The bell tinkled over the door and Wilder broke away with a shocked little gasp. It was followed by an embarrassed little laugh as he looked over my shoulder for the person who’d interrupted us.
My hands squeezed Wilder’s hips as I fought the urge to cut the intruding idiot’s head off for disturbing us. The temptation was almost impossible to resist.
“You can’t kill him for walking into the shop, kitten,” Wilder said as he placed a kiss against my cheek.
“Spoilsport,” I replied. I let the tension leave my fingers and took a step back from Wilder before I whisked him away to sink my cock so deep into his ass, he wouldn’t be able to walk for a week.
Wilder looked like a hot mess. His lips were swollen and his cheeks were flushed.
“What?” he said warily as I stared down at him.
“You look debauched.”
“For fuck’s sake, Byron,” he groaned as he patted his hair down. His hair wasn’t the problem. “Why do you always look so put together?”
I smiled at his surliness and grabbed his hands to stop him faffing. “I like that you look debauched. It makes me want to do it all over again.”
“You’re so fucking weird,” he huffed, but there was no real heat behind his words.
“I know.”
“Excuse me,” a gentle voice said from behind us. “Would you happen to know where the owner is?”
“She’s just in the back getting my—”
Wilder’s words froze on his lips as he stepped around me to talk to the newcomer. His face instantly paled and his hand squeezed mine in a death grip.
“Do I know you?” Wilder asked, his words a trembling whisper that affected me more than it probably should. I hated the way he sounded so fearful.
I turned to look at the person and found a well-dressed gentleman in a dark three-piece suit and a grey overcoat. He carried a walking cane in one hand and held a pocket watch in the other. He was pleasant looking, and there was something calming about his presence.
So why the fuck did Wilder look like he’d seen a ghost?
“I don’t believe so,” the stranger replied, but there was something uncomfortable in his tone. Something guarded.
He was lying.
“Who are you?” I asked, my words sharp as I stepped protectively in front of Wilder.
The stranger’s lavender eyes flicked between Wilder and me, assessing and wary. They were too bright and unusual to be human. “I’m just looking for the owner. I have a package to collect.”
Wilder’s hand gripped mine even harder, grinding my knuckles together. “He was there. The night my father auctioned me off. He was there.”
I was instantly on the alert, mind and body falling into readiness to attack.
“Wait,” the man said, his hands flying up to protect him. “It’s not like that. I—”
“Here we are,” Astrid said breezily as she swanned back into the shop.
The stranger used the distraction to fly from the shop, using speed only a vampire could possess.
“Fuck!” I yelled as I darted out of the store, knowing it would be futile but running out there, anyway. There was no one out there. Just the empty street staring back at me.
I stormed back into the shop, the door slamming open and the bell shrieking above me. “Who was he?”
“Who?” Astrid said as I strode towards her.
I was livid. Beyond fucking angry. That man had something to do with that fucking night, and I wanted to rip him into tiny pieces, chop him up and ask the wendigo to digest him. “The man who was just here!”