Page 135 of Veil of Death and Shadow

“No,” he said, voice clipped, “never seen her before. Sorry.”

Kieran scowled. “That smells like a lie.”

“What about your sister? Lav, right?” I pressed. “Can you tell me where I might find her.”

“Don’t have a sister.” He drained the rest of his beer. “Think you’ve been given some bad information.”

One of the guys in the group leaned forward, until his face was just an inch away. He took a deep breath, his green eyes sparkling with teasing interest. “Human.” He shot a look back at Manny. “If you don’t want her, man, you cool if I have a go? Haven’t had a proper warm drink in a minute.”

My heartbeat drummed against my chest at the suggestion, which only seemed to amplify his interest.

“You one of those blood groupies, sweetie?” He grabbed a piece of my hair, letting it slide over his fingers. Then, when it fell back to my shoulder, he pressed his nose to the crook of my neck, his tongue lapping rough and hot against my skin. “What do you say, I promise I’ll be gentle. If that’s how you like it.”

Kieran’s arm wove around my waist, tugging me back. The vampire stumbled forward into the pool table, not expecting my sudden, jerky retreat.

“You need to get out of here, Agony.” Kieran’s voice was hard.

I appreciated his concern, but I wasn’t leaving until this dickhole spilled what he knew about Sora.

“I’m not interested in being your blood bag.” I shoved Kieran’s arm away, then stepped closer to the vampire, hoping like hell my attempt at confidence didn’t come off as brittle as it felt. Then, I stepped around him until I was in front of Manny. “Like I said, I’m trying to find my friend. Please just tell me whatyou know,” I waved at the table “then I’ll let you get back to losing your pool game.”

The girl in the group barked out a harsh laugh, but Manny’s expression darkened.

Kieran cursed, then stepped between me and Manny, even though we both knew the gesture was futile. He was no more solid than air.

“She’s got balls, you’ve got to give her that, Manny.” The green-eyed vampire edged closer from behind, until I was sandwiched between him and Kieran.

“You don’t belong here,” Manny said, ignoring his friend. “You need to leave. And you and your kind need to stay away from my sister in the meantime.” Well, he’d certainly bailed quickly on the cover story that he didn’t have one. “She gets involved in shit she shouldn’t. I don’t want her near you, or your friend.”

What the hell was he talking about?

His eyes darted to me, then to the front of the bar, likehewas the one thinking of leaving.

If I didn’t know any better, it almost looked like he was . . . afraid. But of what? Me?

“There’s your answer,” his green-eyed friend said, still pressed into my back. “But information doesn’t come free here, Princess.” His breath curled over the back of my ear. “You have a lot of nerve coming into a place like this, speaking to us with a tone like that . . . demanding something you haven’t earned.” He grabbed my shoulders and leaned closer, his nose trailing along the column of my neck. Then, in a dark whisper, he added, “But I do like the way bravery smells on you, so I’ll give you another chance at the negotiation table if you promise to play nicely.”

“Chad,” a deep voice called out across the room, and the green-eyed vamp froze, then immediately put some distance between us. “Do you or do you not know the rules of my bar?”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Of course this asshole’s name was Chad.

But when I spun around to clock the owner of the voice, I understood immediately why Chad suddenly looked like he’d swallowed a knife.

A man with swept back, white-blond hair, mismatched eyes, and a presence that oozed control walked towards us. He was dressed in a neatly pressed dress shirt and slacks, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing lean cords of muscle.

I found myself leaning back towards Manny and his friends, as if they offered a small veneer of protection from the ice-hot power emanating from the man.

He was like the embodiment of everything I feared most about demons. It wasn’t the drunken assholes fighting outside that worried me, though I knew they could snap my neck in half a second if they really wanted to. It was someone like the man standing in front of me, who scanned over the faces in the bar as if they were nothing, mere decoration—ants beneath his magnifying glass. The kind of demon who could compel an entire room into silence with one seething look.

Chad stammered out a “Sorry, Claude,” then carved a cartoonishly wide gap between us. “Would never have really taken a bite out of her in here, was just kidding. I swear.” Then, at whatever look Claude leveled him with, Chad dropped his gaze to the ground. “It won’t happen again; you have my word.”

“Your word is only valuable to me when I believe it,” the man, Claude apparently, responded, his tone clipped. His eyes—one dark brown, the other a mottled gold—snagged on me. I flinched under his appraisal. “Who are you and why are you here?”

“Agony,” Kieran pleaded, “let’s get out of here before this gets worse.”

With a deep breath, I steeled myself, then took a step forward. “My name is Mareena.” I held the image in front of him,pleased that my hand only trembled a little. “I’m looking for my friend. And I’m not leaving here until I find out where she is.”

Claude arched his brow, glanced briefly at the picture of Sora, then returned his gaze to me, studying me with a focus so unrelenting that I couldn’t convince my lungs to function properly. At my back, I felt Manny and the rest of his friends scatter away like frightened rats.

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