Vice (Fireborn Wolves Book 1) (4 page)

Laina stared at a case of Corona, feeling like the last bit of happiness she carried within the confines of her heart had been forcibly extracted using a diamond-tipped drill and drain cleaner.

“Laina? Laina? Are you still there?”

“I’ve got to go. Thank you for handling this for me. I owe you one.”

“I’m praying for you, sweetheart.”

She ended the call, thanking the goddess for the friend she left behind. Silas had sworn to keep Becca safe but suggested that if Jonah believed Laina was dead, her assistant wasn’t in any danger anyway. Jonah wouldn’t waste the effort or risk calling attention to his whereabouts for a human.

Laina slid her phone into her apron, grabbed the case of Corona, and got back to work.

“
Y
ou can’t keep missing
work, Jason. I’m not covering your shift next time.” Laina kneed her sleeping brother in the ribs, knocking the sofa bed he was lying on hard enough to give his body a creaking, spring-loaded bounce.

He groaned and rolled onto his side. “Just pay Monty the difference, L. Stop acting like this is a real job. We paid him to hide us. What’s he going to do? Kick us out?”

She dropped into a dreadful olive-green armchair and worked her shoes off her feet, rubbing the arch of her right foot with both thumbs. “Ogres are ruthless. Not only will Monty kick us out, he’ll wait to do it until both packs are here and ready to shift. And we can’t let on that we have money. He’ll figure out a way to weasel every last penny out of us. Trust me, you don’t want Monty as an enemy. He’s too powerful.”

“I’m not saying you should piss him off, I’m saying you should pay him off.” Jason scrubbed his face with his hands. “We’re rich and we’re royalty. We shouldn’t have to do manual labor.”

“I hate to break it to you, but the money we paid Monty was for the privilege of his protection and silence. He expects us to work to pay for this apartment. Even if I paid him more, he’d find a way to expect more. We need his cooperation, and the pack needs his land. You can’t jeopardize that, Jason. We’re responsible for keeping Monty happy for as long as we need him, and I can’t do it myself.”

He rubbed his eye with his knuckle. “I hate this. Silas is a shit.”

Laina stopped massaging her foot long enough to agree. “Who was the girl, anyway? I know all the women in this town and, no offense, you’ve already blown through every one of appropriate age.”

“No offense taken. She wasn’t from here. Just passing through. A model. She was interviewing for a job at a new place they’re opening across town.”

“What kind of place hires models in Sable Creek?”

“I think it’s a gentleman’s club.”

“You mean like a strip club?”

He shrugged. “I assume. She didn’t tell me the name of the place, just that they were offering top dollar for girls with experience modeling nude. She was planning to leave town this afternoon if they didn’t make an offer.”

With a disapproving scowl, Laina stood. “Good. You should get plenty of sleep tonight then. You can open for me in the morning.”

He growled.

“Don’t make me call Silas. I will have him alpha you into submission until you can’t even look at a woman.”

“Fine.” Jason rolled onto his back and pulled a pillow over his head. “You can be a real bitch sometimes.”

“I certainly hope so. Bitches make the world go round, brother.”

She stormed toward the tiny bedroom at the back of the apartment and stripped out of her clothes, climbing between the dollar store sheets. They were rough as sandpaper against her skin but she was too tired to care. As she spiraled toward sleep, her last thoughts were of her missed date. Kyle. He’d called for her… twice. It was silly to think about. Hopeless. Something that had never been and would never be. But it was the hope of love she clung to. Real love. The type that couldn’t be forced or manipulated. A love that wasn’t arranged for the purposes of bearing children. She wasn’t sure why she’d thought of that hope upon meeting Kyle, but she had. And now, she’d never know what might have been.

Resolved to her fate, she spilled into unconsciousness, thankful for the respite of sleep.

* * *

“
S
on of Hades
!” Monty bellowed, tossing the mail down on the bar. “This will be the end of me.”

Anyone who worked for Monty became accustomed to his frequent temper tantrums, but this one was different. The ogre paced behind the bar in the early afternoon light gripping a flyer in his meathooks. A vein in his temple pulsed like the steam valve on a pressure cooker.

Even Jason was concerned. He stopped bussing tables and sidled up next to her with his bin of dirty dishes, tapping his elbow against hers. “What’s going on?”

Laina shrugged.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Monty said. Laina made a mental note that the ogre had exceptional hearing. “They’re opening up a Hunt Club in Sable Creek.”

“Another hunting lodge?” Laina asked.

“Not a hunting club. A Hunt Club.”

Laina shook her head.

