“Suddenly I need another drink.” He said walking off towards the bar.
Wiatt growled under his breath. He knew what Addison was doing was deliberate. But he didn’t want the alpha male anywhere near Tatum. Besides Addison Harrington was pretty. He was moody and attracted any female who he wanted. It was like open season when Addison walked into a venue. Women usually lined up for a piece of him, Wiatt didn’t quite have it that easy when it came to attracting females. The thing was, Addison damn well knew how easy it was too, and he didn’t have a problem using that to his advantage, ever.
“Addison, don’t be a prick.”
“Too late.” Addison replied back over his shoulder as he walked to the outside bar and into the line of sight of Tatum.
Wiatt sighed and quickly marched after him.“Don’t you already have a girlfriend?”
Addison titled his head and pursed his lips together as if in thought. “We don’t really go for the labels thing.” He said taking a step forward. Wiatt stepped in front of him, stopping him.
“But you’re with, what’s her name again?”
Addison’s expression darkened. “Cassidy, her name is Cassidy and we have an understanding, that works when we’re in the same city together. And Cass is currently on tour, in Miami, and I’m here, all alone in New York, so the understanding is we’re both free game, until we get together again.” Addison explained stepping around Wiatt. Wiatt stepped back in front of Addison again. “You really want to do this Wiatt?” He growled at his friend.
“Why, you going to ruin my mother’s party?” Wiatt threw back at him. Addison’s eyes narrowed on the younger werewolf before glancing back at the bar attendant. “Cause I’d like to see you explain that to your best friend. Why you got into a fight with his little brother, on tonight of all nights.”
“You really don’t want me to talk to her, do you? You really that threatened and unable to hold your own?” Addison said stepping around him again, Wiatt stayed still and watched as Addison walked up to the bar.
Tatum broke out into a full blown smile at Addison and Wiatt wondered if even Tatum wasn’t immune to the charm of Addison Harrington. He stayed where he was a few meters back from the bar, drinking his beer and watching the exchange of body language and facial expressions between Addison and Tatum. He watched the smile on her face falter and her eye focus on Addison before her line of sight flew up to meet his eyes and then go back down onto Addison again.
Wiatt drank his beer and waited as Addison straightened up and turned around, walking away from the bar again, back to him. He looked over Addison’s shoulders towards Tatum who was now busying herself with some mundane task of cleaning the bar bench top, even though it clearly didn’t need to be cleaned.
“Walk with me.” Addison muttered at his friend grabbing his elbow and directing him away from the bar and the party, back inside the venue. Wiatt sighed and did as told, he knew what was coming, it was the whole reason he hadn’t wanted Addison to go over and chat up Tatum in the first place. He wasn’t really concerned with the flirting. They stopped in a quiet, area.
“She’s a lycan.”
“I know.” Wiatt replied looking at the annoyed expression on Addison’s face. Addison sometimes forgot he wasn’t the only werewolf with super finely tuned skills. Although next to Paris or even perhaps on equal paring Paris, Addison’s skills were the best.
Addison shook his head. “That was why you didn’t want me to talk to her, you didn’t want me to get close because you knew I’d figure out her scent?” Wiatt shrugged his shoulders loosely, trying to appear casual. Addison had history with lycans. He didn’t particularly like them. Wiatt knew that. “You need to think with your head not your cock.” Addison fired off at him. “Go bed some other party guest, let this one go.”
Wiatt eyed Addison and stepped closer to him. “Is that a bit of friendly advice or you giving me an order?” Addison stared back at him silently. “Because I don’t take orders from you.” Wiatt said defiantly back at him. “You are not my pack leader.”
“I’m your friend who is telling you, not to going slumming with a lycan.”
“You don’t know her.”
“She’s a lycan!” Addison roared at him.
“She isn’t responsible for what happened to Cassidy. You dealt with those lycans.” Addison swung out at Wiatt who swerved out of the reach of the punch.
“Don’t you dare bring Cassidy into this.” He seethed.
