Free When A Lioness Snarls (A Lion's Pride Book 5) by Eve Langlais Page B

help clear his head. But it did nothing to help those still inside.
    “Hey, you’re not supposed to use that door.” A fellow dressed in unrelieved black, with a lanyard and badge declaring he was staff, grabbed the door and blocked their exit. He glared at Jeoff, the tip of his cigarette dangling from his mouth, gray smoke curling from it.
    “Just the thing I need,” Jeoff remarked. He snagged the burning cigarette and slipped back inside, ignoring the “What the fuck are you doing?” from the guy.
    What he was doing was putting an end to the five-alarm orgy by declaring a one-alarm fire. The city insisted on businesses adhering to their fire codes, and one of them insisted on smoke alarms, lots of them, especially in places like these where folks liked to sneak a few puffs of Mary Jane or something a little stronger.
    Snaring a stray napkin from the floor, Jeoff ignited it with the lit tip of the cigarette. It immediately began to smoke, the acrid stench reviving him from the erotic pull that still existed in the club. He dropped the burning napkin into a waste bin and returned to the door to find Luna leaning against it, standing over the inert body of the bouncer.
    “Please tell me you didn’t kill him.” The paperwork would suck.
    “Nope, just got him to sleep on the job.” She grinned at him. “Idiot never saw it coming.”
    Humans never expected to get taken down by someone they thought weaker than them. They saw a petite blonde, with a devilish grin and a tight body, and never expected her wicked left hook. Apparently, Luna was champion when it came to knocking folks out. Or so rumor claimed. Jeoff preferred to not experience it for himself.
    As he exited through the door, an alarm sounded, strident in pitch. More unexpected, though, was the sprinklers that turned on, dousing the room in a cold shower. As sanity returned under the chilly deluge, he heard at least one person exclaim, “What the fuck just happened?”
    What the fuck indeed.
    Exiting into the alley, he let the door slam shut behind him, but he doubted it would remain closed for long given what he’d done.
    Eyes somewhat glazed and her lips swollen from the kiss, Luna frowned as she swayed on her feet. “What’s wrong with me?” The words were slightly slurred. “Did you feed me a roofie?”
    “Not me, but I think someone in the club did.” He curled an arm around her waist. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
    Luna leaned into him as they moved up the alley between buildings. Behind them, he heard the door slam open, hitting the building’s brick wall. A cacophony of noise filled the night air as people spilled out with excited chatter.
    Turning the corner, he and Luna left them behind and, for the second time in as many days, heard the distant sound of sirens.
    Luna stumbled, and his arm tightened around her. “You okay?” he asked.
    “No. Someone drugged me.” She sounded most put out.
    “Someone drugged all of us.”
    “But how? I mean, I only had a few sips of my drink. Other people in there were drinking way longer, and yet we all started acting crazy at the same time.”
    “I don’t know what it was.” But he suspected a certain glittery dust. “Maybe there was something in the air.” A something he didn’t scent because of all the perfumes and sweat already masking odors in the place.
    She turned in his arms, placing her hands on his chest. “Do you think what happened is related to the missing couples?”
    “I don’t know. I mean, getting a room full of people to decide to have an orgy is a far cry from kidnapping and wiping all traces of them.”
    Her nose wrinkled. “I was like a pussy in heat. If it weren’t for you, we might have gotten down and dirty. How come you weren’t affected?”
    He’d blame the lingering drugs for saying, “I was affected, but I will note that I don’t need any drugs to get horny around you.”
    The words escaped, and he wanted to take them back, except…a brilliant