Nick slid through the crowd in the dingy bar, searching for someone he was pretty sure didn’t want to ever see him again. The Russian owner’s eyes narrowed when he saw Nick, but the man was smart enough not to say anything. The Russians had had a tough couple of months in the city after being caught mixing with the evil wolf pack outside the city. BadCreek used them for human trafficking and drug-running and all the other nefarious activities the mobsters were already involved in, but involving the wolves brought the Russians to the attention of the rest of the shifters. And none of them tolerated that kind of shit.

Nick ignored a half-naked woman as she purred and tried to grab his arm, and instead focused on a table in the very back of the bar, near the emergency exit. This was the closest he’d been to a real mission since being tortured and left for dead by BadCreek. Being undercover for so long messed with his head even in the best circumstances, but having his sister nearly killed and one of his partners, Ragnar, executed on the street had shaken Nick to his core. His wolf still rode close to the surface, ready to take control again if things started going sideways, and Nick struggled every day to stay human. To stay himself.

Most days it was just easier to be the wolf. The wolf didn’t give a shit about anything but protecting his sister and what remained of his pack.

Which meant protecting Smith.

The old bastard hadn’t been seen or heard from since he disappeared with the BadCreek alpha, almost half a year earlier. For the ErlKing not to at least send them a sign meant something must have gone wrong. If he chose to leave the city and his friends behind, then Nick wanted to hear that from him directly. Unfortunately, Nick couldn’t enter the Betwixt and ask the fae himself, since shifters couldn’t pass the barrier between the worlds, but he knew a few people who could.

His wolf side growled quietly as Nick approached the table and its single, sour-faced occupant. Hugo’s long white fingers drummed on the table as he waited for Nick, and the leprechaun killed his drink by the time Nick stood in front of him. “Took you fucking long enough.”

“Good to see you, too, Hugo.” Nick didn’t worry about the ill-tempered asshole’s vitriol, most of which derived from dealing with being a real leprechaun in a land that celebrated a comical, toothless version of a hard-drinking and treasure-obsessed fae. The wolf didn’t mind the fae, after so long around them, but the feeling wasn’t reciprocated by most of the Fair Folk. “How’s the treasure hunting?”

“Not as lucrative as it used to be.” Hugo gestured for another drink, and told the waitress to just bring the bottle, since his friend would be picking up the tab. The leprechaun eyed Nick sideways as he lit up another foul hand-rolled cigarette. “Was surprised to hear from you. Heard you’d lost your mind for a while there.”

Nick eased into a chair next to Hugo and folded his hands on the table, trying to sort through the myriad smells in the overcrowded bar to see who else haunted the up-and-coming dive. “The rumors were somewhat exaggerated. I ran into a bit of trouble, that’s it.”

“A bit of trouble to you is near-death for the rest of us, mate.” Hugo seized the bottle of whiskey from the waitress and winked at her, though the young woman only rolled her eyes and sashayed off. The leprechaun made a face. “Fucking children, all of them. These humans get on my nerves.”

“Then let me give you an opportunity to get away from them for a while.” Nick leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, attention drifting to the various Russians throughout the bar. He hadn’t been in contact with any of his countrymen in years, until his sister fell in with a bunch of werebears and one of them turned out to be a crazy Siberian bastard. Sasha wasn’t a bad sort, so long as his mate was around to settle the crazy out of him, but Nick hadn’t let him see any of the tattoos that marked his back and shoulders.

The leprechaun flicked his fingers against the bottle of whiskey and sparks illuminated the inside for a brief second. His eyes flashed green as he glanced over at Nick. “Oh?”

“Aye.” Nick leaned forward on the table so he could lower his voice and still be heard through the booming music and shrieking humans. “A friend of mine has gone missing on the other side. I’d like to find him and bring him back.”

Hugo’s dark eyebrow arched. “Easier said than done.”

“Which is why you’re my first stop,” Nick said. Like most of the fae, Hugo could be manipulated with some targeted ego-stroking, but if Nick went over the top, it would just piss him off and shut down any conversation with the leprechaun for at least a couple of months. The wolf didn’t mind a good stalking, but they needed to chase Smith and get him back sooner rather than later. “If anyone can locate him, it’ll be you.”

“I don’t fall for that bullshit, Faolan.”

The wolf growled in the back of Nick’s head. Hugo never used his name, just called him “fway-lawn” or some other gibberish in his old language. There was something about the fae and proper names. Nick still hadn’t figured it all out. “It’s not bullshit. This is high profile and I know you work quietly. I also figure you won’t sell me out.”

“Never say never.” Hugo’s teeth flashed in a smile, and under the strobe lights, they looked far pointier than Nick remembered. He wondered if leprechauns were one of those fae who ate people in the darker story tales. “Who are you looking for, and how long has he been gone?”

“It’s been six months,” Nick said. He poured a little of the whiskey into a glass he stole from a passing waitress’s tray, and sniffed it before he sipped to make sure the leprechaun hadn’t done anything weird to it. “And I’m looking for the ErlKing.”

Hugo snorted, shaking his head and getting to his feet. “And now I know you’re out of your fucking mind. Not in this life, Faolan.”

“He’s not as bad as you remember,” Nick said. But still the leprechaun looked like he’d leave, so Nick pulled a pouch out of his jacket pocket and tossed it on the table. The warm clink of gold coins stopped Hugo in his tracks, and he glanced back with a fierce hunger in his eyes. The bastard was addicted to gold in any form, and Nick had used it to his advantage before. “Maybe just locate him for me, and then we can talk about how to get him out.”

“Maybe I haven’t been back in a while,” Hugo said. He focused on the bag of gold, and his fingers twitched as if he’d reach out and snatch it off the table. “It could take a while.”

Nick picked the bag back up and started to put it away. “I need this soon, mate. I’ll find someone else.”

The leprechaun growled in the back of his throat and sidled up to Nick, his green eyes narrowed into slits as the pupils turned vertical. “You think you’re clever, Cu. You have not learned this lesson yet.”

Nick knew what Cu meant, and the wolf didn’t appreciate being called a hound. “Can you find him or not?”

“I’ll look,” Hugo said, and took the gold. His eyes remained in their sinister form, though, and the wolf started paying attention. “I make no promises.”

“Your kind never does.” Nick smiled back and let the wolf show a little as well. Gold eyes met green, and the leprechaun laughed without humor.

The gold disappeared into the leprechaun’s pocket and he turned on his heel, taking the bottle of whiskey with him. Hugo elbowed his way through the crowd, blending in more than Nick expected him to, and soon enough the smoke and gyrating dancers closed around him and he was gone.

Nick flagged down another waitress to refill his drink, frowning as he watched the people moving through the bar. Lemmings and sheep, all of them, with no idea of the underworld that seethed around them every night. He wondered how the humans went through their short little lives without at least sensing the true magic in the world.

The wolf bristled and Nick sat up straighter as a semi-familiar scent drifted through the smoke to his little corner of the bar. One of the surviving BadCreek shitheads stood in the middle of the dance floor, a statue of rage in the middle of a swarm, and stared right after him. Nick didn’t react other than to sip more of the whiskey. No telling if the other shifter braved the city to find and kill Nick, or if he just really needed a night out.

Nick didn’t think the remaining BadCreek leadership would have let him out alone, so there were probably others roaming the city. The bears would want to know, but as soon as Nick called the bears, he’d have to explain why he’d set foot in one of the Russian bars. Kara wouldn’t like it. So he just leaned back in his chair and waited for the BadCreek wolf to make the next move. Nick had been itching for a fight, and he had a couple of hours to burn before his next appointment.