Page 56 of The SnowFang Storm

“Yeah, I remember your husband. The tall guy, gone grey? Bad taste in friends.” He grinned.

“That’s him.”

“Not sure what’s worth more. Your body or that diamond ring.” He sighed and barked something at one of the mop-pushers who had stopped to stare at me. “Your body. Can get a diamond anywhere.”

Great.

He led us over to a long table in a corner. Hamid and Darren moved off out of earshot to flank us. Jun sat next to me, fingers twitching nervously, and he kept glancing around the still-tense room. Chaz eyed Darren and Hamid’s backs. “Those two don’t look like the usual.”

“The usual what?” I asked.

“Hired thugs,” Chaz said.

I smiled unpleasantly at him.

Chaz smirked in return. “I don’t let females into this club. None of the proprietors around here do. We run you off.”

“Why?” I was here to ask questions, so time to start asking.

“You see how they look at you? And they’re my workers. You mix party and booze with a female and it turns into a bloody riot. I let women in, but not females. You get me?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t see females, anyway. You’re the first we’ve seen in…. Oh, a month or so.” He looked me up and down hungrily, licking his lips before he caught himself. “The loners learn real quick and sometimes too late it’s not safe. If they’re working, they’ve got their high-end regulars with cash. No corners for them.” He put a cigarette to his lips, eyes to the side, watching to make sure I comprehended what he was saying. “You know. Whores.”

“I made the connection.” I’d never personally known a she-wolf who had gone into that line of work, but it didn’t shock me a bit to hear it was a thing.

He leaned over the table and ground his point in. “For males who want the real thing. Real thing is different. Real thing costs lots of cash. Males save up for months, years, maybe for one ticket, one ride, to pop that wolf cherry. The boys aspire to it. Being able to pay for an hour with the real thing. Very particular kind of escort service.”

Now that got my interest. I’d heard males say human women weren’t quite the same as a she-wolf, and she-wolves generally didn’t bother with human males, but again: not something I’d been in a position to learn a lot about. My brother certainly didn’t mind human women. Nor did my male cousins. No relationships, just sex. And Jerron had certainly never expressed any longings for his mate. He’d loved his freedom and plowing his way through very willing human women who couldn’t resist a good-looking guy with a rough allure.

I asked, “So are these brothels run by wanderers? Is that their line of work?”

He laughed. “Haha! They wish! GranitePaw shows up and starts knocking skulls if a pimp tries to set up shop. They tolerate the girls running their own business as long as it doesn’t get messy, and it’s not so secret some of the high class ones have high class clients. If you know what I mean.”

“How high class?” I asked.

“Nope. I don’t spread that kind of gossip.” He waggled his cigar at me.

Because he didn’t have it to spread. Even through the cigar smoke, I smelled the bluff. He didn’t have names. He didn’t have specifics. He knew what GranitePaw wanted him to know. In a species where everyone guarded secrets, we knew a thing or two about controlling information.

Chaz pointed the glowing butt of his cigarette at me. “But I have heard that the nastier hives collect females and pass them around as prizes. Do well by the hive, get a little company, eh? Maybe a favor between friends?”

“Are the females being held prisoner?”

“Nope. Girl-snatching is a felony, and GranitePaw doesn’t like human attention.” He leaned over his elbow a bit. “GranitePaw probably doesn’t like you getting attention either.”

He leered at me. “I wonder what hive-leader wouldn’t want to have the promise of a night with you to negotiate with. Almost seems worth the risk to snatch you, even if it means they only have you a week or two before you get snatched back.”

So it wasn’t abduction, it was trap and release. “I’m pretty sure you can’t absorb prestige through osmosis, but you can get some social diseases. Very bad ones. Permanent. Deadly.”

“You are exquisite. I’d be set for damn life if I invested some risk into you. How old are you? Twenty? Could sell you for twenty years solid. Maybe thirty or forty, if your puss didn’t fall out first. The ones who pay,” he leaned forward and tamped his cigarette, “if they’re really ambitious, they save up not just to have a proper wolf puss. They save up for everything. They want to try it every way. They call it getting yellow balls.”

There was absolutely no way you could pay me enough to be in human or wolf form while some random war-form male fucked me. Aside from the massive cock that could be used (and probably had been used) as a cast to make freakish sex toys and turn your insides into pasta noodles. Bad, bad things could happen, even among pairs who had done it thinking the male would be able to control himself.

If Sterling had suggested we play around with war-form, I’d have told him not a damn chance.

Chaz tamped his cigarette. The males tip-toed a bit closer.

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