Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

21; {Matt}: rats

Well, Matt wasn't dead yet. That was something.

His shoulder felt like kneaded dough. Weak and tender, the kind of muscle pain that hits after a flu shot. He could still feel her bite and Matt feared what the wound might look like, but he'd kept it covered with his shirt and hadn't dared to peek beneath the collar. That was the plan, after all. Just keep it covered.

Violet had made them drinks afterward, and it seemed that existing within her vicinity made them protected. Preserved from the others for her own biddings. Despite her potent aura, Ricco still leered, all bloody from across the warehouse bar room. Violet paid him no mind and told Matt to do the same.

"You're human," she said, twirling a bottle of something surely disgusting in her hands. "And if you're with him, that means you're with Quentin. We don't pay much attention to the laws of the wolves, but we know better than to play with fire." Her eyes slid to the edge of the bar where Bailey lounged, tossing back his second shot. Blood crusted at his brow and Matt could tell by the way his jaw went hard that the brute had knocked something askew in him. "That one nearly burned the place down last time," said Violet.

"Bailey?" Matt asked.

"Yeah. Came to us when he was sixteen. Just like his big bad alpha."

"Bronx?" Matt choked the name out—a cruel gag from the after-sting of his liquor. He dragged a hand up the back of his hair, his skull a painful pulse beneath his fingers. "I don't get it, what is this place?"

Violet had started to pour him another drink, liquor tipping generously into his glass. "We're wolves who've abandoned our packs and our alphas. Few of us never had those things to begin with. Some call us rogues, some call us rats. Doesn't bother me any. And as for this joint, this is where the rats come to party. For ten sweet days, we live and breathe in the walls of this place, then we all go our separate ways."

"All of you?" asked Matt.

"Some of us stick together," she admitted. "We stay to our clans. Some of us prefer to be alone. Some of us don't have a choice between the two."

"What do you mean?" He tipped back the drink she'd served him, but this one was far stronger than the last and Matt turned away to let it fall discretely from his mouth and back into the glass.

"When you're claimed, you can't always escape that," Violet was saying. "Rats like to stake their claim on anything they can get their paws on." She reached across the bar then, and hooked Matt by the front of his collar. He swallowed down that awful taste. "Rats have no moral compass. We listen to our instincts. We do as nature tells us and that can be a jarring thing, so listen close. When you turn—if you turn—don't you step foot in this place again." Her finger twisted through the fabric, pulling him in harder until he felt the edge of the table push against his ribs. "You find a pack, and you stay away from green eyes. And if you decide otherwise—if you walk through that door again, you are mine."

Maybe that shouldn't have turned him on how he did, but when Violet freed him with a shove, Matt found himself tossing back his glass like the liquor would somehow quench the fire in him. But as liquor does, it only ignited it.

Eventually, Bailey passed him by with a slap on the side of the head and said, "Let's go." And Matt had no option but to sober himself, at least figuratively. He left a half-empty glass behind and slipped from his bar stool.

They waded through the haze, beneath flickering lightbulbs, beyond tangled bodies and out the front door, the same way they'd come. The men still gathered around that trash can fire, but their eyes weren't on Matt this time. They were leering at the shape in the shadows. A figure in the darkness that he couldn't recognize, but one that moved with a sharp, spry, familiarity. It was a man for sure, but the dark was a film that stuck to all the wrong places of his face, and Matt couldn't discern the profile—even once it'd stepped within the blanket of the lime green lights. Not until it was too close, slamming into Bailey, an arm barred across his throat.