High Voltage (Fever #10)(44)

I glanced down at the dance floors, to the elegant, wide, glass and chrome staircase that swept up to one of the many private, never-accessible-by-public levels of the club, where Ryodan’s glass office was located.

In spite of my pissy mood, I smiled.

Fade and Kasteo were in position at the bottom, arms folded, legs splayed wide, two handsome, towering, scarred immortal bouncers.



The Nine were home.

I basked in the simple pleasure of that fact for a moment.

Then my smile was obliterated by a scowl. They were guarding the same notorious staircase from which the notorious Ryodan used to give his notorious nod every morning.

I knew the legend. Women never refused.

Saw. Off. Head.

I dragged my gaze from the stairs and continued scanning the club. Hundreds of laborers mulled about the interior, dismantling bars and snugs, prepping for renovations. I was pleased to see the kiddie subclub was already demolished. I couldn’t look at it without thinking of Jo. Apparently Ryodan couldn’t either. Nor, I’d bet, did Lor much like it anymore. Besides, it reminded me, too, of that day Ryodan had saved my life by shoving me on an elevator, sacrificing himself to fling my cabled car up to safety. I’d thanked him by slaughtering everyone in the kiddie subclub while he was out of commission. Done it to deliberately wreck his good name with the patrons he’d guaranteed safety within his walls.

I’d endangered his chessboard. No wonder he’d been so angry with me. I’d nearly cost him the information that gave him the ability to control the Nine’s world, affect the world beyond it.

God, it seemed so long ago! It was a vastly different time.

A vastly different me.

I’d believed myself large and in charge in my teens, and I’d been out of control, indulging my desires without once considering their potential consequences. Here, in Chester’s, I’d had a brutal epiphany at fourteen, come to understand my actions had ramifications. I’d glimpsed, for the first time, the boats I’d left capsized in my wake, occupants flailing in the water as I blasted across the whitecaps of Dublin’s stormy sea.



I stood a moment, letting memories wash over me, then shook them briskly off.

I was glad to see the club reopening. I was not, however, glad to see its erstwhile owner.

I narrowed my eyes as I realized I didn’t see its erstwhile owner.

Anywhere.



Where was he? I had a bone the size of a Patagotitan’s femur to pick with him.

My hands were so tightly fisted, the nails of my right hand had drawn blood. My gloved left was cold as ice and itching ferociously.

As I pushed forward through the open doors, I felt them fall in behind me, one on each side. I didn’t even need to turn around.

Two of the Nine had been standing behind the doors on either side, and I’d not sensed them through the foot-thick steel that, I was willing to bet, was coated with the mysterious alloy Ryodan likes to use.

I certainly felt them now, an exhilarating electrical charge sizzling on every inch of my skin. But there was something more, something disturbing. That thrilling current was laced with a thing I’d not noticed when I was younger: a slow, dark, blatantly sexual burn.

They radiated masculinity, saturated the air with a palpable, primal earthiness, a promise of inexhaustible carnality. Unlike the Fae’s brutal assault on the senses, there was no compulsion here. They simply exuded erotic invitation and promise, awakening in a woman’s body a profound, inescapable awareness that an eminently fuckable man was near that could deliver the kind of sex women dream of, mind-blowing, earth-shattering, all-consuming, go-down-in-history as the best ever. And all I could think was, Holy distorting diode, please tell me Ryodan doesn’t throw this charge off now, too.



Had something about them changed? Or was something about me different? Was this what Jo had always felt around Ryodan? What other women had incessantly experienced around the Nine? Had I just been too young, too sexually inexperienced, too full of myself to feel it back then?

Possible.

I turned to see who flanked me.

On my left was the one I call Shadow, as I’ve never learned his name. Scarred and massive, towering over me by a foot, whiskey eyes burning, he watched me in silence. To my right was, holy hell—

“Lor!” The rubber bands stringing my muscles too tight vanished and my face exploded in a hundred-Mega-watt smile.

I flung myself into the tall blond man’s arms and was rewarded with an enormous, crushing bear hug as the ever-up-for-a-party Viking swept me off my feet and spun me around.

When he finally put me back down, I was still grinning like an idiot until he flashed me a wolfish smile and said, “Honey, you been running my ass ragged for two goddamn eternal years. I’m so fucking glad the boss is back. Might have time to get laid again.”

My smile vanished. “Wait, what?”

“Laid. I might get laid.”

“I heard that part. That’s a given with you. I don’t need to hear it. Two years? Running your ass ragged?”

“Watching you. Making sure you stayed out of trouble.”

I strained every tendon in my right hand by fisting it too tightly. “You’ve. Been. Here. In Dublin. For two years? Right here?”

He nodded happily. “Thought I was gonna have to save you from those slimy bastards the other night but you took care of ’em just fine, honey.”