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“I’m going to bed.”
“Once you are safely asleep, I will return to the fields and see what additional information I can uncover about ensnaring the Rakshasa.”
I frowned. “I thought they were best caught in their lair.”
“Yes, but to trace this Rakshasa back to her lair, we first have to watch her dismember and eat her chosen victim. I don’t think either of us could sit through that nightmare easily.”
He had that right. I hesitated, then leaned forward and dropped a kiss on his lips. “Night, then.”
Surprise and something deeper—something that was desire and yet a whole lot more—flitted across his expression before he got control of himself again. “What was that for?”
“A kiss good night is something of a custom here on earth,” I said, my lips still tingling with the warmth of his. “Don’t tell me the woman who showed you the delights of human procreation never kissed you good night like that?”
“No.” His expression gave little away, but there was a decidedly devilish twinkle in his eyes. “It is, however, a custom I could grow used to.”
I smiled, but resisted the temptation to kiss him again, and backed away instead. I might be bone-weary and aching, but I had a suspicion if I did it again, the desire to rest would be overwhelmed by another sort of desire entirely.
“Night, Azriel.”
He nodded and winked out of existence. He was still near; I knew that because his heat swirled around me. I resolutely turned and made my way to the bedroom, stripping off clothes and letting them drop to the floor as I went. I’d pick them up later, when I had more energy. I pulled back the covers, crawled underneath them, and was asleep before I could even smile in pleasure.
The sharp ringing of the telephone woke me sometime later. I opened an eye and glared blearily at the object making all the noise, but it didn’t catch the hint and stop. After several more seconds of the incessant sound, I groped blindly for the handset and croaked, “Hello?”
“Well, you sound like crap,” Stane said, all too cheerfully.
“That’s how I feel, so it’s really no surprise.” I rubbed my free hand across gritty eyes, then glanced at the clock. It was just after six, meaning I’d had a whole five and a half hours’ sleep. “You’d better have a good reason for waking me, because otherwise I’m going to send Azriel over there to beat you up.”
Stane laughed. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too much of a softie to do something like that to your friends. Besides, you need my hacking skills.”
His hacking skills wouldn’t be impaired by a little beating or two, I thought grumpily. “Stane, what do you want?”
“A night out at the Red Iris, no expense spared.”
I sat up abruptly, and bit back a groan as my head just about exploded. “You found Nadler?” I said, the words little more than a hiss through gritted teeth.
“Well, I’ve found the version currently striding around as Nadler. He has a little beach house down at Portsea. I’ve just sent you the address.”
Portsea being the sort of place where even the littlest of houses meant big prices. “Don’t suppose there’s any way you can check if he’s down there?”
After all, according to his neighbors, he hadn’t been sighted at his Brighton home for some time, so there was no guarantee he’d be in Portsea, either.
“There’s no handy-dandy traffic cameras nearby, so I had to resort to more underhanded tactics. In this case, that meant digging up his cell phone number. Which, I might add, was not an easy thing to do. Phone companies are fierce when it comes to protecting the private numbers of their customers.”
But not fierce enough, obviously. Although it did have to be said that Stane was one of the best when it came to hacking.
“So, the dinner will include the finest bottle of champagne the Red Iris has,” I replied dryly. “Just get on with it.”
He chuckled softly. “Our Mr. Elusive is, according to the GPS tracker on his phone, at his Portsea house right this moment.”
Finally, we’d caught a break. I closed my eyes in relief. “For that, you can have two bottles of their finest.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Will do.” I hung up, then twisted around as the surge of energy told me Azriel had appeared. “You heard?”
He dropped my purse and bag of clothes onto the bed—obviously he’d been back to the hotel room to collect them. For a reaper, he was pretty damn considerate. Sometimes, anyway.
“Yes,” he said, his voice flat. “But you should—”
