If Sin hadn’t learned anything else in the world, it was that Fairy Godmothers sucked, happily ever afters never happened, and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with another worthless Prince Charming who didn’t know how to keep his dick in his pants.

Yeah, she thought. Love was a bitch.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe it could happen. Hell, she’d been the stupid little girl once, abused by her filthy step-sisters and step-mother because her father had been bespelled by the sorceress witch. Sin remembered her mother, and the relationship her mother had with Sin’s father. That had been a couple really in love, and it was the only shining example that Sin ever had in her life. Because, surely, marrying the damn Prince of Elsia had been the worst decision her now cold heart had ever made simply because a Fairy Assmother had put her damn hand in it.

It hadn’t taken long after the blissful nuptials to find Prince Charming riding good old Rapunzel in her damn tower because they would have some privacy. Or to find him jumping Aurora’s bones because, why not, Zel’s own knight liked playing around with Maleficent anyway. Even Sin thought Mal was more fun and should have put a longer sleep spell on Aurora and then everyone would have been happy. Aurora hadn’t been the nicest or princesses anyway, before she’d been put to sleep. Sin wouldn’t trust a woman who liked sleeping with men that didn’t belong to her, and Mal had put Aurora out of her own misery putting her to sleep until she’d found true love. A little tame, by most standards, but it worked. At least Mal might have a chance to get her knight back … That was if she wanted him. The only thing a Fairy Godmother did for Sin was send her as far away from Elsia as possible, in another time and place, where she could be her own woman, and forget the need of having in man in her life.

Things were so much better now because of that—well, as long as she ignored the one man that tugged at her heartstrings and made her want to climb him.

“Sin, Ace in on stage four, and the women are going crazy,” Walter, her head of floor security said to her over the communications unit in her ear. He was a welcome distraction from the head of her overall security detail.

Or did she just think about him again? Ugh.

“Tell him there’s a Bachelorette party coming in to booth fifteen when he’s done. They have requested him personally this evening. Tell Franco that he might have to entertain Rose’s boys tonight, and have Sloane with him if they have a larger party,” Sin sent back, mentally tallying how much the private parties alone had filled her register already. Franco, Barbie, and Sloane were her LGBT clientele favorites, and they brought in quite a penny from drunk frat boys and corporate events. Barbie, especially, because she could give the best of both worlds. Ace was Sin’s lead stripper, and women just went gaga over his piecing blue eyes and blond curls. Something about him looking like the dude playing Achilles. Sin could appreciate the draw. He just wasn’t her type. Not rugged enough. She liked her sex rough, nasty, and just a bit dangerous. Pretty boy slick didn’t appeal. Too much like the asshole she’d left behind.

Tobias isn’t a pretty boy and can give you just what you want. Her treacherous thoughts were going to be the death of her tonight. She didn’t need to think about Tobias. She needed to work and make sure her place was going like it should be. Plus, when she was working she was the one doling out punishment to women and men alike, and Tobias didn’t take punishment. He gave it. No one touched her, not anymore, and he’d want to. A few humps in the dark had taught her that felt as empty as her farce of a marriage. She liked making money and spending it. She loved fixing others, so they never had to go through what she went through. An impossible feat, but it kept her warm at night. She didn’t need him there.

“Need more vodka at bar three,” Trix, her head bartender, called to her. Rule one in a strip club, have female bartenders. Women didn’t really care about standing at the bar all night ogling hot guys just within reach if there weren’t any there, and didn’t worry too much how much they were drinking.

“Then get your ass over to the back and get it,” Sin ordered. “Have Rachel take over for you until you are done. Stock all the bars tonight. We’ve got three parties and Rose is coming by with her brood. It’s going to get wild.”

Rose. Now that was a girl that knew how to party. One of the other misfits that resided on Fantasy Ave, Rose was Sin’s right hand. She ran Spirits Emporium, which exclusively stocked the alcoholic beverages of every company on Fantasy Avenue—from Ari’s Glide and Slide to Blanche’s Poison Apple. Home to the women their worthless Fairy Godmother had screwed in their happily never afters, they’d bonded together and created a world of pleasure, entertainment, and, well, sometimes more pointed desires.

“Speak of the devil,” Sin said, spinning on her six inch, thigh-high, black leather boots when she saw Rose enter Sin’s Pleasure, the premier all male review club on the East coast. Sin tossed her light pink hair over her shoulder, smiling and waiting as Rose came closer. Sin had gone for gothic caramel seductress tonight with a PVC corset around her waist with a pastel pink bra to top it off. She had black elbow fingerless gloves with pretty pink bows up the sleeve. She rocked smoky eyes with a tar black lipstick. Most of her clients came from her advertising, but, every once in a while, one of Rose’s guys wanted to play. Rose wore an all red leather suit, her trademark color, that looked more like she could be someone’s fantasy for the night. Her red curls were wild around her heart-shaped face.

