Edgar hated everything about the resort from the moment he and Kaiser drove onto the grounds. The rest of Edgar's brothers, and most of the Council members and their fighters, waited on the resort grounds as the Auction got underway. But he and Kaiser had been chosen to walk into the Auction to determine the best time to act. Or if they even needed to act. The main ballroom was filled with giddy girls, their fathers and brothers and friends, and the eligible bachelors looking for a mate. Everyone there seemed eager to fall in love.
Edgar hated love. Hated everything about the earnest flirting, the coy glances, the crowds and expectations. It made his skin crawl. Logan had been apologetic, at least, about asking Edgar to walk into his worst nightmare, but that didn't make it any easier to wade through the giggles and gruff boasting. He reached for another beer.
Kaiser, looking almost presentable in jeans and a sport coat, raised an artful eyebrow as he scanned the crowd. "You need something stronger, Chase?"
Edgar made a face and waved away a well-intentioned butler with a glass, preferring to drink from the bottle. "If anyone else tries to give me their phone number or introduce me to their father, I will."
"Being a good-looking dude must be quite a burden."
Edgar shot the bear a sideways look, but couldn't quite tell if Kaiser was joking. The grolar bear — half polar bear, half grizzly — looked entertained more than anything as another girl, nervous and dressed entirely in pink, sidled up and asked if he was looking for a mate. Kaiser chuckled and thanked the girl but said he'd already found his mate — and then slapped Edgar on the shoulder with a wink for the girl. Her eyes went wide and she mouthed, "So sorry, you're very cute together," before fleeing back to her gaggle of friends.
Edgar gave the bear a sideways look. "Really, man?"
Kaiser's smile grew a touch as he shrugged, returning to his survey of the crowd. "You wanted to limit the girls hitting on you. Don't tell me you're uncomfortable?"
"I'm fine with however far you want to take this, man, but you're not getting past second base. No matter how much I drink."
Kaiser snorted and lifted his glass. "Right. So before we play a high-stakes game of 'flexible sexuality chicken,' let's find the organizers and get to the real problem."
"Great." Edgar tried not to scowl as he switched his empty beer bottle for a fresh one from a server's tray, and strode through the crowd toward the men they'd identified as the ones who put the whole thing together. They came from somewhere on the west coast, maybe California, although Edgar's favorite private investigator couldn't come up with much background on them. Even Bridger, one of the local loan sharks, could scarcely do more than provide grainy surveillance photos of the two men.
His teeth set on edge as he drained the beer and pasted on a false smile as he stood in front of one of the organizers. "Hey, mate. This is all well and good out here, but we heard there might be something more... intense available."
The man raised his eyebrows and offered a queasy smile. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Kaiser slid a folded hundred dollar bill into the man's jacket pocket, deliberate in his action. "I'm sure you do, friend. We're serious."
The organizer, a wolf, scanned the crowd behind them, then seemed to make up his mind. "Fine. Follow me."
Edgar shared a look with Kaiser and wondered where the bear got that kind of cash to throw around, but they followed in silence as the man strode away from the main ballroom to one of the reception halls on the other side of the main resort. The halls emptied the farther they got from the main event, until only a few servants and armed guards noted their passing. The organizer spoke quietly into a radio, then turned the corner to face a pair of giant doors, guarded by a handful of men and wolves.
He gestured at the doors. "You understand the rules?"
"Of course." Kaiser's lip curled with disdain.
The man eyed them both, then nodded to the guards, and one of the doors opened. Edgar strode in, fighting back revulsion as a wave of testosterone and anger and fear rolled over him, and immediately picked up another beer. Kaiser followed close on his heels, and the doors shut behind them. A crowd of about a hundred men filled the reception hall, with a tall dais on the far end. A man with a microphone called out a few jokes as someone cleaned blood off the mats in front of the dais, and an unconscious challenger was dragged away by some of the guards. Edgar's stomach turned over.
Kaiser frowned as they took up positions to observe from the wall near the dais, and Edgar studied the announcer, the bouncers, the guards, the escape routes, everything. The rest of the pride waited for the radio call and would storm in to mete out justice when needed. All he had to do was make the call.