“It’s a lifestyle club,” Jason said. “There’s an e-mag and a calendar… an online membership. Hunt Club is like the historical Playboy Club meets Hooters, a place a man can be a man.” He grinned broadly and smiled up at the ceiling as if he had fond memories of this Hunt Club.

“Is this the strip club you were talking about?” she asked.

Jason’s eyes darted to Monty who was bright red with anger. “Uh, it’s not a strip club. The waitresses serve you wearing nothing but body paint. It’s called Hunt Club because they are painted to look like prey. Rabbits, antelope, birds. The tagline is ‘Enjoy the Thrill of the Chase.’”

“The men are considered the predators, I suppose?” Laina landed her hands on her hips. “Crude.”

“
Forbes
ranked it the fastest growing business of the year,” Jason said. “I tried to get in on the deal but it’s family owned and independently financed. They build these places in rural areas where there’s a lot of hunting and fishing, that sort of thing. Gives the guys an excuse to be there and privacy to do what they came to do.”

Monty pointed a meaty finger toward Jason’s face. “Shut the fuck up. This place gotta go, Jay. This could put me outta business, and if I’m out of business, your pack ain’t gonna be safe nowhere. Nowhere.”

At the early hour, there were only two people in the bar, Jeff, who stopped eating his pie midbite and a trucker, who took one look at Monty’s pointing finger and left without ordering.

“Can I get you another beer, Jeff?” Laina asked.

“No, I’m okay,” he said. His gaze drifted back toward the bank across the street.

Laina glanced between Jason and Monty. “How can we help? Maybe we could coordinate some live entertainment of our own to compete. Jay’s an above-average singer.”

Jason gaped at her like she’d grown a second head.

Monty flattened the flyer on the bar and rubbed his lumpy chin. “Their grand opening is Friday.” He hummed a low, thoughtful note before narrowing his beady dark eyes on Laina. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“A girl like you could easily pose as a model.”

“To what end?” Laina’s voice was shrill. Over her dead body was she going to traipse around in nothing but a layer of paint. She had boundaries.

Monty looked at Jeff, then stepped in close, close enough for the reek of his breath to turn Laina’s stomach. “If the right magic was left in the right place, say an ever-growing mold or a stench blossom, a bar like that might be closed down by the health department.”

“Good idea. Have Jay pose as a patron,” she whispered.

Jason cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry but, I’m already a member. I could be recognized. Actually, there would be a very good chance someone would recognize me.”

Laina glared at her brother.

“You, with the body paint and the mask, are the perfect weapon,” Monty said. “You discreetly drop the package, Hunt Club gets the boot, and you and your family have a safe place to spend a couple months. Win-win.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I won’t do it.”

Monty narrowed his eyes. “You won’t need my land, then?”

“We already paid for the use of your land,” Jason said.

“Have Silas call me. I’m not sure this is going to work out.”

“You don’t understand. I
can’t
do this.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The grand opening of Hunt Club is the night before the full moon.”

“So?”

“So, it’s a bad idea. I’ll be moody. Volatile. Prone to intense emotion.” Ogres were like that all the time. His scowl made it clear he didn’t give a shit. Maybe the direct approach? “I’m not comfortable doing this. I think you should find someone else.”

“No one else fits the part,” he said, scanning her from head to toe. “You’ll do this, or you can tell your pack to find a new place to shift by the end of the week.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, determined not to cry or piss off the ogre. “Fine,” she said through her teeth. “But I can’t just walk in there and say
paint me
.”

Monty grinned wickedly. “Don’t worry ’bout that. I know a guy.”

T
he road
to Hunt Club meandered to the point Laina worried she’d misread Monty’s directions. But when the narrow drive ended at a row of picketers blocking a twelve-foot wrought iron gate, she was concerned for an entirely different reason.

“End objectification!” a woman yelled. She shook her fist at Laina on the other side of the window.

“Preaching to the choir,” Laina murmured under her breath. The picketers were from a place called Eternal Light Ministries. A dozen or more men and women pressed around her car, chanting and waving freshly Sharpied signs.

“God Hates Porn!” a darkly dressed man screamed through her windshield.

A uniformed woman exited the gatehouse with one hand on her gun.
Damn!
Security here was packing heat. “You can’t block the gate! Move aside.” The picketers parted, still chanting, and Laina pulled up to the window.

“I’m the temp,” Laina said, handing the guard the fake ID Monty had given her.

“Sorry about this. They come for every opening.” She rolled her dark eyes and sighed heavily. “We can’t call the police or take action as long as they remain peaceful and don’t block the entrance.”

