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

fell into silence as we all watched the human vacationers living up their experience and took sips of our drinks to drown the emotion. Thankfully, Torgny and Gunhilde didn’t ask, catching the tone of the HDPU, and nobody made any quips about the sexual energy between me and Seke.

It was questionable whether the night would be remembered afterward, but at least, the humans were enjoying themselves in the moment. I resisted the urge to get up and dance my worries away alongside them. That wasn’t what we needed right now.

“Charon wouldn’t side with the vamps. I mean he’s the ferryman. I’d think that they would be a personal affront to him.” I shrugged.

“Not because of that, you twit. I mean that if the director found out, he could put the kibosh on the whole thing. Don’t want that, do you?” Raven gave me a very pointed are-you-dumb? look with sculpted black eyebrows raised in question and a questioning shake to her sleek head for emphasis.

“Oh. Right. Totally.” My cheeks pinkened, and Gunhilde reached over to pat my hands where they writhed on the table. I moved to wrap them around the base of my bottled beer to keep from fidgeting. Little beads of condensation had formed and were running steadily down the length of the brown glass. “See? Who thought it would be a good idea for me to head this thing?” I groused childishly as I picked at the label of the bottle, sneaking a glare at Seke.

He merely raised a brow, remaining quiet and confident.

I studiously avoided the others’ gazes as I rethought.

“Maybe there’s a local supe hangout where we can get some local info.” Ember looked around the table to see how her idea was received.

It was a good one, and we all nodded intermittently.

“I’ll see if I can get another vision of my mother. But if we could track down something from a local supe or even a vamp...” I let the idea hang.

“Oh, I love a good interrogation.” Raven lit up and toasted me with her drink. “I’ll play Bad Cop. Cole can be Good Cop.”

Cole grumbled but didn’t decline the role.

“It’s a plan. Let’s finish here and get moving,” Gunhilde agreed.

“Ready? Break!” Ember shouted as if we’d been in a football huddle and that was the signal to move to our respective positions.

In this case, it meant we all leaned back against the pleather seat cushions and lifted our drinks. Unspoken, we agreed to finish this round, and then we’d get to implementing our plan.

We’d find my mom. After more than a decade, it was hard to wait even another day. But we needed to be smart. We needed to be fast. We needed to do it right.

Don’t get caught.

25

“Care to buy a girl a drink? Because you look like a tall glass, and I’m feeling thirsty.” Ember added a suggestive showing of teeth, sliding her tongue over a canine.

The pale man at the bar raised a brow, his lips quirking on one side. “Yeah? Thirsty for—?”

A slim blonde stepped in front of him. “Excuse me. That’s my boyfriend.” She sneered and spun around, squarely smacking the phoenix in the face with her carefully arranged waves. A waft of hairspray punctuated the move and set the phoenix to coughing.

“Why you—”

“Nope.” Cole’s beefy arms came around Ember and picked up her tiny frame, spinning her around one-eighty and dropping her before a chortling Raven.

Ember glared. “It’s been a few years since I dated, okay?” Few hundred years, actually. Her heart had been broken one time too many by the passage of time, and she’d sworn off romance. She’d just begun her break when she joined the HD as something to keep her busy.

Raven bit back another laugh. “I can tell, old bird. Do you even know what ‘thirsty’ is slang for these days?”

The gin and tonic cooled the redhead’s rapidly rising temperature — which had nothing to do with their third packed club of the night. This one had seemed promising as a supe hangout with the name of Magic and Mayhem. And then they’d spied the very undead-looking guy at the bar.

“I was trying to gauge if he drank blood. And we still don’t know that he’s not a vamp...” Ember tried to get around the hellhound’s bulk. “I could take that skinny bitch on, spill some blood. See if he takes the bait.”

“No,” Cole rumbled, preventing the pixie from detouring around the barrier his body created. “He’s not a vamp. I could smell him. Human.”

Ember tossed her arms up. “Then why aren’t we just sending you around to sniff everyone’s butts?”

Raven handed Cole his wine glass to finish and tossed back her shot of tequila, eying the room casually. “Because this option is more fun. But, no one appears too thirsty here — at least, not thirsty in the way we want. Looks like we’ve hit another dead end. Besides, I hate this kind of music. On to the next club on the strip?” She rubbed her palms together.

Ember narrowed her eyes, suspicious that her partner was enjoying herself too much. “We’re on a mission,” she reminded them. “We’re just looking for a vampire—”

“Or supe,” Cole supplied.

“—we can interrogate about Bermuda. That’s it. No fun and games.”

Raven rolled her eyes, turning for the door. “You need to learn to mix business and pleasure. If I have to live with you guys all the time, I’m going to enjoy the few chances I have to get out.”

“Raven,” Ember warned, quickly sucking the last of her drink down with her straw — waste not — before tripping after the taller woman.

“It’s not the worst idea,” Cole said.

The birds turned to gawk at the hellhound, one in triumph, the other in shock.

“Hell yeah!” Raven pumped a fist. “You feeling like we deserve some fun? We never did get to have our night out when Seke got all hot and bothered over Aria.” She tipped her head back and swayed her narrow hips