Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,33

message letting me know you’re okay? Ditto! Kissy-face emoji.

As I looked at the words, my throat tightened. My best friend’s effortless cheer felt leagues removed from anything my life resembled at this moment. What might I inadvertently do to her if we ever hung out again? The image of one of her trademark all-white outfits singed to brown and black flashed through my mind, and the constricting sensation ran down to my chest.

This was what my life had become: monsters and mayhem… and maybe this was what it should have been all along. I didn’t know what to say to her anymore.

Still alive, I forced myself to write back, because a reassured Vivi would be much safer than a panicked one. Reasonably okay. Not much to report yet. You hang in there. Ditto. The sign-off was our homage to one of our favorite cheesy romance flicks, and I couldn’t not say it when she did. You could consider that a sacred pact, no matter how far I veered into monsterdom.

“And then we make a right at those shiny lights,” Antic said to Omen’s wordless grumble.

Ruse slid onto the sofa beside Snap and gave the devourer’s hair an affectionate ruffle. “You know you’re all right now, don’t you? We’ll make sure those assholes never get their hands on you again. There’s no need to be hiding away.”

Snap blinked at him with one of those puzzled looks that wrenched at my heart. “Is someone hiding? I’m right here.” He spread his arms as if in demonstration.

My dear, sweet shadowkind. If Ruse was right that Snap had essentially devoured everything about himself from the past however many months, was it even possible for him to spit himself back up, so to speak? What would it take? If I needed to put on a full-blown musical production or sacrifice a crow or some other hocus pocus, someone had better fill me in quick.

The incubus glanced across the table and caught my look. Whatever my expression showed, it turned him as grim as our warrior companion. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but at the same moment, Omen’s voice barked from up front.

“That sign says we’re heading toward Atlanta. I might not be a geography expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s a hell of a lot more east than we want to be going to get to Texas.”

Antic let out a squeal of apology and fumbled with the map. “I think—I think—Texas. Yes. Right. I had it turned the wrong way. We don’t want to be on this road at all.”

Omen’s next growl suggested that if the imp gave him one more direction, he’d be picking her bones out of his teeth in a minute. Ruse arched his eyebrows at me, his expression still more solemn than usual, and sauntered over to lend a hand.

“We’re not too far off track,” he said, and grabbed Omen’s phone from the dashboard. “But you know, even if we don’t need sleep, we could use a break from the highway. Let that road rage simmer down and all. It’s been a stressful day. I’ll charm us a space in a hotel so luxurious it’ll mellow even you out, Luce.”

He flashed a grin at his boss, who bared his teeth in a much more menacing fashion in response. The incubus retorted with some gesture I couldn’t quite make out but knowing him was probably obscene.

The hellhound shifter sighed. “Fine. But mainly because Darlene could probably use a break. I expect us to be up and on the road again at sunrise.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “If you had ever bothered to learn how to drive, the rest of us could have slipped in and out of a rift and been there already.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, although sadly he didn’t get to see my show of immense maturity because he’d already returned his gaze to the road. “As if you’d leave ‘Darlene’ in my disastrous hands anyway.”

“Good point,” he said, in a tone I chose to believe was more amused than annoyed. “Work your magic, incubus. If you can shock our mortal speechless for a minute or two, I’ll consider that a victory.”

10

Sorsha

I wouldn’t say I was struck speechless, but Ruse hadn’t been lying when he’d said he would aim for luxury. The place he led us into a half hour later boasted sweeping velvet-carpeted staircases around marble pillars so wide the ancient redwoods would have been envious. I resisted asking the concierge