Page 3 of Lucky or Knot
So since attention didn’t really turn me on, it didn’t take me too much effort to keep my cock under control, and honestly, not to brag or anything, but even totally flaccid it made itself known under any type of fabric.
But the crowd’s reaction did give me a bit of a frisson, a charge of energy that fed my alpha shifter magic. My eyes started to glow, and my claws were a millimeter from sliding out. My gums tingled where my fangs wanted to drop.
My hips gyrated, Trent Reznor rasped his way through those X-rated lyrics, and I reached down, groping my groin, really massaging my balls, getting more than a few gasps and little screams from the audience. Someone right up front had already thrown a handful of fives, fucking sweet.
And even sweeter, those guys up above were hanging over the railing with their mouths wide open, a scowling and ignored Dominic standing behind them with his hands on his hips. Ha! I resisted the urge to blow him a kiss.
I turned my back to the audience right as the first chorus started and spread my legs wider, ready for the reveal, getting my fingers in position to yank off the pants…
…And then, as if Scott had flipped one of his switches, Trent’s voice faded into a meaningless hum, the noise of the crowd became a murmur, and the lights on me seemed to dim. My body froze, fingers rigidly digging into my thigh.
Jesus fucking Christ, that was…
The scent of love, of home, of desire and want. It washed over me, teasing me, wrapping around all my alpha senses: wild, fresh, tantalizing, a sweet-tart aroma, lemon blossoms and honeysuckle and oxalis flowers, like my parents had in their garden.
It stirred a hopeless craving in a part of me that I usually suppressed in order to get along in society: my instinct to hunt and capture and claim and possess, to have something that wasmine. Someone, actually. Someone as beautiful and alluring and sweet as that scent…
All the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my cock was trying to get hard, pushing insistently against the G-string, throbbing as if in response to a physical touch. My claws pushed out, my fangs dropping. My heart pounded.
Fuck. This wasn’t natural or normal.
It had to be magic. Literally. Someone was using magic on me. But fucking why? I didn’t have any enemies that I knew of. Or stalkers, either.
A prank? Had Dominic hired a warlock or someone to hide out in the audience and screw with me and ruin my dance, or worse, make me flip out and get fired? Or even arrested?
No. Hell no. Damn it, I’d been doing this and doing it well for three years, and I could do it now, no matter how tantalizing that scent might be.
I forced my brain and body to reboot almost instantly, barely missing a beat of the song, quickly enough that no one probably even noticed. But as the music blared into full volume again, and the lights flashed in my eyes, and I tore my pants off in one go to a shrieking wave of applause—seriously, fuck you, Dominic—and spun around to show off the front of my G-string and its alpha bulge, the combo of being angry, off-kilter, and drenched in that magical scent slammed into me all at once.
More critically, my foot found the body oil residue on the floor at the same instant.
My leg flew out from underneath me as I flung my pants aside, and I went straight down and landed on my alpha ass with a thud that shook the whole stage.
A tiger. Tripping on his own feet and falling over.
I’d never live this down.
The hate that it brings, Trent wailed.
Truer words. I was going to stuff Cassidy’s body oil bottle down his throat, or maybe up his ass, and then I’d fucking kill him.
Right after I got up off my own ass and figured out who’d brought that incredibly distracting magic into the club, and fucking killedthem.
Damn it.
Chapter 2
Scrambling to my knees only took a moment, but that was long enough to catch a glimpse of Dominic going all red and doubling over laughing amidst a sea of open mouths and wide eyes.
Oh, I’d be killing him too, whether or not he had any hand in this. Bastard.
I rolled to my feet and pulled a funny face, hoping to convince the audience, at least, to laugh with me instead of at me.
Dominic would be laughing at me until the heat death of the universe. Or until I killed him.
At least my embarrassment and annoyance kept me from popping the world’s most prominent and illegal erection as I focused on circling my hips and strutting my stuff again. It wasn’t easy. That magical scent had tensed all my muscles and set my heart racing, my whole body ready for action. Shifters, alphas especially, had a lot of strengths. Literal strength, for one, and sharp senses, not to mention the even sharper claws and fangs.
But we had a secret we tried to hide from the world at large: our instincts enslaved us in a way no other beings had to cope with. If I lost my cool, I’d do it spectacularly.
