Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(91)

Neil eyed me. “I don’t think you’ve slept at all, princess. I’m pretty sure of it because you’ve kept me awake for two nights. I don’t want to go on your honeymoon.”

“How did I do that?” I’d stayed in the tent with Danny the whole night. Once we’d eaten our craptastic rations, I hadn’t bothered Neil at all.

Daniel grinned lecherously. “He’s talking about the noise you make, baby. You’re kind of a screamer.”

I blushed and reached back to firmly move Daniel’s hand off my ass. “We’re working. No hitting on the boss. It’s a rule.”

“We’ll see who the boss is,” Daniel whispered in my ear, not giving up his position. “I still wear the pants here, Z, but don’t worry. I’ll let you in them anytime you want.”

I laughed and pushed at my husband because he was such a dork and I still loved him. He rolled me over until I was on top, looking down at him.

“God, not again,” Lee groaned as he joined us. “Let her rest, Donovan. You would think her being one husband down, she could get some rest.”

“Spoilsports,” Daniel groused but let me scramble off of him.

I sat back against a tree, looking up at my bodyguard. “What’s the report?”

Lee’s brown eyes were serious as he looked at me. “There are only the two leprechauns. As far as I can tell, they aren’t armed.”

“They don’t need to be.” Daniel sat up and straightened his shirt. “Unless we lay physical hands on them or keep our eyes on them, they can teleport. I’m serious about keeping eyes on them. You can’t even blink or they’ll be gone in an instant.”

Lee nodded. “Okay. We have to deal with that. They’re in the early portions of the con. They’ve lost money at this point, so they aren’t going to want to drop everything yet.”

“Why don’t Danny and I head down and watch for a while?” I said. “You and Neil can work your way around to flank them. When the time is right, we blow their con and if they try to run, you catch their tiny asses.”

“And if they won’t talk?” Lee asked.

I shared a smile with Neil. “I have ways of making them talk. Trust me. This is going to be fun.”

I had plans for the evening. Daniel helped me up, his hand going around my waist.

“Have I told you how f*cking hot you are?” Daniel obviously had plans, too.

I couldn’t help but laugh. We’d lost so much in the last few days, but Danny had been with me. He’d held me and loved me and given me strength. Sometimes I worried that Danny and I had too much of a past, but these last few days had proven me wrong. He’d given me a comfort no one else could have, an ease. As we began to walk down toward the leprechauns, I leaned into him, finding strength there.

He leaned over, kissing my hair. “This is kind of fun, Z. It reminds me of the old days except we have a ton of sex. I prefer having the sex. It makes everything better. Do you want to stop somewhere and have sex now?”

Yeah, he pretty much never stopped. “You could be nicer to Neil.” We hadn’t talked about it yet.

He sighed. “It’s hard, Z. It’s hard to forgive because he put you and Dev in danger.”

We kept walking, our feet crunching against the forest floor. I did understand that he was possessive and anything that went contrary to his nature came under fire. “Dev wasn’t your partner then. It shouldn’t have mattered.”

His face turned away. “I’d shared you with him by then. I’d had his blood by then. It mattered, Zoey. Neil…damn it, I want to forgive him. I do. Just give me time.”

The problem was vampires viewed time differently than the rest of us. I wasn’t ready to wait a couple of decades to have my family whole again. Still, I had more to worry about than just Neil. “Can you forgive Dev?”

He stopped as we reached the flat valley where the leprechauns were working. Roughly a hundred yards away sat the small encampment we’d been studying. “It isn’t the same.”

Something had been going on between them, a distance I didn’t understand. I could only think of one thing that could really come between them. “He told you to send Summer back. He actually told me to get rid of her.”

Daniel stopped, turning my way. “He didn’t understand, Z. Dev wouldn’t do that.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I remembered that day so long ago. We’d all been confused and scared with a demon on our trail. I didn’t blame Dev, but I worried about Daniel. “Then what happened between the two of you?”

Daniel’s stubborn frown did nothing to dissuade me. “He’s just mad I wouldn’t commit genocide on his say-so. He wants to be able to point and shoot. I’m not his weapon, Z. I’m not anyone’s weapon.”

But there was obviously so much more and I knew suddenly that he wouldn’t tell me. Something had happened when they were out in the field, but he wasn’t about to talk to me about it. He strode forward, making any further conversation impossible.

Danny watched carefully as the con artists worked their game.

“Who can find the queen?” the leprechaun asked in a rapid-fire voice. “Ten gets you twenty. Twenty gets you forty. All you gotta do is keep your eye on the queen.”