Viola fought him like the hellcat she was but her fight was as weak as her spirit had turned after learning that she didn’t have a twin.

"Let go of me..." She muttered, hitting at his chest, but Sebastian didn’t listen. He used his leg to push the car door shut and then walked away from it with her in his arms.

She didn’t fight him again after that. It was like she had lost the will and the strength to do so, and Sebastian wished she would at least argue with him, but she did neither and it broke something quietly inside him. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He who had always prided himself on controlling his mate bond couldn’t control a single thing when it came to her. Their emotions and moods had intertwined to the point where her pain affected him far more than he would ever have welcomed or allowed any she-wolf to affect him before.

Sebastian carried her to the small hotel and checked them in. However he didn’t go straight to the room but instead headed to the nightclub attached to the hotel, where the music was already blasting loud enough to feel before you even stepped through the door.

The club was packed with werewolves, flashing colored lights bouncing off moving bodies on the floor. The people who noticed him coming through gave him strange looks and parted to let him pass toward the bar counter where he was headed.

Viola didn’t stir even with the loud music blasting around them, but she came to life at the sight of bottles being lined up on the bar counter when he set her down on one of the stools.

He sat down beside her and before he could place an order with the bartender, his wife had already raised her index finger to signal one for herself. He realized this wasn’t her first time in a nightclub from the easy way she did it, like someone who knew exactly what they wanted and how to ask for it.

"Where are you two coming from?" Asked the female bartender as she handed the bottle to Viola and gave Sebastian a cocky look. It was obvious the two of them weren’t from Nightshade, thought the bartender. They looked too put together, too clean for a place like this. She’d seen all sort of people, but fresh looking and good smelling wasn’t among them here.

"From Hell." Sebastian remarked flatly as he grabbed a bottle for himself and turned to watch his wife begin to gulp hers down like it was the end of the world.

He wanted to caution her to slow down but then he knew she would only open up to him once the drink loosened her enough, and he needed her to pour out the pain she had been pressing down inside herself since they left the orphanage. He didn’t want to part ways with her while she was like this because he would worry about her the entire time.

The bartender laughed and leaned against the counter, settling herself in as if she had just found the most interesting customers of her night.

"What a funny guy. There is no hell around here, there is dust and dirt. So are you going to tell me the real answer?" She winked at him, twirling her brunette hair around her finger and chewing gum with her mouth open.

She had a black choker around her neck that Sebastian fleetingly thought he could choke her with if she didn’t mind her business, but her very red lips curved into a smile as her eyes moved over him with open interest.

"I like your eyes. I have never seen that shade around here. Does Mr. Handsome have a name? I am Jasmine, by the way, but you can call me Jaz. Everyone knows me around here. I am not only a bartender, I can be a male tender too depending on what service you want. So what do you think, handsome?" She winked at him in a clear invitation.

"Are you paid to question your customers?" Viola cut in after finishing her first bottle, her voice flat and her eyes sliding to the bartender.

The beer had already burned a trail down her throat and as her numbing grief began to dull at the edges, a very sharp irritation rose to replace it at the sight of this woman trying to flirt with her husband directly in front of her. Was she blind not to see he had come in here with a woman?

"Geez, can’t a girl get a little curious about who her customers are, especially when one of them is this easy on the eyes?" The girl replied with a tight smile, giving Viola a hostile look. They obviously weren’t mates because there was no mark on the man, so what exactly was this bitch getting worked up about?

"Your curiosity is going to earn your damaged hair getting ripped out. He is off limits. Go and attend to your other customers and keep your nosy questions to yourself." Viola warned in a low dangerous voice.

She was already running on dangerously high emotions tonight and she would not hesitate to let every last bit of it out on this woman’s hair if she didn’t stop looking at her husband like that. As much as Viola thought she wanted to keep a distance from Sebastian and allow him to do whatever he wanted, it was easier said than done.

"And who do you think you are to warn me off him?" The girl challenged, not budging an inch. She was used to flirting her way to whatever she wanted from the men who came through this bar, but this one didn’t even need to pay her. Jaz would take the man to bed for free, for she hadn’t bedded a fresh looking guy in a very long time.

But this bitch was getting in the way of her flirting to get him in the mood. Who did she think she was? A clean whore he picked up on his way? 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Instead of answering, Viola turned to her husband, grabbed him by the collar with both fists, the beer already clouding her head and dissolving every wall she had been trying so hard to hold up, and she jerked him forward and kissed him hard on the lips.