“Pyr, can I talk to you?”
Pyr looked up from the bar to see the boss standing in front of him. No one else was at the bar. He wondered if this was about the fact they were closing the bar on Tuesdays because of lack of business, and he would be losing one of his regular days of work.
“Sure, boss,” he said, and tagged Dave, the other bartender. Dave nodded and Pyr followed the boss to the rear room. Usually he brought people here to talk, but he kept on going, upstairs to the conference room. He passed by that, and Pyr got a sudden spike of fear. He was heading into his office. People who were brought directly to his office never came out the same.
Pyr almost dug his heels in, but instead forced himself to plod forward, to continue until he got to Bomber’s door. He stood in the doorway, waiting.
Bomber went to his desk and stopped, turning around. He looked from Pyr to the door and said to him, “Close the door and sit down.”
Pyr swallowed, and did what Bomber said. He sat down in the couch across from the table.
“Now,” said Bomber quietly as he took off his glasses and leaned at his desk, “what did you tell Scott about what happens here?”
“Scott, your boyfriend? Nothing, I think.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He mentioned your name.” Bomber’s eyes snared Pyr’s and Pyr’s jaw dropped for a moment. What beautiful blue eyes this man has… “Tell me the truth.”
“I said I thought you ran a prostitute ring.” He sat back suddenly, looking trapped. Bomber’s eyes had gone dark, an angry dark.
“And drugs?”
“I– I might have mentioned.”
“You might have mentioned?” Bomber stood straight. He clenched and unclenched his fists. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
The door burst open and Anilia came in, breathless. “Bomber!”
Bomber looked up at Anilia, his eyes going from blue to indigo. Anilia said quietly, “Pyr? Pyr? Take the rest of the night off.”
“Anilia,” said Bomber, with a low growl to his voice, “do not patronize me.” He turned back to Pyr. “Remember what I said in the meeting. What goes on here, stays here. Here, as in, in this building. Because I swear to Christ, I don’t want to lose what I’ve got here, and I’m sure neither do the people who come here. The Bitten are not prostitutes. You want to know what they are? Most of them are wayward children who have lost their way, and if they were left alone out in the world monsters would get them. I’m protecting them from those monsters and giving them the guidance they need.”
Pyr nodded mutely. If the man said the sky was green, he would have agreed with that. Anything to get out of that room and from under the gaze of those indigo eyes. Bomber glared at him, then at Anilia. “Go back to work. Both of you.”
Pyr jumped off the couch and out of the room, while Anilia let him. She quietly closed the door behind her. Bomber looked around the room, wanting to smash something, to do something. His Beast was very close to the surface, and if anyone even looked at him cross-eyed, he’d kill them, he knew he would.
Scott, your boyfriend?
Bomber wondered if he got the tickets he sent, meant to get to where he lived for Valentine’s Day. He knew where Scott lived, as he’d followed him. He also knew that was where Mike lived.
Mike had left Scott all alone. What a fucking bastard.
That pushed Bomber right over the edge, and he threw open the door to his office, vaulted over the railing to hit the dance floor with a low thud. “Going for a walk,” he said in the comm, and left it at the bar in the rear. He checked to be sure he had his phone and headed out into the night.
Maybe some prisoners in Brickstown needed to be rounded up. He hoped he wouldn’t find Scott, not while he was in this condition.