Page 167 of Shadowblood Souls
Welp, we’re definitely in the right place.
The other guys pause and look at Zian and me, taking in our reaction. I motion them all over to a quieter corner beyond the end of the marble-topped bar.
“There are tons of them,” Zian says in a low mutter before I can speak. His muscles flex beneath the thin fabric of his tee. “I don’t like this.”
My fingers curl instinctively around my pendant, itching to pop and click the cat around the yarn like I used to. “Yeah. If we piss anyone off… we could be in big trouble.”
Jacob inhales sharply and studies the room again, his mouth tightening. “We have to try.”
“Why don’t we ask someone on staff?” Dominic suggests. “The security guys or the bartenders? Even if they’re notshadowkind, they’ve got to have some idea how to reach out to their boss.”
Andreas snaps his fingers. “That’s the ticket. Come on.”
He strolls over to the not-yet-crowded bar and leans his elbows on the counter. The nearest of the two bartenders—a tall, slim guy with a cleft chin—comes right over, sending another quiver through me.
I don’t know if all the staff are shadowkind, but that dude definitely is.
“Hey,” Andreas says in his usual easygoing way. “We’ll get a round of Sangrias—and we were hoping to have a word with the guy who owns this place. I think his name is Rollick?”
The bartender’s eyes narrow. He looks us up and down, and I catch a tick in his expression that looks like surprise.
“He doesn’t normally chat with random visitors,” he says, calmly enough.
“Well, if there’s a way to make an appointment or something, we’d appreciate any tips you can give us.” Andreas offers a warm smile. “We were pointed this way by someone who thought he could give us a hand.”
“And who was this someone, so I can pass on a name?”
“He didn’t give us one,” I pipe up, speaking just loud enough for the bartender to hear us but not any nearby fully human patrons. “It was a big purple dude with lots of horns who enjoyed floating, hanging out in the Toronto area, if that rings any bells.”
The bartender’s jaw works. I can’t tell whether he looks more unnerved or irritated.
“Give me a minute, and then I’ll get to those drinks.”
As he walks off, Jacob grimaces. “Are you sure that was a good idea, Riva?”
I shrug. “I could tell he’s one of them. And he could obviously tell there was something different about us.”
“If giving him that info makes it more likely this Rollick guy would talk to us soon, it sounds good to me,” Zian says.
Jacob still doesn’t look happy. “Stay on guard. We don’t know how friendly our welcome is going to be.”
It can’t be more than a minute before the bartender reappears from wherever he went off to and starts pouring our drinks. He slides them across the counter to us and accepts Andreas’s cash without a word.
I curl my fingers around the sweating glass, wrinkling my nose at the sour-sweet smell. I wish I had more of my custom lemonade instead.
“Now what?” Zian asks.
Andreas considers the rest of the club. “I say we stick together and wait. I don’t think it’d do us any good to badger anyone else at this point.”
He sips his drink with an approving expression. I simply hold on to mine for appearances, having no interest in fizzing my thoughts with alcohol.
More people drift into the club. Quite a few of them aren’t actually people, from what my heightened senses tell me.
One song bleeds into the next, and the colored lights sweep over the figures, more of whom are dancing now. The beat thrums through my muscles, but I’m too on edge to immerse myself in it even if I wanted to.
We move away from the bar as more customers come over. My skin starts creeping with uneasiness.
“What if—” I start to say, and just then a woman saunters up to us out of the growing crowd.
