Page 5 of Darkest Valley
After an hour of bickering, Luca corners me behind the bar, reaching around me for a rag to buff out the water streaks on the cocktail glasses. Watching him polish them settles some of my tension, although I don’t know why he bothers. No one comes in here for pristine glassware.
“Do you think you could make it through this shift without having a meltdown?” he mutters, his breath fluttering the red strands of hair I carefully curled between yawns after dragging myself out of bed.
“It depends on how you define a meltdown,” I say, bumpinghim to the side with my hip. “I’m not the one who fossilized a demon in the middle of the street.”
“Gods,” Luca huffs. “Keep your voice down.” I shift my weight, unsettled by his angry tone. We’ve never argued this way before. Not on opposing sides, at least.
“Can we not do this tonight?” I ask, my shoulders drooping. I barely slept at all after disposing of the clothes and ID. Since I couldn’t burn it, I tossed the knife in a dumpster near the outskirts of the city, miles outside of my normal route to work.
The glass in Luca’s hand clinks against the wooden bar top as he puts it down and gives me his full and undivided attention. “What’s wrong?” he demands. “You never back down from a fight.”
I narrow my eyes at him, a surge of awareness running through me.
Luca is mouthwateringly sexy, easygoing, and he never forgets to add extra tequila to my drinks. That makes him the only kind of man I can tolerate on a regular basis. He’s also monstrously deadly and has as many reasons as I do to stay under the enclave’s radar. Why did he throw away years of careful hiding to protect me? Sure, we watch each other’s backs, but in the six years we’ve worked together at the club, we’ve never put ourselves directly at risk for one another before. My magic is desperate to know why he disrupted our balance.
“Nothing,” I mumble, feeling out of sorts beneath his scrutiny. “I don’t know, Luca, I didn’t sleep well.”
“Hot date?” His tone is oddly brittle, although I can tell he’s trying to get back to our normal friendly teasing.
“And when exactly would I have had time for that?” I flick a clump of uneven body glitter off the swell of my right breast, then meet his eyes defiantly. “After I helped dispose of the body or before I crawled into bed with a hard, dripping hunk ofice?”
His gaze flickers to my forehead, but the red mark is long gonethanks to ice and my advanced angelic healing. Luca grins as if my joke fixed everything between us, his white teeth gleaming in the dim light of the closed strip club. “When you put it like that?—”
“And while we’re on the subject, I’m annoyed that strippers have a reputation for getting laid often and well,” I interrupt, a faint throbbing building at the base of my skull. “I can’t even remember the last time I had a good time on my back unless I provided it myself.”
“Preach,” Imani says, walking up with Ada and Brandy to join us. “My love life is drier than this desert.” I glance at Luca, but he’s perfectly at ease. Choking on my frustration, I smile at the girls. The time before open is sacred. Luca and I will have to hash this out later.
“I’ll be sure to make a public service announcement,” Luca says, pretending to scribble notes on a wrinkled napkin with his finger. “Fewer tips, more orgasms for my dancers.”
“No need to make any announcements for me. I do all right,” Ada teases, her dimples winking before she bends to tighten up an intricately laced pair of heels. We all take a collective look are her mile-long legs and waist-length platinum hair and exchange grins.
“Anything I say right now will get me sent straight to HR,” Luca says, earning himself a chorus of boos.
“Aren’t you the Human Resources department?” I ask.
“That’s right.” He snaps his fingers. “I am. Make sure to submit all complaints between eight in the morning and four in the afternoon for prompt service.”
“We’re closed then,” Brandy points out.
“Exactly,” he says.
The playful ribbing continues as we get ready for the early crowd, then open our doors to a trickle of bored regulars. It’s nottoo bad for a Thursday afternoon, especially when I manage to land an aerial move I’ve been working on for weeks.
An hour later, a shy, gentle wolf shifter who’s scared to death of me drums up the courage to ask for a personal dance, then tips me a hundred bucks after keeping his hands to himself. All in all, it’s shaping up to be a much better day than yesterday... until he saunters in.Gods.Is it dark already?
“Can I get a dance, angel?”
I tilt my head up—way up—to meet Alistair’s eyes. Hair the color of a midnight thunderstorm teases the sharp angles of his face. His lips are ridiculously plump for someone known for sucking the life out of anyone who crosses him.
There’s not an official hierarchy in the Fringes, but if there were, Alistair would be at the top of it. A curator of information, he’s the guy lurking in the shadows that you go to for help when you’re in over your head, but only if you’ve exhausted every other option.
“I’m too tired.” I shrug, not bothering to give him a more diplomatic answer, and barely avoiding telling an outright lie.
He narrows his cool blue eyes. “And yet... I could have sworn I just saw you bouncing with abandon astride a flea-bitten simpleton.”
The contrary part of me is glad he knows I’m brushing him off. He’s been coming around the club a lot over the past few months, watching me like a hawk. Alistair is hot, but he’s trouble with a capital T, and I don’t want to add any complications to my life.
I run my fingers up his chest, feeling the solid thump of his heart. “I’d rather lie down with dogs than end up a forgotten blood donor,” I whisper, smiling as I hear his sharp inhale. Playing with this particular vampire isn’t smart, but I can’t help myself.