Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(100)

Nic had a point. No telling what Isak could tap if he found her number. But going to see her friend now meant putting on gear to ride in the heat and she had no time tonight. Ugh. “Can you give me a hint?”

“You looking for a stone?”

Oh, shit. The heat be damned. “I’m heading your way.”

“Ride.” Feenix pushed away and stood up on the bed, bouncing as she ended the call. “Go ride. Go ride.”

She’d taken him for a late-night ride on the bike once and he’d loved it, especially when she’d stopped by Nicole’s to show Feenix to her. He loved Nic.

Nicole had never driven a vehicle, and she required someone to drive her wheelchair-accessible van when she did travel. For her, Evalle would make the ride in daytime. And to get a hand up on finding this stone. If traffic worked in her favor, she could make Avondale in fifteen minutes. Riding alone would be quicker, but she had little time left with Feenix if she lost her bid with the Tribunal. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you dressed and go for a ride.”

Feenix tossed his alligator up in the air and caught it, stomping back and forth on the bed. “Go ride, dammit.”

“We’re going to have to work on your vocabulary,” she told him on the way to finding his T-shirt. “You’ll need those sunshades, too. We’ll be in midday sun.”

But she was wrong. By the time she’d covered herself in a custom lightweight Aerostich riding suit she’d just received in the mail and wheeled her bike out of the elevator car, the skies were overcast, with temperatures in the eighties.

Not ideal, but a welcome break.

Putting the side stand down, she turned to Feenix, who hopped out of the elevator and landed next to her.

“Don’t forget, you’re a robot today,” she told him.

Feenix immediately straightened up and pretended to move his hands and feet like a robot while he walked around in a circle.

“You’re good.” She put goggles on him to cover his eyes that glowed sometimes, and gloves, to keep him from using his power inadvertently. Then she lifted him up to the back of her bike seat. He gripped a looped strap on each side that gave him the look of a stuffed animal attached to the chassis.

The black T-shirt Nicole had given her for Feenix raised a smile to Evalle’s lips. Just above his potbelly, it read EVL TOO. Nicole’s idea of the perfect match for Evalle’s vanity motorcycle tag, which read EVL ONE.

“Go fath, dammit.” Feenix kept staring straight off the rear of the bike, but his mouth curved up.

“Will you stop saying ‘dammit’ if I get you a bucket of lug nuts?”

“Yeth. What ith bucket?”

“Never mind.” Her gear was lightweight but hot standing still with no air moving. “Sit up straight and don’t talk to anyone. Got it?”

He looked at her and pointed at his mouth, as in you told me not to talk.

She smiled. He had her there.

Climbing on, she cranked the engine and kinetically closed the elevator door.

The ride to Avondale, which was east of downtown Atlanta, took a few minutes longer than expected. A good little backseat rider, Feenix leaned with her through the curves and made a high-pitched whistling sound when she revved the RPMs.

Nicole lived in a remodeled warehouse near Main Street, not because living in a loft apartment was the style for a woman in her late twenties but because she liked the sense of community she found here.

Evalle used the security code to enter and parked in the secured garage beneath the four-story building.

Feenix hopped down and hurried over to the elevator, where he flapped his wings to reach the button.

“Feenix! Robot, remember?”

“Thorry.” He dropped back down to the concrete and did his robotic circle walk.

Evalle reached the elevator as the door opened and two women walked out. They took one look at Feenix and stopped. Evalle lifted her key ring, which had a small black box on it, and pointed the box at Feenix. “Walk into the elevator.”

He did a perfect imitation of a robotic gargoyle.

The women laughed and oohed over him.

Bless Feenix, because he managed not to smile when she could see how much he wanted to.

Thankfully, the fourth floor hallway was vacant of humans. Nicole’s door opened before she knocked on it.

Beautiful. That word always jumped into Evalle’s mind when she saw Nicole, with her caramel brown hair that flowed and curled around her brown sugar shoulders, but the woman wasn’t the least bit vain. She wore a flowing sleeveless housedress that hid the crippled legs she’d been born with, and she leaned heavily on her rosewood cane.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Nicole inched forward to give a hug she knew Evalle didn’t allow easily. When Nicole hobbled backward and opened the door wider, she saw Evalle wasn’t alone. “Hello, Feenix. Oh! You’re wearing the shirt I gave you.”

Bouncing into the apartment, Feenix took Nicole’s exclamation as a cue to be himself again. He stomped from foot to foot and pointed at his shirt. “Like it, dammit.”

Nicole gave Evalle a sharp look at the curse word.

“Don’t ask. It was an accident, and I haven’t been able to fix it.” Evalle told Feenix, “‘Dammit’ is not a good word, so don’t use it, okay?”

“Whereth my bucket?”