But Sariah and co were crossing the road. The lights of a club were to our left. Bouncers at the door, queue snaking down the street. The faint stench of rubbish hit me, and then there was something else. Woodsy, earthy, familiar on a visceral level. I took another breath, but it was gone.

Wait, why were we headed toward an alley? I hated alleys. “Hey.” I made a grab for Sariah’s arm, and her brows pinched together in a frown. “I don’t do alleys. Alleys are bad news.”

And as if to illustrate my point, several hulking figures emerged from the shadowy depths of said alley.

My thighs bunched as my body readied for fight or flee, just like Azazel had trained me. But then moonlight spilled across golden locks and kissed the tips of dark lashes. Silver eyes ringed in indigo locked onto me. Grayson’s mouth parted slightly. He was surprised to see me. Even as that gave me a stab of satisfaction over the sense of having the upper hand, a clawing flared to life in my belly, like hunger, or thirst, or the want for something unnamed but vital.

My gaze tracked across his face, taking in his broad chiseled features, the dip in his upper lip, and the razor edge of his jaw hugged by stubble. He’d shaved his golden beard, but instead of making him look younger, it made him look more intimidating. Harder. Rougher. His hair was loose and tucked behind his ears. You’d think it would soften him, but fuck, it made him look even more masculine. I wanted to touch that hair, sniff it, rub my face—I was going nuts. It was the only logical explanation for my reaction to him.

“Grayson,” Sariah greeted him. “This is Seraphina Dawn, our Dominus.”

He didn’t take his eyes off me. “We’ve met. Twice.” He took a deep breath, and his eyes fluttered closed. “You’re a demon?”

I nodded, heart pounding so hard in my chest that I thought it would crack my ribs. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“I’m a Dominus.” My voice sounded husky and breathless.

The kind of voice reserved for sex, for when your man is deep inside you, and you ask for more. When you tell him to thrust harder, faster, and not to stop.

I shook my head slightly to clear it.

“Come here,” he said.

It was an order, not a request, and I took an involuntary step forward before checking myself. Hell no.

His eyes narrowed, locking on my foot.

What the fuck. I stood taller. “I don’t take orders. I give them. You have a vampire problem, so let’s deal with it. We’ll go in and flush out the suckers, and you and your … pack will cover the exits and nab them as they make a break for it.”

The corner of his mouth hooked up. “Nab?”

Was he mocking me? Annoyance flared hot in my chest. “Grab, pinch, wallop, whatever.”

Several more figures stepped out of the alley. Seven in total. Paired up with us four, that was eleven against … “How many vamps do we think are in there?”

“They’ve been banding into claves,” Grayson said, his voice a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate through me. “Anything from ten to fifteen in a clave, and their numbers are growing.”

In other words, we had no idea. “Why this place? Why are they attracted to Killion’s as a hunting ground?”

Grayson’s lip curled. “Bliss.”

I gave him a blank look.

He arched a brow. “You have no idea what that is, do you?”

I offered him an uncertain smile. “Happiness?”

He let out a surprised snort. “In a sense. Bliss is a drug created by outliers for outliers. A nice little relaxation pill that loosens inhibitions, but when consumed by humans, it makes them doubly prone to suggestion. Word on the street is that they deal it here. A lot.”

“A vampire can simply ask a human to leave with him or her,” Sariah said. “Or ask them to slit open their vein, and they’d do it.”

Like when Peiter had asked me to forget what I’d seen, or maybe more like Mal when he’d made me want to touch his—Nope, not thinking about that. But I’d learned a thing or two about suggestion.

Oh yes. “Doesn’t the person have to want to do the thing, or be open to it for suggestion to work?”

“Not with Bliss,” Sariah explained. “With Bliss, a human will literally do anything they’re asked to by the first person they set eyes on after the drug hits their system.”

Like imprinting in baby birds. “I don’t get it. Surely a human would see a vampire and run the other way before they could be drugged. I mean, they have those dark-pitted eye sockets …”

Grayson’s smile was wry. “Human minds rationalize what they see up to the point that they can no longer do so. And trust me, they rationalize a lot. Vampires look human, aside from their pallor and their eyes. Up until they unsheathe their fangs and strike, a human would be unaware, and after that … well, it’s too late.”

Mal, Conah, and Azazel looked human. They drank blood because they were demons who needed it to survive, but they didn’t kill to get it. These bastardized versions were straight-up murderers.

