Page 3 of A Deeper Blue
“Priorities!” he yelled back, leaping over the bar. As he grabbed the guy by his black leather vest, Rafe realized that the orange patch on the back read Warlock, and Rafe felt his teeth lengthen. He picked up the Warlock and threw him back across the bar.
“You’ve got to take it,” gasped Emilio. “You’ve got to take it and get the hell out of here.”
Rafe felt the old upwelling of frustration. Somehow, decades after leaving the pack, his father was still dicking him over with this bullshit mission.
“Take wh—”
Rafe’s question was cut off as two Warlocks charged him, shoving him along the bar. He grabbed at whatever he could find and started smashing at them. Bottles and glasses went flying. He would have expected Emilio to help, but he had his own problems. Warlocks were swarming the damn place. The second guy grabbed Rafe by the arm as the first guy pulled out a knife.
Rafe felt his neck thicken and hair start to raise in hackles along his back. He was trying not to wolf out here in front of all these humans, but there was no way he was going to fucking get shanked by a goddamn Warlock. His claws were breaking the skin when the girl came out of nowhere and cracked a pool cue across the head of the closest Warlock. The cue broke on impact, sending wood splinters flying. The first Warlock sagged to the floor—out for the count—and her hair whirled around like she was a siren straight from a fairy tale as she kicked the second one. She was badass and gorgeous. He ought to take her with him when he left.
The second Warlock staggered back but lunged forward, clearly angry and intent on going after the girl. Rafe grabbed him by the throat and threw him into the men’s room before glancing back at the siren.
“Don’t go anywhere, sweetheart. This will only take a minute.”
He dove through the bathroom door and reached for the Warlock, who had fallen into a stall. The Warlock grabbed the lid off the toilet tank and swung it at him.
Rafe blocked it with his arm, but the Warlock added extra oomph with a whammy of magic behind it—something black and sticky that made Rafe stumble backward and crash into the urinal. A black cloud formed over the Warlock’s head. In the last ten years, the annoying as fuck Warlock Motorcycle Club had gone from being a handful of pricks with a dabbling interest in the occult and magic to a small army. He’d tangled with a few, but this was the first time he’d seen a rank-and-file club member use full dark warlock magic. Not that the bastard looked in control of it. The man was sweating by the gallon and looked like he was barely hanging on. The magic cloud struck out at Rafe, and he dodged, but it shattered the urinal, sending piss everywhere. The cloud swung toward him, and Rafe snarled. Who the fuck did they think they were dealing with?
He gathered his power up into a ball, tightened his fist, and growled out the activating word. “Destrozar,” he growled. He shoved out his fist—the black cloud met it and then exploded in a buzz of blurring shrapnel. The Warlock screamed and collapsed. Unconscious or dead, Rafe didn’t care. Well, that wasn’t true. Of the two, he preferred the latter, but that was Emilio’s problem.
He pushed back through the bathroom door and saw the bar was now in a full battle. Emilio and the kitchen crew had formed a wedge and were driving forward. Out on the floor, the patrons were fending for themselves. He saw the girl was using both halves of her pool cue on a Warlock. She was seriously the hottest thing he’d seen in at least eighty years. The Warlocks in the restaurant, patches blazing, hadn’t moved to magical attacks yet, but he could see that they were about to start losing, and he thought they’d probably try that when they did.
“Rafe!” yelled Emilio, coming toward him. He was carrying a gray water bottle in one hand.
Rafe grabbed up his jacket off the bar and went to meet Emilio—it was time to go. The bottle had some sort of cartoonish logo on the side. It looked like the kind of thing that the yoga bitches carried.
“Here!” yelled Emilio, shoving it at him. “Take it. Get the fuck out of here. You’ve got to get it to Albert!”
“This? This is what I’m getting?” demanded Rafe.
“Just go!” yelled Emilio. He spun around, grabbed up a bar stool, and swung it back toward the fray.
Rafe stared at the metal canister—some polite type at the bottom declared it to be a Hydro Flask. That was a dumb name. The thing looked about as magical as a teapot. In fact, he would have felt less stupid if it had been a teapot. This thing made it look like he was trying to be trendy. What the fuck had his father gotten him into?
A beer bottle whizzed by his head and shattered against the wall. Rafe wrapped the flask in his jacket, tucked them both under his arm, and then he ran for the door. A tackle from a Warlock threw him sideways and onto a pool table. He grabbed up a ball and bashed the Warlock in the head. Rafe staggered forward again. In front of him, he saw the girl go down, as two Warlocks jumped her, pulling her down by the backpack that she was stupidly wearing in the middle of a bar fight.
“Fuck this shit,” Rafe growled, tucking his jacket and the bottle under one arm.
He stomped forward, reached down, and pulled a man off of her, then the second, flinging them someplace. He kicked the next person he saw and then realized that the fastest way out was through the front window. The girl had scrambled to her feet but wasn’t immediately looking his way. He gathered up his power again.
“Destrozar,” he muttered and punched the window. The entire wall shattered. Rafe grabbed the girl and shoved her through the hole, climbing out after her.
He jogged to his bike and shoved the water bottle into the saddlebag. It was only then that he realized that the girl was still behind him. His evening was looking up.
“Put it on,” he ordered, shoving the motorcycle jacket at her. He could take the cold of mid-March in Montana at the hundred-twenty miles an hour that he was planning on going, but he didn’t think she could. She pulled off her backpack and put the jacket on.
“What are we doing?” she asked. Her hair was in disarray. That only made her look hotter. He wanted to mess up her hair while she was naked.
“We’re leaving,” he said, getting on the bike and flipping the key on the ignition.
“I’m not leaving with you,” she said. “That isnotthe plan.”
“On or off, sweetheart,” he said, revving the engine. She looked back at the fight inside the bar and then across the parking lot to the train station. Three more Warlocks were heading in their direction.
“Fuck, I hate you so much right now,” she said, pulling on her backpack and climbing on the back of the bike.
Rafe tried not to grin as he felt her legs nestle around him. She might hate him right now, but she was on his bike.
