Page 11 of Needed in the Night
“I apologize for my bartender,” he said, his wide, blue face splitting into a grin. “Mikas pours very fine drinks, but sometimes he forgets his manners. I am Nubo Wex, proud owner of this establishment. You have come to audition?”
Lost in awe and wonder, I had nearly forgotten what had brought my mate to the bar. Oh, gods. My mate must be nowhere near a dangerous criminal like Nubo Wex.
“Yes, I have.” She gave him a tiny bow of greeting. “If the position is still available.”
“It is,” Nubo said, his grin widening. “What is your name, dear?”
My spines bristled, but if being calleddearannoyed her, she did not show it. “Isla,” she said.
Isla. My true mate’s name was Isla. Two more beautiful syllables could not exist in the universe.
“Isla…?” Nubo prompted.
“Isla Mair.” She glanced at the dark stage. “Your notice said you’re looking for someone who can start immediately, but it doesn’t look like you’re really set up for a live performer.”
Warmth and desire rolled through me at the fearless way she met Nubo’s sharp gaze without blinking or backing down, even when he drew himself up and frowned at the implication of her words.
Keeping a wary eye on my employer, I busied myself making a Bacorian fullwell, the most complex cocktail I knew, as if an order for one had just shown up on my screen behind the bar. I did not want Nubo to feel my scrutiny and invite Isla to his office for privacy.
“The stage will be ready by tonight, or tomorrow at the latest,” Nubo said, and now he was all charm once again. “But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Are you prepared to audition for me now?”
“Of course.” Isla took a small device from her pocket. “This will provide music for me to sing, unless you prefer I sing without it?”
“I think I would like to hear you sing in my office,” Nubo said, and I vibrated with unease and anger I fought to hide. “There is no need for you to audition on the stage.”
I nearly crushed the bottle of Bacorian brandy I held before I steadied myself and poured a measured amount into the glass. No way in hells would I stand by and watch her follow Nubo into his office, which was soundproof and could be locked.
“Respectfully, I disagree,” Isla said, with a smile that made my hearts stutter because it was so coolly polite and confident. “I would like to hear how music and voice sounds in your establishment. Not all environments are acoustically suited for live singers.”
In other words, she was auditioning the bar as much as Nubo was auditioning her. If it did not meet her standards, she was not likely to want the job. And judging by the tension in Nubo’s body and his long silence, I was not the only one who had come to that conclusion.
Everything about the way Isla faced Nubo indicated she had no interest in going to his office for a private audition, in whatever form that might take—or any interest in him as anything more than a potential employerifshe liked the terms of employment. She was not the desperate, easily manipulated singer he had said he preferred. And I could not have been more pleased by that fact. Surely he would send her away.
Though it meant I would lose my apartment and must seek new employment, likely in some other city, I would leave my own job without hesitation just to ensure their paths did not cross. My future was with Isla, if she would have me—wherever and however that would be.
Nubo’s response sliced through my half-formed plans, then straight through my flesh and into the bone.
“Then by all means, go to the stage,” he said with a sweeping gesture. He raised his voice. “If our patrons are willing to listen to lovely Isla sing for us?”
A chorus of approval erupted from the regulars—except the Prylothian, who gurgled obliviously on his wine.
As Isla made her way toward the stage, Nubo turned to me, his eyes gleaming and expression nearly gluttonous. “You heard me, Mikas. Turn everything on for our Isla.”
OurIsla.
Rage filled me and the sickness in my stomach grew. Isla’s fierceness had the opposite effect on Nubo than I expected. Rather than send her away, he was all the more determined to keep her. He clearly considered her defiance a challenge.
Damn it. Damn it toall the hells.
Nubo’s gaze dropped to my clenched fists. His expression dark with suspicion and anger, he stepped to the bar and lowered his voice. “Unless you relish the thought of being on the street tonight with fewer appendages than you have now, you will keep your eyes and hands to yourself. As long as she does not sound like a screeching Hardanian war-pig, she will be my singer, and she will be under my protection from this moment on.”
No, she was undermyprotection. She was my hearts, and my world.
Isla, meanwhile, had climbed the steps to the stage and stood on the platform, her hands on her hips as she studied the bar’s interior like a queen surveying her lands. And she watched us out of the corner of her eye in a way that made me wonder what she had been before she sought employment as a singer.
I caught a flutter of nearly invisible wings and a glint of light in a pair of eyes in the shadows along the far side of the bar, traveling along the wall near the ceiling. I could not see any details of its form, as if it was nothing more than shadow itself.
My spines bristled. A Pallasian shadowbat. A rare sight onany planet but their homeworld. I had certainly never seen one in Zaa’ga. But to whom did it belong?
