Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

possible for someone of his stature. With a balding head he tried to hide by combing the sparse wisps over the gleaming skin beneath, the visitor had a heavily weathered face hidden in part by a thick, whiskery mustache. The pale, beady eyes, however, were exaggerated by the thick glasses they were magnified behind as he looked up at Seke. He wasn’t any taller than me, and I leveled a dubious look at the disconcerting gentleman.

“You’re over occupancy. The room was rented for two,” he said in a snake-charmer kind of way. Leaning forward, he surveyed Cole, Ember, and Raven, who all returned his stare with crossed arms and narrowed eyes of their own. “I saw the lot of you move in here from the parking lot, and when they didn’t come back out, I knew I needed to have a little talk with you, especially when GQ here rejoined.”

Behind him, Seke held up a hand, warning his crew that it would be best if they remained silent… or, more likely, that they shouldn’t do anything.

He licked his lips, eyes bouncing between Ember, Raven, and me like a pinball. His speech sped up, tone going up an octave as he continued. “Listen, I’m willing to… overlook the misconduct as long as, you know, you let me hang out. Watch a bit. You know.”

I did not know. Neither, it seemed, did any of my companions, who all shot perplexed looks to the others in wonder of his meaning.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but we’ll be vacating soon.” I moved to close the door, but the man — whose little brass name tag read: Jim, Assistant Manager — threw out a hand to push it back.

“You’re shooting a porn flick, right? I mean, come on. Look at you guys. People who look like you don’t stay here, especially him.” He threw his weak chin in Seke’s direction.

Seke, in turn, furrowed his brow.

“Looks like the girls outnumber the guys by one…” the suggestive tone he used finally clued the room into his meaning, breaking the dam of unnatural silence that had descended like a smothering fire blanket.

Unlike my companions, I was speechless. With varying heated arguments, each of the people in the room — aside from Seke — pushed toward the door and the weasely little trespasser with fire lighting their otherworldly eyes and spewing forth from their angry maws.

None could be heard clearly, but the message was received by the human whose beady eyes now resembled dinner plates behind their spectacles. The bristly mustache quivered along with the lip it obscured as Jim took two panicked steps back in retreat, throwing himself down onto the asphalt of the parking lot when his foot slid from the sidewalk in his haste to put distance between himself and us.

Seke blocked anyone from crossing the threshold and getting their hands on the weak human. “Thank you for your interest. However, you are mistaken about our use of the room. We will be vacating shortly and do not need any assistance.” Seke’s smooth, calm proclamation was followed by the slam of the door as he again shut us all back into the confines of the small room.

Like a clap of thunder, the room exploded into a new joint noise as each of us dissolved into a fit of hysterical laughter.

23

Ember could have gone without ever making Jim’s acquaintance, but after he was shut back out, she realized his interruption was serendipitous.

When she’d walked in, the tension had been palpable, thickening the air unpleasantly. Now, with bemused smiles still tugging at the corners of lips as they dubbed their captain with the new moniker of “GQ”, the team felt like just that again — a unit. Torgny had even cracked a smile when Aria suggested to him something about sending a ghost into the motel’s office.

“It seems we must speed things along. We no longer have grounds to take our time getting reacquainted — or acquainted,” Seke said, indicating the valkyrie partners.

“We need to speed things along anyway,” Aria interjected, her smile slipping dramatically enough to almost be comical.

Almost.

Ember recognized the worry and desperation in Aria’s eyes and guessed what the “extra mission” Seke had brought them there to help with might be. “Who are we rescuing?” Because, of course, they weren’t just there for Aria. There had to be someone else that mattered to Aria, a compounding issue, for Seke to break the rules.

The banshee’s eyes dipped to her hands where she stared at her fingers and twisted a ring around the digit she loved to flash at Cole and Raven. Her teeth bit nervously at her lip ring. “My mom,” she said quietly.

The shifter HDPU members gasped before elapsing into stunned silence until, finally, voices spoke over each other as the news sunk in. Ember had learned to let people in her former life go and had anticipated having to give a lecture about humans from Aria’s past. But Aria’s mom was a banshee. This was huge — this explained why Seke had been so adamant about them getting involved.

Seke held up a hand, and the murmuring ceased.

“Seke,” Gunhilde interrupted. His attention swiveled to the valkyrie, who grinned, cracking her curmudgeonly expression and tightened the skin around a rather wicked-looking scar that ran the length of her face, right cheek and lips bisected by the puckered line. “Enid’s alive, Seke.” Her nostrils flared. “She’s being held by vampires.”

“Vamps?” Raven’s head whipped back and forth between Seke and Gunhilde laughably. “I thought you killed them all centuries ago? You missed some?”

Ember edged closer, waiting for Seke’s reply.

“I met one,” Aria said. She didn’t seem happy about it, but Ember saw the way Raven’s jaw set like she’d just been one-upped.

Seke inclined his head at the questions directed his way. Courteously, he didn’t admonish the raven shifter for her accusatory tone. He, like Ember and Cole, was quite comfortable letting her verbal punches glance right off them at this point.