Unleashed by the Defender (Brides of the Kindred #25) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,40
in tears. “Is he all right? Please don’t tell anyone what you saw!” she said in the same breath.
“I won’t,” Imani assured her. “And he’s still breathing—I think he just got knocked in the head by a chunk of flying concrete.”
“A chunk of what? Oh my dear, you have no idea how frightened I was!” The other woman widened her eyes. “Why there we were, when all of a sudden the wall just exploded!”
“I know—my room is down the hall,” Imani said evasively. She didn’t want to admit the bomb had been meant for her. “If you’re all right, I’d better be getting back to my own bodyslave,” she added, hoping that J’are would have returned by the time she got back to her room.
“Oh yes—yes of course! I’ll straighten myself out and call for some medical aid,” the pink-haired Mistress fluttered, holding out her hand. “Oh, and I’m Mistress Yank’doodle. Thank you so much again. And you are?”
“Oh, uh, Mistress Williams,” Imani said, taking the offered hand and smiling.
“Williams?” Mistress Yank’doodle frowned. “What an odd name.” She shrugged. “Well, odd or not, I’m so grateful you came to help me out. If you ever need anything, please let me know!”
“I will, thank you.” Imani smiled at her once more and then exited Mistress Yank’doodle’s suite the same way she had entered it—by the gaping hole in the wall.
“J’are?” she called hopefully as she entered the door, which had been left standing open. “J’are? Where are you?”
But though she searched the whole suite, the big Nightwalker was nowhere to be found. Imani was beginning to think she’d better slip out of her nightdress and put on some decent clothes—if Yonnie Six clothing could be called “decent”—and go look for him when she saw him coming down the hallway.
The only problem was, he wasn’t alone. Marching on either side of him with pain prods at the ready were two big, scaly Horvath guards and trailing after them was an angry-looking woman who appeared to be some kind of manager—if the gold nametag with elaborate script pinned to her collar was any indication.
Uh-oh… Imani bit her lip.
It looked like there was going to be trouble.
Twenty-One
“I’m very sorry, Ms. Williams, but you simply cannot stay here at the Luxx any longer. I’m going to have to ask you to pack your things and go.”
The manager, a Mistress with short, no-nonsense black hair, fixed Imani with a glare.
“What are you talking about?” Imani demanded, putting a hand on her hip. “Your employee was the one who tried to blow me up! And now you’re kicking me out?”
“You have absolutely no proof of that,” the manager said frostily. “And I have an eye-witness account from the Mistress in the room across from yours that she saw your bodyslave detonate the bomb that damaged our building and nearly killed one of our guests!”
“What?” Imani exclaimed. “That’s crazy! It was your praying mantis—I mean your morphid—that brought up the bomb on a tray and pretended like it was a complimentary breakfast! You ought to be questioning your own staff instead of accusing me and J’are!”
She nodded at the big Kindred who was growling menacingly at the two Horvath guards on either side of him. She couldn’t tell if he had gone into feral mode or not but he certainly didn’t look happy.
“I beg your pardon, we have no morphids on staff here,” the manager said icily. “We do not allow non-humanoids to work at the Luxx.”
“What? But I was checked in by one at the front desk yesterday!” Imani protested. “And when I called for dinner last night, I talked to another one. And—”
“And I believe you have overstayed your welcome, Ms. Williams,” the manager interrupted her. “I will give you and your bodyslave half an hour to vacate the premises. After that, I’ll have my guards escort you out.”
Without another word, she turned and strode down the hallway, followed by the two lizard-looking Horvath guards who flanked her on either side.
“J’are?” Imani looked up at the big Kindred uncertainly. She still didn’t know if he was in his feral state or his “thinking mind” as he had put it. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Fine.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, then did it again. It looked like a calming technique to Imani. “Don’t worry,” he added, when she continued to look at him anxiously. “I’m still in my thinking mind—my feral side hasn’t taken over.”