The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #13)(89)

When he paused, she found herself having to swallow hard. “What?” she whispered.

“Your very best look, my queen, is the one you were born with. As far as I’m concerned, perfection can’t be improved upon by either man nor God.” Leaning in, he kissed her softly. “Just thought you’d want to know what your male’s been thinking as I’ve been staring at you.”

Selena started to smile, especially as she realized that sometimes “I love you” could be said without those particular three words lined up in a row.

“See?” she said softly. “I told you this was going to be the best night of my life.”

Riding shotgun in Manny’s RV ambulance, Rhage was eating Doritos out of the bag—and totally disagreeing with the doctor. “Nah, I’m not a Cool Ranch guy. Original only for me.”

“You are missing out.” Manny hit the directional signal to get off the highway. “I can’t believe you, of all people, are so closed-minded when it comes to a snack food staple.”

“But that’s my point. Why improve on a gift from God?”

Tilting the bag, he looked inside and wanted to curse. He was coming to the end of the big chips, nothing but the broken parts and cosmic orange dust left. Which was not to say he wouldn’t eat it all, and cap things off with a tip-up of the bottom above his gaping maw. But this was the unfun finger-dexterity part of the experience.

Munching along, he refocused on the ass of Fritz’s third-world-dictator car. That Mercedes was so big, so black, and so completely tinted, it tended to get more attention as it drove by rather than less. And for shits and giggles, Rhage imagined what the humans would think if they knew there were vampires in the back.

And that the thing was being driven by a centuries-old butler with a foot that would make Jeff Gordon get a case of the jels.

“Do we turn right up here?” Rhage asked as they approached an intersection.

“That’s a one-way.”

“Like I said, do we turn?”

Manny looked over. “Not if we don’t want to get arrested.”

“We’re in an ambulance.”

“Yeah, but they’re not.”

Oh, right. Bummer. “You know, I really just want to hit the lights on this bitch.”

Although the instant he said that, his rib cage shrunk around his lungs, and he ended up having to put the window down a little so he could get some air.

“Did you just leave nacho all over my door.”

Rhage rubbed the bright orange spot away with his forearm. “Nope.”

They kept to Fritz’s bumper tight as a stamp on an envelope, turning left, heading away from the river, going right so they were in the heart of the financial district. No dirty alleys. No Dumpsters. No slush even during the wet months. And no nasty smells from the rotting remains of cheap restaurants.

This was the fancy part of town, where people wore suits and rushed around, channeled like cattle in chutes to their places of Urgent, Important Work.

The skyscraper that housed the restaurant they were gunning for had been completed only a couple of years before, its developers touting the enormous vertical rise as the tallest building in Caldwell. Jam-packed with the headquarters of big businesses, to him, it was nothing more than a filing cabinet for humans, each of them locked into their little slots.

Snooze.

“You okay?”

Rhage looked over at the doc. “Huh?”

“What’s wrong.”

“Nothing.”

“Then why have you stopped eating. Bag’s not empty.”

Rhage glanced down. Sure enough, he’d left the detritus where it was—and he didn’t have any impulse to finish. “Ahhh…”

“Watching your weight?”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

As he crushed the bag, he left orange prints all over the labels and marketing, until the thing looked like it had bruised that color from the rough handling.

Then he was stuck orange-handed. “Shit. I don’t have anything to wipe off with.”

“Are you kidding me?” Manny tossed a gauze roll at him. “We could do a buff and shine on half this city with what I got in here.”

Rhage unraveled and cleaned up; then crammed everything into the wastepaper basket that was bolted to the floor between the bucket seats.

Manny slowed down as they came up to the glass building, and then he parked on the opposite side of the street as Fritz stopped completely at the flashy entrance, the taillights of the Merc glowing red.

A moment later, Trez got out and went around behind the sedan, the stiff wind catching his jacket before he did the buttons up, flashing the twin forties he had holstered under both of his arms.

With a gallant move, he opened the door for his female, and Selena emerged from the back, her incredible hair sweeping away from her body, a dark flag that teased this way and that.

“Good-looking couple,” Manny said quietly.

“She doesn’t even seem sick.”

“I know.”

Trez tucked her arm into his and escorted her up the gray granite steps, and as another couple came out of the revolving doors, both of the humans stopped and stared.

“Manny.”

“Yeah?”

“You gotta do something, my man. You just have to figure this shit out for them.”