Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
A curl of her lip said Dulce didn’t plan on being the minority shareholder much longer. “But I could and did ensure he had a powerful escort home each and every night. All our bouncers are good people, stepped up. I also asked one of my Tower friends—Zia—to do regular flybys if she had the time.”
“You should’ve told me, Dulce.” Illium’s voice was tight. “I’d have handled it.”
“You were my next stop if she kept escalating—you’re the nuclear option I save for worst-case scenarios. But Zia did the flybys, even roped in a few of her squadron to join in, make it clear he was under angelic protection.
“It must’ve been enough to scare Vixen off, because she stopped paying him any attention at all—prior to that, she’d used to watch him when she thought she was unobserved. Could be she doesn’t actually understand cameras. Some of the old ones are like that. Anyway, it was eerie how totally she ignored him afterward. As if he didn’t exist.”
Either Dulce was right and the show of dangerous angelic oversight had scared Vixen off, or she’d already found and fixated on Marco by then. “Do you know if a vampire named Marco Corvino frequented this club? He was young, still under—”
“Marco?” Her face turned pale, her fingers tight on the glass she’d picked back up. “Of course I knew Marco. We were from the same neighborhood—two and a half centuries apart, but I still have descendants there, drop by now and then.
“He wouldn’t normally have been allowed into the club because the entry prerequisite for vamps is post-Contract, but I let him in during the quiet nights. Kid was so fresh and shiny, he might as well have been polished. He thought Erotique was the wildest place in the city.”
“Such innocence.” Illium’s joke was gentle, the hand he touched to Dulce’s compassionate. “I’m sorry you lost him.”
“Yeah, fucking Lij—” A pause, a sharp look at Illium. “Vixen?”
“Looking likely. Could she have met him here?”
“Yes. She’s a regular from before the war, here almost every night.” Her jaw worked. “I knew I should’ve booted her!”
“You did what you could,” Aodhan said. “She’s responsible for the rest.”
Dulce’s eyes gleamed with an edge of red, but she said, “Bitch is still in the city. Looks different than before the club shut down during the war, but she was in here two nights ago. Yellow hair, can’t recall the current contact lens shade, but I’m pretty sure I can get you her address—night she was here, she took home a vamp whose name I remember.”
Pulling out her phone without waiting for their response, she made a call, was blunt in her request. “Don’t ask me why I need Vixen’s address, and I won’t mention your tryst to your wife. And don’t you dare warn Vixen or you’ll never enter this club again.”
A pause.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” She scribbled the address down on a piece of paper after hanging up. “What a slime. I thought they deserved each other. As for his wife, she’s smarter than him by a country mile, knows he’s a serial cheater, but their relationship is their business.”
She pushed across the paper. “Get that bitch.”
27
The fine-boned angel of about five feet five inches who called herself Vixen was wrapped up in a silken robe, her feet bare and her hands around a mug of coffee, when Illium and Aodhan dropped onto her seventh-floor balcony an hour later.
The open doors gave them a clear sight line to where she stood by her kitchen counter.
Eyes devoid of contacts—and yes, a distinctive and pale greenish-hazel—grew huge, her lips, stained a soft pink, parting on a gasp. “I did not ever expect to gain the notice of the Tower,” she gushed, abandoning her coffee to run toward them.
The hair that streamed behind her was a rich and false yellow akin to marigolds.
“You must excuse how I’m dressed.” Pretty words, an even prettier smile. “I have only now risen. The clubs in this city are astonishing—I go for an hour or two and end up staying till they close their doors.”
Aodhan had been afraid he’d strangle her the minute he came within sight of her, but while the rage remained, it was a cold, cold thing. He saw her…and he saw weakness and guile and evil, the smiles and the words nothing but window dressing.
Céline without the subtlety or talent.
While the mask would’ve frustrated the child he’d been for his inability to paint it, Aodhan had gained that skill over the years, until he could paint this woman with her smile and outward prettiness and have it radiate cunning and viciousness.
But no matter how covetous and murderous her nature, she was no threat to him or Illium or anyone else of their ilk; the only reason she’d been able to harm Marco and Tanika was that they’d been so heartbreakingly young. Against stronger foes, Vixen was a coward.