Steele Read Online Free Page A

again. If these bastards came back again, she wasn’t going to have whatever backup she had now. “If you do come back, you’d better have all your ducks in a row because I won’t be so polite then.”
    The two men ignored her, but not the man still holding her. When she tried to turn to watch the two leave, he held her tighter. Her cat purred along her skin again, and Kari felt slightly panicky. Pulling away from him, she took a few steps before turning around. There were enough men standing in her bar right now that she could have had a nice game of football. They were certainly big enough for it. And they didn’t look as if they needed any pads. Then, as if there was a signal that only they could hear, they moved back from her and the man that had spoken.
    Kari watched as they all sat down at different tables before she looked at the man again. “I didn’t need your help. I had it well under control.”
    “I’m sure you did.” He was laughing at her. She could hear it in his voice. “I was just wanting to make sure that they understood that you had it under control as well.”
    Moving as far from him as she could, she stepped behind the bar again. Her cat didn’t care for the move, and she had to take several deep breaths to calm her. Kari wasn’t really happy right now either, and her stupid other self wasn’t helping. The man sat at the bar but made no move to speak to her. As she stood there watching him, she could see a hint of a smile on his face.
    “Better now?” She nodded. For some reason she thought he knew what she was. “Good. I’m sorry to have stepped on your toes. But I could tell that you were going to get hurt and I just didn’t want that to happen. Not tonight.”
    The door opened again, but she didn’t look. The man in front of her had her full attention. He was…something. Kari wasn’t sure what, but he wasn’t wholly human. When he ordered a beer, she poured him one and sat it in front of him as she picked up her rag again. This time instead of wiping down the spotless bar, she took it to the back room and held it to her mouth as she screamed into it.
    Her body burned. Kari’s cat wanted out. And she was pretty sure that over the next few days, if not tonight, those two men she’d tossed out—or he’d tossed out—were going to come for her. Would nothing ever fucking go right for her? Her entire life had been a series of one fuck up after another, and she was fucking sick of it.
    Looking at the desk in the far corner, she could see the bills piled there. Overdue was printed on nearly all of them. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the fucking paycheck she’d gotten this morning couldn’t be cashed either. The guy she worked for was going to be surprised if she just locked up and left shit the way it was when or if he ever decided to return. In the next month she was going to be out of a job, a place to live, and any kind of security she had, according to the letter from the bank she’d signed for earlier today. She was so fucked right now that she just wanted to crawl into a corner and cry. After splashing cold water on her face, she went back out. The man at the bar had been joined by two of the other men, but she ignored them all. Instead, she started going over the inventory that she was going to have to bring up tomorrow.
    The driver who had come by today to give her what she’d ordered had told her that was it. Until the bill was paid, she was going to be shit out of luck as far as liquor was concerned. She had news for him; she’d been that for a while now. Lucky for her—or not, depending on how you looked at it—she lived above this place and didn’t have to worry about her rent being cut off too…at least for the time being. Thirty days was all she had left to stay there.
    She poured three more beers, all of them on tap, and one bottle as the patrons came and went. She noticed the lone man who only stared off into space, but she didn’t care enough to see what