Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,53

the bed where he’d been building a nest out of a heap of gauzy curtain fabric the equines had left stashed down there.

I lay back and tried to clear my head, but the dragon’s restlessness had infected me. After several minutes of shifting around and not finding any position that felt relaxing, I got up and went back out into the RV’s common area.

Ruse and Snap were sitting at the table, both with a handful of playing cards. The incubus had decided that since his attempts at unearthing Snap’s memories hadn’t panned out, his next project should be teaching the devourer poker. They were placing their bets with blueberries from little bowls by their elbow. Snap probably preferred winning those over money anyway.

“I see your three and raise you five,” Ruse said, waggling his cards, and glanced up at me.

“Where’d everyone go?” I asked. “Or are they just lurking?” Even after all the time I’d spent in shadowkind company, knowing they could be around and watching without my having any way of telling was a bit unnerving.

The incubus shook his head. “Thorn went to conduct a wide patrol, because of course he would. The imp set off to search for shadowkind in the suburb we passed on the way out here, and Omen got it into his head that he needed to make some kind of inquiries of his own. I’m not sure where he headed—he wasn’t very loquacious about the decision.”

“That is generally his style.”

“Indeed.” Ruse motioned to the table. “Want to join a friendly game?”

I wavered, but I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to exchange banter right now. “I think I’ll just take a walk. I won’t go far.”

“Don’t be gone too long, or Thorn’ll have a conniption.”

The corner of my lips quirked up. “I’ll do my best to avoid that.”

We’d parked on the outskirts of the city in a secluded treed area not far from the river. I ambled past a picnic bench, which from its splintering edges and dirt-crusted boards hadn’t been used in years, and followed an overgrown trail down to the water’s edge.

The breeze murmured through the leafy branches and licked cool air across my face. The crisp, earthy scent of autumn was starting to emerge through the last whiffs of summer. It was all very peaceful until a chorus of frogs that somehow sounded both wheezy and hoarse started up. Excellent mood music.

The sun had nearly descended behind the distant buildings to the west. I walked in the other direction, dodging fallen branches and clumps of bushes, which gave me plenty to focus on other than how exactly I’d come to be the impossible being I was. When the breeze turned chilly enough that I wished I’d worn a jacket over my thin tee, I turned and headed back the way I’d come.

I’d nearly made it to the path when the last rays of sunlight caught on a head of golden curls moving toward me. Snap’s face brightened when he saw me, but there was something tentative in his expression too. Not a typical look on the being who liked to throw himself headlong into anything that caught his interest.

Keeping up the breezy, nonchalant front was harder with him than with the others. Every time I pretended we were just casual associates, my stomach knotted all over again. But that wasn’t his fault.

“Felt like stretching your legs?” I said with my best offhandedly friendly smile.

The devourer smiled back, but the tentativeness lingered. He came to a stop just a few feet away from me. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. You’d been gone for some time.”

“Oh.” I wouldn’t have thought this Snap paid enough attention to me to be concerned, but maybe I’d been unfair. I held out my arms in demonstration. “I’m fine. Just needed some air.”

“Are you going back to the Everymobile, then?”

I’d thought I was, but my legs balked. The gloom didn’t weigh as heavy out here. I wasn’t in a hurry to return to it. “I might just sit by the river for a little while longer.”

Snap paused. “I could sit with you if you’d like company.”

His presence brought a different sort of weight, but I found I couldn’t send him off when he’d offered so sweetly. “All right. Thank you.”

We settled in on a grassy patch by the remains of a concrete wall, just a few saplings between us and the rippling water. I leaned against the crumbling surface. Snap fingered a spiky flower that