I suck on my teeth.
“Pretty sure my dad and yours were very clear on the no reprisals thing,” he mutters. “You’re not an idiot, and you're also not the type to ignore a direct request from Ares Drakos.” He exhales. “So that means you’renotstalking Yelena De Luca because of any revenge angle. Which only leaves one possible conclusion?—”
“You’ve made your point.”
“Have I, though?” He grins at me.
Then he sighs when I glare at him.
“Achilles, the whole point was not to rock the boat with Nero as our families negotiate an outcome to this building shit. You don’t think it’smaybegoing to rock that fucking boat if Nero psychopath De Luca figures out you’re fucking his sweet daughter?”
“I’m not fucking her,” I growl.
Not yet, anyway.
That’s not because I “want to take it slow”. I wasn’t lying when I told herexactlyhow I want her when I claim her virginity.
Panting. Breath ragged. Skin sweat-slicked and electrified. I want to inhale the fear pheromones off her skin and devour her screams before I bury my cock in her tight, wet pussy.
“Well, whatever youaredoing with Yelena,” Lochie growls, “you’re tiptoeing on thin fucking ice. Forget the business aspect. Nero De Luca is a dangerous fucking lunatic.”
“I appreciate your concern for my well-being,” I say. “But do me a favor?—”
Lochlan sighs. “And stay out of it?”
“Bingo.”
He shakes his head and then stands. “All right, I've said my piece. I’m heading out, I got something to do here in town. I’ll catch up with you back at Kingsward.”
I frown. “I thought I was your ride back to campus?”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s like a mile and a half, you bougie bitch. I can walk.” He claps me on the shoulder. “And…for real, amigo. Stay away from Yelena.”
“You ready to spill who you’re Smart-Tag stalking?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
When he’s gone, I head to the men's room myself. It being such an old building, the bathrooms are all single occupancy. They also weren't always bathrooms, because, you know, outhouses. So there’s a window in this one, though it’s been heavily frosted over with stick-on glazing for privacy.
I’m just about done pissing when I hear a familiar female voice outside the bathroom window, in the alley behind the pub.
“I told you not to follow me,” the voice murmurs.
“And I toldyou,” a rough male voice growls back, “not to order me around.”
“That a fact?”
“Yeah.”
My brow furrows when I hear a sharp female gasp. The glazing on the window is peeled off a little in the top corner, so I lean closer and peer into the back alley.
The man I don’t recognize, especially since his back is to me and he’s wearing a black hoodie with the hood up. But I damn well recognize the much smaller girl he’s got pinned to the wall with a hand to her throat.
My cousin, Bella.
I bolt out of the bathroom and back into the pub. The bartender curses me as I shove behind the bar, then barge through the stockroom behind it before I finally go crashing out the back door into the alley itself.
Bella looks more than slightly surprised to see me.