Gritting my teeth, I lifted my pint glass and slammed the side down on the counter. Broken shards of glass flew in all directions and cut into my palm, but I pushed the pain down and brought the glass up to Jasper’s throat.
His neck was as muscular as his arm, and I refused to look up into his face as I held the broken glass shard to his Adam’s apple.
“Let’s just all pretend this didn’t happen, okay?” I said as I pressed the broken glass into his skin, making a drop of blood leak down the shiny glass.
Jasper’s hand came down and wrapped around the edge of my barstool as if the werewolf didn’t even notice the broken glass I was cutting into his throat.
“Look into my eyes,” he rumbled, his voice low and resonant.
The order pressed down on me, and my gaze tried to force its way up.
“Fuck you,” I ground out.
The alpha—he had to be an alpha, grabbed my wrist and pushed the broken shard of glass away from his throat.
Why the fuck didn’t I just stab him when I had the chance?
Tears coursed down my cheeks, and I hated myself for every single drop of saltwater I lost for these worthless assholes who controlled my life, but there it was.
“Look into my eyes, wolf,” he said, and the order pressed down on me like a vice. My gaze slid up, and I saw blue eyes, dark hair, a broken nose, and a split lip.
When any werewolf gave me a direct order, my omega magic gave them a powerful high. My old alpha had described it as the feeling of becoming truly invincible for a few precious minutes.
As soon as Jasper ordered me to look into his eyes, my power surged into him, creating a link between us, and his emotions flowed straight back into me. This alpha emitted the familiar soaring, weightless and heady feeling from my omega magic, but beneath it, was a nearly painful yearning. He wanted me so much that he ached, and that strange desire troubled him.
It troubled me too. Nothing good ever came of an alpha desiring me.
“You’ve hurt yourself,” Jasper said. “Drop the glass, so Lucas can look at your wound.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I whispered, but my numb fingers obeyed his order. They didn’t have a choice. There was a tinkling as my glass collided with the bar floor, and then the alpha kicked the broken shards away with his boot.
“Put that glass on the pack’s tab,” the werewolf beside Jasper said with a wink at the bartender. He didn’t look anything like the alpha. He had to be almost seven feet tall and built like a quarterback. Tattoos peeked out from his collar and around his wrists. A giant cross decorated one side of his neck. He looked the age most people assumed I was, around twenty-five or so, which could mean anything with a werewolf. His hair was dark and buzzed short, and he wore a thick canvas jacket and his jeans were worn and embedded with dirt in the knees. His steel-toed suede boots had seen the kind of use you only earned with hard labor.
“If you mean that I’m going to pay for that glass out of my tips, then I already know that, Asshole,” the sexy-nerdy bartender growled, but it was in a tone you’d use to growl at your brother. Then his words sunk in.
Had I—actually—strolled up and asked a werewolf bartender for a job? I almost deserved to be caught—not that anyone deserved the hell that I would soon endure. But I had never failed so abysmally before. This town had fucked my senses sideways. It was a trap set by that cruel bitch fate, and I had walked straight into it.
“I would be Lucas,” the third werewolf surrounding me said in a calm, soothing voice. Lucas looked several years older than my real age. His hair had patches of gray around the temples, and his beard was salt and pepper. His face looked early-forties. Laugh lines were permanently etched on his cheeks, but he wasn’t smiling now. “Mind if I take a look at your hand?”
When I didn’t move, the alpha growled, “Show Lucas your wound, wolf. We’re not going to let you bleed out here in a filthy bar.”
“It’s only filthy when Chad is singing,” Sexy-Nerdy said as he leaned his forearms onto the bar. “Show Lucas your wrists. He’s a vet.”
I was already holding out my hand to the third werewolf, but fuck if Sexy-Nerdy’s order didn’t press down on me too, and with it, I felt his emotions. From him, I felt a strong fascination and curiosity, dimmed only slightly by wariness. The werewolf bartender didn’t know what to make of me.
“She’s a submissive,” the alpha snapped across the bar at the bartender, “Don’t order her unless it’s absolutely necessary, Ace.”
“I was a veterinarian in a former life, but in Grayhaven, I’m the closest thing you’re going to find to a doctor,” Lucas said as he took my hand. “Actually, I’m pretty much whatever this town needs me to be, if they can’t fix their problems with magic.” He gently lifted my cut hand toward the light, and I could see the blood welling on my palm.
“It’ll heal,” I said, but I ruined it with a gasp as something sharp shifted in my cut.
“Not with a quarter-inch glass shard in there, it won’t,” Lucas said. His gray eyes came up to meet mine, “But I’m not removing this glass in a dirty bar where you’re guaranteed to get an infection—sorry, Ace, but it’s true. Why don’t you come with me to my clinic?”
“You also have supplies in the packhouse, Lucas.” Jasper leaned onto the bar. He didn’t come any closer, and yet, he filled my space. His blue gaze moved over my features slowly, like he was memorizing them. “I know you… somehow, but I don’t know your face or your scent. What’s your name?”
The alpha didn’t order me to answer his question, so I kept my mouth shut.
For one brief moment, a well of hope sprung up in me that maybe this alpha truly didn’t know who I was, and I could use that to my advantage. My hope drained away just as quickly. Every werewolf alpha in North America knew exactly who I was. More than likely, Jasper was pretending that he didn’t recognize me in the hopes that I’d go with them without making a scene.
As if he read my mind, Jasper said, “Why don’t you come to the packhouse with us? Then, Lucas can treat you, and you can give me an explanation for why you were threatening to slit my throat. But you probably don’t want to walk through town with makeup dripping down your face. Ace, some warm water, please…”
Ace slid a glass across the bar, and Jasper plucked a bar napkin off the top of the stack. He dipped it in the glass and squeezed the excess water out. “Here.” Jasper’s hand cradled my chin, and he gently dabbed under my eyes with the napkin. “I’m sorry for making you cry. It wasn’t my intention.”
I stayed very still, knowing that it would have probably been better if I walked through town with makeup dripping down my face. At least then there was a chance someone would think there was a reason for concern seeing three big men escorting an obviously distressed woman.
Jasper tossed the dirty napkin over to Ace who threw it away. “How about you come with us, and after that, we’ll discuss what comes next.”
I knew exactly what came next. I would go with them and look for chances to escape along the way, all the while having to deal with my injured hand. I tried to keep my breathing even as I tugged my bleeding and now aching hand from Lucas’ grip. “I’ll go with you, but I need my backpack from behind the bar.”