“I couldn’t see anything,” I agreed. “But it seems like a bad sign that construction has started up again. I can’t imagine the sword-star group would let the workers wander around the site if there was anything incriminating left to see.” The covert group of hunters, scientists, and who the hell knew what else we’d spent the past week battling marked some of their equipment with a symbol like a star with sword blades for two of its points, which was the only way we’d found to identify them so far.
The fourth shadowkind in our group—the one I’d only met last night after we’d broken him out of the facility that’d been hidden in the construction site—shifted on his feet. His voice held a ring of authority as cool as his icy blue stare. “I think you should hold off on making sweeping assumptions until we’ve had an actual look inside the place.”
I wasn’t totally sure what to make of Omen, the guy my trio referred to as their “boss.” He shouldn’t have stood out in the bunch—not as tall or as muscle-bound as Thorn, not as languidly sensual as Ruse or as breathtakingly dazzling as Snap. Other than those piercing eyes, he was attractive enough with his tawny, short-cropped hair and sharp features, but hardly otherworldly. I hadn’t determined what monstrous feature he’d been unable to shed in his mostly human form, either. No shadowkind could pass for fully human on close inspection, as Thorn’s crystalline knuckles, Snap’s forked tongue, and the curved horns that poked from Ruse’s hair could attest to.
All the same, Omen radiated power and menace with every movement of his body, every word that fell from those Cupid’s bow lips. When we’d opened his cell last night, he’d lunged out more beast than man—he’d slaughtered two of the guards in a blink. That capacity for violence lurked somewhere beneath the controlled façade he was presenting now. At least with Thorn, who could be monstrously brutal too, the warrior frame and the scars lining his face served as plenty of warning.
Thorn adjusted that frame now, giving Pickle a careful nudge to keep the tiny dragon from tumbling right off him. “We could slip through the shadows right now to survey it. Two of us go and two stay to watch over Sorsha.” He’d already smashed through an apartment building and torn heads from men’s bodies to keep me safe—he took his self-assigned job as my protector even more seriously than he took most other things.
Omen had held up his hand before the warrior had even finished speaking. “No. Whatever we find, we’ll want our devourer testing it to see what he can glean, and he can’t do that while there are human witnesses around.” He glanced at the sky. “It’ll be a little longer before their work day is finished. Since we’ll want a vehicle of our own to rely on as we proceed, we may as well take the opportunity to pick up my car and then return.”
He definitely lived up to the title of boss—as in, bossy. Since we had just met, and I wasn’t confident he didn’t have some supernatural power that would eviscerate me if I pissed him off too much, I meant to keep my mouth shut and go along with his plan. The trouble was, the next words out of his mouth were to me, with a slight sneering edge: “Since you can’t travel through the shadows, I’ll give you the address. You can meet us there.”
I blinked at him. “You’re telling me to head across town on my own?” The other three had refused to let me out of their sight for more than a few minutes since they’d shown up at my apartment, even when I’d wanted them to let me handle one thing or another alone.
Omen gave me a narrow look. “I would have thought a woman of your many supposed talents could manage a simple cab ride.”
“Well, yeah.” But the sword-star crew had a bad habit of showing up unannounced, weapons blazing. I was only alive thanks to the efforts of my trio—my shoulder throbbed dully where I’d taken a bullet yesterday before Thorn had yanked me out of the way of one that would have blasted straight through my heart. It was still daytime, though, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Bossypants make me look like a weakling.
“Here’s a thought,” Ruse said, smooth as ever. “A cab can whisk any of us across town much faster than we can flit through the shadows. Why don’t I charm a driver into zipping us to our destination as one happy family?” He slung a playful arm over my shoulders and grinned at Omen.
Omen frowned, but even he didn’t have the authority to change the fact that motorized vehicles offered superior speed. “Get on with it then,” he said with a flick of his hand toward the street as if it’d been his idea in the first place, and rattled off the address.
He must have made some other gesture of command, because as Ruse strolled past us, Snap and Thorn faded into the patches of darkness that lined the alley. Omen lingered a moment longer, eyeing me with an intentness that set my nerves twitching, and then vanished as well.
The boss had put Ruse on his team for good reason. It took all of a minute before the incubus had a taxi driver eagerly beckoning us into the back seat of his cab as if we were great friends and letting him give us a ride was a huge favor to him. Ruse swept his arm toward the open door. “Ladies first.”
The other three stayed out of sight, but I assumed they hopped from the shadows along the street into the darker corners of the cab. We couldn’t see them, but from what I understood, they’d be able to see us just fine. I doubted Omen would eviscerate me in full view of at least one unknowing mortal, so this seemed like the perfect time to pay him back for his obvious disdain for my presence.
“Nicely done,” I said to Ruse as the cabbie hit the gas, and scooted over to grasp the silky fabric of his shirt. The incubus flashed a brilliant smile before meeting me halfway for the kiss I’d planned to claim.
The moment his mouth caught mine, it was definitely him doing the claiming. Holy mother of mistletoe, the guy could kiss. Sure, bodily pleasures were his stock and trade, but still, mark this one A with a thousand pluses.
For a few seconds, I forgot where we were. I forgot the onlooker I’d meant to piss off. I was lucky I remembered my name. My lips parted for Ruse’s sly tongue, and my body melted into his, my skin sparking where he trailed his fingers down my side.
Why had we put a hold on our very enjoyable nighttime escapades again? Oh yeah, because he’d broken his promise and used his paranormal voodoo to take a peek inside my head. But he’d told me why with an explanation I could believe, and he’d been on excellent behavior since. I should definitely look into rewarding that behavior soon, shouldn’t I, especially since the reward would be gratifying for both of us?
The driver gave a little cough, and that broke me out of the bliss enough to ease back. Heat crept over my cheeks. Ruse shot me another smile, but I’d swear even he looked a tad flushed. I gave myself a mental high five. If Omen was fuming right now, especially since he couldn’t actually tell us to knock it off, so much the better.
The cab took us to a derelict storage facility on the outskirts of the city. Most of the garage-style doors were dented and rusted, many of them half-open with only dust and litter scattering the cement floors beyond. But the place must have been at least somewhat operational, because the unit Omen strode straight to had its lock in place and no sign of deterioration. He jerked up the door to reveal…