Addison hated lycans. Ever since a pack of lycans had gotten together, an almost unheard of lycan trait as it were, and tried to kidnap and hurt his girlfriend, Cassidy. Cassidy was a human woman that Addison had developed strong feelings for and was in what he classified as his first real relationship. Even though Cassidy and he, only got together, from what Wiatt knew of them, for sex, when in one another’s city. That was more of a relationship that Addison had ever been in before.
Addison’s tolerance for them hadn’t gotten better or gone down one bit, because he knew what hell Cassidy had gone through, that he hadn’t at the time, been able to protect her from. Being a werewolf and getting outsmarted or done over by a lycan, was about as insulting to his ego as it got.
“Why not? Isn’t that what this is really about? You can’t stand lycans because they attacked your girlfriend, it’s why you don’t want me to be with Tatum.”
“You named the puppy? Tatum, her name is Tatum? You need to get a grip on your cock and pull fucking hard. Do you have any idea how desperate it looks if you’re fucking a lycan?” Addison threw back at him.
“Who I fuck with my cock is none of your business.” Wiatt fired back. “Just like who you fuck is none of mine.”
“Wiatt, you can’t be serious.”
“I never said I was.” Wiatt replied. All he’d done so far talk to Tatum and check her out but that didn’t mean he wanted anything more than a good time from her. Addison of all people and wolves should know that. Hadn’t he just said Cassidy was more of a fuck buddy than a girlfriend to him? Addison let out a heavy breath.
“Good, alright, well then let’s go find you another wolf for the night,” Wiatt looked at Addison like he was crazy. He shook off Addison’s arm off his shoulders.
“How about instead of that, you go off and enjoy the party and forget about Tatum and I and you just mind your own business when it comes to who I associate with.”
“Associate with? Jesus, how long have you two been dating? Why would you date a lycan? She must be some fucking lay if you’re doing it with a lycan of all wolves.” Wiatt threw the punch, before he even knew he was doing it. It was as automatic as breathing and it didn’t matter that it was his close friend he was hitting. Addison responded in kind, dropping his beer and reciprocating punches back at Wiatt.
“What does it matter? She’s a wolf under my protection so back off.” Wiatt ground out defending against a punch.
“She’s a lycan! That doesn’t make her a wolf!” Addison yelled at him as they tussled closely, fighting for control of one another.
“You can’t condemn her because of her race.” Wiatt panted throwing Addison back from him heavily.
“Race? Lycans are not a race! They’re an abomination of what it means to be a werewolf!” Wiatt couldn’t stand to hear any more bullshit from Addison’s mouth. He charged forward with a growl and they fighting increased between the two males.
“Hey, hey!” it was another werewolf alpha male, Jules who found them fighting and pulled them apart, getting in between the two of them. “Calm the fuck down, both of you!” he yelled pushing them apart and putting a hand on either man’s dinner shirt covered chest. Wiatt stared past the bleached blonde between them and sneered back at Addison.
“He’s the asshat who started it.” Wiatt said pointing angrily at Addison.
“I don’t fucking care. Stop it, now. If Paris find you two fighting like this, you are both going to get torn a new one because I’m going to fucking help him. So help me Odin.” Jules rep
lied shoving back on Addison’s chest as he tried to surge forward to Wiatt. “Wiatt, walk away, that way.” Jules said pointing behind him.
“The fuck I will, this prick thinks he has a right to dictate to me who I date! All because he has issue with the idea of lycans existing.”
“Fuck you!” Addison spat out pushing against Julian who shoved him back again.
“Go, now!” Julian ordered Wiatt. “This is not the time or place for this and you should both fucking know that by now. Tonight is about Bg and Paris, not you’re fucking egos not being in check.”
Wiatt growled and skulked away from the two males. “Keep your fucking dog on a leash.” He yelled back at them finding his way back into the main throng of the party. Knowing fully well that he was insulting Addison.
