His Royal Highness Prince Aidan of the Nexus walked into the dingy bar deep in the Outlands. The music was loud and everything was allowed. Even before they had come out to the humans, this city had been a den of debauchery and indulgence for the humans. Now it was filled with all sorts of species who cared nothing about the war about to rage around them. They just wanted to feed, fuck and be merry.

He used to love it here. He could fill his tank here without having to go home. Now he couldn’t even get hard so his only option was all these second-hand emotions.

He walked past a couple who didn’t care that they were naked right in the middle of the room and found a quiet spot at the bar. There was a human next to him who looked and smelled like he was high out of his mind. He’d be someone’s meal before the night was out.

But he wasn’t going to worry about that. Any human who came in here knew what they were getting themselves into.

“Long time, buddy. Where’s your friend?”

Aidan looked up at the Elven bartender as he set his usual drink in front of him.

“Got himself a mate,” Aidan answered as he threw the shot back.

“Yeah, I heard. Poor bastard,” the elf laughed.

Contrary to popular human belief, Elves came in all shapes and sizes. Eddie was a giant dude with bulging muscles. No one fucked with him. He could slit anyone’s throat before they even realised they were dead. Really fast for an elf.

“Yeah,” he said.

Poor bastard? Lucky one. His mate wanted him, and they were going to live happily ever after if they managed to stay alive long enough. But he was stuck in this limbo because his mate didn’t even know who he was.

Eddie refilled his glass and he downed it again.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like someone just died. By now you’d have been all over the ladies,” Eddie stated.

“Nothing wrong,” he said as he asked for another shot.

Nothing wrong except his mate was trying to hook up with another male, and he couldn’t even get it up to be with anyone else. And to top it all he was fucking starving and the only way to get him enough energy was to go back to the pack lands and stay close to Marcus and Dani for a little while. He’d given up his birthright for this, and he was going to starve before he was of any real use to them.

A couple of witches walked into the bar and he tensed. Flashes of being captured weeks ago filtered through his mind. He didn’t look at them as they walked past, and as he listened to their conversation he realised they were just discussing what they were going to buy as a birthday present for someone. Normal stuff. Nothing to do with imprisoning him so they could harness his power to destroy his pack.

The guilt hit him again at that. He was stronger than anything in this realm, yet three dark witches had managed to imprison him and take his power. How had they even known how to do that? Now he hadn’t even been able to go into Scarlet City to gather information because there was a whole coven of them there. They were protecting the city and he had been too chicken shit to go past the boundary to get the information his alphas needed.

The Fae had disappeared, too. There was no trace of them anywhere, not even Oliver, the one that his alpha had let go. It didn’t make sense that they had attacked them twice and worked with Jackson only to let Dani win that fight. Something was going on and he couldn’t get the information.

He was failing his pack on all fronts.

The sounds coming from one of the back rooms hit his ears and he let all of that sexual energy fill him. It wouldn’t be enough to do much except getting him to the next spot but it would have to do.

“So what have you heard, Eddie,” he asked. He kept his voice low so the other supernaturals wouldn’t hear him above the loud music and sounds of lovemaking.

“Nothing good,” Eddie replied. “I wouldn’t stay here too long if I was you. King Aragorn wants you, and whatever that bastard wants can’t be good for anyone.”

Eddie had a deep distrust for the establishment, hence why he had chosen to exile himself and set up shop in the lawless Outerlands. But the Elves had always generally kept out of anyone else’s business. There was no bad blood between them and Marcus and Dani that he was aware of unless you counted the fact that during the war the great Marcello had slaughtered a lot of them.

Yeah, it was probably best to keep away until he knew what the Elven King wanted.

If he had his full dose of power, he could have just spied on the king the way he used to before he had bound himself to this realm.

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” he said to Eddie as he opened up his senses to feed on everyone else.

It was as he did that that he felt the familiar power entering the bar. It was so strong he was practically salivating for a taste of it even as his mind was screaming for him to escape.

But he stayed in his seat until the power came right next to him. The spaced-out human was pushed off his seat as someone else took his place.

“You’ve been a hard male to find, brother.”