Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(83)

Trey forced his tongue to remain inside his mouth and not slide along his lips.

“I’m fine. Now, what are you doing here?”

“Checking out the Black Fairy.” He flipped his palms up in a “what else” motion. “What a surprise finding you here. Thought you hung up your spikes years ago.”

Her eyebrows flinched in a self-conscious frown.

Oops. That might have sounded like a reference to her turning thirty in a few months, but she had nothing to worry about based on that bunch of hardtails inside the nightclub giving her the once-over. Trey should have sent an air slap across a few heads, but the petulant act would have caused a disturbance confirming his presence.

“Thought what I did was of no interest to you. And there was a time you wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this, so why the sudden curiosity?” Egyptian-shaped hazel eyes boldly outlined with an artist’s touch sparked with challenge.

“To tell you the truth, I was looking for someone.” He hoped the coy answer would keep her talking and buy him time to find out who sent her to hunt for Ekkbar.

“So was I until you spooked him.”

“Me?” There was no way Ekkbar could have detected him, but Trey couldn’t very well admit that. “Who you looking for?”

“No one you’d know.”

“So how could I have spooked him?”

“You look clean cut for this place. The glasses are new, but they won’t camouflage what you are. You stand out like you’re a cop. Or a Fed.” She snapped her fingers. One of her perfect eyebrows lifted in a sarcastic arch. “Oh, but that’s right. You do work for the FBI or CIA or do something for national defense you couldn’t explain or then you’d have to kill me, right?”

Not a conversation he wanted to be sucked into right now. The glasses were made of an optic material not found in standard eyeglass outlets. Rather than improve his vision, they protected his power that was directly related to his eyesight.

“You were searching for a felon?” Trey asked.

Sasha’s brow puckered with a look that said she should have kept her mouth shut.

He held a mask of blank emotions in place rather than grin at her slip. “What are you doing down here this late at night hunting for someone afraid of law enforcement, huh?”

“I’m working, so how about not interfering.”

Now he was getting close. “What sort of work?”

She drew a deep breath that brought her leather outfit to life, then exhaled an aggravated huff. “What makes you think you’re entitled to know anything about me or my life?”

“Look, I’m just worried about you.”

She laughed, deep and scoffing. “That’s good.” Sasha shook her head with a flip of disbelief. Hair the color of sin washed over her shoulder and brushed the smooth body Trey had spent many a night dreaming of freeing from clothes . . . again.

“It’s true, Sasha.”

She stilled, her eyes slanting up at him, all business. “You lost the chance to worry about me a long time ago, so don’t start now. You have your life just the way you want it and I have mine, which doesn’t allow room for past mistakes.”

He had a life, not necessarily the way he wanted it, but that was his fault, not hers.

Trey felt several predators draw close. He spun to stand in front of Sasha and cursed his carelessness. A trio of twenty-somethings with matching jackets, matching dagger-and-blood tattoos, and matching cocky attitudes. Gangbangers. He should have been paying attention to more than Sasha.

“Why don’t you boys move on down the road, huh?” Trey assessed the one holding a gun, the leader. Stringy blond hair raked his thick shoulders and heavy rings on each finger of one hand like a modified brass knuckle—a big question mark.

“Start walking into the cemetery, quietly,” the leader ordered, his acne-riddled face devoid of any emotion.

Trey entered the leader’s mind and heard, I’m going to enjoy making you watch me hump yo’ bitch.

This night only got better by the minute. Trey growled under his breath. He couldn’t use his supernatural powers to hurt these guys. The Belador code required he only use force equal to what he was dealt.

Sasha stepped up beside Trey and he shoved her back.

“You need my help,” she whispered sharply.

“No, I don’t,” Trey answered softly. “If you get in the way, you’ll get someone killed.”

“Do I have a choice in who gets killed?” she muttered.

“You gonna make me use this?” the stringy blond asked, waving the gun. Pretty confident pointing a weapon at someone unarmed.

“If your plan was to piss them off, it worked beautifully,” Sasha grumbled. “Either give them money or let me help.”

“No.” Trey rolled his eyes. Didn’t she realize he had enough to deal with without her jumping into the fray? He loved her tomboy side that thankfully kept her from freaking out in a crisis, but now wasn’t the time to play tough girl. Trey couldn’t explain that money was not their ultimate goal—she was. He had no way to know for sure what this fool might do, so he turned to a limited power he rarely used. Willing his energy toward the shooter’s gun hand, Trey paralyzed the trigger finger then forced the assailant’s wrist to quiver, but he wouldn’t be able to hold the connection long.