here on business, not pleasure.
“All right, all right,” the incubus said, and motioned Leland over. “Just one more thing I’d like to check. If you wanted so much for Sorsha to offer you the full girlfriend experience, why didn’t you romance her like a boyfriend would? An honest answer, please.”
Leland’s expression turned vaguely puzzled, but he was charmed enough to answer without balking. “Why should I have to put in that work first if she didn’t appreciate what she already had? I didn’t hear any complaints about our hook-ups. I’ve got a good job, I work out—I’m a goddamned catch. I’m not going to chase someone who can’t be bothered to give me a foot massage or cook up a meal to pay back what they’re getting out of me. She obviously has delusions about deserving all kinds of fawning. I bet that’s how these creepy shadowkind sucked her in.”
That time I bit my tongue so hard I winced at the jab of pain. What I’d been getting out of him? Last I’d checked, he’d gotten off at least as much as I had from our hops into bed. Was I supposed to have been so honored that he’d stuck his dick in me that I’d decide to play merry homemaker—and without a single indication he even wanted that until he started sulking that it wasn’t happening?
Ruse had my back in his own way. “I see,” he said. “You really are a prickish piece of work, aren’t you?”
Leland faltered. “What? I—”
The thrum came back into Ruse’s voice. “Say it—that you’re a prickish piece of work. Like you mean it.”
“I’m a prickish piece of work,” Leland said emphatically.
“Wonderful! Now let’s get down to work. These people on Wharf Street I assume you contacted—how did you reach out to them? It’ll help us so much to know.”
Any uncertainty that had crossed Leland’s face with the past instruction faded. “I wasn’t sure I’d get someone in charge if I just called. It seemed like the message should go to someone higher up. So I went right down there.”
He’d gotten a look at the building? “What did they do when you got there?” I asked.
“They were pretty tense about the whole thing.” Leland frowned. “I guess it makes sense they would be when I showed up out of nowhere. When I told them I had vital information, a different guy came out to talk to me in the yard.”
Ruse’s eyes gleamed intently. “You didn’t go inside?”
“Nope. I told him that I had reason to believe a woman working with some hostile shadowkind was going to attack his operations tonight, and that they definitely knew about the Wharf Street location and a few others—the ones the Fund checked out. Do you think that’s why they’d be out to get me now—because I was involved in doing that research, even though I realized what the right side was?”
“Could be,” Ruse said sagely. “Although if you went back there now that they’ve foiled the attack and seen you gave them good intel, maybe they’d be more friendly and let you in on their plans.”
Leland dashed any hopes we’d had of sending him out into the field as an unwitting double-agent with a chuckle. “Oh, they’re not at that place anymore. They were pretty upset about what I told them, and I heard one guy say to another as I was leaving something about having nowhere to move now except Gorge Avenue. But I have no idea where on Gorge Avenue they were going. That wasn’t an address the Fund had.”
No, it wasn’t. I hadn’t seen or heard anything about Gorge Avenue before—but it sounded like that was where the Company would have taken their prisoners.
“Did you overhear anything else? Anything at all?” I pressed.
Leland shook his head. “They shooed me off pretty quickly. Even the guy who made that comment shut up really quickly afterward. And now they’re after me? I was only trying to help them. I thought—” His forehead furrowed as he tried to connect what he’d believed before to what Ruse’s charm was forcing him to feel. “Have they actually been hurting people? It wasn’t just Sorsha getting caught up with the wrong sort of shadowkind who wanted her to think that?”
“Unfortunately for you, these people are the worst of the worst, and it turns out they didn’t appreciate that help,” Ruse said in his most apologetic tone. “But I’ve determined that there’s a simple way you can ensure they don’t interfere with your