“Fucking obviously.”
“A bar for sellswords.” A man at the table chipped in more information.
“It’s busy. Do none of you work?”
“We are working. For you, from what I understand,” the same man explained.
Eyes widening, I glanced around the bar again. “Is everyone here working for me?”
Altair nodded. “We took the contacts we got from your friend and combined them with our contacts, and here you have it. An entire team of people ready and willing to get the job done for a bit of your coin. Well, Nolan’s coin. He’s the bank in your relationship. We’ve rented the bar to keep everyone satisfied until they’re needed. Soon, I hope?”
His intact eye glittered with excitement.
“Soon,” I promised. “Within twenty-four hours, most likely. Anyone who’s drunk had better start sobering up.”
“Some of these men do their best work drunk on this piss beer,” the man said.
I turned to him with a raised eyebrow, unsure why he deigned it necessary to keep giving his input on a conversation I’d never tried to involve him in. “And you are?”
“Ward,” he said, holding out a hand.
Before I could shake it, Emmett did.
Ward arched an eyebrow, but accepted the handshake before dropping his hand to rest on his lap. His posture was casual, his blue eyes full of curiosity. He pointed at the other two men.
“This here is my brother, Vaughn. And that’s Calloway.”
Vaughn was a more dishevelled version of Ward, his face sporting a scruffy beard instead of being shaved clean. His hair was long as well, gathered into a bun at the nape of his neck. There were a multitude of metal necklaces and bracelets draped on him, and he was spinning one as he stared at me warily. Calloway was the biggest of the group, leather vest stretched taut over his pecs. He had the least weapons on him because he was a shifter. Like Em, he would have to discard them to shift. All three of them were Alphas.
Emmett nodded. “You’re from the Ridges.”
“Why do you say?” Ward asked.
“I’m from the Ridges.”
Ward looked him up and down doubtfully. “You look like you were born and raised on Earth.”
“I would’ve preferred that. Which clan are you from?”
“Archer Heights. You?”
“Luna Valley.”
Understanding lit up Ward’s expression. The clan name meant nothing to me, but I’d been in some of Emmett’s memories from when he’d lived there. It wasn’t an environment fit for a child. My mate had left under some fucked up circumstances when he was only seventeen.
“Yeah, if I were from there I’d have preferred Earth too. As it is, I prefer it here. We do jobs and then head home with the money and supplies, staying for a few weeks before doing it all over again.”
Em had said people didn’t travel often in Zemterra, so his clan had clearly been different in how it ran. Maybe it relied on merchants coming through as opposed to members going out and procuring supplies on their own?
Whatever. It didn’t matter to me right now.
Retrieving a handwritten letter from the pocket of my coat, I handed it to Altair. “Have a messenger deliver this to Kylan’s mansion. Grey, specifically.”
“And it’s got the instructions in it, for where you plan on meeting him for your part of the plan?” Altair confirmed, tucking it securely into a pocket of his leather vest.
I nodded, winding my arm through Em’s. He had calmed a bit, but was watching Altair’s company warily. The men didn’t seem unkind, but I knew better than to trust and so did my mates. Oswald and Nolan finally came over. They didn’t touch each other, which was weird to see, but I understood why Nolan was portraying this unaffected facade in public.
“How will we know the second part of the plan is in motion?” Altair asked.
