beneath the soft T-shirt and leather jacket slightly hunched. Blue eyes gleamed with a faint demon-yellow glow. His expression, one he seemed to wear a lot around her, contained a mixture of desire, determination, and befuddlement.
She was just as confused as he seemed to be, because he purely baffled her. And as much as she told herself she didn’t want to solve this particular puzzle she knew deep down she was lying to herself. The demon was complicated, and she loved every complicated piece of his puzzle.
Maybe once she was done with this…project, she could put more effort into the mystery that was Finn Evnissyen. All she knew about him was that he was handsome, sexy, a great lover, and as badass as they came. While she would trust him to watch her back in a dangerous situation, he wasn’t the type of guy a woman should give her heart to.
Definitely not the sort a girl brought home to meet her parents.
Luckily for Keira, her parents—both the set in the other dimension and the ones of her human host—were long dead and buried. All of them—shapeshifter, fey, or vampire—were mortal in the other dimension. They lived and died the same way humans did. It was the combination of their otherworldly essence with human souls that created their immortality here on Earth. Although she didn’t have to worry about gaining approval, that didn’t mean she was going to entertain any ideas about having some sort of long-term relationship with Finn. He was strictly a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy. She’d heard about him around town.
Yet she couldn’t deny that he was a mighty temptation, as well as enigmatic. Even with her abilities she had trouble figuring him out. She was fey, and like all of her kind she had the ability to use glamour. The older the fey, the stronger the ability. With her specifically, she was an empath. She could read the emotions of others, even influence those emotions. She could make people feel what she wanted them to, believe what she thought they should. And if she pushed hard enough, she could alter their perception of their surroundings to the point that she became invisible.
Her glamour was something she rarely used anymore. In the other dimension before she’d become Keira O’Brien she’d used all her skills as a grifter to swindle a handsome living off unsuspecting marks. Since she’d come to Earth, though, she’d tried to do better, be better. The personality of her human host had a lot to do with that. The human Keira of the O’Brien clan had been an honest, honorable woman. So, to pay homage to that, the new Keira had determined to live her life the way her human host would have.
While she could have used her gift to influence Finn, she hadn’t. And she wouldn’t. Ever. Not for something as important as love.
But to get the information needed for her task from a vampire? In her experience, any tactic employed in war was fair. She’d use her ability faster than a bartender could pour green beer on St. Paddy’s Day. She turned toward the back of the club and hurried after the vampire she’d spotted. “Javier!” she called.
With one hand on the knob of the door that separated the public area of the club from the rooms where vamps went to dine in private, a short, swarthy-skinned man stopped and looked at her. She’d met Javier Alvaro initially at a formal meet-and-greet at council headquarters that all newcomers to Scottsdale had to go through. While she wouldn’t call him a friend, they were at least on friendly terms. Of sorts.
“I need to talk to you,” she said upon reaching him.
“Keira.” He gave her a once-over, which set her teeth on edge, but she plastered a pleasant expression on her face and projected a sense of sexual interest she was far from feeling. When his dark gaze came back to her face, he said, “If you want to talk, bonita, you’ll have to donate, because I’m going in there”—he tapped two fingers against the door—“to feed.” Crimson hunger rimmed his cocoa-colored irises. “I have a powerful thirst for blood. And maybe something more.”
She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of letting this smarmy vamp fang her, and she had no intention of letting him “something more” or anything else with her either. However, she was no stranger to making hard choices to get what she needed. She’d use her glamour on