Joel (BBW Bear Shifter Wedding Romance) (Grizzly Groomsmen Book 5) (10 page)

“You know, I just might let you buy me that drink after all,” he said after a pause. “But don’t think I’m going home with you just because of that.”

“Not that kind of boy, eh?” Thalia asked, looking over the menu. As it turned out, the club didn’t advertise drinks in order of most to least likely to get a bear shifter drunk enough to share his secrets, or at least not where she could see, so she just flagged the bartender down and ordered “two of whatever’s strong enough that I can’t tell what you’re cutting your liquor with anymore.”

The bartender, a lovely red-skinned Domian whose eyelids were coated in gold powder, returned a second later with two tall shot glasses of green liquid that seemed to glow when it caught the light, winked, and walked off.

Thalia stared at it apprehensively for a moment. “Okay, so, I’m going to need you to act suitably impressed with me after I drink this because there’s a non-zero chance it’ll kill me.”

Hyde just snorted and downed his shot, then made a face and shook his head.
 

“Jesus,” he coughed, “where were they hiding that?”

“I imagine somewhere the authorities will never find,” Thalia said, reaching hesitantly for her own glass.

“Come on now,” Hyde told her. “If you want me to be impressed, you have to actually drink it.”

“I was kidding earlier, but if this actually kills me I fully expect you to throw yourself wailing onto my casket,” she informed him primly. “I want full-on lamentation, can you do that?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Hyde said, nodding meaningfully at her glass.

“So eager to watch me die,” she muttered as she tilted her head back and downed the drink in one go.
 
Whatever it was, Thalia would bet her hard drive that someone had been looking the other way when this got shipped in. It burned all the way down her throat and sizzled in her stomach, the sensation riding the thin line between enjoyable and not. She looked down, letting her hair fall over her face so Hyde couldn’t see the expression she made.

Almost immediately the bar got slightly blurrier. It was hardly something she couldn’t handle, her college years being an experience in building up her alcohol tolerance. But the fact was it would be awfully hard to get Hyde drunk and question him if she was shitfaced herself. Shifters, as far as she knew, had a metabolism that helped process foods that humans would get sick eating but didn’t do much in the way of helping process alcohol, and he’d been drinking when she got there, but he had the luxury of not having to be careful. Thalia didn’t.

“Alright,” she said after a moment. “How are we doing on lamentations?”

“I’ve got a few lined up,” Hyde said, sounding far too amused. “Considering I don’t actually know your name, what I’ve got so far is mostly about the heroic way you downed that shot or the touching moment you hit on me in a bar because you wanted to score some rebound.”

“I’m going to need you to spruce that up a little,” Thalia told him. “My mother may be listening.”

“In that case, I’ll lie and say you died tragically protecting me from the evil, evil alcohol,” Hyde said. He was smiling now, small but real and warm. Something inside Thalia that hadn’t been dissolved by whatever had been in that glass fluttered. Shaking her head, she did what she’d been doing with inconvenient emotions for her entire life and suppressed it ruthlessly.
 

She had him now, or at least she was well on her way there. He was interested in her. All she had to do was slip him a little more alcohol and drop a hint about getting some air.

“So, what are you doing here?” Thalia asked, signaling the bartender for another round. “Other than, you know, valiantly resisting my wiles.”

“I wouldn’t say valiantly,” Hyde said teasingly.

“And I wouldn’t say that was an answer to my question,” she told him as two more shots got set down in front of them.

“My boss is talking over some business with a local contact,” Hyde said, picking up a glass. Thalia did the same and they clinked them together before downing their shots as one.

Once the gagging, burning feeling had worn off, replaced by an even thicker fog in her mind, she turned back to him.

“I just want you to know that your answer was incredibly shady, which means I now want to know everything,” said Thalia, who already knew everything she needed about the crew of the
Breakwater
, from the blond maniac to the tiny rage machine.

“I’m not drunk enough for that,” Hyde said, smirking. “And I wasn’t under the impression you just wanted to talk.”

“Well, now that I know you’re probably some kind of criminal mastermind I’m reconsidering. You’ll have to ply me with more alcohol, now.”

“I can do that. But after a minute. I think I’m still recovering from the last shot.”

Thalia nodded her head in agreement. “I’m with you there.”

“So, what is it that you do when you’re not hitting on one-eyed criminal masterminds in bars?” Hyde asked, leaning in.

“In hindsight, the eyepatch really should have given away the ‘evil mastermind’ deal,” Thalia mused. “You didn’t even loose that eye, did you? You just wear it to look more evil. Also, I’m not showing you mine until you show me yours.”

Hyde raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Look, a girl’s got to keep up an air of mystery when flirting with kingpins. I—shit.” She’d been absorbed enough in the conversation and influenced enough by the alcohol that she somehow hadn’t noticed the two men standing against the back wall of the club.

They looked like perfectly normal club-goers, more so than Thalia. Their hair was slicked back and their clothing was tight enough to show off their arms but loose enough to allow them to move, looking out at the sea of dancers. There was really no reason to be suspicious of them at all, except Thalia had seen them on Tolythanos just two days after leaving Serkot with a story to show the galaxy, and then again on Banos and Contellion. Just as she was thinking she could slip out without them noticing, one looked up and locked eyes with her from across the bar.

“Shit,” Thalia said again because it bore repeating. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Hyde frowned and looked around. “What, is that your ex?”

“I wish,” Thalia said, tossing a few credit chits on the bar and hastily grabbing her bag. “We should leave now.”

“Look,” Hyde said, pulling away, “you’re real cute, but I’ve got enough shit in my life without whatever it is you’re involved in. You’re gonna want to leave me out of this one.”

