Lover Avenged(67)

But really, who was counting.

Lying in his bed in the near-dark, with his phone in his hand, he saw more hideous scenes of his time with the princess…her blowing him, him bending her over and fucking her from behind, his mouth working between her thighs. He remembered what it felt like when his cock’s barb engaged and the two of them were locked together.

Then he thought of Ehlena taking his blood pressure…and how she’d stepped away from him.

She was right to do that.

He was wrong to call her.

With deliberate care, he moved his thumb around the buttons and accessed her contact information. He didn’t pause as he erased her out of his phone, and as she disappeared, an unexpected warmth filled his chest-and told him that according to his mother’s side, he’d done the right thing.

He would ask for another nurse the next time he went to the clinic. And, if he saw Ehlena again, he would leave her alone.

Trez came in with a tray of oatmeal, some tea, and some dry toast.

“Yum,” Rehv said without enthusiasm.

“Be a good boy and finish that. Next meal I’ll bring you bacon and eggs.”

As the tray was settled over his legs, Rehv tossed the phone on the fur and picked up a spoon. Abruptly, and for absolutely, positively no reason at all, he said, “You ever been in love, Trez?”

“Nah.” The Moor returned to his chair in the corner, the curved lamp illuminating his handsome, dark face. “I watched iAm give it a try and decided it wasn’t for me.”

“iAm? Get the fuck out. I didn’t know your brother ever had a chippie.”

“He doesn’t talk about her, and I never met her. But he was miserable for a while in the way only a female can make a guy.”

Rehv swirled around the brown sugar that was sprinkled on the top of his oatmeal. “You think you’ll ever get mated?”

“Nope.” Trez smiled, his perfect white teeth flashing. “Why the questions?”

Rehv brought the spoon to his mouth and ate. “No reason.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“This oatmeal’s fantastic.”

“You hate oatmeal.”

Rehv laughed a little and kept on eating to shut himself up, thinking the subject of love was none of his business. But work sure as hell was.

“Anything happening at the clubs?” he asked.

“Smoothing sailing so far.”

“Good.”

Rehv slowly polished off the Quaker Oats, wondering to himself why, if everything was going fine and dandy down in Caldwell, he had a sinking feeling in his gut.

Probably the oatmeal, he thought. “You told Xhex I was okay, right?”

“Yeah,” Trez said, picking up the book he’d been reading. “I lied.”



Xhex sat behind her desk and stared up at two of her best bouncers, Big Rob and Silent Tom. They were humans, but they were smart, and in their low-hanging jeans, they gave off the perfect, deceptively laid-back vibe she was looking for.

“What can we do for you, boss?” Big Rob asked.

Leaning forward in her chair, she took out ten folded bills from the back pocket of her leathers. She was deliberate in revealing them, splitting them into two piles, and sliding them toward the men.

“I need you to do some off-the-books work.”

Their nods were as fast as their hands on those Benjis. “Anything you like,” Big Rob said.

“Back over the summer, we had a bartender who we fired for skimming. Guy named Grady. You remember him-”

“I saw that shit about Chrissy in the paper.”

“Fucking bastard,” Silent Tom chimed in for once.

Xhex was not surprised they knew the whole story. “I want you to find Grady.” As Big Rob started cracking his knuckles, she shook her head. “Nope. The only thing you do is get me an address. If he sees you, you nod and walk it off. We clear? You do not so much as brush his sleeve.”

Both of them smiled grimly. “No problem, boss,” Big Rob murmured. “We’ll save him for you.”

“The CPD is looking for him as well.”

“Bet they are.”

“We don’t want the police to know what you’re doing.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll take care of getting your shifts covered. Faster you find him, the happier I’ll be.”

Big Rob looked over at Silent Tom. After a moment, they took the bills she’d given them out of their pockets and slid them back across the table.

“We’ll do right by Chrissy, boss. Don’t you worry.”

“With you guys on it, I won’t.”

The door closed behind them, and Xhex ran her palms up and down her thighs, forcing the cilices on her legs to go deeper into her flesh. She was burning with the need to get out there herself, but with Rehv up north and the deals that were going to be made tonight, she couldn’t leave the club. Just as important, she couldn’t do the legwork on Grady herself. That homicide detective was going to be watching her.