Marked By The Four

Chapter 7 - The Bar

When the trees finally gave way to small town, the tightness in my chest loosened. Streetlamps flickered. A gas station glowed lonely at the corner of a crossroad. Neon lights promised cheap motels and cheaper thrills.

And then - there it was. A neon sign, blazing red against the night: BAR.

The word throbbed like a heartbeat, each flicker daring me closer.

My wolf stirred, restless. "Go in. Go live."

I pulled into the gravel lot, my heart racing. Dozens of bikes gleamed under the lamplight, chrome fangs bared to the night. Cars crowded the edges, battered and dusty. My sedan looked out of place, too neat, too tame.

Maybe that was the point.

I killed the engine, pocketed the keys, and slipped out. Gravel crunched under my boots as I walked toward the entrance. The neon glow washed me in blood-red, painting me like some warning or promise.

When I pushed through the door, the bar swallowed me whole.

Heat, smoke, and music slammed into my body. The air was thick with beer and sweat, layered with the musk of wolves hiding among humans. The band near the back shredded through a guitar riff, loud and messy, the kind of music that rattled bone. Lights strobed across the haze, painting strangers in shifting colors.

And no one knew me.

That thought alone nearly brought me to tears. I wasn’t Luna. I wasn’t mate. I wasn’t defined by Varrick’s shadow. I was just a woman.

I slid onto a barstool. The bartender, a thick man with tired eyes and arms covered in ink, gave me a nod.

“What’ll it be?”

“Whiskey,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Neat.”

The glass clinked down in front of me. I lifted it, and the first burn seared through my chest. Just raw, sharp fire. It tasted like rebellion.

The second burn made me smile. It was cheap, but in this moment it was the most precious drink for me.

I was halfway through the glass when someone leaned close. A human man - tall, dark hair falling into mischievous eyes, grin sharp enough to cut.

“First time here?” he asked, voice smooth as silk.

I tilted my glass. “That obvious?”

He chuckled. “Only to someone who comes often enough to know. You don’t look like the usual crowd.”

“Good.”

His grin widened. “You look like trouble.”

I let my lips curve, the whiskey loosening the edges of my composure. “Maybe I am.”

We talked. Not about packs or politics or territory lines, but nothing at all - music, drinks, the ridiculous tattoos of the drummer in the band. He made me laugh, and the sound startled me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed without forcing it.

When he asked me to dance, I said yes.

The floor was crowded, hot, alive. His hands found my hips, his grin daring, and for once, I let myself lean into it. His body pressed close, heat bleeding through fabric. My wolf stirred uneasily, but I ignored her.

It’s just fun, I told myself. One night. One man. Nothing binding.

When the song ended, I was breathless, my cheeks hot. He leaned in, lips near my ear.

“Come with me. Hotel across the street. No strings. Just fun.”

My heart stuttered.

A one-night stand. I’d never done it. Never dared. Wolves didn’t. But wasn’t that the point? Tonight wasn’t about what wolves did. It was about what I did.

I pulled back enough to see his eyes - dark, hungry, waiting.

I thought about Varrick. About his sneer. About the omega in our bed. And I thought about this man who didn’t know my name, didn’t care who I was, just saw me as a woman he wanted.

Maybe that was freedom.

I opened my mouth - ready to say yes... And then it hit me.

The air shifted. Thickened.

The music dulled, the crowd’s laughter muted, every sense sharpening to a point. My wolf slammed against me, teeth bared, howling in my chest.

I turned. The door swung wide, and the night walked in wearing leather.

Four of them.

Big. Predatory. Wolves to their marrow.

They didn’t just enter - they claimed the room. The crowd parted instinctively, laughter choking off, conversations faltering, the music itself dimming as though even the band knew who the real rhythm belonged to now.

The first was tall and broad, built like a fortress. Dark hair cropped short, jaw lined with a trimmed beard, shoulders stretching his jacket to its seams. His eyes were molten gold, the kind of gaze that pinned and judged, weighing worth like a king on his throne. He carried the raw authority of an Alpha - but it was a wild, lawless Alpha, the kind who answered to no one.

Beside him moved contrast - leaner, sharper. His hair was a wild tumble of pale blond that caught the neon and glowed almost silver. Tattoos curled down his throat, disappearing beneath his shirt, hints of ink teasing the imagination. His grin was sharp, cocky, daring the world to try him. If the first was power, this one was danger.

The third was different still. Quiet. Dark. His hair fell long, tied loosely at his neck, his expression unreadable. But his eyes - ice blue, clear and cutting - stripped me bare where I stood. He didn’t need to grin, didn’t need to flex. The silence around him was the threat. The kind of man who could burn down a life without raising his voice.

And then - the last. Younger, maybe. Or simply wilder. His hair was raven black, falling into his eyes, his mouth curved in the kind of lazy smirk that promised sin with no apologies. His leather jacket hung open, shirt half-unbuttoned, revealing smooth skin marked with lines of ink across his chest. Where the others prowled, he swaggered. A temptation made flesh.

Together, they were a storm in four bodies. Walking gods of s*x, each carved from a different fantasy - power, danger, silence, sin.

And all four of them were mine. I felt the bond the moment my eyes lanaded on them. Oh, Moon Goddess ... What have you done?

The scent hit me like a blow: smoke, pine, steel, rain. Distinct, yet woven together into something that set every nerve in my body alight. My wolf clawed and howled, wild with recognition, with need.

My knees almost buckled. My breath caught sharp, burning. My wolf roared in my skull with hunger.

Ours.

The human beside me was still talking, still leaning in, still grinning.

But my world had already shattered.