34
The Devils had a shooting range in the basement at Hell’s Gate, where they set up an assortment of targets for Loren, Dallas, and Sabrine to practice on, including clay pigeons that were fired into the vicinity by an auto-feed trap.
Darien worked with Loren, showing her how to shoot everything from a pistol to an automatic rifle. She found the whole thing interesting and even fun, though a few of the guns had enough kickback to bruise the muscles in her shoulder.
The basement air held a medley of sulphur, charcoal, and saltpeter. The smell reminded Loren of fireworks as she took aim at a target thirty yards away.
“Little higher,” Darien murmured at her side.
But she brought up the gun a smidge too much, for he placed his hands on hers and corrected its position, his calloused fingers brushing against hers. When she squeezed the trigger, the bullet tore a bull’s eye through the chest of the paper target.
Darien wore a smug grin. “Beautiful,” he said. “Do it again.”
The hour continued like that. And perhaps she was imagining it, but Darien seemed to take any excuse to touch her, even to adjust the location of her fingers on the various guns.
And when her lessons brought her to another of the ten shooting stalls in the long room—all with varying ranges of distance—and she set up her rifle on the muzzle stanchion, he sat at her side, a hand braced on the back of her chair. Between shots, she caught him looking at her, and it wasn’t always at her eyes. In fact, most of the time he was looking at her mouth.
Loren’s body absorbed the kickback as she fired a shot at the last clay pigeon that spun through the air. It cracked and fell to the floor, where it shattered into smaller pieces.
A grin split across her face, and she clicked the safety into position and leaned back in the chair, where she found herself so close to Darien—whose legs were braced on either side of her, and whose hand was still on the back of the chair—that she could feel his body heat. Could smell the cool bite of the aftershave on his skin.
His eyes crinkled with a smile as he said something, but she couldn’t hear a word.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a laugh as she pulled her headphones off. Sound flooded her ears. “Can you repeat that?”
“I said you’re an ace at this, Lola.” The nickname made her blush, made her duck her head a little, hair falling in her face.
Several stalls over, Travis took aim at a target a sniper’s length away. This one was generated by the house’s spellwork—by the Hob himself. And it was Mortifer’s grinning, black-flamed face that began zipping through the range. A ghostly giggle swept through the room as the Hob moved with blinding speed.
Six shots cracked through the room—six bull’s eyes that tore right through the phantom projection of the Hob’s face.
Travis whooped and threw a fist in the air. “Suck on that, dickbags!” The fist he was holding up switched to a middle finger that he threw in the direction of Jack and Tanner, who were standing nearly, looking unimpressed. “I hope you were watching, Max, because you and these sore losers each owe me fifty gold mynet.”
Max was sorting through boxes of ammunition in the cupboards lining the wall. “I think the next bet I’ll make you is which of us can go longer without cussing than the other.” It was to Darien that he added, “Your phone’s been going off nonstop, man.” He snatched up Darien’s phone that was sitting atop a cupboard and held it out to him in offer.
Darien finished reloading Loren’s rifle before he passed it into her waiting hands and strode over to take the phone from Max. His eyes scanned the screen as he read the messages.
“It’s just Jessa,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, and began typing.
Something in Loren’s stomach tightened, her fingers doing the same on the gun.
“She still trying to date you, or what?” Travis said.
“The worddateisn’t in my vocabulary, Trav.”
Maximus snorted as he began loading up a pistol. “I hope you didn’t tell her that.”
“I did.” Darien chuckled, thumbs still tapping on the screen. “I also told her I don’t know whatdinnermeans unless it involves her kneeling stark naked before me, and she’s the only one of us getting fed.” The males in the room roared with laughter.
In the booth beside Loren’s, Lace muttered, “Men.”
Jack could barely contain his laughter long enough to bite out, “You’re a savage.”
Tanner said, “And she still wants to see you after that?”
Darien shrugged. “Apparently.”
Loren’s whole body was burning. The enjoyment of the evening suddenly vanished as sickness twisted deep in her gut.
