Silva hurried over with another margarita for Lelandi, although she intended to get another bottle of water.
“On me, sweetie,” the woman said, this time with real affection. Standing nearly five-foot-ten, in her four-inch heels, she was small for a female gray.
“Thanks.” Lelandi stood, and the woman’s face dropped, probably thinking Lelandi meant to leave, snubbing her for the drink. “Got to use the little girls’ room.”
“Oh.” Silva’s lips turned up slightly. “Back that way.” She motioned with her hand.
“Thanks.” Lelandi hadn’t considered what it would feel like to walk through the tavern to the ladies’ room, until everyone acted so interested in her. With her shoulders straight back, her chin tilted up, and her body ten degrees hotter than normal, she made her way to the restroom.
Several men nodded their heads in greeting. Respectfully, a couple of them took their cowboy hats off. None smiled though, not even Joe this time, which would be typical. Until their pack leader made her welcome, most would look her over, but wouldn’t make any move to be overtly friendly. Darien would probably take Joe to task if Sam told him the miner had paid for her first drink.
Sitting with some men at one of the larger tables, three women glowered at her as if they wished her dead. Had any of them wanted Larissa eliminated and carried out the threat?
Ignoring them, Lelandi walked into the restroom, but after entering a stall, she heard the outer door squeak open. Her skin chilled. Too late to circumvent the trouble headed her way.
When she exited the stall, the three women were waiting for her, their expressions slightly amused in a sinister manner. All brown-haired, around mid-twenties like her—probably each vying to be Darien’s new mate and fearing she was new competition.
When she’d come up with this scheme of looking for her Larissa’s murderer, Lelandi had never considered anyone would think she’d be interested in pursuing the pack’s leader. The idea of mating with a bigger gray for real… She mentally shook her head.
“What’s your name?” the woman in denims and a cowl-neck sweater asked, her voice softly threatening, her western boot tapping on the tile floor. Her amber eyes narrowed, she took in a deep breath—trying to smell who or what Lelandi was—and curled her orange-painted lips up in a nasty way. The notion her face could hideously freeze that way briefly crossed Lelandi’s mind. “You’re not from around here, and you’re not one of us.”
“Hey, Ritka, what say we give her a nice send-off?” the shortest one asked, still towering over Lelandi by several inches.
Lelandi brushed past her to wash her hands.
“Don’t plan on staying, bitch,” a meatier one snarled, whipping her waist-length, muddy-colored hair about as she spoke, crowding Lelandi. Bulkier than the other two, she would make a hefty wolf and hard to beat if she craved being Darien’s bitch and fought the others to have that role. But no female lupus garou—well, of the red variety—crowded Lelandi anymore and got away with it, and she was having a devil of a time maintaining her cool.
“Don’t intend to stay long. Just taking care of a little family business, if it’s any of your concern.”
Ritka whispered close to her ear, her whiskey breath invading Lelandi’s breathing space, “We know who you are, and you can’t have him, Red. You know what happened to the other one. Get out of Dodge, honey, before it happens to you, too.”
Her blood sizzling, Lelandi attempted to wash her hands as if the women didn’t exist.
The short one yanked at her purse and the leather strap bit into Lelandi’s shoulder. “Tell us who you are.”
“As if the bitch would say, Angelina, when she’s wearing this fool disguise,” Ritka snarled.
Lelandi’s temple pounded with frustration, but she rinsed the soap off her hands and bit back the feral part of her wolf nature clawing to get out. Beating up three female grays wouldn’t help her cause.
Ritka bumped into her, probably triggered by the other pulling at her purse, each leading the other on, escalating the situation. Lelandi clenched her teeth against retaliating. Nothing they did was important enough to provoke her, she reminded herself.
The heavy one grabbed a handful of Lelandi’s hair and yanked hard. “Guys don’t like dyed hair, didn’t you know?”
The pain ripped across Lelandi’s scalp, and she counted slowly to ten, hoping to avoid physical contact, but planning swift retaliation if anyone did anything else.
“You got that right, Hosstene,” Ritka said with a sharp laugh and reached for a handful of Lelandi’s hair.
Enough! With a quick well-placed jab, Lelandi elbowed Angelina in the gut, judo-chopped Hosstene in the throat, then swung around and slammed her fist into Ritka’s eye. While they were choking and cursing, Lelandi grabbed a paper towel, dried her hands, and left the restroom, her heart racing.
She’d asked for trouble now.