“Too late,” Thalia said, grabbing his shirt and staring wide-eyed over his shoulder. “I’m here for you, and that’s the only reason I can think of that they’d be here for
me,
so you’re already pretty involved. Can we please run away now?”

She could feel the way Hyde went tense. “What do you mean, you’re here for me?” he asked, low and dangerous.
 

“Two choices here, buddy,” Thalia hissed. “You can get the fuck out of here with me and I’ll explain everything later, or you can stay here and
maybe
one of them will tell you what’s happening before putting a bullet in your skull.”

Hyde stared at her a long second, then grabbed her arm and started pulling her through the crowd toward the back door.
 

They burst out into the cool night air a moment later. Thalia, never the best athlete, stumbled forward and only avoided falling on her face thanks to Hyde’s iron grip on her arm.

“When we get to the ship,” he told her as he yanked her behind him, “you’re going to explain everything. Anything you lie to us about, or neglect to mention to us, will have some very negative consequences.”

As far as Thalia was concerned, that still beat finding out what the two goons that had been following her had planned.
 

“So, this is awkward,” she told him as she struggled to keep up with him, “but we really need to go to my hotel room to get my stuff.”

The choice swear words that came out of Hyde’s mouth in response to that would have made an Outer Rim dock worker blush. “You must be out of your goddamn mind if you think—”

“All my things are there,” she hurriedly said over his objection. “That includes my equipment. I think we’d both prefer it if that stayed with me.”

Thalia could nearly hear the grind of Hyde’s teeth. “Where?”

“The Grinning Knave. It’s a few blocks that way,” she told him, pointing.

Muttering under his breath, he changed direction, still dragging her after him.

“Knew it was a stupid fucking idea,” he said. “’Oh, Hyde, go relax, get a drink. What’s the worst that could happen?’ Fucking
knew
it
.”

“To be fair,” Thalia said peaceably, “this seems like a pretty run of the mill encounter for you.”

“See, the fact that you know that? Not helping me relax,” he told her through gritted teeth.

The journey to the Grinning Knave was mercifully short. She’d picked that place out to be convenient and was suddenly very, very glad she’d done so. They nodded at the receptionist as they passed, making a beeline for the elevator. Once inside, Thalia punched the button for the fifteenth floor, then leaned against the wall.

“So this is fun,” she said, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to the metal of the elevator. She was still a little dizzy, but the shock of the events at the bar had done a god job of cutting through the haze of alcohol. Nothing said “sobriety” like abject terror.

“As soon as I find out what I need to know from you, I swear, I’m going to drop you into a black hole,” he said murderously.

“See, that’s a horrible tactic. Now I don’t want to tell you anything. Also, you were so nice at the bar, can we go back to that, please?” Thalia responded, trying to get her breathing under control as quietly as possible.

“Who are you with, anyways?” Hyde demanded. “Blackfangs? Blue Tongues? The Red Hand?”

“Actually, I’m with the Periwinkle Toes. We’re a new gang starting out of Fenos, we specialize in assassination and mahjong,” she said, opening her eyes and turning to look at him. At the look on his face, she sighed. “I’m not with anyone. I couldn’t convince anyone to come with me.”

“To do what?”

“To talk to you.” She shifted her stance. “I’m a journalist. I wanted to interview you for a story.”

Hyde snorted. “Sure. A journalist. That’s exactly the type that runs away from possible assassins without breaking a sweat. Who are you really?”

“I assure you, I’m sweating plenty. You go very, very quickly when motivated.” She rummaged in her bag for her wallet and, after finding it, gave him her ID. “My name’s Thalia Addams. I’m from Goton. I work for a local paper in the Blackstone district.”

“This could be a fake,” he said. “What story could possibly important enough to go through all this just to get it?”

“Serkot,” Thalia said right as the doors opened with a
ding.
She powerwalked out, heading straight for her room and digging in her pocket for the room key. She fumbled a few times due to the shaking of her hands—
embarrassing
, she thought—before managing to open the door.

Her room was neat, only a few things not still in her suitcase. She habitually traveled light and had gone to the club almost immediately after checking in, so it was easy to sweep everything into the case and zip it up. She turned to find Hyde standing in the doorway, waiting on her. There was nothing left of the smirking man from the bar left in him. Now, he resembled a particularly homicidal statue as he stood rigid, something dark burning in his eye.

“Why do you want to ask me about Serkot?” he asked, his voice deathly calm.

“Now? Really?” Thalia asked, trying to push past him.

“Yes, now. I’m trying to decide if I should just kill you now or not,” he replied.

“Please don’t,” Thalia said. “Okay, so, long story short. Seven years ago, you were an exemplary member of southern Serkot’s Red Quarters until all of a sudden, Councilor Marcus winds up dead with your DNA all over the scene. You flee. Obviously, you know all of this. What I’m trying to write my article about is what really happened. Logan Tillman, the man who framed you, did it because he wanted to be able to push his registration bill and didn’t have enough votes. After framing you, not only did he have enough votes to get the bill passed, he got elected to chancellor.”

“Shockingly, I have been keeping up with the news on that,” Hyde said drily.

“Have you been keeping up with the aftermath of the registration bill passing? Things were already bad for shifters in in the Gorgon system. Don’t think I didn’t go over how much you had to get a place in the guard. After the Tillman debacle, it only got worse. Anti-shifter violence isn’t legally considered a hate crime there anymore.”

Hyde raised an eyebrow. “And you think one little article is going to change that?”

“If it’s just one little article, what’s the harm in letting me write it?” Thalia countered.

“Are you really asking me that right now, while we’re running from the people after you?”

Thalia considered his point. “Fair enough.”

“So as much as I don’t want to ask this,” Hyde said, looking like someone who was about to attend his own execution, “but what are you going to do next?”