Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,49
the early days of our… association.
Maybe even more affectionate, or simply in a way that felt more like an expression of his own happiness rather than an attempt to work his charms. I wasn’t sure what had made the difference, but I wasn’t going to complain.
“I’ll keep an eye on the incubus,” Thorn said in a rumble, a note of amusement emerging in his usual somber tone. “And make sure none of the mortals cause any trouble for Sorsha.”
“There you go,” I said to Omen, folding my arms over my chest—and maybe leaning just a little into Ruse’s embrace to stretch out the enjoyment. “I’m well-protected.”
“One might even say… in good hands,” Ruse murmured, trailing his fingers up my sides to set off a wave of heat to join the earlier warmth. He kissed me once more, on the side of my neck, before easing back. “But of course I shouldn’t let those hands distract you from your mission.”
I shot him a look through my eyelashes. “Save that for later.”
Antic skipped down the hall between us, flickering in and out of her invisible state. “I want to meet this bunch of mortals too! So many new humans to play with. If I entertain them, maybe they’ll feel more friendly?”
“Er…”
I was saved from needing to answer by Omen, although he took a harsher approach than I would have. He fixed the imp with his cool stare. “Has your ‘playing’ ever put its recipients in a better mood? Think hard now.”
She pouted at him. “I do my best. Sometimes they simply don’t appreciate a good joke.”
“I think we should save the jokes for when I’ve gotten to know them a little,” I said, jumping on that excuse. “So we can make sure you cater to their specific sense of humor.”
Omen raised an eyebrow at me as if to ask why I was even bothering to humor the shadowkind he saw as a pest, but he didn’t argue with my framing.
Antic sighed and plopped down in the middle of the floor. “I suppose you’re right. I just feel my talents aren’t being put to full use.”
A glimmer of inspiration lit in my head. “Why don’t you spend some time exploring town, chat up the local shadowkind you meet—see if you can find anyone who was around twenty-five years ago and might have heard about the murders?”
“I could do that!” She jumped up again and gave me a sharp salute. “I won’t let you down.”
The hellhound shifter’s gaze followed her as she flitted away. “Are you sure you want her making our first impressions for us?”
“At least the shadowkind won’t flee in terror at the sight of her like they should with you, right?” I knuckled his bicep teasingly as I headed past him to the door. “I’ll try to keep this short.”
Nothing about the city beyond the Everymobile was exactly familiar. I only had those few wavery fragments of memory from my childhood to go by, and no doubt the place had changed plenty in the twenty-five years since I’d last set foot here. But still, walking down the bustling street past café patios and various vibrant stores gave me a sense of homecoming, as if my body knew I belonged here. Maybe it was all a delusion because I knew I’d started my mortal life here, but there was something enjoyable about it all the same.
After our business with the Company of Light was done, maybe I’d have to spend some time getting to know the city of my supposed birth all over again.
I’d gotten the contact information for someone in the Austin branch of the Shadowkind Defense Fund from a list all Fund members received once they’d participated in the organization for long enough to show their dedication. When I’d reached out last night as we’d approached the city, the woman had told me their next meeting would be in the gaming shop I was walking up to now. The plastic figures of orcs and trolls poised in the windows looked like caricatures of the actual “monsters” living among us.
I walked up to the counter as if I belonged in the place and smiled at the guy behind the counter, who was buff enough to have wielded a sword in real life as well as with a roll of a die. “I’m here for the 4pm gaming session. The password is Dragonlance.”
The dude gave me a thumbs up and motioned to a door behind a rack of LARPing instruction manuals behind