Chapter 24

Raven

The tavern sign swung gently in the night breeze. From inside, the sound of music and laughter poured out onto the dark street. A group of drunk patrons stumbled through the door, bumping into each other on their way out.

We stood on the path, hoods pulled up to conceal our faces.

“We shouldn’t be doing this, Castor,” Neil grumbled for the hundredth time since we’d set foot outside the castle.

Castor shook his head and nudged the prince in the side with his elbow. “Just one drink won’t hurt… She could use it, anyway.”

Neil rolled his eyes and brushed past me. The door creaked loudly on its hinges as he flung it open. Before he stepped inside, he turned to the tall, broad-shouldered guard and held up one finger.

“One,” he enunciated before turning and disappearing into the tavern.

The rest of us watched him for a moment before we followed. Castor held the door open for me, offering me a small, reassuring smile when I hesitated on the threshold.

“It’s just a tavern. No different from the ones you have back home.”

I doubted that, but I stepped inside anyway.

Inside the tavern, the air was thick with the scent of smoke, alcohol, and sweat. Someone was playing a fiddle on a small stage in the corner. The bartender, a muscular woman with caramel skin, was laughing at something someone else was saying as she cleaned the inside of a large mug. All around, drunken patrons laughed, played cards, and swayed to the music.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that different.

While Eric and Ember got us drinks from the bar, Neil, Castor and I found a table in a dark corner. With our cloaks covering our faces and our heads bent, we looked just like the other shady customers sitting around tables and talking in hushed tones.

“Why can’t you show your face here?” I asked, turning to Neil. “I’d think that the prince could go wherever he pleases.”

“I can,” Neil said gruffly. “But I’d rather not attract anymore… unwanted attention tonight.” He shot me a meaningful look from beneath his cloak, his blue eyes catching the flickering light of the candle in the center of our table.

“Heard you loud and clear,” I grumbled, picking at the melted wax on the wood.

A moment later, Eric and Ember returned with five pints of what looked to be frothy beer. They set one down in front of each of us. Mine sloshed a little, spilling dark brown liquid down the side of my cup.

“She can’t drink all that,” Neil said, pointing at my pint. “Lycan ale is too strong for—”

Before he could finish, I picked up the pint and took a deep, long drink. I finished half of it in one go, slamming it down on the table and wiping the foam off of my mouth with the back of my hand.

“That’s good,” I said. “Really good.” And it was; it tasted like honey and spice, unlike any beer I’d ever had back in the Werewolf world.

The others just stared at me in stunned silence for a long moment before Castor sputtered out a laugh and clapped me on the back with a broad hand. “She might have a Werewolf heart, but she’s got a Lycan belly!” he chortled.

Neil just shook his head and looked away, clearly too flabbergasted to speak—although I think I saw a tiny smirk ghosting across his mouth that he covered with his hand. Eric seemed to be trying to hold in his laugh as well as he sipped his ale.

Ember, though, just slammed her pint down next to me and held out her hands.

“Let’s play a game.”

Castor’s eyebrows shot up. “Ember, must you really—”

“It’s just a game,” she hissed at him over her shoulder. “Hold out your hands. I’ll show you how to play.”

Shrugging, I did as she asked. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d played this game before—red hands. The players hold their hands out, one player on the bottom and one on the top. Whoever is on the bottom tries to slap the top player’s hands.

“We’ll take turns,” Ember said. “Whoever taps out has to drink.”

I nodded, needing the distraction. And besides, it reminded me a little bit of home—as did the rest of the tavern. Sure, maybe it was filled with Lycans, but it really wasn’t all that different from a bar back in the city.

That was a comforting thought.

But before I knew it, my hands were as red as beets. Ember was vicious with her slaps, her upper lip curling with each one.

“You can tap out, you know,” she growled when her eighth slap caused me to wince. “Then you can show everyone just how much of our ale you can handle.”

I frowned, pursing my lips. She was trying to hurt me—maybe even embarrass me. The others were chatting amongst themselves, but I knew they were watching. Especially Neil.

“I’m good,” I said as I landed a well-timed slap on the backs of her hands, causing them to come away with angry red fingerprints on her skin. “Don’t be so quick to assume that I’ll be the one to tap out.”

