Hendrix ✓

26 ★ I hear her playin the drums

It's a sign for them to keep away. It's also quite useful, almost as much as my face.

There's still 10 minutes until Hendrix is up on the stage, sitting behind a drum set. She was very enthusiastic about me coming and watching her performance. I know she's talented, even though she won't admit it. She's too modest for her own good.

I sip at the amber whiskey, the ice clinking against the glass as the liquid sores down my throat. I've drank so much in my time that it doesn't burn at all. And my age and strength leave me completely resistant to alcohol. I can't get drunk, even if I tried, and yet I continue drink. I still enjoy it.

Something I don't enjoy is the scent that comes up behind me.

She thought she was being stealthy slinking around. I knew she was here the moment she walked through the front door.

"Miranda." I acknowledge her curtly, I hear a small gasp as I take another bored sip from my drink. "Why don't you take a seat."

The young lycan scoffs.

"I came here to tell you off. You do not get to ask me to sit down." She demands, standing beside me with a glare. I lean against the wooden counter top on my forearm, lifting a finger off my glass to point at her.

"Watch it." The two words are enough to make her falter. Miranda knows that I'm dominant, she can feel it in her very core. I can take her down here and now. I can influence her decisions with a command.

She shifts uncomfortably on her feet.

"It's obvious that you're ancient. Are you.. I mean you couldn't be..."

"Veiler?" I finish, and she sobers immediately. Maybe I shouldn't have told her. This always happens.

"The king." She whispers. I roll my eyes, and stare back down at my whiskey. I haven't been king in a very long time, she must know that. I helped create the Guard when I came to America years ago.

I found the Shipíte iláaxaxxe tribe in Montana, the Slate Penumbra pack. They became my pack. My family. It all started when a faerie killed the chief, Chief Chilaxtaléaxe, Savannah's Father, back when she went by her Crow name.

It was a battle I was involved in. I had a mind to help them defend their land from the intruders, and their Chief was murdered in the fight, like so many others. I couldn't abandon them after that.

They looked to Savannah to save them, crowning her as Chieftess, the only problem was that she didn't want it.

       She somehow convinced me to stay and become Alpha. It was something I didn't want either, as a white man from across the ocean, I didn't think that I was qualified to lead them.

        But their dead Chief trusted me, and his daughter fought tooth and nail against taking up leadership, and I couldn't exactly leave them without help.

      I didn't think it would last this long. I thought Savannah would want to become Alpha by now, but she's happy to stay as my Beta.

Before that, I had wanted to drop my title as King entirely, but it confirmed it for me. It gave me a hell of an excuse. As soon as the Guard was formed, I retired from ruling shifters and became the Alpha of my pack.

The pack that is still left unprotected while I secure my mate at my side. Not that a pack of Lycans needs protecting, but my leadership is helpful.

"Don't call me that." I grumble, staring at the clock and willing it to move a little faster.

She slides into a bar stool one seat down from me. The bartender asks if she wants a drink, she declines. I shake my head.