She was dying for a drink.

Okay, so dying was probably a bad choice of words, considering she’d already died in twelve-hundred-something BC.

Ryal shifted with unease on her stool, clutching the bar for support. The joint’s low-key lights and the loud buzz of human chatter and outdated music were a strain on her charged up nerves. She ran her tongue over her dry lips, thirst pulsing low in her stomach like a hot ache. She was so weak, the worst damage she could do right now was leap at a human and whisper “Boo!”.

“What can I get you?”

Her head snapped to the man behind the bar. She studied him uncertainly. Dark and slim, the weary look in his eyes was edged with impatience.

“A drink?” he repeated, leaning over to wipe the counter’s greasy surface with an even greasier dishrag. “What can I get you?”

Ryal pointed at a blond, muscle-bound man who stood leaning against the bar further away from them, tilting back his beer bottle with a hand encased in a black leather glove.

“Him,” she said.

He snickered. “Christ, what are you on? I’m a bartender, honey, I ain’t your pimp.” He slapped a heavy glass on the counter, pouring in a strong-smelling, amber liquid. “Jack’s on the house,” he said. “Lay off the drugs, they’ll just mess up your pretty little head.”

Ryal ignored the glass, her eyes fixating on the strong pulse beating at the side of the bartender’s neck. She stared for a fraction of a second too long—long enough to make him squirm uncomfortably. Silently cursing her rusty predator’s instincts, she made an effort to curb the raw hunger in her eyes. Wrapping unsteady fingers around the glass, she dragged it to her lips, downing the whiskey in one gulp. The stuff tasted awful—it wasn’t the kind of drink she had in mind.

She managed to shoot the bartender a dirty smile, running her tongue around the rim of the glass as if she were about to blow a big, juicy cock.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, watching her mouth.

“Okay,” she said swiftly. He wasn’t her taste—she preferred the blond—but she was desperate.

Shaking his head, the bartender inched away from her along the bar. “Sorry, babe, I’m on a pussy diet.”

Bastard.

If there ever was a rock bottom, she’d just hit it.

She should’ve known better than to walk into a bar named Booze.

Her eyes followed the bartender as he hunched over the counter and slipped a word to the blond super stud, gesturing her way with his head.

The Viking nodded and chugged his Michelob.

By Zeus, but the blond was a great piece of dick. Not a pound over his ideal weight, and all of it tattooed muscle. His hair was harshly pulled back into a thick braid that swung down to his waist. He had a duster on, but earlier she’d gotten a brief glimpse of his upper chest—just enough to see the intricate tattoos snaking up his neck and slipping underneath his overcoat. She couldn’t wait to see exactly how far down they went.

His gaze swung her way, meeting hers.

Even beneath the dim lights, Ryal’s superb night vision told her that his eyes were razor-sharp and icy-blue…as well as startlingly familiar.

She leaned against the bar, fighting a dizzy spell. Among the blare of Eighties dance music, her acute hearing made it possible to discern the sound of her whiskey glass smashing against the black-and-white checkered linoleum floor.

She was losing her mind.

Hungry for sex and maddened by thirst, she was finally losing it, thinking the tattooed hunk was watching her with Ailig’s eyes.

But she’d watched Ailig die…

“Having second thoughts about fucking me?”

“W-what?” Ryal snapped back to reality, her eyes whipping up to the blond’s face.

He was standing so close to her, the two of them made a solid isle of intimacy amid the bar’s shifting customers. He had but a trace of an accent. His voice was as good as his looks—low and rich, it poured over her like warm brandy.

Ryal’s breath caught in her throat. Even his voice made her wet, for the gods’ sake.

His lips twitched in wry amusement. “The way you were checking me out, it could only mean one of two things.”

“Really?” she murmured.

“Yeah,” he said. “You want to fuck me.”

“That’s one thing,” she replied. “What’s the second?”