Darien waited while she thought about it, her eyes searching for hints in his features. It was impressive: the amount of time she managed to look at him without breaking his gaze.
“At first, I thought you were Travis Devlin, but…” She bit her bottom lip, squinting her eyes in thought. Travis was Darien’s younger cousin.The Devlin Devil,he was called. They’d been mistaken for one another a few times. “Something tells me you’re Darien Cassel.”
A smile curved his mouth. “What gave it away?”
“Nothing, really.” She shrugged, looking a little proud of herself. “Intuition, I suppose.”
The waitress returned with a tray bearing food, the dishes rattling from how hard her hands were shaking. Darien was surprised she somehow managed not to spill Loren’s soup as she slid the bowl before her, then placed the salmon crostini in the centre of the table. After asking if she could bring them anything else, she looked relieved when they said no, and scampered away.
Loren picked up her spoon and tucked into the soup. “Please, help yourself.” She gestured to the crostini. “There’s no way I can eat all this.”
“I’m not hungry.” Returning to their former topic of conversation, he said, “When I’m offered a job, I’m usually the only one on it. The fact that other people have been employing Darkslayers to find you, or are possibly looking for you themselves, means there’s something about you that’s highly valuable.”
“That’s news to me.” She blew on another spoonful of soup. “How much were you offered to find me?”
He licked his lips in thought, considering what the truth might cost him. Those eyes—a darker blue under the warm lamplight, like an ocean rippling beneath a setting sun—met his mouth for a fraction of a second before darting away again. Blush dusted her cheeks, and the spoon in her hand wobbled.
“Two million gold mynet,” he told her, stamping down the curiosity he felt from seeing her blush. He didn’t know why he was even interested; women became all shades of red around him all the time. “But I negotiated three.”
She gave a low whistle, eyes flaring wider as she reached for a crostino. She bit off a corner and chewed. “That’s a lot of mynet.”
“It is. And considering I’m not the only one who was asked to look for you, I think it’s safe to assume that more people will come after you now. And those people won’t ask questions like I did—they’ll either kill you or dump you in the trunk of their car. Plain and simple.”
She set the crostino aside but didn’t say anything. Her hands were trembling again.
Darien gave her a chance to compose herself, or perhaps ask him any questions of her own. But she remained silent.
“Do you have any means of protection?” he said. “Any way that you can cloak yourself until you figure out why they’re after you?”
Loren looked like she was going to hurl. She didn’t answer him, nor did she look at him.
When he spoke again, there was an edge of frustration in his voice that he failed to conceal. “Look, I know you’re scared. But I’m trying to help you.”
She gave him a hard stare. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’mhuman. I have no means of protection and no sum of mynet large enough that I can call my own. So,no,Darien Cassel. I don’t have any way that I can cloak the target on my ass while I figure this stupid shit out.”
For some reason, despite having known her for barely an hour, he’d assumed she didn’t have it in her to curse. He had to admit it impressed him, if only a little.
“Then you’re going to need help.”
She slowly crossed her arms and then her legs before giving him a cheeky look. “And where do you propose I find it?” That attitude had his gaze darkening. She used it often enough that he was beginning to understand it was a weapon for her. Armour—the best armour he supposed a human could have in a city like this.
Drumming his fingers on the tabletop, he considered her question for a moment that probably seemed like a lifetime for her—and he might’ve taken a few extra seconds simply to see if she had another snarky remark up her sleeve. But she didn’t break his gaze as he deliberated. Not even when he said, “I’ll help you, if you’ll let me.”
Surprise flickered across her face, but it was quickly replaced with suspicion. “And how can I trust you? For all I know, you might’ve killed those people in the alley because you want the reward for yourself.”
Caligo spare him. He ran a hand through his hair, and when he set that hand back onto the table a little too hard, the steel devil-head rings he always wore on his index and middle fingers clanged against the wood. “Are we going to disagree now?”
“I’m just saying.”
He leveled her with a look. “Do you want my help or not?”
She nibbled on that full bottom lip again. He didn’t usually allow himself to become distracted in his work, not even by a pretty face. But this one… He just couldn’t take his eyes off this one. The City of Everlasting Hearts was overrun with beautiful people, but immortal women often reminded him of a sculpture. Cold and unchanging in a way that was consistent but uninteresting—and so self-absorbed, they often couldn’t hold his interest long enough to convince him they had more than half a brain.
And while she looked exactly like the type of girl he would fuck once and then delete her number from his phone without a second thought, there was something different about her, something that made him unable to look away.
Maybe it was that infuriating attitude.
She still wouldn’t answer him. So he said, “Do you want to know what would happen if other Darkslayers walked through those doors right now?” He inclined his head toward the entrance of Rook and Redding’s, where a young, very normal-looking couple was entering the restaurant in search of a table.
