Page 30 of Warlander Grizzly

“Are you hard of hearing?” Landon asked as he stood from the shot he’d just sunk effortlessly into the side pocket. “Piss off.”

“Or what, shifter?” the man grinned. “You’re outside of the mountains. You don’t have immunity here. You have to mind the same rules everyone else does.”

“Mmm,” Landon said, and a flash of something blasted across Lucia’s mind so clearly, she gasped and closed her eyes against the onslaught.

Landon broke the pool stick and threw it like a javelin into the man’s chest. The man doubled over and coughed blood. She forced her eyes open from the horrible vision. “Landon, don’t!” she barked.

When she opened her eyes, Landon was standing straight and tall, the pool stick gripped in his hands like he was about to break it across his knee. His shoulders were broader than she remembered, and his lips were curled back from teeth that were too sharp, but he wasn’t killing the man. Not yet. He was looking at her.

He held her gaze, and she could see the resolve there. “I’m not here to fight,” he told the man. “Just showing my lady a good time tonight.”

The man sauntered over to the table and put six quarters onto it. “This is my table.”

Landon smiled an evil expression at the quarters, and told him, “Nah. I think we’ll be here awhile. She’s just learning. You understand. Tell you what, the table behind me is opening up. Why don’t you go use that one?”

“Because me and my crew always use this one.”

“Ooooh, your crew,” Landon murmured, lining up another shot. He missed a yellow-striped one. “Well, shit,” he huffed out. “I guess it’s a territory thing then.”

“You didn’t answer me,” the man said to Lucia. “Do you know who he is?”

“Hmm. Is he the one who could end your life, and no one would ever find your body?” Lucia guessed. “Your crew would just be confused when they come in next Friday. Your beer bitch would wonder where you were in the coming years and everyone would speculate, but no one would ever really know what happened to you.”

The man’s shoulders had tensed while she spoke.

She shrugged. “I just know him as Landon. He wouldn’t ever hurt me because I don’t do this pissing-contest, who-has-the-bigger-dick, this-is-my-territory bullshit that you, as a human male, want to play with someone who is not a human male. You’re different, bub. It’s not a compliment.” She twitched her head toward the bar. “Be your own beer bitch tonight.”

“Fuck, that was hot,” Landon murmured so softly, she almost missed it. To the man, he said, “That last part burned a little, didn’t it, BB? You have about eight seconds to get your quarters off my fuckin’ table.”

“Keep them,” the man ground out angrily. He turned and stomped off toward the exit.

“No thanks, they probably have airborne STDs on them,” Landon called.

“Fuck you,” the man yelled.

“Go get your little friends now,” Landon muttered, handing Lucia the pool stick.

“His friend group is pretty big.”

“I can take up to eight. How many does he have?”

God, he was hot. “Five.”

Landon shrugged in the most nonchalant, ain’t-no-thang way, and truly, she loved this kind of confidence in a man.

“Do you…do you want me to call in backup? I don’t have my animal.” Heat tinted her cheeks and she ducked her gaze at the admission.

Landon hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her gaze back up. “You don’t need her. You can have my beer.”

“Why would I want your beer?”

“Bear, Lucia. You can have my bear until you get yours back.” He tilted his head toward the table. “Sink that eight ball.”

He sauntered off to the table with his drink, and she just stared blankly at him as he walked away.

He’d just told her she could have his bear. That was the biggest oath anyone had ever made to her. And the craziest part? Every word of that offer had been doused in truth.

Holy. Shit. Did she say thank you? Maybe she should flash him, or pull her dress up to show him her thong? What did women do to pay back men who were kind to them?

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