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She was better than that.
As she dropped her hands from her face, her eyes immediately went back to where he’d stopped in traffic. He and his well-dressed mouth-flapper were nowhere in sight, probably because Shuli had dragged their argument into that alley at the other side of the club.
“Goddamnit,” she muttered.
Fucking biology. What thehellwas she doing even thinking like—
“What thehellare you doing?”
As she jumped and looked toward the sharp, disapproving voice, she wondered if the Scribe Virgin had decided to come back to Caldwell and deliver some destiny to her for all the rose-colored glasses her libido kept forcing on her face. Or maybe it was a time-out for getting bitchy with Bitty earlier.
Oh. Great.The night was getting even better. It was not themahmenof the species. It was a six-foot-tall female in a black bodysuit and thigh-high boots, whose sheen of straight blond hair fell to the contours of her absolutely perfect ass, and whose face sucked up all the attention of the men and women around them.
Okay, some of the would-ya-look-at-thatwas no doubt also her spectacular, gravity-defying tits that clearly were not bra’d.
Nalla couldn’t even fake a smile. If she was deflated before, she felt positively run over by a sexy semi. “Hey, Mharta.”
“Why are you waiting here?” The female sported the expression of someone presented with a particle physics equation and no scratch paper. “We don’t wait.”
Shedidn’t wait. Mharta could probably get paid to go into the club.
“Come in with me.”
Nalla shook her head as so many humans continued to look over. “No, it’s okay. If they can wait, I can, too.”
“But you don’t have to. And if they didn’t have to, they wouldn’t, either.”
“Will you keep your voice down,” Nalla hissed. “And you don’t know that.”
“Are we talking about the same crowd of people here?” Mharta kept her volume right where it was, unyielding in the way the beautiful were—thoughtlessly because they didn’t have to be thoughtful. “There are no altruists in this line. Or they wouldn’t be trying to get into a club. Now, come on—or are you going to insist I smudge their memories so their fee-fees don’t get hurt?”
When her arm was taken and she was pulled out onto the sidewalk, Nalla went along because it was better than continuing the argument in front of the very bunch of frozen-Popsicle Bathe-ers who were being run down. And the fact that both she and Nate were being piloted by someone with a mouth going was the only thing they were ever going to have in common.
So let her little heart cozy up to allthatromance.
“I don’t agree with manipulating their minds,” Nalla muttered as they skated down the line.
“Well, aren’t you a purist.”
“It’s an issue of consent.”
The female paused and looked over her shoulder, her breath leaving her red lips in clouds that disappeared over her head. “What a human doesn’t know—”
“They can’t agree to. Just because we can get into their memories, doesn’t mean we should.”
Mharta laughed. “Well, at least we won’t have to worry about the bouncers. You can take that right off your conscience.”
As the female resumed her march of superiority, her stride became more exaggerated, all watch-this—and sure enough, as she approachedthe two big men, they strong-armed others out of the way like they were parting a crowd of concertgoers for the rock star everybody had been waiting for.
“She’s with me,” Mharta tossed over her shoulder.
All sorts of yes-ma’am spun around like flurries falling from the winter sky, so pleasing—and neither of the men spared even a glance at Nalla’s parka or her jeans. And they weren’t wincing like their heads hurt, or rubbing their temples, either. So no mental manipulation.
Then again, Lycra over a body like that was its own form of mind control. Especially with men who thought with their little heads as opposed to their big ones.
Inside, Mharta’s reception was the same. People got out of the way, and not because they were scared. They were in awe, and even the music seemed to change its bass beat to match tempo with that toe-heel strut.
Must be nice, Nalla thought as she glanced around the dim interior. To dictate the world around you, instead of the other way around—
