. Maybe this was what I really needed. Mom was long gone, doing whatever had been more important than sticking with her only kid, and of course no piece of jewelry was going to bring her back. But I didn’t need her anymore. I’d gotten through the last seven years alive if not completely unscathed, and now Kylie and I had finally scrounged together enough money to put a down payment on an apartment.
It was a crappy apartment, on a street so seedy there were more weeds than concrete on the sidewalks, but it had four walls and a ceiling with no holes. It had a door with a lock, and only we had the keys. These days, that was heaven.
Kylie normally worked the evening and early night shift cashiering and stocking shelves at a rundown grocery store in the ‘hood. I’d be back hauling boxes at my warehouse job tomorrow morning. No fun, but whatever paid the bills. And I could sleepwalk through the job, so I didn’t need to worry about a hangover.
I turned around one of the coasters sitting on the counter to check the bar’s name. “I’m at a place called Carmello’s,” I said. “It’s on 5th Ave a few blocks from the park. But I can meet you wherever.”
“No, no,” Kylie said. “I’m coming to get you. And then I’m taking you on one epic adventure, little girl.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise,” I said. Not that I had any doubt Kylie would deliver. She was only a couple years older than me, but when I’d first run into her a few years back, that had seemed like a much bigger gap than it did now. She’d looked out for me as much a big sister as a friend.
Carmello’s would definitely be too much of a snore for her to want to stick around here. I gulped some more of my Bloody Mary so I’d be finished before she showed up.
The door sighed open, too early for it to be Kylie already. My heart leapt despite the talking-to I’d given myself. But it definitely wasn’t my mom walking in.
The guy looked young, maybe mid-twenties, but there was a confidence in the way he prowled into the bar that seemed to carry the weight of a lot more experience. His round face was broken by the jut of sharp cheekbones—not exactly handsome,
but definitely memorable. His hazel eyes swept the room and came to rest on me.
I jerked my gaze away, realizing I’d been staring. And he wasn’t at all the kind of person I wanted to be staring at. Living on the streets had given me a keen instinct for danger. This guy? He was not someone to mess with. A sense of purpose radiated off of him too. I figured it was better not to get in the way of whatever he was up to.
Just my luck, he sauntered up to the bar right beside me. “Give me the best thing you have on tap,” he said to the bartender, and turned toward me. “Nice night to be out on the town.”
“I suppose,” I said noncommittally. How long was it going to take Kylie to get here and give me an easy exit?
Cheekbones cocked his head. “All the early summer energy in the air, it really brings the beast out.”
What was that supposed to mean? I shrugged and acted fascinated by my Bloody Mary. He didn’t take the hint.
“Maybe we could take a walk, get to know each other a little better.”
I cut my eyes toward him. He was confident, wasn’t he? My quick tongue got a little ahead of my better judgment. “Who says I’m looking to get to know you?”
Cheekbones grinned at me, looking unfazed. “I’m just saying, we clearly have a lot in common. This isn’t our kind of place, is it? Why not come back to the fold, at least for a visit?”
A lot in common? The fold? Was this guy on something? No dilated pupils, no jerky movements, but you never knew what drugs were making the rounds these days.
I drained as much of my drink as I could in one swallow and set down the glass. The hit of spice and alcohol sharpened my inner claws. “I’m pretty sure we have exactly nothing in common,” I said. “For one thing, I know how to take a ‘No.’”
Before I had to find out how he was going to answer that, I hopped off my stool and made a beeline for the back hall with its Restrooms sign. He wasn’t likely to follow me into the ladies’.
Washing my hands, I peered at my reflection. I hadn’t put on anything other than my standard mascara and light maroon lipstick combo today. I was dressed casual in a faded Nine Inch Nails tee and jeans. I’d been blessed with a good hair day, my chocolate-brown waves drifting artfully across my shoulders the way I usually struggled and failed to style them, but otherwise nothing extra special was going on. So why were guys honing in on me like flies to a jar of sugar water?
It didn’t matter. Cheekbones made me too uneasy. Either he was drugged out or partly insane, and neither would lead to a good outcome. I’d text Kylie to meet me at the all-ages club on the other side of town and grab a cab to be on my way.
I was reaching for my phone as I came out of the restroom, and a pair of arms slammed around me from behind. One clapped a damp cloth over my face. The other wrapped around my waist. A sickly sweet smell washed over me. I swung back my elbow—and the world went black.
Want to read more of Ren’s story? It’s free with Kindle Unlimited! Grab Dragon’s Guard here.
About the Author
Eva Chase lives in Canada with her family. She loves stories both swoony and supernatural, and strong women and the men who appreciate them. Along with the Witch’s Consorts series, she is the author of the Dragon Shifter’s Mates series, Demons of Fame Romance series, the Legends Reborn trilogy, and the Alpha Project Psychic Romance series.
Connect with Eva online:
www.evachase.com
[email protected]