Ember’s eyes flashed from beneath her cloak. She slapped my hands again, this time hard enough to make my own eyes well up with tears. By now, the others had paused their conversation and were looking on with interest. Even some nearby patrons were starting to watch curiously, attracted by the growing sound of skin slapping skin.

“Going to cry?” Ember chuckled as she placed her hands above mine. “Again?”

That was the moment that I’d had enough. I had cried today for good reason—an innocent man had died. I wasn’t about to be cowed for that.

So, gritting my teeth, I channeled as much of my wolf’s strength as I could muster into my next slap.

The sound of my hands hitting hers echoed around the tavern, causing even people sitting at the bar to glance up from their drinks. The guys around the table went still as death, their eyes wide.

Ember’s face turned redder than her hands—which was a feat considering the welts that were already rising on her skin.

Neither of us said anything for several long moments; we just stared each other down, Ember’s jaw working beneath her skin. I silently held her gaze, willing her to keep taunting me as she had so many times before.

Finally, she withdrew her hands, picked up her pint, and chugged all of it without breaking eye contact.

I was broken out of my reverie by Eric’s guffaw and Castor’s hand patting me on the back, but ultimately, my gaze flew to Neil’s. He looked… surprised. Maybe even more surprised than he had looked when my arrow had gone into that training dummy’s head.

He said nothing, although he did raise his drink the slightest bit in my direction.

…

I stumbled out into the cool night air, my belly warm with ale and my head spinning pleasantly. They hadn’t been lying when they said that Lycan ale was strong; I’d only had two pints and already I felt as if I had taken eight shots of vodka.

But it was a welcome sort of fuzziness that took over me, drowning out all of the other chatter in my skull.

I made my way to the outhouse, where I did my business and came out feeling a bit sobered up. A group of Lycan men were leaning against the back of the tavern, chatting amongst themselves. I moved to brush past them, but one of them stepped in my way.

“Where are you going?” the man asked.

Frowning, I looked up to meet a pair of chocolate brown eyes and chestnut hair. The Lycan man was wearing a tunic, but it was open in the front to reveal a chiseled set of abs and a bronze-colored necklace ringing his neck.

“Excuse me,” I said, stepping around him.

The man just chuckled and stepped in my way again. “Don’t be so quick to leave, pretty thing,” he cooed. “We were just getting to know—”

“Petal. There you are.”

At the sound of Neil’s gruff voice, the man instantly jerked his head up, eyes flashing in anger over being interrupted. But Neil’s arm wrapped around my waist, tugging me away before the man could say or do anything else.

“Neil—”

Before I could finish, Neil pressed me up against the wall of the tavern. He smelled like ale as he caged my body within his, large hands pushing into the wall on either side of my head. As if I wasn’t dizzy enough, he dipped his chin, breathing heavily.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “Were those men bothering you?”

I thought he was going to kiss me. His mouth moved toward mine, breath hot and sweet with honeyed alcohol. In my drunkenness, I might have let him kiss me, too.

But he didn’t. He just stayed like that—pretending to kiss me—until the group of men grumbled amongst themselves, muttering something about me being ‘taken’, and left.

Only then did he pull away. My head spun a little at the loss of his presence wrapped around me.

“Thank you,” I managed, grateful for the already-rosy flush to my cheeks from the alcohol hiding my embarrassment. “They didn’t seem keen on letting me go.”

Neil glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the men. “No. They did not.”

I pursed my lips for a moment. “Is it normal for Lycan men to ignore a woman’s wishes when she doesn’t want to sleep with them?”

The prince just shot me a sidelong glance and said, “No. They were drunk assholes.”

My eyebrows shot up, but before I could say anything else, Castor emerged from the back of the bar. Neil murmured something to him, and Castor nodded and strode off in the direction the men had disappeared to, no doubt to rough them up a little for their behavior.

I couldn’t help but admit that it was a bit… comforting to know that Neil and his guards wouldn’t stand for such behavior.

Not that it was enough to set me at ease when Neil’s brothers, who had killed my pilot simply for being a Werewolf, were still out there. I sniffled and blinked quickly to dispel my tears just at the thought.

To my surprise, Neil turned toward me with a softened look to his expression. “You’re still upset. About the pilot.”

It wasn’t a question. “That obvious, huh?”

Neil sighed and held out his hand. “Follow me.”