Being a werewolf and being called a dog was a common way to be obvious about insulting one another. Jules and Addison were close and whilst Jules appeared to be a calm and rational male wolf, it was rather deceiving. Given he had alpha abilities and was a skilled fighter when it came to really having to fight. He just wasn’t as hot headed as the rest of them, Paris, Wiatt and Addison; the boys as they referred to themselves and others to them.
Looking over at the bar, he waited until Tatum was clear of guests and walked over to the bar. “I’d like some ice please.”
Tatum looked up at him and frowned. “What happened to your face?” She said gathering some ice cubes into a tumbler glass for him. Her eyes cataloguing the cuts and bruising Wiatt could feel forming and stinging on his face from his punch up with Addison.
“Nothing interesting.” Wiatt muttered, picking out an ice cube and placing it on the cut he could feel on his lip.
“Is this because of your friend, the other werewolf?” Tatum asked softly, looking at his face with concern. “The one that came over to talk to me.”
“What did he say to you?” Wiatt asked suspiciously.
Tatum shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Forget about him. Look, just do me a favor? I’ve got to go mingle with the guests, my family will be looking for me soon, just don’t leave her tonight without saying goodbye to me first.” He held eye contact with her and watched as her expression from concern went to surprise again. “Promise me.”
“Now why would I want to do that?” She said stepping back from the bar top slowly. “I’m not a pack wolf Wiatt and I’m sure as hell not one of your Manhattan Maen wolves. I don’t follow werewolf ways, and I’m not welcome to, remember?” Wiatt kicked himself internally, of course she had to throw his words back at him. He was such a dick for saying them in the first place to her and insulting her very being.
He like Addison, had absolutely no right to pass judgment on her, he didn’t know her, and she was only the third lycan he’d ever met and the first female one at that. The first lycan he’d met was Damon, a reclusive, edgy, scared lycan who was for some reason or another, under Manhattan Maen protection, because Wiatt’s big brother Paris deemed it so.
Paris even checked up on Damon regularly. Wiatt didn’t understand it, had never really questioned why that was the way it was. Paris was many things but being known for being generous towards lycans, really wasn’t one of those things he was known for, or wanted to be known for.
The second lycan was Booker Parish, a very close friend of his brother’s from the Breukelen werewolf pack, in Brooklyn. Again, Wiatt had no idea how Paris and Booker had come to be friends and good ones at that. It seemed like, there was a lot about his older brother, that Wiatt didn’t really know.
“Because I’d like to spend some time with you without a bar between us and now isn’t the time for me to do that.”
Tatum found herself staring back at him hard, as a thought occurred to her. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Wiatt looked at her. “Just so we’re clear here, yes I am.”
6
It was close to one am in the morning when Tatum, gathered up her jacket and signed off, getting her pay packet and tips from Hillary who declared the rather lavish party a success. Tatum kept looking around at the stragglers in the party, looking for Wiatt D’arenberg. She didn’t know if he was serious or was just using the excuse of saying he wanted to ask her out as a means to escorting her out, of town as it were. After all, he’d made it clear he wanted her gone from Manhattan. She shook her head, she didn’t understand the male wolf.
“Which is probably a good thing.”
“What is?” Wiatt asked walking up behind her. Tatum looked up at him, he looked a little tired, and the cuts were still obvious on his face. She found herself staring at them. Wiatt put a hand to the one on his cheek, the most obvious.
“I thought, you guys healed instantly. You know, with your werewolf abilities and all.” Tatum said starting to walk towards the elevator.
“Not instantly in an obvious way. But I can shape shift to heal, and partially shift too to get rid of these cuts.”
“So why don’t you?” Tatum asked as they walked over to the elevator and she pressed the button.
“That’s a lot of effort for a non-serious injury.” Wiatt replied. “Besides, bruises make me look ruggedly handsome, don’t you think?”
“Are you really fishing for compliments with me? Is your ego so bad that you need me to say what you in all likelihood already know, that you’re gorgeous?” Wiatt chuckled back at her. “They make you look like a guy who likes to get into fights.” They stood side by side looking at the elevator, waiting for it.
