Page 3 of Aleko
Lia did nod at that. The Russians were already on their second bottle of vodka. They were big men, but it seemed excessive.
“Fuck!” The dark-haired Russian stood up, and she could see he was looking toward the door. Lia followed his gaze. Several skinny young men in black leather were heading in their direction. “Fuckingkolduny,” he growled.
Lia’s scalp prickled as though she had just been hit with a load of static electricity. Behind the three men who, from their clothes, were confused about what kind of club they were in, approached angrily. She couldn’t help but think they looked like BDSM versions of the Scarecrow fromThe Wizard of Oz.
“You cheated us,” screamed the first scarecrow. Lia wondered if he used talc to get into his pleather pants. Greece was hot this time of year. Surely there was chafing.
“Fuck you,” yelled the blond Russian and grabbed his owndick. Lia never understood that cross-lingual hand gesture, but all men seemed to immediately grasp the intention and meaning. She suspected that no matter how good her translation skills became, translating to and frommalemight always elude her. “You got what you paid for!”
Galatas was laughing. Someone else’s business friction was always hilarious, but Lia was not so sure. She found herself backing up. The private table area was on a platform; if she could get back onto the dancefloor, she could cut straight across to a staff door, through the kitchen, and out the back. She’d checked the building out previously. She never wanted to be stuck anywhere with Galatas.
“This fucking thing doesn’t work! You will pay,” screamed the angry man, who was probably in his early twenties. He fumbled under his jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a stick. Lia felt the surge of energy before it was even out of his coat and grabbed for her bag. She needed to leave. Behind thekolduny,she saw two figures drop off the balcony and onto the floor.
She looked at the Russians—they were reaching for their guns. Shit was about to go seriously sideways. This was what she got for taking a job with a drug dealer.
Pick up the bucket and throw water on him.
Lia blinked at the pale dead woman who was standing behind Galatas. Usually, the dead didn’t actually speak directly to her. Lia grabbed the ice bucket and threw the entire thing at thekolduny. It bounced his head back, showering him in ice and water. The world seemed to shudder as though there had been an earthquake. Lia staggered in her high heels, knocking into the low table, sprawling over it, and then onto the floor.
The blockhead Russian recovered quickly and charged forward but slipped on an ice cube at the last second. He slammed into thekolduny,and they both went down in a heap. The stick in the black-clad man’s hand went slithering across thefloor directly at her. She put her hand on it and felt an intense prickling heat that she hated run up her arm.
Good. Now get up and run.
The people on the dancefloor were screaming as she sat up. She looked up at thekoldunyand the Russians. As she watched, a dark-bearded man punched one of thekolduny,andbeside him, Alekos Ash picked up one of the Russians like he was a bale of hay and threw him into the crowd of dancers.
She had seen Alekos Ash before, driving by, or across the road when she’d been on other jobs. Tall and handsome with broad shoulders—he drew her eye like a magnet. She told herself that anyone would look at him. He was rich and gorgeous, and that was enough to make anyone crane their neck a little. So it was normal that she would look. Not that he never turned his head her direction to look back. But that was normal too.
But tonight, his eyes locked onto her, and Lia felt herself freeze. She had never met a large predator in real life, but she felt as though she were staring down a wolf or a bear. His eyes seemed to reflect the strobe lights in an inhuman piercing blue.
Run! Now!
Lia couldn’t tell if that were the dead woman or her own inner voice yelling at her, but she pushed herself off the floor, sprinted across the dancefloor, slammed through the staff door, and ran down the hall.
“Last door, last door,” she gasped, repeating her own reconnaissance. She pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. Rounding the corner, she slipped on the wet tiles and banged her hip painfully into the stainless-steel counter. She could hear more screaming behind her and tried to go faster. She ran through the back door, past a cook smoking a cigarette, and into the Paradiso parking lot.
Club Paradiso was not the best club in town. It was near the docks and tended to attract people who wanted to feel a littledangerous, so no taxis were waiting for her to jump into. She had gotten a ride in with Galatas in his Maybach. Lia looked down at the stick in her hand. It was twisty and smooth, as if it had been fondled by many hands. She was tempted to throw it away. Whatever it was, she didn’t want it. Instead, she shoved it in her bag, slipped out of her high heels, and ran toward the docks. She might have friends there. Well, not friends exactly, but people who would take her money and probably wouldn’t kill her, and, these days, that was the most she could hope for.
Episode 3
Hunting
Alex
Alex saw the object from the warlock’s hand go slithering across the floor. It looked like a willow stick—twisty and bent. The girl picked it up, and then she looked around. He locked eyes with her for a moment, and it took every ounce of self-control not to shift on the spot. He fought the urge to reveal himself. For an eternity, he stood motionless, every muscle straining, fighting his wolf. He stared into her unblinking eyes. What was she? Enemy? Prey? Why did he want to show exactly how big a wolf he was?
Slowly, she rose to her feet—eyes still on his—then she turned and ran.
Bastian slammed into him, hauling him down as the Russians started firing. Then the idiot warlocks scrambled up and ran too. They were running after his girl. Alex shook Bastian off and gave chase. She was his.
Her smell filled his nose as he ran down the corridor, sweetness overlaid by the pursuing reek of the warlocks and their nasty magic. He pushed through the club’s back door straight into a warlock spell. It lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the building. That seemed surprisingly competent for a bunch of baby-faced BDSM wannabes. Through blurry eyes, he could see the Warlocks sprinting toward the docks. The same direction the scent trail said the girl had run. He staggered to his feet, shaking his head.
He got upright and ran where his nose told him to go. The large commercial warehouses were on the other side of the harbor. This was the quaint side that mostly catered tolocals and had small, old buildings that never seemed to have permanent tenants. He guessed the girl was heading for the water and took a shortcut down an alley. He came out on a poorly lit street and picked up her scent again. She’d hidden behind a dumpster. The sticky smell of rotting fruit tried to overpower the lingering trace of her, but he could practically see the ghost of her from a few minutes earlier. The warlocks had continued up the street, and she had waited for them to pass before cutting back toward the water.
He took a step after her and then hesitated. He was here for the warlocks, not the girl. But they were chasing her. Why? If they wanted her, then he wanted her more.
He looked after the warlocks. They were moving in a group which slowed them down. If he acted swiftly, he could get the girl and then go after them.
He broke into a run, lifting his nose to catch the faint hint of sunscreen, cherries, and the indefinable scent of her. He rounded a corner and saw her hurrying barefoot along the promenade. Her smell had intensified to something bright and splashy. She looked over her shoulder and broke into a run. He didn’t pause to consider—he simply gave chase. She shied away at a busy street, forced to turn out onto a jetty, and he skipped the stairs, leaping after her. She ran to the edge of the dock and looked desperately around as if expecting there to be a boat, but it was either too late or too early for fishermen. She was out of luck. He slowed down to a walk. Now that she was within reach, he wasn’t sure what he wanted.
