Jamal came out from the back as I was checking what we had stocked behind the bar.
“Who keeps trying to call you?”
So, he did see me. I shrugged without turning around. “I think it’s a wrong number.” I felt his eyes on me, boring a hole into my back. He probably sensed my lie. Jamal knew me better than just about anyone. Even Killian.
“Are you sure about that?”
I put a new bottle of Villa One Tequila on the shelf to replace the near empty one and turned around with a smile, wiping my hands on a towel. “Nope. Because I didn’t answer the phone.”
He narrowed his eyes at me and crossed his arms over his muscular chest, quite obvious through the netted shirt he’d worn tonight as part of his stage attire. Jamal was a favorite with the ladies when he hit the stage. And who could blame them? With his smooth, brown skin and piercing hazel eyes, he was one hell of a good-looking black man. Add in the air of danger he carried about him and the women came a-runnin’ from all over New Orleans to see him take it all off. The fact that he could actually dance didn’t hurt either.
And on the rare occasions when he smiled…hearts and ovaries had no chance at all. Even my own insides got all fluttery on occasion when he smiled at me.
But right now, he wasn’t anywhere close to cracking a grin. “What’s going on, Kenya?”
I stopped with the subterfuge. It wasn’t any use. If Jamal was determined to get to the bottom of my secrets, he would. So, I needed to give him something. A part of the truth. Just enough to satisfy him. “Remember when I was cursed with some kind of vampire-killing illness and almost died a few weeks ago?”
Anguish twisted his handsome features. “How could I forget?”
I nodded. Stupid question. “Well, whatever it was that did that to me. It came back.”
Jamal appeared behind the bar with me, covering a good twenty feet between one second and the next, his hands on my shoulders. “Here? It came here? To the club? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
I nodded again. “When I was closing up a few nights ago. I felt it as soon as I stepped outside to lock up and head home.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t know where you were,” I answered honestly. “You seemed to hit it off with that blonde who was here with the birthday party and I thought maybe you’d gone off with her. I didn’t want to ruin your fun.”Because you have so little of it, I added silently.
But even as I gave him that excuse, I knew he would call me out on it. Jamal never hooked up with anyone outside of the club. Like, ever.
“That’s bullshit, Kenya, and you damn well know it,” he said. Releasing my shoulders, he searched my face. “Were you hurt? What happened?”
“I wasn’t hurt,” I told him as I shook my head. Then I had to push my glasses back up onto my nose, wishing not for the first time that I could wear contacts. But my eyes just wouldn’t play nice with anything in them. They were too sensitive now. Just like my skin and my hearing and my sense of smell since becoming a vampire. “I came back inside the club, and after a while, it just…left.” I shrugged one shoulder.
“It just left.” From his tone, I could tell he was less than convinced.
I nodded.
“It didn’t come after you? Didn’t try to break in? Nothing?”
“No, although I did sense it right outside at one point.”
His brow furrowed. “Why would it just hang around outside like that? It had to know you were in here.”
“I don’t know.”I did know.“But it didn’t.”Because there’s a magical ward around the building to keep it out.
I’d never been more grateful that Jamal couldn’t read minds. Well, not that he couldn’t. He could. He justwouldn’tdo it. He didn’t like it when any of us were in his head, either. He believed it was an invasion of privacy, and he was right. Being in each other’s heads was something we’d all had to learn to control. And the longer you were a vampire, the stronger that power grew. Luckily, our self-control and ability to shield also grew more advanced.
Except against Killian. Maybe because he was the one who’d created us? Or maybe because of how powerful he was. After all, he hadn’t become the Master vampire of the region from a vote. If he really set his mind to it, so to speak, there was no keeping him out.
“How did you get home?”
“I just waited it out, and then I walked home.” There. All of that was the truth. I’d only neglected to tell him there was someone else here with me. He just wasn’t a vampire.
“By yourself?”
“It was gone, Jamal,” I told him, avoiding the question.
