A Discovery of Secrets and Fate (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #2) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,62

a lock of hair. “You should have told me we were doing this,” I complain. “I could have brought my makeup bag.”

“You most certainly don’t need makeup,” Maddox says, and there’s the leer I’d been expecting, which isn’t creepy so much as silly.

“No,” Carrick adds softly, gaze pinned to my face. “You don’t.”

“Enough ogling,” Titus growls, but there’s laughter in his eyes. “What’s the plan?”

It appears the plan is simple enough, and Carrick—back to being all business—lays it out as we walk to the bar. He, Titus, and Maddox will hang out in the background, circling, so eyes are on me at all times. I’m to sit at the bar and look sexy. I’m also to survey the area to see if I can locate the incubus that had every intention of draining my life away that night. If I do, I’m to touch my right ear while looking at him.

It’s a solid plan.

Simple.

I could have come up with it.

Inside the bar, we separate, and my protectors melt into the crowd. There’s a country-rock band on stage, and the dance floor is full of a combination of people rocking out to the music and others trying to dance. Most of the tables are full, and the long bar looks at about eighty-percent capacity. I choose a seat near the middle, which will give me the best vantage point, and order a Jack and Coke.

Drink before me, I swivel the stool to face outward and cross my legs to hold on to some semblance of modesty as the short dress rides up, barely covering the parts that need covering. Ordinarily, a woman would feel sexy in a dress like this, but I don’t for two reasons. Mainly because I’m focused on finding this incubus, but also because I’m wearing athletic-type underwear that comes up high on my tummy and rides low over my hips and is without a doubt the most un-sexy thing I own.

First, I look around to see if I can find Carrick, Titus, and Maddox. Given their height, it’s not hard, and they are spread out. Maddox is talking to a woman who is hanging on him, but he’s not paying her keen attention, his gaze outwardly focused and trailing over me a few times. Carrick is leaning up against a wall to the left of the stage, his arms crossed over his chest, and an aura about him that clearly states he doesn’t want to be approached.

Titus is on the opposite side of Carrick. While his expression is affable as he actually bops his head to the music, his sheer size keeps people away.

I focus my attention on the bar patrons, looking for the incubus that was with Wade. There are so many people out there that it’s hard to identify if he is too. I got a good look at him, but frankly, it’s hazy. Those few minutes he had his hand on me, hitting me hard with sexual compulsion, has dulled some of my memory. But I remember he had russet-colored hair with a bit of a red gleam under the bar lights and light blue eyes.

I also remember what an incubus looks like under their veil with the gray pitted skin and rotting teeth, and I shudder even thinking about that thing touching me. For some odd reason, it strikes me that Echo also has gray skin and rotting teeth, but her facial features are far different than the incubi I’d seen. Still, I can’t help but wonder if one of her parents was an incubus or succubus. After all, they manipulate emotion to get their victims to do their bidding. Echo reads emotion, so perhaps there’s a connection there.

I’d ponder it further as I look around, except I’m hit with a rolling bout of nausea deep in my belly, followed immediately by a warm flush of desire. Involuntarily, I squeeze my legs together as I swivel my head to the left.

And right there is the incubus that almost had me two nights ago. Standing right beside me.

He nods down at my drink. “Can I buy you another one?”

Before I answer him, before I even touch my right ear to let the men know he’s standing right beside me, I do something far more important.

While Carrick is probably watching and can easily see this is an incubus, until I touch my right ear, he doesn’t know it’s the incubus we’re looking for, so he won’t make a move just yet. Still, I don’t have