Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,1
inexpressible pain by devouring mortal souls. He’d been so ashamed of using that power to save me that he’d taken off on his own and been captured by the Company. Their scientists ran torturous experiments on the shadowkind they imprisoned. Imagining the devourer on one of their steel lab tables brought the searing heat to the base of my throat.
In the last week, I’d discovered a supernatural power inside myself, one no mortal should contain. So maybe I wasn’t all mortal, even if neither I nor the shadowkind with me had been aware that was possible. I didn’t know what I was, but I did know I’d happily send anyone who laid a hand on Snap up in flames. I didn’t think it’d even be difficult to summon the fire inside me now. The Company had messed with the wrong gal.
As if sensing my mood, Pickle squirmed from one shoulder to the other and pressed his scaly neck against my cheek. As we waved our good-byes to the equines and their friend, I reached up to scratch the dragon’s belly. He let out a pleased snort.
Maybe I should have been sending him back home along with the others. He wasn’t equipped to fight in what had become a full-out war. But there was a reason I’d kept him after rescuing him from one of the collectors of the supernatural whose menageries of beasties I’d enjoyed freeing. His jailor had gotten Pickle’s wings clipped so he could barely fly. I suspected that on the other side of the divide, he’d quickly become prey to other sorts of predators.
Could I even call the shadow realm his “home” now that he’d spent the past two years living here with me?
Gisele glanced back at us one final time and blew us a kiss I’d swear twinkled in the deepening dusk. Then she and her companions vanished into the shadows between the trees. The late-summer breeze twined around us, cool enough now to raise goosebumps on my arms. We turned back toward our ride.
Omen folded his arms over his chest and gave the RV a rare approving look. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us, Darlene.”
I bit my lip and exchanged a glance with Ruse, barely holding in a snicker. Omen liked to name his vehicles, from his now-demolished station wagon—R.I.P., Betsy—to the motorcycle he called Charlotte that was currently mounted on the Everymobile’s back end. Of course, this time there was one small issue that I couldn’t help raising.
“You know, I don’t think you should really be naming things that don’t belong to you.”
Omen let out a huff. “She does for the time being. All right, folks. Let’s get on this thing and point her toward Chicago.”
A shadowkind who knew his way around computers had been able to determine from the Company’s files that Snap had been sent to the Windy City. Before we tackled the head of the murderous organization, who as far as he’d been able to determine operated out of San Francisco, we were getting our devourer back.
Of course, that was easier said than done.
As Ruse took the driver’s seat with a twirl of the silver spangle dangling from the rear-view mirror, I sank onto the white leather sofa that curved around a sleek dining table. Omen propped himself against the kitchen’s marble counter. The hellhound shifter seemed to be most comfortable on his feet.
“How hard do you think it’ll be for us to find the facility where they’re holding Snap once we get to the city?” I asked. In my hometown, I’d relied on the connections I’d spent over a decade developing, and Omen had been able to call in a favor from a local shadowkind gang that had owed him. I didn’t know anyone in Chicago.
There was probably a branch of the Shadowkind Defense Fund there, but I couldn’t expect the people back home to provide introductions. I’d burned through a lot of bridges—metaphorically speaking, but we wouldn’t get into what I’d literally burned—in the last few days.
“It’s easy enough to sniff out the beings with the most influence if you know what to look for,” Omen said with his usual aloof confidence. “If they haven’t picked up on any hint of the malevolent organization rounding up their own, then they barely deserve to be called shadowkind.”
Thorn had come to stand beside the sofa. He squeezed my shoulder with one of his large hands. “We’ll rescue the devourer, m’lady—and make the miscreants regret ever ensnaring him. No matter