Dante repeated the name in his head as soon as the host announced the next dancer to hit the stage at Club Diablo, all while contemplating the ways he could make her pay.
Rebel.
She strutted on stage and he got lost in the sight of her.
Leather vest over a leather micro mini skirt, boots up to her thighs, all revealing the creamy flesh he couldn't keep his hands off no matter how hard he tried.
She'd changed her hair from its original frothy blonde color to a fire engine red. It did not change the level of magnetism he felt looking at her. In fact, it might have made it worse. Red drew the eye and it caught his attention as he watched it cascade down her back and skim the top of her ass. Did he mention what a fantastic ass she had? Dante swallowed a groan. He already knew what it felt like to have his hands cupped around those perfect cheeks and he wanted it again. She might be the twin to his brother's mate, Faith, but in his mind they looked nothing alike.
They were night and day. Light and dark. Wicked and sweet.
His body tightened the more he thought of her until his pants grew uncomfortable and he wanted to drive into something. Preferably her.
Except for the past two weeks she'd kept her distance. Not an actual physical distance since they'd spent a lot of time together trying to find the rogue wolf that bit her sister and the possible hunter that he was beginning to believe might have been a figment of his imagination. How else did he explain no sign of him for two weeks? People disappeared all the time, but Dante wasn't human and it wasn't easy for a human to disappear from a wolf without a trace. Every human carried a unique scent that allowed them to be easily tracked.
Rebel reached for the pole and the thoughts of hunters and rogues disappeared from his mind. Her hips rotated, making him think of sex again. Every thrust and grind as she whipped around the stage like it was nothing drove him higher. How many times had he seen her dance now? He'd lost track. But every time was like the first time as he began silently chanting in his head for her to take off her clothes.
The men around the stage were crowding closer, as they usually did. She was one of their most popular dancers. Hard not to be when she represented everything that one might dream a bad girl would be like.
Beyond the new fiery hair and the tight leather clothes, Rebel had an air about her that anyone could guess came with a pretty big bite.
Maybe it was the tattoos that adorned parts of her. He'd never seen that much ink on a woman, but damn did it turn him on.
Apparently, whenever she traveled to a new place she liked to take home a permanent souvenir. He'd already memorized them all, but had yet to learn the story behind every one. He did know the sugar skull on her back was from a wild weekend in Mexico with some people she barely knew. And the wine bottle wrapped in thorns came from a month in California wine country with some rich guy that she claimed had a fetish for bad girls.
That was another thing about Rebel. She attracted everyone and made friends with nearly all of them. And yet, somehow managed to never let anyone get too close. Even her sister was forced to remain in her life from a distance.
Apparently Rebel didn't carry the twin gene that made them want to be connected at all times.
Although he was pretty sure Faith did. It didn't take a genius to pick up the little nuances of the newest member of their pack.
Whenever she spent time with Rebel, her eyes filled with a sadness that pulled at everyone around her. She didn't think anyone noticed, but he did and so did Rebel.
Whatever was going on inside that women, she didn't like disappointing her sister. The loss of their parents a few years back had created some sort of rift between them and so far neither seemed to know how to fix it. Dante knew this because Damien was on a tear about trying to help them deal with it. His brother was a little nuts about doing whatever it took to make his new mate happy.
Pussy.
The thought of Damien convincing Rebel to do anything made Dante laugh. He couldn't imagine her welcoming any interference from his brother. She was still pissed at all of them. Two weeks back she'd walked into a fight between he and Damien that had resulted in him going wolf and scaring the hell out of her.
Not exactly how he'd wanted her to find out.
Rebel peeled her leather vest off and revealed generous breasts that were now bare except for the red pasties covering her nipples. His mouth watered.
Rebel wasn't like most humans when it came to her body. She wasn't afraid to reveal it in any way and she seemed to revel in showing it off. Although when he asked her about it she said it was all about the money.
Club Diablo paid their dancers very well. As the main business that brought income to the island, it was important to them all to make sure the guests who came in were treated extremely well. By paying the dancers over the norm, they not only got the best talent, they didn't have a lot of turnover, which suited them perfectly. Although it wasn't easy to find strippers that appealed to shifters. They were aggressive and interested in women who were not stick thin. It took a little meat on the bones to handle sex with a wolf.
So they paid extra to find them.
Living on an island might make their pack feel isolated, in reality they weren't. They were surrounded on three sides by a peninsula with a variety of small towns from tiny to average. And with Tacoma so close, Washington didn't feel quite as big as it used to. In fact, with a hunter possibly wandering their lands and a rogue loose at the same time, the real world encroached far more than was comfortable.
Dante scanned the faces in the crowd watching Rebel's performance, looking for a hint of either the hunter or the rogue. All they had to go on was a description of the rogue in wolf form and the scent of the hunter that had more to do with their weapons than the actual person. His pack hated guns and their scent that permeated everything.
He stilled on one quickly becoming familiar face. He didn't know the man, but he recognized him as a repeat customer. Dante took a slow deep breath and filtered through the scents of the room. Not an easy feat with this many people this close and in an aroused state.
Above it all he scented Rebel though. A heady fragrance of jasmine from the lotion she kept in her purse and reapplied often, to the light sheen of sweat that made her body glisten under the lights. She was up on the pole now working it with the strong muscles of her inner thighs. He could easily imagine those long legs of hers wrapped around his waist as he drove into her. He ground his teeth to force down the growl that threatened. Watching her was easy enough, but knowing what went through the minds of the other men as they watched her wasn't. They wanted to fuck her too.
