Page 15 of Shaken Knot Stirred

Marty stepped in front of her, putting his body on the line, armed with a ratty-looking mop. Ghostly wisps of black smoke curled up from the pool table. The same table I had had Moxie bent over, her taste filling my lips and her delightful moans filling my ears. That was just hours ago, not even a full day. And now?

“Moxie,” I breathed her name, a coil of panic tightening in my center. “What happened?”

“Some fucknut of an alpha tried to torch the place,” Marty said, his stance relaxing. I guess I wasn’t in the fucknut alpha category. He put the mop back to work.

“Are you alright?” I crouched next to Helena. She pathetically held out a wrist for me that had obvious marks of restraints. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” She shook her head weakly.

“Where’s Moxie?” I stood and scanned the room. There was a scorch mark on the floor. The ceiling was blackened by soot. There was a toppled chair, but nothing else looked disturbed. A robbery? But why set fire to the place and tie up the waitress?

“He fucking took her,” Marty said, not looking up from his work.

Heat flared in me and my fingers went icy and numb.

“Who took her? Where?”

“I don’t fucking know, man.”

Rage narrowed my vision. Taking a slow breath, I mentally reminded myself that Marty was not the problem here.

I righted the chair and sat next to Helena, then waited patiently for her to turn toward me. Her lips looked swollen, so did her eyes.

“Tell me what happened.” I knew I was pushing out my aura to get compliance. It wouldn’t have a significant effect on a beta like Helena. If I worked at it, if my rage crossed the line, I could make her uncomfortable, but that would solve nothing.

“He was already here when I came into work.”

“Who?”

“Some alpha. I don’t know. Not a regular. He tied me up and then Marty came.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.” Marty let the mop handle slam to the floor. “He punched me in the face, flashed a gun, and we just waited for Moxie.”

“He didn’t say anything? Didn’t ransack the place for cash or anything?”

Marty gave a laughing huff. “You think we’re hiding bags of cash in a place like this?” He slammed the mop back into the rolling bucket. No floor polish would get out burn marks. Valiant effort, my guy.

“So he was waiting for Moxie?” I asked.

“She knew him,” Helena said, pulling her hair out of her disheveled bun. She held the hair tie in her teeth and finger-combed her hair back while talking around her clenched teeth. “She knew what he wanted. She said she’d take him to it.”

“To what?”

“No fucking clue,” Marty said. I could see a smudge of a black eye starting. He aggressively ripped a bar towel off his shoulder to mop up the pool table.

I was a terrible person. I’d been fantasizing about taking Moxie on the pool table for weeks. A whole whacked alphahole fantasy about marking my territory. I knew Moxie didn’t sleep with patrons. I knew she didn’t mess with alphas, especially. She took a ton of pride and joy in finding reasons to toss them all out. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head of being the only alpha to make her come right in her own bar.

“It’s fucking trashed,” Marty muttered, throwing in the actual towel. It was a crap pool table to begin with, not like the smooth buttery felt of the table we had in the game room at the packcompound. Shitty table or no, it made the Delta Lounge perfect. It would be unplayable now.

“Did you get a name on the alpha?”

Marty said no, and Helena shook her head.

“Are there cameras here?” Helena looked at me like I just fell off the back of a turnip truck. “OK. Dumb question. Can you describe him? Height?”

“Shorter than me. So 5’11”?” We both looked at Helena to confirm that.

“He was bald. Beefy but not fat,” Marty shrugged.

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