I grab Gabby's arm and pull her sideways, away from the red light and the bodies and whatever is happening behind those curtains.
"How did he get here?" I keep my voice low. "What is he doing here?"
Gabby blinks at me. "Who? What are you—"
"Amasten." I jerk my chin toward the couch. "Amasten Zakiel is here. What is he doing here?"
Gabby follows my gaze. Her face shifts. "Oh. Oh shit."
"Don't be obvious about it," I say immediately.
She turns back. "That's… interesting."
"That's what you're going with?"
"Benny, I don't know — I just got the text. Nobody told me anything about who owned this place."
I turn to Clarke. "You said you'd been around here before."
Clarke holds both hands up. "The area. I said the area. I didn't say I'd been to this." She gestures at the underground room, the red lighting, the pool, the sounds from behind the curtains we're all choosing to ignore. "How was I supposed to know this existed?"
A beat.
"I went to an underground pool party once," Gabby offers. "Different city though."
She leans closer, voice dropping. "This feels very discreet. The kind of discreet that has rules."
"It clearly has rules," I say. "Which brings me back to why they invited us here."
I pause as a sound drifts from somewhere behind a curtain to our left. I won't comment on it.
What I will note — privately, only to myself — is that the scent in this room is overwhelming if you know how to read it. Wolves. Plural. Dominant ones, most of them, the kind with territory and rank and the specific confidence that comes from never having been challenged hard enough. They're everywhere in this room, mixed in with the humans, and none of the humans have any idea.
Clarke and Gabby can't smell it. They never could.
I can. And across the room, draped in girls and looking like he owns the floor he's standing on — because he probably does — Amasten Zakiel is the loudest scent in the entire space.
"Call him," Clarke says to Gabby. "The guy from the phone. Find out where he is."
She dials. The music swallows everything. She tries again. Nothing.
"Forget it." She starts typing. "I'll text—"
A hand lands on her shoulder.
We all jump.
"Ladies." The invite guy materializes from the crowd — mid-twenties, easy smile, eyes that don't quite match it. "You made it. Sorry about the phone thing. Had to be sure it was you."
Gabby exhales. "Okay. So what is this? You said pool party."
He scratches the back of his neck. "Can't exactly advertise, you know? Had to be discreet."
I stare at him. "Is this discreet?"
"Super discreet. VIP only." He grins. "You should be flattered."
Clarke crosses her arms. "We're here for the goods. Where's the back room?"
"All in good time. First, drinks. You're paying good money — least we can do is let you enjoy the vibe."
Gabby looks at me. I look at Clarke. Clarke's jaw does that thing where she's deciding whether to argue.
The guy whistles. An attendant appears with a small iron tray.
"Ladies. Your phones."
Gabby hesitates. "What?"
"House rules. No capturing of any kind. You'll get them back when you leave."
Clarke opens her mouth.
"It's fine," I say.
And I mean it — not because I'm comfortable here, but because my phone is presumably vibrating itself to death with missed calls from Alexandra, and the idea of handing it over and not having to think about any of that for a few hours is the best thing I've heard all day. I take it out and set it on the tray.
Gabby follows. Clarke follows with the expression of someone making a sacrifice.
The attendant disappears. We follow the guy through the crowd, past things Clarke and Gabby are cataloguing as entertainment and I'm cataloguing differently — who's dominant, who's submissive, who's posturing, who's the real thing. It's automatic. I hate that it's automatic.
We hit the bar.
Long, dark-topped, backlit beautifully. The bartender looks up.
"What will the ladies have?"
Gabby leans on the counter. "Fruity margarita."
"Cocktail," Clarke says.
"Dry gin," I say.
The guy nods at the bartender, turns back to us. Clarke's scanning the room, expression shifting from exit-strategy to something closer to interest.
"It's really something down here." She whistles low. "Joining one of those groups doesn't sound terrible."
The guy's eyebrows go up. "It's not off the table. But the real thing's about to start."
Gabby and I look at each other. "Real thing?"
Clarke leans in. "Tell me more."
"The boss is hosting a freak-off contest. Members are being selected as we speak."
Clarke's eyes light up. "Is there a prize?"
"And where do we sit as the audience?" Gabby cuts in.
The guy looks at me, looks at Clarke, grins wider. "Prize is a hundred thousand euros. But you can only qualify with a partner."
"So it can be anybody?"
"Yeah. Game's in fifteen minutes though. You might want to decide fast."
"Benny will be my partner."
I choke on nothing. "Huh? Why?"
Clarke grabs my arm. Pulls me close. Her mouth finds my ear.
"Master in dom-sub."
I pull back and look at her face to see if she's performing.
She is not performing.
Not far behind us, someone moans loud enough to cut through the beat.
"Clarke."
"Hundred thousand euros, Benny."
"Clarke—"
"Each."
Gabby is holding her margarita with both hands and studying the ceiling like she finds the architecture fascinating.
I should say no. I should say no and find the back room and get what we came for and leave, because this place is crawling with wolves and the most dominant one in the room has spent the last ten minutes very carefully not looking in my direction, which somehow bothers me more than if he had been.
My wolf noticed. My wolf is still noticing. The locked, rigid alertness from the crash has loosened into something worse — a low, constant awareness, like a frequency I can't tune out, pointed entirely at the far side of this room.
He still hasn't looked at me.
"Each," I repeat.
Gabby takes a long sip of her margarita.
"Each," Clarke confirms.
I look once more across the room. Amasten, drink in hand, laughing at something, completely indifferent to my existence.
I turn back to Clarke.
"Fine."