The guard glanced from the fake ID to Laina’s face, then checked a list of names on a yellow clipboard. The ebony skin of her forehead furrowed as she studied the names on the list.

The seconds ticked by, causing Laina’s stomach to clench. “I was added at the last minute”—she glanced at the woman’s nametag—“Taneesha.”

Taneesha frowned in her direction and flipped the page. “Ah, here you are. Anita Woody.” She handed the ID back to Laina through the window without the hint of a giggle at Monty’s attempt at humor. Professional. “Follow the drive around and to the left. You want to take the service drive to the back entrance. The staging area is in Studio 2.”

The massive wrought iron gate in front of her opened, a scrollwork
H C
parting to allow her through. She couldn’t see much beyond the gate due to a row of tall hedges that obscured anything beyond the next bend in the drive.

“Staging area?” she whispered. As if she were a thing requiring assembly prior to use. She gently pressed the accelerator, cruising at the posted fifteen miles per hour down the smaller, less decorative service drive. At the end of the densely forested route, she tapped the brakes and looked up. Way up.

Hunt Club was a castle. An honest-to-goodness, belonged-on-a-mountain-in-Germany castle. It was bigger than Rivergate Manor and absolutely dwarfed Monty’s.

“What are you getting yourself into?” She coasted into a parking space at the back of a small lot near a relatively plain-looking door labeled
Studio 2
.

If the building resembled a fairy-tale castle, the man who opened the door for her could have passed for Geppetto, with a shock of white hair and thin, wire-rimmed glasses typical of clockmakers of times past. The man rubbed his rounded belly through his Tommy Bahamas shirt and raised two approving eyebrows.

“They just keep makin’ ’em prettier and prettier,” he said through a wily grin. Extending his hand, he introduced himself. “I’m Wesley. I’ll be painting you today.”

“Nice to meet you.” She slipped past him and joined a small crowd of women waiting inside. At five foot eleven inches, Laina was used to being the tallest woman in the room, but the leggy giants inside dwarfed her. Each woman was more beautiful than the last: long-limbed, graceful, perfection on high heels. She wondered fleetingly whether Jason’s fling was among them.

“You can leave your clothes in the lockers at the back of the room,” Wesley announced to the crowd, pointing at a bank of cubbies. “Please tie your hair back for the painting process.” Before Wesley had finished speaking, the women around her started shedding clothing as though they were on fire.

Laina was no stranger to nudity. Being a werewolf meant that by necessity she stripped in front of her packmates once a month. Aside from preserving her wardrobe, stripping avoided any potential complications for her wolf. The difference between that and this was she knew her pack intimately. These people were strangers. Would they judge her? Would they laugh at her paunchy stomach or the scar on her hip where she’d been bitten as a young wolf? Would anyone question the tribal phoenix tattoo on her upper-right shoulder?

Her hands trembled as she drifted closer to the lockers.
Fucking Monty.
She chose a cubby and placed her purse inside, followed by her jacket, black T-shirt and bra. When all her clothing was perfectly folded and the cubby was closed, she took a deep breath and turned to face the crowd of chattering women. They looked totally at ease, already in line behind a cart laden with spray-painting equipment.

It was Wesley whose gaze locked on her first, his smile fading as he focused on the apex of her thighs. A red-hot blush crept onto her cheeks as one by one the women turned, lips parting in gasps that turned to giggles behind their raised hands. Soon, to her horror, they all stared at her, eyes darting to her crotch as if the view was hilarious.

What?
she thought
. Do I have some kind of rare vaginal deformity?
She glanced down at herself and at the other women. One thing
was
vastly different from her body and theirs. Pubic hair.

“I have a razor. I’ll help her.” A woman with a sleek, platinum-blond bob jogged to her side and pulled a small vanity kit from her locker as the others resumed their conversations behind her. “You must be new.”

“First time,” Laina said.

“The latex doesn’t lay right over hair and even if it did, believe me when I say removing it afterward would be a time consuming and painful experience. Most of us go as far as to shave our arms before a performance.” She ran a finger along the top of her forearm. “Although, a hot soapy bath will eventually soak it off.”

Laina glanced at the light dusting of dark hair over her arm. “I’ll take it all off.”

“Good idea.” The woman handed her a razor and a small can of shaving cream. “There’s a bathroom through that door.”

“Thank you,” Laina said genuinely.

“You’re welcome. Us girls have to stick together. If you need anything else, you know where to find me.” She gestured toward the line. “I’m Nickie, by the way.”

“Anna.” Laina nodded. She instantly regretted using that name. Her fake ID said Anita Woody, and although she supposed Anna might be short for Anita, the less chance someone might trace her back to Monty’s, the better. This was ridiculous. Who could keep all of her aliases straight? She entered the bathroom, cursing her ineptitude and emerged twenty minutes later, hairless and just as embarrassed as ever.