Dante sighed. This is why he and his brothers did not get involved with the dancers if they could help it. Mixing business with pleasure led to disastrous results. His brother, Diego had learned that the hard way when a human dancer wormed her way under his skin and then...
A sharp scent filtered through his scents and Dante jerked his head in the direction. A strong odor of metal. It disappeared as quickly as he scented it. He searched the room for the source. Was the hunter right here under his own nose? He growled, not bothering to hide it. A few of the shifter customers turned their heads and looked.
Either not interested in his business, or reluctant to get involved, they all slowly turned back to the show when they realized he stood nearby. As long as they weren't who he hunted, they had nothing to fear. He had no plans to screw up the good thing they had going here with Club Diablo. This establishment easily funded ninety percent of the island's operation, making it easier for the pack to keep to themselves instead of seeking employment off island.
There were other establishments that contributed to the welfare of the pack, like the diner and motel, but nothing compared to the Diablo. In recent years a few of the pack members had expressed concern about their sole source of income and initiatives had begun for other avenues of revenue. Some old school and some not.
They even had a dot com style start up that some of the pups were working on getting off the ground. Whatever they did was over his head. Other than the things they did online to market Club Diablo, he didn't have much use for technology other than the cell phone he carried around to keep in touch.
Some new catcalls from the stage area again caught his attention and he turned around just in time to see Rebel removing her skirt and throwing it above her head.
His mouth went dry. Like the pasties, the thong she wore was as red as her hair and the gloss she wore on her lips.
Fuck. He wanted to bite that scrap of silk off of her and bury his face between her thighs. They'd gone out a few times after hours as friends and each time things got a little more heated than he'd planned. Hard to stay in control when she seemed as eager as him to engage in some hot fucking sex.
He closed his eyes and reached deep for some shred of sanity that would keep him in place and not stalking to the stage and throwing her over his shoulder and taking her home.
That's what was killing him. This fucking mating season. That had to be why he couldn't stop thinking of laying hands on her. She'd made it perfectly clear she didn't want him anywhere near her anymore.
Unfortunately, everything that came out of her mouth these days filled him with rage. Like her half-baked plan to serve as bait for the rogue that bit her sister. He still couldn't believe that his pack agreed with her. Or that his brothers also went along with the idea.
Bastards.
As if she could hear his thoughts she turned her gaze to his on cue, giving him a look that clearly said fuck you. He clenched his jaw.
"You are a glutton for punishment." His brother Diego walked up next to him, a half smile across his face.
"You think that's funny?"
"Fuck yeah. She makes you squirm and that is a sight to behold."
Dante growled again. "You're supposed to be helping me find our rogue in the crowd not waste time giving me shit."
"I am an excellent multitasker."
It was then he noticed his brother's tight body language. To the casual observer he looked like nothing more than a man enjoying the show, but to him the subtle nuances such as the hard set of his jaw told Dante he was anything but a relaxed onlooker.
"Where's Damien?" he asked.
"Where do you think?" Diego smirked.
Dante sighed. Since turning his new mate wolf two weeks ago, they'd spent every waking moment running or fucking. He loved his brother and was happy he'd reconciled with his true mate, but this was mating season and it was driving them all a little crazier than usual it seemed.
"Any sign of our guy?"
Diego nodded his head. "Just that one dude to the right of the stage sitting in the shadows. His attention is fixated on Rebel, but he looks nervous. He fidgets a lot."
His brother had pointed out the same man he suspected, except he'd missed the nervous tics Diego easily discovered.
"We really going to do this? Just let her walk out of here unprotected?" he asked.
Diego shook his head. "She won't exactly be unprotected. Someone will have eyes on her the whole way."
"It only takes a second for this asshole to bite her or worse. Not even the fastest wolf in our pack will be able to stop that." And the thought of someone hurting her made him angry. A festering wound kind of anger that never relented.
"She's not exactly a pushover, dude."
"No match for a wolf."
Diego scoffed. "She has no problem taking you down."
"That's different." She'd grabbed his crotch and tried to neuter him. "She may not look like it on the outside, but she's vulnerable. And this is a bad idea."
Diego turned to him. "She made up her mind and she's determined. I agree that it's a dangerous thing for a human to take on. But I get why she needs to do it. You know as well as I do that you have to let her do this. Otherwise, she'll never trust the pack and you know we can't live with that."
Dante tried to ignore his brother's logic, but it was impossible. Without trust she'd have difficulty keeping their secrets. This wasn't what he hoped for her. He thought when she found out about his kind she'd be more on board. Everything he'd seen and learned about her said she had a very open mind.
"No, we can't have that," he admitted. There was no greater priority than keeping their existence a secret. Especially now that extremists with more hate than logic, were turning hunters more and more these days.
"Any sign of the hunter?"
Diego shook his head.
"Someone took a shot at the wolf in front of Faith. And that bullet casing I found smelled like silver. Hunter or not someone knows something and they could fuck one of us up if they're screwing around."
Dante turned his attention back to the stage when he realized Rebel's music was beginning to fade. The fake smoke filled the front and all he saw was the swing of her wicked red hair and the sway of bare hips...
Diego walked closer and nudged his side. "Time to take our places, bro. Don't worry. She's going to be fine."
Dante frowned. "Isn't there a stupid saying about famous last words?"