Chapter 2
NO, DAMN IT. THE BITCHES HAD ASKED FOR TROUBLE AND as much as told Lelandi that someone had murdered Larissa for being a red.
She opened the restroom door and slammed it behind her, shutting out the women’s curses. The men who were sitting with the women looked from Lelandi to the ladies’ room. Sorry, boys, the girls need to tidy up a bit.
Lelandi retook her seat and when the women still didn’t emerge from the restroom, Sam motioned for Silva to check it out.
Maybe now would be a good time for Lelandi to go in search of her rogue brother and uncle. Forget that Larissa had run away and gotten herself killed, leaving Lelandi to deal with Bruin’s pack alone. Or, she could stay and face the wrath of a bunch of angry grays.
As a matter of pride and a good deal of stubbornness, she stayed. All eyes remained on the restroom while Lelandi coolly drank her second margarita. No one spoke. No doubt the whole lot of them would murder Lelandi in her sleep tonight. She hoped her time here wasn’t totally wasted. But she wasn’t giving up.
Silva came out of the restroom, her lips turned up, her eyes sparkling with amusement, head shaking. She raised her brows at the guys who were with the women and strolled past. Her attention turned to Darien, waiting for a report. Her smile broadened, then she spoke to Sam.
“Next margarita’s on me, Silva, for the young lady.” Tom offered Lelandi a grin and a wink.
Lelandi shook her head. “Water will be fine.”
The three women crowded out of the bathroom, Ritka scowling, her swollen right eye already turning black and blue. Angelina was still clutching her stomach, and Hosstene’s face was dark with anger—Lelandi was pretty sure her jab to the gray’s throat would preclude her talking much for a while.
Everyone looked the women over, then Lelandi. No, she wasn’t fighting to be the pack leader’s new bitch.
She guessed it was time to come up with a new plan. This one damn sure wasn’t working.
Darien Silver watched the defiant young lady who had to be his mate’s twin. Had to be. The voice clinched it. At first, he thought she was some ditsy human sitting in his chair at his table, and he couldn’t understand why Sam hadn’t thrown her out of the place. At least he’d thought she was human. Lupus garous had exceptional visual acuity. Only humans wore glasses. And the pierced earrings. No lupus garou would get caught dead with pierced earlobes in their wolf form. Or wear a watch, for that matter. The straight black hair looked nothing like his dead mate’s, and the blue eyes had stopped him cold. The perfume she’d drowned herself in, he figured, was some ploy to get all the guys in the tavern hot and bothered, but for lupus garous, the smell was overwhelming, burned their eyes, and had the opposite effect.
Her voice was all it took to send shivers exploding across his skin.
He swore he was seeing his late wife sipping margaritas, which she never would have done. A wine lady was what she was. And the way this woman had handled the ladies from his pack? His mate would never have managed.
Taking a steadying breath, he reminded himself the woman wasn’t his mate. She only looked like her when he scrutinized her closely, her small face dominated by the oversized Stetson and the bug-eyed, rose-colored glasses, but personality-wise she couldn’t be more different from his beloved Lelandi. Except his people already seemed to make up their minds. Lelandi had returned, and he would have a go at her again.
Not in a million years. She’d killed herself, unstable, unable to deal with the stress of being a pack leader’s mate, and not being one of them in the first place… Nope, wouldn’t happen again. Next one would be a gray, except not from his pack. Except for Silva, the eligible women had resented Lelandi, and he couldn’t forgive them.
He finished his third beer and set his glass aside. He tried to watch his people to take his mind off his dead mate, but the woman sitting at his table distracted him something fierce. What the hell was she doing here anyway? Come to claim her sister’s body? Scream at him for pushing her sister over the edge? Condemning himself enough for her death for the past three weeks, he didn’t need anyone else’s help. Not enough beers in the world could make him forget the look on Lelandi’s face, at peace finally in death.
He shook his head. Although he usually stayed until closing, tonight he wanted to get away. How would it look if the pack leader couldn’t deal with the image of his late wife sitting at the next table?
Growling deep inside, he poured himself another beer.
“Twin sister, don’t you think, Darien?” Tom, his youngest triplet asked, his brows raised.
“Yeah. Lelandi said she didn’t have any family left. Apparently she lied.” Which didn’t set well with Darien, but it was too late to be angered about it.
“What do you think she’s doing here?” Tom rubbed his hand over the sweating glass.
“Something to do with her sister, no doubt.”
“Think the woman suspects Lelandi was murdered?” Jake asked.
Darien looked sharply at him. “What the hell makes you say that?”