The Loup Garou to Grayson’s left stepped forward. “Are we going to stand out here, giving the new Dominus a fucking lesson on outliers, or are we going to—Argh.”

The Loup who’d spoken dangled a foot off the ground, eyes bugging as Grayson’s hand tightened on his throat.

The alpha looked calmly up at his pack member. “Speak out of turn again, and I will rip out your throat.”

Heat rushed through my veins, not disgust, not fear, but something else. Something that was almost like excitement. Grayson’s actions excited me, and there was that clawing in my belly again.

Man, I was one sick puppy.

Grayson turned his head slightly as if listening and then inhaled deeply. I don’t know why, but I took a step back instinctively. But Grayson’s pale gray eyes were on me now, not impassive, not assessing, but blazing with a hunger that matched the swirling need in the pit of my stomach.

I needed to look away. To break the connection, because my body was doing shit it shouldn’t, like tightening and softening and throbbing as blood rushed to all the right places that would usually make for a rollicking good time. But I couldn’t tear my gaze away.

The Loup Garou suspended in the air made a gurgling sound and then sagged in Grayson’s grasp, and only then did the alpha release me with a blink. The Loup Garou dropped to the ground, suddenly free. His eyes flashed silver in the moonlight, and his lip curled, but he didn’t say a word.

“O-okay.” I smiled tersely. “Let’s get this show on the road.” I focused on my team. “Blend in. Buy a drink. Look like the furniture.” I looked over at Grayson. “You get your men to cover the exits.”

The Loup Garou, who’d only a moment ago been suspended in the air, glared at me, and I could feel the tension radiating off him. No need for shields to be down to know that this guy didn’t like the way I was speaking to his alpha. But Grayson himself didn’t look offended.

He nodded. “Cover the exits,” he ordered his men.

They scattered. I stared at him, just standing there. “Um, okay, good luck.” I was about to turn away when he started walking toward us.

What was he doing? My body went into high alert, not wanting him close and craving it at the same time.

He stopped a couple of feet away from me. “You’ll be my date. I know the bouncer, so I’ll get us in quickly.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Without him, we’d have to queue. Wait, did he just say date?

He closed the distance between us until we were almost chest to chest, and I was forced to look up to see his face. My gaze snagged on the smooth masculine column of his throat, lingered on his stubborn chin, skated over his full bottom lip, and finally locked on his. Damn, those eyes were like magnets pulling me closer.

I tensed up to prevent myself from leaning into him. I wanted to argue with him, but that would be telling him that he bothered me, that he affected me. Like fuck was I doing that.

I kept my tone light. “Fine. Let’s just do this.”

I spun on my heel and strode away from him, putting distance between us. Needing to breathe, but he was by my side in a blink. I bit back a gasp as his hand branded the small of my back. He’d slid it beneath the hem of my jacket and placed it over the thin material of my halter neck. The cheek of him! Heat swirled and radiated out from the point of contact, and the clawing inside me started up again. I walked faster, wanting to get away from his touch, but he kept pace, that damned hand continually pushing heat into me.

“Relax,” he said. “We’re on a date, remember.”

“I’m perfectly relaxed.”

“I can smell your nerves, among other things.”

Other things? What did he mean by that? No, I didn’t want to know, and then we were at the entrance and getting glared at by the people in the queue because they knew we were about to cut in.

The bouncer took one look at Grayson and raised the red rope. No conversation. Nothing. Just a look.

Who was this guy?

A Loup Garou. A shifter. A wolf? Was his fur soft? What would it feel like to rub up against him when he was in his wolf form? Why the hell did I care?

We slipped into the darkness of the club, surrounded by vibrations of the thudding music. It beat against my skin and traveled through my bones. Strobe lights painted the room in rainbow hues and made the humans inside look like multi-colored smurfs.

Sariah came to a stop beside me. “We’ll take the ground floor of the club, you two scope first floor. Alert me with the comm when you spot them.”

I looked up at Grayson’s profile as he scanned the room. The lights made his eyes flash dangerously, and when he dropped his hand from the small of my back, relief and disappointment swirled in my chest. But then he took my hand and laced his fingers through mine, and my lungs forgot their function for a moment. Warm tingles melted up my arm and settled in my belly. My gaze shot up to meet his, and my pulse thudded hard in my throat at the look of raw hunger in his eyes. But then his brows came down as if he was pissed off. He blinked sharply and looked away.