Page 19 of Forked Tongues Are Fun
I pressed onward through the room, trying not to wince when someone brushed my scorching skin.Some shifters turned to look at me, and some openly leered, men and women alike.
A tall male stepped in front of me, his gaze pointed right down the front of my dress. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said, skirting around him.
“You must be new to Evenza,” he called after me. His gaze spider-walked over my ass, his need prodding in a different rhythm to mine. His felt wrong. All wrong. Everyone’s did.
The ache between my thighs felt like an emptiness that would never be filled. A raw vastness that called to three shifters I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again. By tomorrow morning, I would be too dead to notice.The ache fired up again, insistent and hot, but I had zero time to take care of it. I’d just have to ignore it.
“Who is that?” a woman with glossy blonde curls asked another, her gray eyes giving me a cold once-over that felt like I was being dissected with an ice pick.
And then...I saw him. Asa.
I jerked to a stop, my next breath hanging in limbo. My jaw fell open, but I quickly snapped it shut.I blinked, but he was still there, separated from me by a gilded birdcage hanging from the ceiling about thirty feet up, with several more smaller kids at his back. He stood with his hands gripping the bars, peering out over the side at another part of the room. He looked exhausted, taller than he’d been a month ago, his brown hair shaggier, but otherwise fine. They’d fed him, and fed him well from the looks of it.
A sob expanded in my chest because I wanted to shout his name, run to him, break him loose, but not yet.
Not yet.
I’d found him. The surge of relief at seeing him again alive and whole, mixed with my blistering nerves and champagne, spun me into a nearby wall for support.
Keep it together, Yara.
They were watching me, the newcomer who was turning heads. Even now, their gazes prickled the back of my sweaty neck. I had to handle this like a pro, not the hot mess I really was.
A nearby conversation drifted closer and then passed, four little words of which perked the thief in me right up: “...keys in the safe...”
Very little context, but it was possible it was a reference to a key that might break my brother out of a birdcage. Asa’s left hand currently rested right next to the cage’s lock. I had a knife that could cut through metal—I’d nicknamed it Titanosaur because the end looked like a dinosaur head—but keys would be so much faster. Since dragon shifters had treasure troves, a safe would be one more layer of security, but not for me. I could get those keys.
I turned to look at the two male shifters who’d passed, their heads bent toward each other while deep in conversation about a key in a safe. It was the thinnest of leads to hold on to, but it was much better than sagging against my wall friend.
I followed, adopting my vacuum saleswoman persona once again and pretending to look like I belonged. The two men, dressed in spiffy tuxes with coattails, headed toward the back of the room, clearing the path for me as I stuck close to them. Occasionally other bits of their conversation drifted over their shoulders like: “you won’t get caught” and “conveniently gone missing.”
You know, words innocent folks used.
They stepped up a short flight of stairs and then turned right into a narrow hallway. It was quieter here, away from the low roar of conversation, so I slowed my steps, careful to silence my heels as much as I could.
The man who had a dusting of salt to his pepper-dark temples opened a door on the left. “She doesn’t have a clue,” he said as he stepped inside, and the other man followed.
The door began to swing shut behind them. As fast as I could, I sweated my way toward them and jammed my foot inside before it could click all the way closed. The room was dimly lit and wood-paneled, with a variety of hunting trophy heads staring blankly from the left wall. And underneath what looked like a stuffed unicorn head sat a giant safe behind a red armchair. It didn’t look much like a treasure trove since there weren’t too many valuables in it, but maybe it was just the opening to the trove.
All of this I saw before the door shut, but not quite. I slipped my fingers through the crack and opened it a little wider, enough to hear the men’s voices coming from the right.
I took a deep breath to silence my panting and then peered in even farther. They stood behind a large desk with their backs turned, both bending over a whiskey bar and tinkling ice into their glasses. In the center of the room sat a large table with high-backed chairs surrounding it, the dark wood beautifully etched with flying dragons. Lush, thick carpet spread the length of the office floor, which would help smother my footsteps.
“If my Rio becomes queen, we’ll have everything you could possibly want,” Salt and Pepper was saying.
Now was my chance while their backs were turned. Quiet as I could, I slinked through the door and let it shut behind me, closing me in with the two dragon shifters. It wasn’t any different than being in a whole building with them or a whole house with them. It was just as deadly. But maybe twice as stupid. As soon as the door shut behind me, a series of invisible locks snapped quietly into place.
Locked in now. Yay.
I ducked low behind the cover of the table, trying to keep my panting to a minimum, and then crept toward the far wall, all the while keeping the two shifters in my periphery.
“What about the other matter? The one with the three shifters?” Salt and Pepper asked.
My ears instantly perked, but I couldn’t hear the other shifter’s response over my pummeling heartbeat and the growing distance between us. Then, right as I slid around the back of the red armchair and squatted in front of the safe, one faint word sank my gut to my quaking knees.
“...dead...”
