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“Used to?”
“Yeah. He stopped after the accident. His horse slipped in the mud and came down on top of him. Broke his arm and gashed his ankle pretty bad. He was lucky, though—the only scar he got out of it was from the ankle wound. It would probably be barely noticeable by now.”
Jak smiled at me. If it was barely noticeable, our face-shifter might not have bothered with it. We finally had an identifying mark.
Now all we had to do was actually find him.
I said, “Have you got any photos of him that we could borrow?”
She snorted softly. “I burned every single one of them. Wouldn’t you?”
“Hell, yes.”
She eyed me for a moment, then added, “He’s become something of a recluse of late, but if you want photos you should track down James Blake. He took the wedding photos—you never know, he might have kept them.”
I glanced at Jak. He was already writing the name in his notebook.
“Thanks for your help, Jacinta. We do appreciate it.” I slipped her some cash, and she palmed it with practiced ease.
“Just make sure you burn the bastard good and proper.”
With that, she got up and left. I finished the last of my beer, then handed Jak one of the tickets for the ball. Azriel might be intending to take his place, but I needed to keep up the pretense and not make him suspicious. “We’re at the same table, so I’ll meet you inside around eight.”
He nodded. “Until then, I’ll run a search on the names Jacinta mentioned, and try to uncover some photos of the polo accident.”
“Have fun,” I said dryly as I rose.
He gave me a smile that just about blinded me. “Oh, the fun will happen tonight. I intend to dance your shoes off, my girl.”
And “dancing” just happened to be a wolf euphemism for sex. I snorted softly. “You’re as hopeless as ever.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he said. “Don’t forget to pay the bartender on the way out.”
I did, then headed back to the hotel, where I promptly undressed, crawled into bed, and went to sleep.
The awareness of being watched woke me sometime later. For several minutes I didn’t stir, letting my body wake and my senses capture the warmth of that sensation. It flowed through me like a river, teasingly sensuous.
But before I could fully react to it, it disappeared. Azriel knew I was awake.
Frustration swirled, deeper and stronger than before, but again, I squashed it and simply said, “Did you catch all that info at the bar?”
“Yes.”
His voice was as distant as ever. I sighed. “Thoughts?”
“The information will only prove worthwhile once we pin down the face-shifter inhabiting Nadler’s life. Until then, it does not help.”
“Well, no, but at least it’s more than what we had.”
“True.”
“Have you visited Jak yet?”
“No. He is not home yet.”
I twisted around to look at him. He was standing over near the window again—a favorite spot, it seemed—and despite what I’d sensed when waking, his back was to me. For once, Valdis was as quiet as her master.
“How do you know he’s not home?”
