A few minutes later she came back out the bathroom door, where she was met by a strawberry-blonde girl wearing clear, sky-high heels. There was a tattoo below the girl’s ear—a crescent moon in luminescent ink.
Darien felt the blood drain from his face. Felt his soul snap free of his body and drift up to the mirrored ceiling.
“Is that Valary?” Max said. It certainly was. Valary Sternberg, a Warg who answered to Channary Graves, Head of the House on the Pier. Darien’s latest fuckbuddy—a clingy one to boot—who he’d met up with once in a while for nearly a year before he’d met Loren. Max added, “What do you think she wants?”
Darien’s jaw was so tight, it felt like his teeth were breaking. “To get under my skin.” He didn’t blink as he watched Valary step toward Loren and pull her into a tight embrace, her hands brushing over her hair in a way that made Darien certain she was aware that he was watching their little exchange.
Darien’s phone rang with an incoming call. He pulled it out of his pocket and didn’t bother to check the caller identification before answering. “Yeah.”
“They got away.” Ivy’s tense voice floated through the speaker, barely audible over the thumping music. “They were glamoured and there are no cameras.”
Darien swore. “Did they see you?”
“No, but—the cutting of the spellwork must’ve spooked them.” He’d had a feeling that might’ve happened, but he’d hoped they still could’ve caught them on time.
“What about their auras?”
“We couldn’t see them.”
Shit.He scrubbed a hand over his face. “And the warlock?”
“Travis and Logan got him. They’re taking him to Hell’s Gate.”
“Good.” This night wasn’t a total waste then, but the BP deal…
Fuck. This hadn’t gone the way he’d intended. They’d lost what was possibly their only chance at intercepting a BP deal, and if Ivy was wrong and any of the buyers had spotted his Devils… “Get another drink if you want one and then we’re going home.” He ended the call and looked back across the dancefloor to see that Valary was gone—and so was Loren.
Darien stopped breathing. He was immediately on his feet, ignoring whatever Max was saying to him as he left the table and prowled across the dancefloor.
Whatever Valary had said to Loren, he knew it couldn’t be good. Worse than that, Valary could’ve done something to Loren—something bad. He had to find her, had to make sure she was safe.
His head was suddenly pounding harder than his heart. There were too many faces on the dancefloor, too much noise and color—
“Where are you going so fast, Devil?”
Darien froze at the sound of the high voice that floated above the music, that lilting Northern accent causing his shoulders to tense up. He slowly turned around to find Valary Sternberg standing behind him, a hand cupped over a glass of dark liquor.
The Warg’s red-painted lips parted into a sinful smile. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she purred. Her ice-blue eyes raked over him from head to toe, lingering on certain areas he’d let her become all too familiar with, and for far too many months.
Yeah, the ghosts of my sexual past come back to haunt me, Darien longed to say. Instead, he told her, “If you don’t tell me what you said to my friend, I’ll be paying a visit to your Head and letting her know what you were really doing all those times you lied to her this past summer.” Channary Graves would likely excommunicate Valary if she found out she had passed up countless Darkslaying jobs in favor of hooking up with him in places that were no more romantic that this raunchy, gods-awful club.
Valary’s haughty smile faded a little. “I thought I would introduce myself after seeing how fond you are of her,” she said, her voice saccharine. She tossed her head to one side, her thick, shoulder-length hair swaying. “She’s a doll, isn’t she? Too bad her pretty little face will soon be marked up with wrinkles.” She gave an exaggerated pout. “Being mortal is such a drag.”
Darien’s hands curled into fists at his sides as he felt a Surge knocking at the back of his mind. “What did you do?” he ground out, willing the black to stay out of his eyes.
The Surge kept knocking.Tap, tap, tap.
“I already told you: I introduced myself because I knew you would never bother. Just like you never bother to answer my calls anymore.” She eyed the fists that were hanging at his sides and arched an eyebrow. “What are you going to do, Darien? Hit me like you do all those scumbags at the Pit?” The joking undercurrent to her words suggested she knew he wouldn’t take the bait.
No, he certainly wouldn’t. It was a low he couldn’t even imagine stooping to. He’d never hit a woman in his life, and he wasn’t about to start, no matter how angry this Warg made him.
He stalked up to Valary. Every step he took made that smug look on her face falter a little more. A muscle fluttered in her jaw, but she stood her ground, even when he stopped not three inches from her—even as he towered over her like the shadow of a demon and said, “You’re going to stay away from me and you’re going to stay away from my friend.” His voice was low and lethal. “Or I will make your life a living hell.”
It seemed to be a challenge for her not to look away from him, but to her credit she didn’t even blink. She had a backbone of steel, this one. It was why Darien had liked her at first, but now he only found her pigheadedness to be repulsive.
Valary gave a smirk. “You’re a mean thing.” She reached out, snaking a hand along his belt buckle, her sharp nails teasing the space between his pants and his pelvis. “It makes me want to bend over and let you fuck me on this dancefl—”
Darien grabbed hold of her wrist—firmly, but not enough to hurt. “Touch me again,” he ground out, “and see where it gets you.”
