Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,34

if they’d stolen their lobby furniture from the Palace of Versailles.

The penthouse suite the incubus had charmed our way into wasn’t any model of restraint either. The main lounge area stretched wider than my entire apartment back home—before, y’know, I’d burned it down and all—with leather furniture so buttery soft a person could melt right into the cushions. The bathroom sported a small, marble-tiled swimming pool I couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind calling a “bathtub.” And the bedroom…

“Where the magic happens,” Ruse said with his typical smirk, sweeping his arm toward the king-sized canopy bed draped with gauzy silk on the other side of a Persian rug so thick I was in danger of drowning in it. Holy mother of majesty, we were living like the crustiest of upper crusters tonight.

Pickle, who’d accepted being carted in via my purse, charged across that red-and-gold expanse and promptly tumbled head over heels as his tiny feet sank deeper than he’d anticipated. With an indignant snort, he changed course and trotted off to the bathroom, where he had designer towels to shred into a very high-class nest.

“Good night!” I called after him, but the little dragon didn’t glance back. Apparently we still weren’t on speaking terms.

Snap took the whole place in, beaming with wonder. “What a fantastic building. Mortals do make things so much more bright and colorful than anything in our realm. I think I’ll explore the rest of this… ‘hotel’ from the shadows.” He paused and looked at the rest of us with evident concern. “Unless there’s something you need from me.”

Always thinking of how he could help everyone else first. A renewed ache woke up in my heart.

“No, no, you’ve done plenty, whether you remember it or not,” Omen said, more gently than I was used to. Sometimes I forgot that underneath his preferred cold exterior, he really did care about the members of the team he’d assembled. He gave the devourer an awkward pat on the shoulder and walked with him toward the door. “But since we don’t want to lose you again, maybe I should make the rounds with you. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.”

“Yes, we can do both! Explore and investigate.” Snap beamed even brighter.

My heart might as well have been broken into pieces and fed to a pond of koi. “You be careful,” I said, unable to stop myself.

“Of course,” Snap replied cheerfully, and vanished into the shadows.

Maybe forgetting everything that had happened since he’d first ventured among mortals—not just forgetting me and his original companions but the way he’d used his power too—made things easier for him. With the pang in my chest, a lyric swam up and twisted in my mind. It came out mournful when I sang it. “You were always in a bind. You were always far too kind.”

Antic had leapt onto the bed and was now bouncing on the mattress, the satin sheets rustling beneath her feet. She grabbed the silk drapes of the canopy. “What shall I make for you? A clown on a surfboard? A fish falling from a skyscraper?” She vanished behind the fabric while swinging it into a shape that did somehow resemble that second offering.

“Er, I think I’d like to just relax, like we planned,” I said. “I don’t need a show.”

The imp harrumphed and popped back into view. “I’ll go see if someone else in this place would enjoy some antics from Antic, then.” She jabbed her finger in Thorn’s direction as she skipped past us. “I will be back at dawn when we ride again!”

Thorn managed not to grimace until she’d slipped out of sight. He gave me a baleful look. “And you think she’ll be a valuable addition to our plans?”

I threw my hands in the air. “I haven’t got a clue. If worse comes to worst, we can tell her building shoe towers is an essential component and let her occupy herself in the mall while we do the real work, right?”

“With allies like these, who needs enemies,” Ruse teased. His gaze had lingered on the bed. A thread of heat ran through my body at the thought of all the ways he could help me, ahem, “relax” between those sheets, but he turned as if to leave the room.

“Ruse,” I said. When he met my eyes, his were warm and maybe even intrigued, but something in his face struck me as uncertain. I found I didn’t know how to follow that up,