“You are really fucking hot,” he said, positive he slurred the words but not really caring. She was hot.
“Thanks.”
“What’s your name, baby?”
She smiled and replied, “Astrid.”
“Sexy. You gotta light?”
She nodded.
In the next moment, he was on the ground, his nose on fire, before he was hauled up and shoved into something. His back throbbed. He groaned. An arm locked against his neck, cutting off his air. He blinked open his eyes and hers—pale blue—stared right back at him.
“Where’s Cronin?”
A fraction of the alcohol mysteriously disappeared from his system and he took a long whiff. Wolves! Shit!
He tried to reach for the gun at his hip, but she snapped his wrist.
“FUCK!” The pain was excruciating. Completely drunk and he was still able to feel the breaking of those bones. Ryan had broken his foot once during training, and he couldn’t remember it hurting this bad.
“We can do this easy way or the hard way,” Astrid said with a smile. Leaning forward, she licked at his lip, and her tongue came away red. He watched her swallow and sigh. “You tell me where Cronin is, and what he’s doing in my territory, or I take you back to my place, and carve you up for dinner.”
Ryan’s anger boiled over. He was being roughed up by a girl, and a pretty girl at that. What was with these fucking lesbians?
“Fuck you, you dyke! I’m not telling you shit—wait, not that!”
Her other hand cupped his cock and balls. She squeezed, applying enough pressure for him to wince.
“These will be the first to go,” she promised with a smile before releasing him. Ryan was about to put up a semblance of defense when a fist connected with his nose once more and sent his head banging into the concrete of the building. Pain erupted in his skull as he fell forward, face first, asphalt beating on his already bloodied nose. He groaned, and then coughed in pain. He would not cry!
“Put him in the car, and call Athelwulf. Tell him we found one of them.”
Consciousness left him soon after. His last thought was that he should have stayed with his covenant. At least there, this dyke werewolf wouldn’t have gotten him this easily. And he would have been sober, and able to put up a better fight. Beaten by a girl…. His father would be ashamed.
***
It didn’t take long for Ryan to begin talking. An hour alone with Astrid making true on her promise to remove his most precious bodily part had made him very forthcoming. He’d given them an address, a location in Salisbury, and had spoken of something planned for Stonehenge the next night. Conall had done his own version of the interrogation, and had gotten the tracker to say exactly where his mate was located in the house. He had spoken only of one druid, so it seemed possible Cassie was being held somewhere else.
When they left the soundproof room in which the tracker was being held, they headed to Astrid’s study, where Eirik, Santiago, and Raoul were waiting. Astrid explained to him the significance of that address. It was a part of Frederick Wentworth’s covenant. It was becoming clear that his mate’s kidnapping was an international, collaborative effort by a number of grand wizards. That thought only made him angrier.
“Wentworth controls Salisbury and most of the neighboring towns. His covenant is one of the largest here,” Eirik said from his stance by the window.
“How do we get in?” Santiago asked before Conall could.
Astrid shook her head once. “Even if we get in, we won’t get far. Wentworth has the largest number of trackers under his command. His fort is as protected as Buckingham Palace.”
“Look, I know I speak for Conall when I say we didn’t come here to sit and twiddle of our fucking thumbs. We came here to kick and kill some witch-ass, teach Cronin a lesson, and get his mate the fuck back—”
“I was not finished,” Astrid cut in smoothly, giving Santiago a long glare. She snapped her gaze away from him, and turned back to Conall. “The tracker mentioned something happening at Stonehenge tomorrow night. I propose we wait for them there. Stonehenge is windy, making it almost impossible for a tracker to pick up on the scent of a were, especially if we’re upwind.”
“Stonehenge? What’s happening at Stonehenge?” Raoul asked curiously.
“He doesn’t know, but he was willing to sacrifice a lot to protect the secret that something was.”
“He ended up telling you anyway, sweets, so it obviously wasn’t that much of a secret.” Despite the seemingly sexist endearment, Santiago’s eyes held grudging respect for the female.