Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,7

was literally breathtaking.

“It’s almost the same color,” he said, sounding pleased with his observation. He held the strands up to the peach’s red skin. “And just as soft.”

I managed to catch my breath, but the only sound that came out of me was, “Er.” I should probably step away, but I couldn’t quite convey that message to my legs.

Ruse chuckled. “I’ll bet she tastes just as sweet too.”

There was no mistaking the suggestiveness of that comment, but Snap’s head jerked toward him with a flicker of horror. “You can’t eat her!”

Thorn stirred at the table as if tuning in to his companions’ asides for the first time. “No one should even be thinking about eating anyone around here,” he commanded.

Ruse rolled his hooded eyes. “I’ll have you know that in my entire existence, I’ve never eaten a person—not like that, anyway.” He winked at me. “I apologize for my associates’ inability to follow a metaphor.”

I held up my hands, finally convincing my feet to back away from Snap. “Enough. Let me think.”

No way in hell did I want these guys lurking around in the shadows, keeping an eye on me for my “protection” without me having any idea where exactly they were. I valued my privacy, thank you very much. At least while they were visible, I’d know when I was actually on my own.

As the entire conversation had demonstrated, shadowkind didn’t have the same concepts humans did of social niceties… or basic legalities, for that matter. The fact that they had no right to occupy my apartment and that I might not want them hanging around “repaying” me meant zip. If they’d decided to temporarily adopt me, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to convince them otherwise—not without provoking hostilities I wasn’t prepared to contend with, anyway.

Because I’m nothing if not stubborn, I had to make one last attempt. “Can you really not believe that I’d rather you put all your energy into finding your ‘boss’ instead of looking out for me?”

Thorn blinked at me as if I’d said something completely preposterous. “It’s not about believing. It’s about what’s right.”

He said it with such solemn commitment that I barely held back a laugh. What was right, according to him: crashing the home of a woman they barely knew and insisting on watching over her despite her protests. Welcome to shadow logic.

Ruse and Snap looked equally disinclined to budge. I inhaled sharply and squared my shoulders. In that case, I’d just have to do what I could to get them moving on with their other responsibilities.

“Fine,” I said. “There are some people I can meet up with tonight who might have information that’ll help you track down this Omen guy. In the meantime, I’d prefer if you did your protecting from the kitchen.”

I slipped into the room just long enough to grab a muffin out of the breadbox for my breakfast, waved Pickle onto my shoulder, and stalked back to my bedroom to figure out how to get myself unadopted ASAP.

3

Ruse

“Well, that went just spectacularly,” I said, leaning back against our savior’s kitchen counter.

“Really?” Snap looked toward me with that dopily hopeful expression of his.

Thorn shifted forward in his chair as if debating whether to spring into action right now. “I thought so.”

Unfortunately, my current associates understood sarcasm about as well as they comprehended metaphors. I wiped the lingering bubbles off my hands. The lemony scent made my nose itch, but at least the stuff had entertained Snap for a little while. Not that he was all that difficult to impress.

“I was joking,” I said. “She all but told us to take a hike. Repeatedly.” Her noxious silver-and-iron brooch might have deflected most of my ability to read her emotions the way I generally could with mortals, but from the moment she’d retreated to put the thing on, her wariness about our presence should have been perfectly obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.

Anyone other than these two. Why had I let Omen rope me into this posse again? I hadn’t taken into consideration the possibility of being snared and shut away in a cage for darkness only knew how long.

Longer than was good for my health, the more insistent itch in my chest suggested. The ravenous sensation I’d been fighting off for days was producing claws.

“She told us to stay,” Thorn said, which was the most generous possible interpretation of the young woman’s instruction for us to keep to the kitchen. “She even offered to help look