AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dinner.” Sera slid a glass of whisky, neat, toward me. Not a dram. Not some terrible “water added” nonsense. A generous tumbler of booze.
I put my hand on my heart and said, “I love you best in the whole world.”
“As you should.” Sera slid a plate of greasy, onion-and-bacon-coated fries toward me.
I did eat. Solid food, too, just like a regular person. Okay,mostlylike a regular person.
“Bless you,” I said.
Sera and I watched Christy fleece the fool who agreed to play against her. The old men in the corner chortled and high-fived her. I swear I hadn’t figured out yet if they were more entertained by watching her because she was such a curvy girl or because they were in on the secret. Either way, she paused to talk to them as she folded her cash and tucked it into her cleavage.
“Where were you the last two nights?” Sera asked.
I shrugged. “Work?”
“I heard from a friend at the station,” she pronounced, as if she’d caught me in a lie. “Jesse’s place?”
“Still work.”
“Both nights?”
“Outs last night,” I whispered. “Needed to see Mama Lauren.”
Sera looked ready to say something more, but Eli paused at our table with a bottle just then. I knew not to remark on the fact that he delivered it himself. Everything with the damn fae had meanings, ritual in old ways that I was still trying to learn.
“Well, aren’t you sweet?” Sera murmured. “Or are you just sweet on Gen?”
Eli’s mouth curved into a smile, transforming his face in a way that screamed “not human.” It wasn’t exactly a secret, but in that moment, it was glaringly obvious.
“I don’t believe one could be ‘sweet’ on a creature such as Geneviève.” Eli opened the bottle, cracking the seal in front of me. “In awe? Frightened? Fascinated? I dare say that no other creature in all of New Orleans is quite so rich in contradictions as she is.”
Christy came over mid-proclamation.
“House cut,” she said, withdrawing a folded bill from her cleavage. “Left them drinking cash this time too.”
“Be still my winged heart,” Eli murmured.
The doors opened without a sound, but I didn’t need sound to tell me what had walked into the building. I felt their tug on my skin, tightening muscles as my body wanted toflow. Like called to like.
Tonight, though, they were trying to read me. Tendrils of grave magic pounded against my mental shields. I was on my feet without knowing how or when I moved.
Eli stayed at my side. “Sugar frost, I believe you have a small duty before relaxing. May I assist?”
Short sword already in hand, I glanced at my friends. “Guard them.”
“As you wish,” he murmured.Draugrwere pleasantly frightened of fae blood until they reached around a century old. By then, they could control themselves. Fae blood looked a lot like liquid silver, and in any dose but a quick sip, it acted like silver, too, leaving thedraugrsickened and ravenous all at once. Eli had an innate safety with most of these, but not this one.Shewas old, and that meant Eli was in need of protection, too.
And without thinking about the consequences, I let myselfflow. In the flicker of a moment, I was at the front of the bar, sword in one hand and gun in the other.
Chapter Sixteen
“You need to come with us,”the frontdraugrsaid. He had the perpetually elongated teeth of an again-walker in his second-decade. It made him harder to understand, but at least he was more articulate than grunts.
Behind him were three more walking corpses and one who stood drooling around the gag in her mouth. One of thedraugrheld onto the prisoner, who appeared to be a nice grandmother with a growling and hissing problem.
The twodraugrnot guarding a prisoner stood on either side of a woman who was dressed like she’d watchedInterview with a Vampirefar too often. Added to that was make-up that looked like she was prepping for her own funeral. She was old, though; the sort of old that told me I wasn’t fast enough to shoot her. My bones tingled at the chill she radiated. When she died, there would be no need for a Con Crew pick-up. Dust and air would be all that remained of her.
And I wasn’t sure I could kill her even if I was prepared, even if I was facingjusther.
