Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“Here,” I say, reaching over and helping her untangle it.
Her big blue eyes come my way, and it’s like she’s holding her breath, which is when I realize how close I’m standing to her. I try not to let it—or her dizzying perfume and tight dress—affect me. “There,” I say as I get her hand free, my voice suddenly deeper.
“Thanks,” she says and then spins away. “Come on, we don’t want to miss her if she’s here.”
Oh right. We’re here on a mission, not a date. Besides, we’re married already. No need to date if you’re already married. Not that it’s that kind of marriage. I shake my head, trying to make all the stupid thoughts shake loose.
Time to get in the game, jackhole.
“So what are we looking for, exactly?” I whisper to Phoenix as we approach the bouncer. There’s only a small line outside the club, and we take our spot at the back.
“Anything out of the ordinary. Any woman who looks like she’s on the prowl or leading a guy out of there.”
I look around. Most folks are already paired up. “Night like this, that might be hard to tell.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m sure we’ll know it when we see it.”
Skeptical, I nod anyway. I can’t be mad about getting to spend my Friday night dressed up with Phoenix at a swanky downtown club. Even if we are spirit-hunting.
“You go in and flirt with anything that moves,” she says, “and we’ll see if we can get any hooks on the line.”
“What does that mean?”
She rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. “You know, seduction recon. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that before.”
I look upwards, shrugging and staying quiet.
“Oh, come on, Lay,” she rolls her eyes even harder. “What have you been up to the last ten years?”
I just turn my eyes on her. “Studying with the best techs and mages in the world to find out how to get revenge on my family. And when that didn’t work, or, well, when I forgave them instead, I just sort of… Well, you know the rest since I got back in touch with Sabra last year. I never had time for women.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “I just assumed…” Then she looks me up and down, reaches over, undoes the top two buttons of my shirt, and fusses with the collar. My beast leaps at the brush of her fingertips against my skin. “Look aloof. Turn down anyone who asks you to dance unless you see me signal.”
“Oh yeah? And how will you know who it is?”
“I’ll know.”
“How? Is there something about spirits—”
She rolls her eyes. “Look, you’ll be the hottest guy in there, and I know women. Human women will approach you differently than a goddess would. They won’t have the same confidence and will play dumb games. She won’t. Just watch me for the signal.”
Does she know that from experience? What has she been up to for the last ten years? I know better than to ask. She was confident when I first met her, but now she’s… incandescent with this surety in everything she does.
Except around the dickhead professor. I frown.
“That’s perfect,” Phoenix grins at me. “Just keep looking broody like that. Women eat that shit up.”
I roll my eyes, and she claps me on the shoulder as we get to the front of the line of the club. “Here we go, champ.”
The bouncer asks for the cover charge, but Phoenix just leans in. “You want to let us in.”
He stumbles over himself as he leans over to pull back the velvet rope.
“Remember,” she breathes in my ear as we pass through the door.
“I know, I know, the signal. Wait, what exactly is the signal?”
But we’re already through and into the club, and she walks away as if she’s never met me before.
I get it; we’re going incognito. Still, I don’t like losing sight of her in the sea of writhing bodies and strobing lights.
I head for the bar, trying to keep track of Phoenix amid the crowd of people. If I can’t find her, how the hell am I supposed to know what this mysterious signal is? Oh well. Now that she’s told me what to watch out for, maybe I can suss Ammit out myself anyway. Plus, I know that even if I can’t see her, Phoenix will be watching me.
A couple moves away from the bar right as I approach, and I slide onto one of the stools. Unlike Remus, I never found much point in human alcohol, so I don’t know what to order when the bartender yells and asks what I want.
I just repeat the last order I heard. “Whiskey and coke.”
He nods and disappears again. Before it arrives, a woman smoothly seats herself beside me.
She chatters at me in Romanian, angling her barely covered chest toward me before eventually asking me to dance. I’ve always been good with languages, and this is just another variation of an old one I knew long ago.