MIKAH

I was going to kill this fucking werewolf.

It was bad enough that he was basically an overgrown, horny toddler, and I’d been stupid enough to open up to him about my life, that I’d kind of… enjoyed the whole slow-dancing thing with him. It had soothed that anxious feeling of over-stimulation, and it had helped anchor me back to our purpose for being here. We were there to gather intel, to help get Xavier into the Fae world.

And if breathing in Gabe’s scent and feeling his body shiver when I whispered in his ear wasn’t the worst thing in the world, then that was just gravy.

At least, it had all been harmless fun until Gabe had pulled me along to tackle the guard so hard that I heard air squeak out of the demon’s lungs when his body slammed against the wall. What had ever happened to gathering intel and keeping our cover?

I groaned as I sat up and pulled myself away from the pile of tangled limbs on the floor. “What the hell was that?” I demanded.

Gabe, still half on top of the demon, gave me a sleepy grin. “Jusssss wanned to have some funnn,” he slurred. The demon grunted and pushed the werewolf off of his body with a snarl, but Gabe didn’t seem to mind as he slid the rest of the way to the floor. “Oh, hi there. You wanna have sssome fun with me? I’ve alwayssss wanned to play with a suckbus.” He cleared his throat. “Succoobus. Suckiebus.” Then he shrugged, blinking slowly at the demon.

What precisely was Gabe’s game here? For all the wolf could act like a fool, only a greater one ever truly thought he was one.

Then I noticed the glint in Gabe’s eyes as he watched the demon. He wasn’t drunk at all. He was just acting wasted—all part of some apparent master plan he hadn’t bothered telling me about. This was (well, probably) the worst part of being stuck with Gabe for task after task, and it was the reason I’d never wanted to work with him in the first place. The guy was chaos personified, doing whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it, regardless of safety or common sense. And he never, ever bothered to share any of his plans with the rest of the class, so I’d always spend half my time trying to figure out what he was doing or confusedly suffering the consequences of whatever fresh hell he’d unleashed on us.

And here we were again. I sighed, my eyes rolling up to the black-painted ceiling, and I dutifully played my part. “I’m so sorry about that,” I apologized to the demon. “He’s clearly had a few too many. It won’t happen again.”

I stood up and then offered my arm to “help” Gabe to his feet. He steadied himself against my chest, his hands getting a little gropey. “Have you met my ffffriend?” Gabe slurred, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the demon. At least, not until he said, “Blood suckers… you gotta wash the fangssss but they know what to do with their mouthssss.”

Jesus Christ, Gabe. I was going to make him pay for that. So hard.

“You two are getting cut off, and if you’re not careful, you’ll be thrown out and banned,” the demon snapped.

I held my hands up apologetically. “We won’t cause any more trouble.” I dragged Gabe away with me. He’d started singing along to the song playing on the dance floor.

“Money on my mind, money, money on my mind…” he sang—out of tune and out of rhythm. His knowledge of the lyrics would have been impressive if his performance hadn’t been the most annoying thing I’d ever heard in my long, long life.

I dragged him back onto the floor, and he wasted no time running his hands all over my chest and then down my abdomen and—oh god. “Hey!” I caught his hands before they could slide any lower. “Don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick?”

He slumped over onto my shoulder, and I took that as my cue to guide him over to one of the seating areas on the other side of the room. He briefly lifted his head from my shoulder. “Guard still watching?”

I glanced back at the demon. “Yup.”

“Then clearly I’m not laying it on thick enough.” Still leaning into my side, his hands slid down my back and squeezed my ass.

“Hey!” I batted his hands away and continued our path toward a darker, more secluded part of the room, further out of the guard’s line of sight. “Get a hold of yourself, you fucking dog. What was that even all about? What did we gain from that little display, other than putting a target on our backs?”

Gabe straightened suddenly as we reached a dark corner, and he pulled a keycard from up his sleeve like some kind of second-rate magician. “The key to the kingdom, babe.”

My jaw dropped, and I didn’t even care that Gabe was giving me the smug little smirk that normally made me want to rip his head off. He’d done it. I couldn’t believe that infuriating, impulsive werewolf had actually done something right. And I hated that. Gabe was already insufferable enough, but he’d be feeding off this stunt for weeks. Probably would never let me live it down. I could almost see the mental tally in his brain: Gabriel 1, Mikah: 0. But at least now we could get a better look at this club’s operation, and perhaps just how this backdoor Fae portal worked.

In spite of myself, I smiled. “Guess you’re more than muscle after all.”

With a pompous grin, he teased, “Don’t you ever forget it. You gotta have some smarts in this business.” He slid the keycard into his pocket, safely out of sight.

***

The wolf was proving he was more than his howl. Hell, he might even have known his way around that kinky deathtrap of a night club better than I gave him credit for. He certainly could handle himself on a dance floor, and he’d managed to con not one, but two separate guards. He’d probably planned the whole thing once the guard caught us in the hallway outside the portal to the Fae world. Convince the guards we were horny guys looking for a good time, then join in the revelry on the dance floor to cement the story, and give credence to the drunken act when he collided with the guard and stole his keycard. Even if the two guards put their stories together, and there was no reason for them to do so, they’d just assume that Gabe—who was obviously just an over-sexed werewolf—had partied too hard.

If I hadn’t been at his side through the whole chain of events, I might have thought the same thing. I reasoned that maybe I wouldn’t have to kill him after all.

“When do you want to make our move?” I asked.

“I thought I was already making plenty of moves,” he purred, leaning into me with that shit-eating grin.

I smacked his shoulder. We were out of sight. There was no need for that bullshit anymore. “Enough with the jokes. What do you think is back there?”

He frowned at my tone and shrugged. “Whatever it is, we gotta wait for tall, dark, and stupid to move away from the door before we can get anywhere near it.”

Did that mean..? “Please tell me this does not require more dancing,” I groaned.

He laughed. “What? I’ve tired you out already? Figures. You are an old man.”

The song changed again, this time to a fast, pulsing rhythm. Strobe lights began flashing, and dry ice was pumped onto the dance floor, dousing everything with its burned-frozen scent. So much for the break from the overstimulation, I thought. I glanced at the crowd in dismay, then straightened when I saw someone pulling the demon guard away from the door.

“Hey,” Gabe said, nudging me. He’d seen it, too. “I think I just found our opportunity.”

That familiar scent from earlier brushed through the air again, and I scanned the room once more, squinting to peer through the smoke and flashing lights. Among the flashing lights, I made out the rough outline of a person who looked vaguely familiar…but I still couldn’t identify them. I glanced over at Gabe, who was, predictably, already in motion.

I decided that I’d tell him about the familiar scent later, and only if it became a real concern. Knowing him, he’d just cast my hesitation aside and barge in alone. I was already rushing to keep up with him as it was.

We moved through the crowd as unobtrusively as we could until we reached the door on the other side of the room. Gabe slotted the keycard through the lock, and the door clicked open. We slipped inside as quickly and quietly as possible.

The door snapped shut behind us, leaving us alone in a quiet, dark hallway with only the vaguest sound of music behind us. “I don’t think anyone could have seen us in all that commotion,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice down in the near-silent corridor.

Gabe nodded. “That was easy.”

And then Gabe’s phone blared to life.