But as she fell into line behind Nickie, Wesley’s assembly line of artists completed work on the first model, and Laina’s embarrassment morphed into pure awe. Wesley had transformed the woman into a peacock, her entire body coated in teal latex, then airbrushed with detailed feathers down the back of her legs and subtle shading up her torso. Her previously Indian features were now an intricate series of ridges and lines to give her nose and cheekbones a beak-like appearance while somehow enhancing her feminine features. She was gorgeous and completely covered. A work of art. Laina had to remind herself the woman was naked under the thick layer of color.

“Once it dries, it feels like you’re wearing a wetsuit,” Nickie said. “You’ll forget you’re naked. The latex is waterproof but try not to spill alcohol on it. Not only will it remove the airbrushing, it could break down the latex if there’s friction involved.” She chuckled and winked.

With broad, sweeping motions Wesley turned the next woman into a lovely interpretation of a pink flamingo. The work was stunning but meticulous. Now she understood why the position required her to be on location more than three hours before opening. It took over two and a half to reach the front of the line. When she did, she looked around the sea of human animals, birds, rabbits, and gazelles and wondered what was left. What would Wesley transform her into?

In answer to her unasked question, he picked up the white spray gun and went to work. She closed her eyes as the cool spray tingled against her skin like a spritz of water going on but then constricting as it dried, becoming heavier. Avoiding eye contact with Wesley, she held her arms out to her sides and stood with her feet shoulder width apart. The paint caressed the outside of her leg, up her inner thigh, and over her most sensitive area.

Wesley seemed completely unaffected, almost bored. “Something got you here,” he said as he painted over the scar on her hip. “Dog bite?”

“Yeah,” she lied.

“Not a problem. I’ll cover it up, along with the tattoo.” He finished with the white and reached for the black airbrush. “The moment I saw your hair, I knew what I would make you.” Interesting. She’d dyed her normally mahogany hair jet black the night before in an effort to disguise herself. Along with changing her normally green eyes to blue, she’d hoped it was enough to limit her exposure.

Wesley turned to the male assistant on his left. “Start darkening her spine. I want the stripes to come from a single strip of black and wrap around the body. White between the nipples.”

A tickle of spray passed over her butt crack and her eyebrows shot into her hairline. Wesley laughed and lowered his voice. “I enjoy working with you newbies. I predict that three weeks from now, you’ll be spreading your cheeks so that Andre can get a better angle.

“If you say so,” she said through a smirk.

“High pony. No hairpiece. She has enough as it is. Black apron, black tail, black stilettos,” Wesley practically barked. The female assistant took off toward a room in the back.

“We get to wear an apron?” Laina asked.

He grinned. “Gotta have somewhere to put your tips. With a body like yours, I predict you’ll make plenty.” He lowered his voice. “Most of these models are built like coat hangers. You’ve got some meat on your bones.”

Her cheeks went hot again, now under a coat of paint that clung and stretched like a leather glove.

The assistant returned and started fussing with her hair as Andre feathered another layer of paint under her arm. By the time they were done, her shoulders were cramping, but she didn’t feel naked anymore. In fact, Nickie’s prediction proved true: the latex coated her flesh like a wetsuit, hairline to ankle. A lacy, scrolled black mask was placed over her eyes and an apron the size of a micro miniskirt was tied around her hips. Andre affixed a black tail to the base of her spine with costume glue.

“Wait a few minutes more to put on the shoes,” Wesley said. Laina took the black stilettos in hand and headed for the full-length mirror on the wall. She was a zebra. A contoured, curvy-as-hell zebra.

“Wow,” Nickie said from behind her. “Wesley’s a genius.”

Wesley had made the blond bombshell into a doe, complete with dainty brown ears that poked from her chin-length hair.

“Thanks. It’s not as bad as I was expecting. It’s almost like…”

“Like you have a dirty secret.” Her new friend smirked. “Like for just one night you can be someone else. You can be anyone.”

Exactly
, Laina thought. Tonight, she
was
someone else. That was the plan. As Nickie and the rest of the models filtered through the door to the main part of the club, she dropped back and leaned against the lockers to put on her stilettos. Once she’d double-checked that no one was watching, she unlocked her cubby and fished a tiny blue box from her purse. She dropped it into her apron. The box contained fairy magic, capable of attracting vermin from far and wide, with an added enchantment that made it invisible to humans when activated.

Laina closed the locker and squared her shoulders. It was time to do what she came to do.