Fever Fae - Meg Xuemei X Page 0,25

into this time?

There was only one way to go through this—proceed.

I leveled my gaze and looked ahead, ignoring every mocking, greedy, calculating stare, and strode toward the bar. My boots clicked on the floor, uncomfortably loud.

Vicious laughter trailed after me as if everyone could see through my act. I bet they could. I wasn’t their kind. I’d been sheltered my entire life until my parents vanished without a trace, until it was my turn to shelter my younger siblings.

My gaze locked on a spiky short-haired girl in leather behind the bar. She had inked tattoos all over her muscled body, including a wolf’s paw on the left side of her face and a red blade on her right temple.

She looked meaner than the bouncer. And I bet that was why the fucker sent me to her.

Chapter 9

I wrinkled my nose as I sauntered to the long bar. Instead of the traditional gleaming dark wood, this bar glowed white under the dim lights, like it had been carved from ivory. The smell of strong alcohol, cologne, sex, and the aroma of all sorts of species assaulted my sensitive nose.

“Do I smell?” The female bartender asked sharply after she finished yelling at a large, scary-looking dude perching at the corner of the bar.

Her eyes nearly glowed yellow. Beastly power radiated from her and raked at my skin. Not a human then. She didn’t have pointed ears, though, so she might not be Fae.

What was she?

Every head in the bar snapped to me. Some laughed at the bartender’s question, only to drop their laugh at her glare. A few patrons stared at me, waiting to see how I’d answer.

“No, it’s not you, chick.” I shook my head. “You’re fine. It’s this place with so many different types of A-holes. I don’t know how you stand it.”

She chortled.

“You think I smell, then?” A man who looked like a supernatural weight trainer with a tattoo of a woman’s breasts on his bulky arm stepped toward me.

He towered me by a head, and I noticed that his hands were clawed. He’d be my first trial to settle how the others treated me here. I had a feeling that bouncer probably encouraged this bully to pick on me.

I sniffed mockingly. “You do, like many others here.”

The bartender now laughed in delight.

The clawed man looked surprised at my daring for a second.

“I’ll give you one last chance, little human whore,” he said. “Beg for forgiveness and suck my dick good, and I’ll forget this.”

“You’re the second dude who’s asked me for a blowjob today,” I said. “The first one didn’t like my answer too much. You won’t either.”

“This isn’t your regular bar, human cunt,” he said. “But your daddy is all horned up, and you’ll serve it good.”

A few big men stood behind him, waiting in line to try my free, forced services. The leading man reached for my butt with his clawed hand. I sidestepped, faster than he could expect, and whipped out a tiny bottle of homemade pepper spray from the back pocket of my pants. The pepper spray was meant for Rowan and Baron if they didn’t behave next time.

I shot the pepper liquid into his eyes. He screamed, stumbled back, and crashed to the ground, nearly poking his own eyes out as he rubbed furiously with his claws.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did it hurt that much?”

“What did you spray him with, bitch?” A man behind him wanted to know.

“Carolina Reaper, the world’s hottest pepper with two point two million S-H-U,” I answered truthfully. “This species is bred for heat, a cross between a Ghost pepper and a Red Habanero. Imagine touching your eyeballs with something two hundred times hotter than a jalapeno pepper. That’s how your pal feels.”

I scanned his buddies, their jaws still dropped. Even the bouncer with the long, stupid name dropped his big jaw at my knowledge of peppers. I planned to plant all sort of peppers in the backyard after I got my parents back and we didn’t need to move or run anymore.

“What can I say?” I shrugged. “I’m a sucker for quality. I traded my brother’s favorite comic porn for Carolina Reaper. He’s going to kill me if he learns about that.”

“I’m going to kill you, you whore!” the man on the floor howled. His bloodshot eyes squinted up at me, rage written in his expression.

I kicked him in the face. “They say you shouldn’t kick a man when he’s down, but I’m a bitch plus a whore,