The bear watched as one young man, goaded by his friends, shuffled to the front of the crowd, apparently convinced to take a swing at the next round of bidding. Edgar's lip curled in disgust and he nearly called his brothers in, just to end things before he had to watch the kid get his ass kicked.
Kaiser snorted, looking into his beer. "Owen calls that a 'hold my beer' moment. Something he got from the Corps, I guess."
"Oh?" Edgar feigned interest as he continued to scan the crowd.
"Yeah. Said that was the moment when he knew he needed to get his medical bag, or someone was going to jail, or something would end up on fire. After a couple of drinks, some kid would say, 'Here, hold my beer,' and then all hell would break loose." The bear gulped from his glass and set it on the tray of a passing waiter. "Every now and then you can feel it, can't you? That second right before your whole world shifts. Changes."
Edgar took a breath, ready to tell Kaiser he was full of shit, when a commotion brewed on the dais. Two bruisers dragged a girl up the steps. She looked partially drugged and certainly out of it, and probably starved as well. And pissed. Royally pissed. His entire world collapsed down onto her, the bared teeth and flashing gold eyes, a cold despair he recognized. Like part of her soul was missing and she'd spent her entire life searching for it, hoping to find it again. Except he knew it wasn't possible.
The announcer laughed into the microphone before waggling his eyebrows at the crowd. "A bit of a wild one, here. Young Ivy is a red wolf. No known defects or health issues, breeding status unknown. Ten thousand to start in the first round, an additional ten thousand for each subsequent round until only one fighter remains. Any takers?"
Edgar's heart climbed to his throat. She'd lost her mate. He knew it just by looking at her, knew it to his bones. Her breeding status should have been 'grieving.' 'Lost.' 'Lucky to be breathing at all.'
From his right, a surly older man with greasy hair raised his hand. "Aye, I'll stand a challenge."
"I'm in." This from a younger male on the other side the room, cruelty in the set of his jaw.
There was only one type of man who went looking for the kind of trouble that girl promised, and Edgar hated every son of a bitch who stepped forward to enter the challenge. The girl's eyes narrowed as she surveyed the crowd, then she lurched and threw off one of her captors. She almost freed herself from the second when the first jabbed a taser in her back and she went down in a boneless heap. The men laughed as they straightened, and Edgar started to growl.
Kaiser looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Problem?"
Edgar's eyes narrowed as he held his drink toward Kaiser. "Hold my beer."
The bear sighed as he took it. "Man, are you —"
Edgar didn't hear him, shedding his coat to toss over Kaiser's shoulder as he strode toward the dais. The girl deserved a chance to choose her own fate. She fought for herself when no one else would. Well, he'd damn well fight for her when she couldn't. Her mate would have been there, if he lived, but Edgar would do his best to honor the man's memory — and the girl's independence.
His voice came out more roar than human, and the crowd recoiled as he bristled. "She's mine."
One of the challengers, the one with greasy hair, scowled. "Who the fuck do you think you are? You fight like the rest of us."
Edgar pulled his dress shirt off, over his head, not bothering to unbutton it. He flexed, tattoos jumping across his back and down his arms, and the lion wasn't far beneath the ink. "I'm Edgar fucking Chase, and you better remember my name. Back off or regret it the rest of your life."
The man's eyes narrowed but he stood his ground. Maybe he couldn't back down, with so many witnesses. The young kid, on the other hand, and two of the other wolves who'd paid the ten grand to fight for her, backed off, hands held up in surrender. That left four serious contenders. Edgar bared his teeth and cracked his knuckles. The price jumped ten grand each round, as soon as a competitor dropped out, until only one man remained. As long as he could pay the price, he walked away with the girl. Edgar glanced at the dais, where the girl remained still and silent in a heap on the floor, then bared his teeth at the four men who faced him in a line.
They fought as a pack against the outsider, the lion, and would turn on each other as soon as he was knocked out of the fight. A cruel smile tugged at Edgar's mouth. They underestimated the lion. Underestimated the rage and pain and fury that boiled inside. A decade of hating life, of hating everything in the world, would spill out and over and those bastards would pay the price.
He flexed his shoulders and braced for the rush as someone rang a bell and the wolves surged toward him.