Maya rolled her eyes, trying—and failing—to put the words ‘your kind’ into their intended category. Just an innocent comment. Not a reminder of everything she’d rather forget.
Not that shecouldforget. Night vision wasn’t the only ability that had been forced on her. Thatsensewas there too. The sweet smell of desire, underlined by a smoky hint of fear.
That smell followed her like a shadow. Every room filled with it as soon as the people within noticed her, and she didn’t even have the option to ignore it. She wasdesignedto notice it. To embody and produce it.
That was part of why this place was akin to a haven, even with the concerning traces of fear in the air. Because, for once, that fear wasn’t her doing.
“If you hoped sending me in here would make me nauseous again, you’ll be disappointed. All I feel is lightheaded. The air is so filled with sex it could suffocate a nun.”
Diana barked out a laugh. Accidentally, going by the forced cough that followed. Maya was about to see if she could make Diana repeat the noise when her eyes drifted over the club floor again. And paused.
A short woman with shoulder-length platinum blonde hair drifted through the room, hips swaying in rhythm to the music. Young, girlish, and while a glance might paint her as innocent, her expression showed the exact opposite. Her lips were pursed, eyes lazily scanning the crowd as though she wanted—andexpected—everyone to stop what they were doing in favor of staring at her.
Maya couldn’t help but play right into that expectation. Though the woman was wearing a robe, it did nothing to hide the figure beneath. A slight frame with lightly tanned skin, a narrow waist, and a small chest. Her face was done up with colorful makeup, matching her pink lipstick and soft baby blue eyes.
Those eyes were the onlysoftthing about her. The rest was all attitude, with her pierced nose and belly button, tattooed arms, and full lips stuck in a knowing smirk. Like she was daring you to try something, even if it wasn’t specified what thatsomethingwas.
“Maya? You there?”
Diana’s voice brought the room back into focus. Maya turned away, shaking her head.
“Sorry. Got distracted.”
Distracted enough togawk. Which had never been a vice of hers. She had bartended in clubs like this before and could keepher cool, which was the sole reason she’d been allowed anywhere near this job.
But then her gaze drifted again. The blonde dancer had let her robe drop a little as she leaned over a nearby table, smiling with impish satisfaction as the man she’d targeted stared at her cleavage.
Maya almost chuckled. Though everything in the woman’s expression screamed seduction, the desire filling the space was entirely one-sided. Places like this sold fantasies, and the young woman presented a rather convincing one.
Though… it might not be purely acted. The casual way she poked the man’s nose before walking away, smirking, suggested that her being a tease was equal parts innate and practiced.
“Is there anything else you want me to do?” Maya asked, still trailing the dancer. “I’m not meeting with the manager for another hour or so.”
“Try to fit faces to the names we have. Unless the three of them skipped town without notice, they should be somewhere inside.”
Easier said than done. Asking for real names in a place like this didn’t invite prolonged conversation. And right then, names were all Maya had.
Patricia Fulton. Nell Anthony. Harper Montgomery. Three women uninitiated to how many dangers the world contained and family to the partner of a Court Regent.
Maya and Diana had been sent to this sticky establishment with one purpose: determine if those three women could handle being shown how dark the world really was and then bring them to Chicago. Sharing a place of employment would make that far easier.
A well-planned ruse. One that was only happening because of how many hostile eyes were on the Court of Chains. Had theynot needed to play this by the book, Natalya would have pushed for swift results rather than precautionary ones.
“What the hell…” Diana said.
“Something wrong?”
“Maybe. Stay put.”
She hung up with a click, and Maya snorted. Diana rarely provided details until after the fact. Back in Chicago, she had the bar record for subduing problematic partygoers and, impressively, she almost never got in trouble for it.
But with no conversation to focus on, Maya’s attention drifted again. Back to the platinum blonde dancer, now sitting at the empty bar only a few feet from her table.
Maya frowned. The woman’s teasing expression was gone. Instead, a smoky scent flowed off her, standing out amidst the mix of sweat, desire, and dozens of clashing perfumes that filled the room.
This woman, whoever she was, was scared.
Something bloomed in Maya’s chest. A hot, insistent, almost painful urge to get up from her chair and hurry to the woman’s side. To find out what, or who, had produced the fear now flowing off her slight frame, and make them pay for draining the joy from her soft, beautiful eyes.