“Good to see you made it,” Sin said to Rose with a smile.

“You know I would. Not all pleasure tonight though,” Rose added.

“Oh? What’s up?” Sin asked, eyes scanning the crowd for any problems.

“Your office?” Rose returned, already turning around and heading to the back of the club. Rose nodded to some of her guys, six of the big boys at that, as she passed the bar they waited at for drinks. They enjoyed the show, and Rose liked bringing them in for a private party every once in a while. Their dancers were always paid handsomely, and Sin had a feeling it was in more ways than one. Sin would have to ask to watch one time.

Sin hurried to lead Rose into her area, unlocking her back door and then heading upstairs. The noise from the club dampened as they went higher, the noise cancelation Sin had installed had been for her as much for peace of mind as for her clients when they went to her dungeon. The private quarters housed Sin’s loft apartment, her office, and her dungeon, much farther back. Tobias, her guard, waved at her as she passed him to go into her office. That was his post, and it helped when she had clients. A former medic in the Marines, Tobias could handle himself, and anyone else for that matter, and was cool under pressure. Sin relied on him when she did her job, to make sure everyone stayed safe.

And if she could open her heart, he’d keep her safe too. She could see it in his vivid green eyes. But she couldn’t. They’d never stepped on that boundary, not once, but it sizzled between them whenever she looked at him. She could feel her body getting hot, even now as he tossed a mischievous smile her way. God the man was sex on a stick with his buzz cut brown hair and brawny shape. He was as big as a linebacker but quick enough to blitz attack. She craved his touch more than she could admit. It didn’t help that he was covered in tattoos and rode a mean Harley. Rough and dirty sex was all she saw when she looked at him. Just what she needed. She just didn’t need the attachment that came with it. But she didn’t trust anyone to have her back like him, so he stayed. She didn’t think she could make him go if she wanted to. She hurried to her office, not wanting his eyes on her any longer.

Once in her office, Rose sat on the couch against the wall as Sin sat at her desk before she spoke. “What can I do for you Rose?”

“I’ve got a client for you.”

“You know this isn’t how it goes. I have to talk to them, find out their needs, what they like, what they don’t. I have to know what they hope to get from our sessions, and gauge if it’s what I’ll provide,” Sin answered, already shaking her head.

“It’s one of my pack, Sin,” Rose said, closing her eyes with a sigh. Sin froze. It wasn’t often that Rose talked about her pack, or even called them that. Sin had gotten used to calling Rose’s pack her boys. It wasn’t actually correct, but it helped keep down confusion. When Rose had been in Elsia, she’d been known as Little Red. Her Fairy Godmother had thought, mistakenly, that Rose wanted her Big Bad Wolf gone, and put the lumberjack in the wolf’s way to get chopped to little doggy bag pieces. Rose? She’d been crushed. The wolf had been everything that Rose had ever wanted, and had changed her into a werewolf to live with him. He’d been hiding in the grandmother’s house to come visit Rose, not to kill her and her grandmother. Rose had taken over his pack and forced the Fairy to send them all where Sin had been sent, to the human world. Rose would do anything for her pack, anything. Even ask for Sin’s help.

“I’m listening,” Sin said then.

“Zuriah won’t yield,” Rose said after a minute.

“To you?”

“To anyone. He doesn’t want to be the alpha, and I don’t want him to either. We aren’t mates. But he won’t yield to my authority, or to any of the males. They can’t mount him without coming away bloody. He can’t mount them because they are dominant and can’t take being a bottom. He won’t take a mate, no one grabs his attention. He’s causing chaos in the pack order.”

Sin knew that Rose’s pack acted more like wolves in the wild. Males could mount males like they did a woman. It was about dominance and love at once. There was no sense of heterosexual versus homosexual. They simply were. Love was love, and it didn’t matter a stitch who they found it with. So Sin was sure that wasn’t the issue. He needed to be taught how to accept dominance, or he needed to learn that he was dominant and, perhaps, start his own pack if he wouldn’t take Rose.

“I’ll need to talk to him, Rose. Need to know where his head is. If I can do it, I will.”

“Your rate still 250 an hour?” Rose asked.

“Not for you.”

“I pay my way, Sin. Next shipment of top shelf is on me. How about that?” Sin knew a shipment of top shelf liquor to her establishment was big bucks, but she knew that Rose wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Fine, Rose. Get him to me, and I’ll take it from there.”

“Won’t have to wait that long. He’s here. Got time to talk now?”

“Doesn’t look like I have a choice,” Sin muttered as Rose closed her eyes again. The pack could speak with telepathy and Sin always felt her hair stand on end when Rose used it near her. After a moment Rose opened her eyes again.

“He’s heading back here. He can follow my scent.”