Since it wouldn’t exactly do for the regular mortals to witness my monstrous companions emerging from the shadows as if appearing out of thin air, I couldn’t confer with them until I reached the dim alley a few blocks down the street. A trash bin farther down the narrow space was baking in the summer heat, giving off a lovely bouquet of broiled kitchen scraps. I wrinkled my nose and glanced around to make sure no one human had followed me between the looming concrete walls.
A moment later, four figures solidified around me like smoke condensing into physical form.
“A hot guy’s phone number on a napkin—really?” Ruse teased, his hazel eyes twinkling beneath the fall of his rumpled chocolate-brown hair. “Or have you already gotten bored with the pickings here?” The incubus gave me his typical smirk, which cracked a dimple in his roguishly gorgeous face. I’d “picked” him a couple of times already, and I was happy to report that getting it on with a sex demon was everything you’d expect from the package and more.
Next to Ruse, Snap’s forehead had furrowed, barely putting a dent in the divine beauty that made him look like a youthful sun god. “The napkin was made up,” he protested in his bright voice, and turned his moss-green gaze on me. “It was made up, wasn’t it?”
I patted his slim arm. “A total fabrication. I have no phone numbers whatsoever, nor do I want any.”
The devourer made a pleased humming sound and stepped closer—not to touch me, but as if he simply wanted to soak up my presence. I’d also gotten it on with Snap not that long ago, in a tamer if no less satisfying fashion while he eased into the whole concept of physical desire. What could I say? I’d been busy lately… although with a whole lot more than getting busy, I promise.
Waking up Snap’s carnal awareness had also stirred up a possessive instinct I hadn’t counted on but couldn’t help finding kind of sweet. He might stand a full head taller than me, but he was about as frightening as a gamboling fawn. Of course, at this point I knew more about the feel of his body than why the others called him a devourer, which was still a mystery to me. Whatever his greatest power was, just the idea of it made him shudder in terror, so he hadn’t exactly been eager to chat about it.
As usual, the third member of my original trio was all business. “It didn’t appear as though you got close enough to make out anything of the inner facility, m’lady,” Thorn said somberly. The ruggedly handsome hulk of a man, a smidge taller even than Snap and filled out with muscles galore, had never met a subject he couldn’t approach with grave severity.
He could be plenty intimidating without even trying, although right now his imposing air was impaired by the little dragon squirming from one broad shoulder to the other, displacing Thorn’s long white-blond hair with little snuffles of discontentment. Pickle hadn’t spent much time around anyone other than me since I’d rescued him from a collector ages ago. It’d taken a lot of coaxing—and quite a bit of bacon—to warm the lesser shadowkind creature up to Thorn enough for him to let the warrior carry him into the shadows, out of mortal sight.
“I couldn’t see anything,” I agreed. “But it seems like a bad sign that construction has started up again. I can’t imagine the sword-star group would let the workers wander around the site if there was anything incriminating left to see.” The covert group of hunters, scientists, and who the hell knew what else we’d spent the past week battling marked some of their equipment with a symbol like a star with sword blades for two of its points, which was the only way we’d found to identify them so far.
The fourth shadowkind in our group—the one I’d only met last night after we’d broken him out of the facility that’d been hidden in the construction site—shifted on his feet. His voice held a ring of authority as cool as his icy blue stare. “I think you should hold off on making sweeping assumptions until we’ve had an actual look inside the place.”
I wasn’t totally sure what to make of Omen, the guy my trio referred to as their “boss.” He shouldn’t have stood out in the bunch—not as tall or as muscle-bound as Thorn, not