Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,10

abruptly, a flash of orange light darting through his eyes, and somehow my body reacted with both a panicked hiccup of my pulse… and a tingle of a different sort of heat low in my belly.

We should probably get this out of the way up front—I have a unique taste in men. Deal with it.

I hadn’t given in to any of those flares of attraction the hellhound shifter occasionally set off, though, and I wasn’t about to start simpering now.

“Let’s go,” he said, jerking his hand toward the open lot behind us. “We’ll see what you’ve got.”

I jabbed him in the—very well-built, I had to admit—chest with my forefinger. “No. I’ve had enough for today. I need some simmering down time, not more stoking of the flames.”

“So you say. There’s one very simple way to get over the fear that you’ll somehow reduce me to cinders. Give it a shot—your best one.”

My power shifted inside me with an uncomfortable crackling. I swallowed hard and played one card I knew for sure would rankle him. “Leave it, Luce. Haven’t you ever heard that no means no?”

A while back, Ruse had mentioned that long ago, Omen had pretended to be Lucifer—the devil himself, who apparently didn’t actually exist—to frighten old-timey mortals. Usually pulling out that nickname was a sure-fire way to break him out of his own taut self-discipline. Tonight, a few tufts of his hair rose from its slicked-back surface, but his gaze kept its cool blue. A slightly dry note crept into his voice.

“I say when you’re done. Come on and get this over with, Disaster. There’s nothing you can—”

“I said no,” I interrupted, with a burst of heat I hadn’t meant to unleash. Flames sprang to the surface, but not on Omen. My clenched hands lit up like glowing embers—and with agonizing throbbing as if embers were burning against my palms.

“Shit.” I pressed them to my body as if I could extinguish a fire that hadn’t even leapt all the way to the surface of my skin and choked on a gasp of pain at the contact. The agony faded with the glow, leaving my hands faintly pink and my heart pounding all over again.

Omen considered my hands with an unreadable expression. His gaze rose to meet mine. For just an instant, he hesitated.

“All right,” he said brusquely. “You’re frayed enough for one night, then. We’ll deal with your fears and whatever else tomorrow. It can’t hurt to have Ruse pave our way into the facility whether you bring your blaze or not. Go get some rest.”

Both Thorn and Ruse were eyeing me with obvious concern. “M’lady?” Thorn started, but I waved him off.

“I’m fine. But I could use that sleep. Go track down some guards while I get my mortal beauty-rest, all right?”

I kept my tone breezy, but as I climbed into the RV, my lungs had clenched. I’d thought the new direction my powers were taking was freaky, sure, but this was all new to me. Omen had hundreds of years of supernatural exploits under his belt… and what he’d seen in me had freaked him out enough that he’d backed off without one more word of argument.

Just how fucked was I?

4

Ruse

“Two down, three more to go,” I said, taking in the squat brick home our next target had vanished into after leaving guard duty at the museum. “This is the one we think will be working the inner rooms, isn’t it?”

Sorsha nodded where she was lounging on the RV’s sofa next to me. “That’s where he was this morning, anyway.”

“You’ll want to prime him to not just let us pass but also so that he’ll bring any colleagues he’s working with out where you can work your charms on them too,” Omen reminded me, leaning to eye the building over my head. “I can’t believe it’ll just be him in the inner sanctum. And since our Disaster here wants to spare the poor little mortals…”

Sorsha shot him a half-hearted glare over her shoulder but didn’t bother to comment. The movement sent a whiff of her fiery sweet scent into the air. Fucking delicious. What I wouldn’t have given to be spending the next hour in the bedroom down the hall, drinking that scent right off her skin from every part of her body, rather than chatting up another of the Company’s dupes.

We did have our devourer to break out of imprisonment, though. And besides, even if I had let myself indulge in Sorsha’s allure alongside Snap