Page 88 of The Phoenix

Tomorrow Brak and Harley would return by portal to the Covenkirk stronghold, but today her job was over. She glanced at her watch. Still time for dinner followed by activities in their room. Harley sighed, adjusting her glasses while she envisioned Brak naked and on his back on the king-size bed.

“Don’t do that, gorgeous. We’ll never make it to the hotel.” Brak slanted forward to whisper, his warm breath tickling her earlobe.

She was certain Indigo and Roark could hear her heart thundering in her chest.

****

Ready for the next step in the search, Indigo opened the suite door of the luxury hotel in Alexandria, zeroing in on the guy in a black pinstriped suit, gray silk shirt, and maroon tie. “Welcome. You must be Miller Nash. Somebody got some nookie, warlock.” She waved the visitors through, high-fiving Galena, who accompanied the James Bond look-alike.

The sharp dresser with very purple orbs studied her from bare feet to curly hair.

Yesterday, Indigo called Alarik to request a mage with incredibly special powers. A necromancer. Not just any necromancer. No. This one had to do more than make the dead dance. Her brother said he had the perfect warlock, new but extremely talented, possessing skills rare in their breed. Best of all, he was Blood Coven, for the time-being living with Kole’s Firebrands.

Roark laughed when Indigo told him the name.

Once she ushered in the visitors, the raven shifter strolled out of the bedroom they now shared, drying his hair with a towel, another wrapped precariously around his hips. So much for the kinda-shifter being a one-night stand. And the best-laid-plans bullshit.

“What the hell, Roark? Nobody needs to see your business.” Miller slapped a hand over Galena’s eyes, but she swatted it away.

“Cut the crap, warlock. I don’t mind the view.” The Amazon grinned, letting loose a long, low wolf-whistle.

“Well, I mind for you,” said the snazzy dresser.

The tough-as-nails Amazon handled Miller’s blatant possessiveness by giving his arm a little love tap. Shocking. The female Indigo once knew would have knocked him on his ass while driving her point home with a spear. Which, by the way, she carried with her.

Bet it caused a ruckus in the hotel lobby.

Back to Roark. Indigo didn’t appreciate his body-display either. Parts of the male should belong strictly to her peepers.

Now where the hell is this jealous streak coming from?

Miller was a guy. They just pulled that crap, but she was a sensible female. She should not care if Roark dropped the towel, saluted with a stiff dick, and preened like a peacock. She did, though. Arching a puzzled brow, she waved the nearly naked shifter back into the bedroom, determined to lock the jealousy shit in a box.

When he returned dressed, the foursome sat around a table, listening to Miller’s story. “After it was clear I had gone through the change, I started to see ghosts. At first, I didn’t realize what they were. To me the blokes are as solid as you.”

“How will this help with our quest?” asked Roark.

Miller frowned but proceeded. “Apparently, I’m not normal.”

“I could have told you that.” Galena’s lips puckered into a smacking kiss directed at the warlock.

Indigo wanted to slap her forehead in disbelief.

“Ah, luv, you’re good for my ego. Anyway, I’m not normal there or in the necromancer department. I call the dead from the ground and command them. I’m self-labeling as the Zombie Commander. Nice ring to it. What’s your opinion, luv?”

“ZC for short, Miller,” she said.

He stroked Galena’s arm. “I like it, too. Point of fact, Roark, I sicced my ghouls on Arisen Dawn recently. Kole was amazed.”

“Again, how’s that help us?” Roark scrubbed a weary fist across his jaw.

“Do you think you can keep a lid on the interruptions while I tell my story, bloke?”

“Feel free but do it before I fall asleep.”

“Here’s the kicker. With my trainer at the cemetery, I spotted the dead lying in their coffins six feet under, clothed in their funeral duds and fully covered with flesh, their cheeks pink. I also pictured what was buried with them, and I’ve been told you’re looking for something interred with the departed.”

Roark narrowed his suspicious eyes. “Yeah. The sword.”

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