Page 10 of Last Ride of the Umbra Fae

“I ain’t paying you for company.”

“No, End’s Wrath. You’re paying me for a whole lot more.”

6

Ryder

Wrong move.

I had overshot it by fucking miles.

What was I thinking?

The anger looming in the irises of her purple eyes had been enough to cut me where I’d sat. I finished my coffee at the bar, facing the exit where she had stormed off. Her over-protective feathered pet followed seconds after.

I was off to a bad start.

While we saddled up at the hitching post, I caught her looking my way, a glower that had me thinking I needed to make some sort of peace offering to get off her bad side. However that would play out, I needed to be quick about it; being annoyed at my presence would have been far better than hating me. I thought about how I had dug my own grave as I watched the morning sun filter through her silky hair. The wind blew through every lighter strand in such an angelic way, as if she had the power ofNaiat her fingertips. She was a dark angel beneath a blazing sun.

She paused when she heard my boots scraping across the gravel, saying nothing as I stood behind her.

“Here,” I said, low and gruffly. Maybe I could have sounded more pleasant, but I didn’t usually apologize.

She whirled around with a daggered stare but relented when she saw the cloth of licorice in my hand. “Candy?” She huffed a cocky laugh, but I caught a flash of excitement in her eyes.

A smile ticked the corner of my mouth. “Well, consider it a peace offering for me acting like a complete fucking idiot. I should have known.” I paused. “Considering you are the last of the Umbra.”

Her eyes hardened. “It’s going to take a lot more than candy and a pearly smile to get on my good side, demon.”

“Demon?” I questioned. A grin curved my lips. I kind of liked that. “Is that what you see me as?” One step forward, and I was in her range.

There was a long pause before she spoke, an observation as I felt her power, an unseen darkness curling around me. Deep violet eyes peeked out from under the brim of her cowboy hat. She smiled widely and ever so wickedly, like a mountain lion who had caught its prey. The tendrils of heranocrept inside my mind, like hands sifting deeper through my thoughts, trying to peel back all the complex layers that made me who I was.

I was a monster, a terrible one that would ruin and destroy her with a simple touch if I were to ever get that chance. But I also had a unique ability she had likely never experienced.

I washer equal in mind play.

I hid all of my not-so-flattering thoughts and memories but chose one to show her.

My thoughts wandered to the moment she had walked into the saloon last night so she could see how intoxicatingly beautiful she was through my eyes. The thought struck her back briefly.

Satisfied, she then yanked something out of the inside pocket of my coat, stifling the moment.

Fuck the hells.

“I see you are someone who doesn’t play all his cards in the first round,” she surmised as she held theentirehidden stash of my licorice in her greedy, gloved hands.

She took a bite of the flavored onyx rope, tearing a piece with a vengeance that unexpectedly made my cock twitch.

I was a demon, and I would be her demise.

End’s Wrathhad beamed with pride seeing his daughter swindle the fuck out of me, getting exactly what she’d wanted. Though he looked content with the rope of licorice hanging from his mouth, his hands tightened on the reins. Gaze hardened, his eyes were now set on the terrain ahead—a brutal, grueling desert awaiting our arrival.

Vessa looked over her shoulder, flashing a venomous smirk my way. Her coat was tucked somewhere inside her bag, and her arms showed years of hard work, the sleeve going up her right arm hiding scars, burn marks. I felt a sharp twinge on the tops of my ears, phantom memories of the day the tips had been cut off by my mother’s old lover, a man who was disgusted and jealous of me and the mark that had depicted who I was.

Fae.

The faint scars barely showed unless one were close enough to see where the knife had sliced through. Still so sensitive to the touch that, some days, it was painful to wear a hat.

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