Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(33)

“That’s not helpful,” Paenther muttered.

As they passed through the lobby, businessmen moved out of their way, eyeing them warily. One small pack of well-dressed women watched them with a level of interest bordering on hunger.

Paenther ignored them all. The men, humans all, were harmless. The women were of no interest. Like any man, he had needs, but he took care of them with a willing Therian female at one of the enclaves. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had actually turned his head. Lust rarely broke through the surface of the ever-present torment that filled his body thanks to another Mage witch who’d ensnared him centuries ago. Even if, by some miracle, he stumbled upon a woman who interested him, he’d ignore her. All that mattered was finding Vhyper.

As they walked through the bar’s entrance, through a thin haze of cigarette smoke, Paenther did a quick, fruitless scan. No Vhyper. Dammit.

Dull sunlight filtered into the dimly lit room through bare-branched trees. Only a handful of patrons sat at the polished-wood tables, most apparently deep in business discussions. Behind the bar, the local news lit the television screen, a video of a raging apartment fire. The same fire that Tighe, Hawke, and Kougar had gotten involved with that morning? Maybe.

Tearing his gaze from the television, he glanced at the bartender, recognizing the thin, balding man who’d served him a few times before. The bartender was missing his usual friendliness, his eyes wary as he eyed their approach.

“Scotch and a Bud?” he asked, as they slid onto a pair of barstools. Clearly, he remembered them. Then again, few people forgot a long-haired six-foot-six Indian with clawlike scars across one eye and a thick tribal tattoo on his neck. Or his redheaded sidekick. “I’ll need to see your IDs.”

“I haven’t gotten any younger since the last time I was in here,” Foxx grumbled, but he pulled out the license that gave a fake name and address and handed it to the man.

The bartender kept it and opened an unsteady hand to Paenther. His gaze tried to rise to Paenther’s face, but faltered somewhere around the tattoo on his neck. “Both of them,” he said bravely.

Paenther lifted one disbelieving brow. Humans. He supposed he admired the man’s courage for insisting, especially when Paenther towered over him by close to a foot. He pulled out his own fake ID and handed it to him.

“Be right back. Got to get my glasses.”

As the bartender moved off, Paenther watched the door, praying Vhyper would walk in. Everything pointed to Vhyper’s joining forces with the Mage, but goddess, it couldn’t be true.

The rage bubbled under his skin, burning his nostrils. The Vhyper he knew would never help the Mage. Never.

And that was the problem, the thing that scared Paenther the most. The possibility that the Vhyper he knew was gone.

A muscle began to twitch under his eye, his jaw clenched iron-tight as he breathed through his nose. He would save him. Just as Vhyper had saved him from a Mage captivity that had nearly destroyed him, body, mind, and soul, two and a half centuries ago.

But he had to find him first.

“Ease up on the Dirty Harry look, dude,” Foxx said, his voice vaguely amused. “You’re clearing the place again.” Foxx nudged him with his elbow and nodded at the television. “Look.” The volume had been muted, but damn if that wasn’t Tighe’s face plastered across the screen, right above the words, D.C. Vampire.

Shit.

His gaze snapped to the bartender only to find him hurriedly writing something down, his cell phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear, one of their IDs tight in his hand.

“Dammit to hell,” he growled. He rose from the barstool and strode menacingly toward the traitor.

Walking behind the bar, he grabbed the cell phone off the man’s shoulder, dropped it on the floor, and ground it beneath his heel.

“Hey!” the bartender cried.

Damned camera phones. The last thing they needed was two more pictures plastered across the television beside Tighe’s. Paenther snatched up the two IDs, nodded to Foxx, and started for the lobby.

“I didn’t get my beer,” Foxx complained.

“Tough shit.” As they started across the lobby, a flashing light outside caught his attention. His jaw set. “Walk calmly and follow me.”

“Why?”

“There’s a cop cruiser pulling up in front.” He turned down a side corridor. “We’ll shift if we have to, but I’d like to avoid it.”

As they ducked out the back, Paenther knew their chances of stumbling upon Vhyper had just taken a nosedive into the toilet. Because Vhyper was going to have the same problem they were. He’d be instantly recognized as a friend of Tighe’s in any of the many places they’d frequented together.

A friend of the D.C. Vampire’s. A person of interest. Guilt by association.

Finding him now was going to be next to impossible. Unless Foxx’s intuition started kicking in, Vhyper might be well and truly lost.

Chapter Twelve

Lyon extended his arm to Tighe. “You’re looking better.”

Tighe smiled. “I’m alive.” Hawke and Kougar had taken him to the healer, Esmeria, in the Georgetown enclave, where she’d taken the bullets from his flesh and healed his injuries. They’d then brought him back to Feral House, where Kara had filled him with radiance over and over through the day, healing and strengthening him until he almost felt normal again.