Echoes of Fire (The Mercury Pack #4)(7)

“My boss said one of your pack would come. You here for the cat?”

Bracken nodded.

“She’s in the boss’s office. I’ll escort you up there.” Gesturing for Bracken to follow, he headed inside, crossed the crowded dance floor, and took them through a side door that led to an elevator. As the metal doors slid open and they stepped inside, the polar bear smiled and said, “She’s a pretty thing, ain’t she?”

Bracken’s wolf peeled back his upper lip. “She is.”

“And she sure knows how to handle herself.”

Both Bracken and his wolf stilled. “What the hell does that mean? Why would she have had to handle anything?”

The polar bear’s brow creased. “Mason didn’t tell your Alpha what happened?”

There was a ding, and the elevator doors slid open. Bracken didn’t wait for the bear. He stalked toward the door marked “Office.”

As he got closer, a scent drifted to him . . . peppermint candy, spring rain, and wild strawberries. If there was one thing he and his wolf had always agreed on about Madisyn, it was that she smelled fucking amazing. His wolf always lapped up her scent, loving the combination of sweet and wild. This time, he didn’t. Because there was something mixed in with it. Blood.

His wolf lunged.





CHAPTER TWO



Having wiped her face with the wet towel, Madisyn raised her brows at the tiger sitting across from her. “Did I get it all?”

Mr. “Please call me Mason” Grant seemed to be stifling a smile. “You got it all.”

She put the now-bloodstained towel on the edge of his desk and leaned back into the leather chair. Considering he owned the club, she’d expected the guy to be pissed at her for brawling with sows in the restroom. Instead, he seemed amused. Or maybe bemused.

She’d wanted to go straight home, but he’d insisted on calling Nick. She could tell he was worried that if he didn’t report to the Alpha straightaway, he’d end up on Shit Street, considering she was under the pack’s protection. Mason was also concerned that the sows might decide to wait outside the club for her. If anything happened to her, Nick might hold him responsible. She didn’t want to be the cause of a brawl between the shifters, so she’d agreed to wait for one of the Mercury wolves to come for her.

Madisyn cricked her neck and sighed. Her whole body felt stiff as she fought to ignore the itches that kept scuttling across her skin like swarms of beetles.

“You ready to tell me what led to the altercation?” asked Mason.

“Like I said, they tripped.”

“They’re maintaining the same thing. But we both know that isn’t true. I have CCTV, Madisyn. Can I call you Madisyn?”

“No.”

His mouth twitched. “I saw the footage, Miss Drake. I know what happened. But there’s no audio, so I don’t know what was said. It’s clear that they provoked you. Why?”

“Look, I’m sorry about the damages to the restroom, but I’m not sorry I smacked the shit out of those bitches.”

Mason cocked his head, staring at her curiously. “It was quite a surprise when I saw you shift on the footage. I’ve never met a pallas cat before.”

“Hmm.” Humans referred to her breed’s animal counterparts as Pallas’s cats or even manuls, but shifters stuck with “pallas cat.”

“My mother always said your kind is nature’s idea of a cruel trick. You’re walking, breathing plush toys—so fluffy and cute that people would never think there was a single thing dangerous about you. But you have an insane amount of attitude for creatures so small, and you just straight up don’t give a fuck. She said, ‘Poke at their patience, and wait for the craziness to commence.’”

Madisyn snorted. Her kind did have a somewhat elevated level of aggression, but they didn’t start trouble. They were just always sure to end it. Still, other breeds tended to dislike them simply because they were a little crazy. “All I did tonight was defend myself.”

“And why was it that you needed to defend yourself?”

She wasn’t about to tell him shelter business, so she lied. “They didn’t like that I was dancing with some guy—apparently he’s spoken for. You know bears can be pretty territorial.”

The door flew open, and there stood a tall, lean, solidly built figure of fury. The intensity in the room went up a gazillion notches. Bracken.

Madisyn’s hormones did a happy dance. He’d make any girl go all fluttery. Steely slate-gray eyes. Sensual mouth. Sharp cheekbones. Clean-shaven angular jaw. Short inky-black hair. There was no denying that he was very pretty to look at.

His appeal went deeper than that, though. Bracken was charged with power, dominance, and a dark, undefinable edge. He also radiated a quiet I-know-who-I-am-and-have-nothing-to-prove strength that was primitively compelling.

Once upon a time, there’d also been something approachable about him. Not anymore. Menace was stamped all over him. It was in the hard angles of his face, the direct gaze, the predatory posture, and the way he often held himself so unnaturally still—just as he was doing right then. Whenever he got this way, he made her think of a snake. Cool. Quiet. Deadly. Coiled to strike.

In short, Bracken Slater was not a person who was in danger of being ignored.