The Whiskey Den

Chapter 1-2

Fourteen Months Later

“Sebastian, will you get the f**k down from there?” Henry dropped a plastic crate of clean mugs next to him on the bar top and the glasses rattled loudly enough to be heard over the music. “Jasper is going to kick your ass.”

Jasper would do no such thing. Jasper was too interested in Sebastian’s ass in other ways.

“Do you see that guy?” He used the neck of his bottle to point into the mass of dancers and Henry snorted. “That one there. Big guy. Blue shirt, short hair.”

Henry didn’t bother to look up, only shrugged.

“He’s the one Hugo left with the night he died.”

Henry did look then. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Sebastian climbed down from the bar. “I’m good with faces.”

“Is he the reason you’ve been spending so much time here?” What Henry was really asking was if Sebastian had been sleeping with Jasper. “You’ve been trying to find him?”

“Yeah, that.” Better to agree than admit he’d needed the distraction to drown out his own thoughts.

“Don’t do anything.” Henry already seemed in a better mood than he’d been in months. “I’ll get one of the bouncers.”

Sebastian ignored him and avoided his hand when he reached out to stop him. If he could feel the desire flooding off Henry from a distance, he didn’t want the full effect of skin-to-skin contact. Besides, he didn’t need a bouncer. If he couldn’t handle one guy in a human bar, no matter his size, he deserved the disdain his coven showed for him.

He pushed through the crush of people. Flashers was always busy when the weather was foul, and tonight the crowd on the dance floor spilled off the lit acrylic and onto the sticky wood-planked floors, nearly to the bar itself. They were men mostly, though a few women danced together in small groups. It was the usual joyful weekend crowd. It was what he’d liked about the place in the beginning. That, and the fact it was easy for a witch to blend in with humans.

He found the man simple to read. Human. But only mostly. There was a little shifter in there as well. Generations ago. Far enough back now that he probably didn’t even know.

He oozed bodyguard or cop, and that had definitely been his brother’s type. Sebastian didn’t have a type. There’d never been someone he’d given a thought to after... Well, there’d been one man, but as they’d never slept together, he wasn’t sure it counted.

“Sebastian, why is there a drunk guy passed out on my couch?”

“He’s not drunk, he’s... There’s no time. I hate to ask, but will you do me a favor?”

“You know I will.”

“I need you to take him home.”

“Where’s home?”

“I don’t know. But you need to find out. And Gideon? You can never tell me where he lives. If the Regent changes his mind and comes looking for him, he might try to find him through me.”

Up close, he realized a young thing had already caught the guy on the dance floor’s attention— a porcelain-skinned redhead.

Flawless.

Boring.

Luckily, being a member of the Fotia coven, even one currently on the outs with his people, meant that Sebastian was everyone’s type. Even when he wasn’t.

He slipped his hand into his pocket, wrapping it around the brushed chrome of an antique Zippo there and focused, murmuring a few well-practiced words.

It would have saved time if he could have pulled the lighter out and used its flame to strengthen his spell, but it was dangerous in the tight press of bodies. And he wouldn’t summon fire of his own. Fotia—like the House of Witches itself—had strict rules that governed such displays in front of outsiders. Even kicked out of the coven, it was not a law he was willing to break. Besides, he was patient, and this part was easy. A simple trick. Child’s play.

Sebastian shoved the cute redhead aside and pressed himself up against the big man’s body.

“Hey.” He made sure to let his mouth brush his ear. “I’ve been watching you.”

“Yeah?” The man grabbed Sebastian’s ass with big, clumsy hands, and he reminded himself that this was what he wanted. “Like what you see?”

For f**k’s sake. Hugo hooked up with this guy? “I’ll have to see a lot more of you before I answer that.”

Three minutes later they’d locked themselves in Jasper’s office, and Hot-cop, who hadn’t even bothered to give him a name, or ask for his, was working at the zipper of his pants.

“First things first.” Sebastian pulled the pack of cigarettes out of the man’s T-shirt pocket, tapped one out to slip between his lips, before tucking it back. “You mind?”

“Not at all.”

While he continued to work himself out of too-tight jeans, pushing them down thick thighs, Sebastian pulled out his lighter and flipped the cover. Running a thumb across the wheel, the flame burst to life, and with it, the power of the spell.

“I know this sounds crazy.” Hot-cop had stopped undressing. “But I feel like...I don’t know? Is it too soon to tell you that I lov—”

“A little, yeah.” Sebastian tossed the unused cigarette onto the desk, stepping closer to run his free hand underneath the guy’s shirt. First across abs, and then up to his chest where his heart pounded behind his breastbone.

“Tell me what happened to Hugo.”

“I...” The man’s brows knit, his pupils dilating, and he waited. “I...”

“A year ago. Dark hair, dark eyes. A lot bigger than me.” Unlike Sebastian, Hugo had been a carbon copy of their father. “Tattoo on his forearm.” He lifted the hand holding the lighter, and his sleeve dropped low enough to reveal his own, matching tattoo. “You two left together.”

Like the rest of the Fotia coven, Sebastian’s strength naturally lay in fire. Flames focused it. Fire was passion. Whether that passion was of anger or love, revenge or lust, he would be able to read the truth on a person. He just needed to touch him first.

“We were supposed to go to my place, but he decided he wanted to hit the Den.”

“The Den?”

“The Whiskey Den. But I didn’t want to go because of the f*****g shifters.”

So, closer to the city’s center and the university.

Where humans populated the outskirts of the city, the heart was shifter territory.

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing.” The guy was starting to look flushed, his heart pounding hard under his palm, and Sebastian knew he’d need to stop soon. Humans were always more fragile than he remembered. “He was supposed to call, but he never did.”

It was the truth.

Sebastian pulled his hand away, slipping it out from under his shirt, closed the lid over the lighter to extinguish the flame, and the man instantly started to regain a more normal color to his skin.

“You’re okay.” Sebastian pushed the mostly-cooled Zippo back into his front pocket, and fished for Hot-cop’s wallet, flipping it open and checking the I.D. before putting it back. “You need to sleep for half an hour or so, Sean.”

He wrapped his arms around the guy’s waist, helping him up with his pants and over to Jasper’s couch.

Once he was settled, he pressed his mouth close to Sean’s ear, whispering quiet words that would leave everything that had happened, a soft, pleasant blur. When he was sure he was sleeping, Sebastian slipped from the office, clicking the door closed behind him, and nearly crashed into Jasper in his hurry down the hall.

“There you are.” He was smiling, happy to see him, and Sebastian had to force himself not to glance back at the office door. “You sticking around after closing?”

There was an invitation there, he knew. Under different circumstances, he may have taken Jasper up on the offer. The man was handsome, with warm skin and golden eyes. And he liked Sebastian. Beyond the most artificial of ways, there was genuine fondness there. But, like so many others, he made no secret of his disdain for witches.

Sebastian couldn’t blame him.

“Actually, I have to run.” He ignored Jasper’s obvious disappointment. “Raincheck?”

“Of course.”

He slipped past him, and instead of heading back out onto the crowded bar floor, detoured through the storage room, and out the back door into the delivery alley where he’d parked his car up close to Jasper’s.

Yeah, he may have had no plans to get involved with the man, but he had no qualms about taking advantage of the perks of Jasper’s interest either.

****