“I wouldn’t say I like fighting, but I’m not opposed to it, when called for.” Tatum looked over at him. He was head and shoulders taller than her. Medium build that spoke of strength and definition in muscles. He wouldn’t be a walk over like she was when it came to fighting.
“And an engagement party in the Manhattan skyline is the right time to get into a fight? That’s mature.”
Wiatt looked down at Tatum as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. “Well would it seem more appropriate if I told you I was defending your honor in receiving these punches?” He turned around and stood beside the female lycan as they both watched the elevator doors close again after stepping in.
“Now why would you do that? For what I can gather, you don’t like me, or my kind. And you want me gone from your town. Why would you do something as honorable as defend the lycan name?” Wiatt pressed a button on the lift and it dropped slightly.
Tatum turned to look at him as he left his hand resting on the stop button. The elevator jerked to a stop. “What are you doing?” She panicked. “We’re suspended over five stories here, in this old thing.”
“I thought I made it clear back at the party, that I want to get to know you.”
“What with the playground approach of being a bully boy and being mean to the girl?” She fired back at him. “You told me I have to leave town!” She turned to him and glanced at the elevator button panel. “Yesterday, come on, just let the elevator continue on its way.”
“I may have been rather hasty about the whole leave town speech.” He said coolly releasing the elevator button and letting the elevator continue on his way. Tatum tried to relax again.
“Wow, that almost sounded like an apology.”
“Almost.” Wiatt smiled back at her.
“But you’re a werewolf so, it wouldn’t be right if that was an actual apology.” She added on. Wiatt looked at her and they held each other’s gaze. It was Tatum who broke eye contact first. “So does this mean I don’t have to leave town, if I go on a date with you? Or am I just expected to sleep with you to be left alone?” Tatum asked as the elevator reached the ground level and the doors opened. “Is that how female lycans get left alone in this town?”
Wiatt waited for Tatum to walk out first and then stepped out behind her. “I’m a werewolf, not a bastard. There’s a difference.” He replied as they walked through the lobby of the rockerfeller centre together. “But it is up to me to police the lycans in our territory and you are a lyc
an, in Manhattan Maen territory and I can’t overlook that. I can’t overlook you being here or what to do with you.”
Tatum looked at him suspiciously. “Because its you’re job? What exactly do you mean, by policing?”
“It varies, I guess, depending on the lycan in question. But the general gist of it is, lycans tend to go against the werewolf grain and cause public trouble that we can’t afford to have, or trouble between packs and it’s just better if we have control of them, to benefit our pack.” He looked at her.
“How very diplomatic and seemingly heartless of you.” Tatum commented.
“You think I don’t have a heart?”
Tatum shrugged her shoulders loosely. “You haven’t exactly been, warm and friendly to me and you don’t even know me and I’ve given you know reason to be this way. So…” Wiatt stopped walking and watched as Tatum also stopped and turned towards him.
He started walking again and fell into step with her. “You have to understand the way pack werewolves work.”
“Do I? Why do I, because you said so?” Tatum said as they walked out of the Rockerfeller Centre. “Why isn’t it a case of you, pack werewolf have to understand, how lycans, like me work? Why is this about you when I haven’t done anything, to you? I mean, you make it sound rather deliberate that I’m a lycan, like I have a say in that.” They walked out onto the sidewalk and surveyed the street. “You do realise that’s not the case, right? That lycans don’t get a say in who they are, because of werewolves. I might not know much about being a wolf and how lycans fit in with werewolves, but I know that much.”
Wiatt waved a taxi cab over to them and opened the cab door, holding it open for her. Tatum hesitated and looked back up at him before sliding into the back seat. Wiatt followed. “Sure policing is not another word for stalking?” She asked moving across the back seat. Wiatt chuckled back at her.
“Where to?” The cabbie asked, looking in the rear view mirror back at them.
“Why don’t we get some real food?” Wiatt asked as Tatum clipped her seatbelt in. “They only served finger food at that party and that is not enough to feed me.”
Wolves Page 3
