“Shut up.” I smacked him on the arm. A few moments of silence later, and I was desperate to find another game. This nonsense was keeping my mind blank. We moved onto the license plate game, and I swear he pulled up on cars so I couldn’t see the plates. He had a mean competitive streak.
Before we knew it, we were heading off the exit and neither of us was in the playing mood anymore. “Do you think we’ll get in?”
“Yes.”
I shot him a look. “That bouncer was really big.”
His lips quirked. “Oh, Kitten, see, I try to not say bad things.”
“What?”
The grin spread. “I would say size doesn’t matter, but it does. I would know.” He winked, and I let out a disgusted groan. He laughed. “Sorry, you walked into that one. Seriously, though, the bouncer won’t be a problem. I think he liked me.”
“W-w-what?”
He eased the SUV around the curves. “I think he liked me, like, really liked me.”
“Your ego knows no limit, you know that?”
“You’ll see. I know these kinds of things.”
From what I recalled, the bouncer looked like he wanted to kill Daemon. Shaking my head, I sat back and started nibbling on my thumbnail. Gross habit, but nerves were getting the best of me.
The abandoned gas station loomed up ahead. The SUV bumped over the uneven road and I gripped the door handle. Cars lined the field in front of the club, as expected. Once again, Daemon parked Dolly far away from other cars.
I knew to get rid of my sweater this time around. I wrapped it around my purse and sat it on the floorboard. We made our way around the cars. Stopping at the first row, I bent over and tossed my hair over my head, shaking it out.
“This reminds me of a Whitesnake video,” Daemon said.
“Huh?” I ran my hands through my hair, hoping for the sexy look and not the “I had my head out of the car” look.
“If you start climbing on car hoods, I think I might marry you.”
I rolled my eyes and straightened, giving my head one more shake. “Done.”
He stared at me. “You’re cute.”
“You’re weird.” I rose up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before I teetered through the knee-high grass. Heels—so not a good idea.
The lumberjack bouncer appeared out of nowhere, still in those overalls. Barrel-sized arms folded across his chest. “I thought I told ya two to forget this place?”
Daemon moved in front of me. “We need to see Luc.”
“I need a lot of things in life. Like I wish I could find a decent stock trader who wouldn’t lose half of my money.”
Oookay. I cleared my throat. “We won’t be here long, but please, we really need to see him.”
“Sorry,” the bouncer said.
Daemon tipped his head to the side. “There’s got to be something we can do to convince you.”
Oh, man, please tell me he wasn’t…
The bouncer raised a brow and waited.
Daemon smiled—that sexy quirk of his lips that had every girl at school stumbling over themselves, and I…I wanted to crawl under a car.
Before I could die from embarrassment, the bouncer’s cell went off, and he pulled it out of his front pocket. “What’s up?”
I took the moment to elbow Daemon.
“What?” he said. “It was working.”
The bouncer laughed. “I ain’t doin’ much. Just talkin’ to a douche and a pretty lady.”
“Excuse me?” Daemon said, surprised.
I choked on my laugh.
There was a toothy grin, and then the bouncer sighed. “Yep, they’re here for ya.” There was a pause. “Sure.”
He clicked the phone shut. “Luc will see you. Go in and head straight to him. No dancing tonight, or whatever it was the two of ya did last time.”
The bouncer winked at Daemon as he handed him what looked like a business card. “Ya not normally my type, but I can make an exception.”
My mouth dropped open.
Daemon took the card with a smile and then opened the door. “Told you,” he said to me.
I refused to give him the benefit of a response, instead focusing on the club. Nothing had changed from the last time. The dance floor was packed. Accompanied cages hung from the ceiling, swaying from the movements inside. People grinded to the heavy beat. A different, strange world tucked away in the epicenter of normalcy.
And the place was still alluring to me in a weird way.
Down the shadowy hallway, a tall man waited at the door for us. Paris—the blond Luxen we’d met last time. He nodded at Daemon, opened the door, and then stepped aside.
I expected to see Luc sprawled on the couch, playing DS like last time, so I was shocked when I discovered him at the desk, pecking away at a laptop, his face screwed in concentration.
The stacks of hundreds were gone.
Luc didn’t look up. “Please sit.” He waved at the nearby couch, all businesslike.
Glancing at Daemon, I moved with him to the couch and sat. In the corner, a tall yellow candle spread a peaches scent throughout the room. That was all the decoration. Did the door behind the desk lead to another room? Did Luc live here?
“Heard you guys didn’t get very far at Mount Weather last time.” He closed the laptop and folded his hands under his chin.
“About that,” Daemon said, leaning forward. “You didn’t know about the onyx shields?”
The boy, the little mini mogul/mafia kingpin/whatever he was became very still. Tension filled the room. I waited for something to blow up. Hopefully not one of us.
“I warned you that there may be things I’m unaware of,” he said. “Even I don’t know everything about Daedalus. But I think Blake’s on the right track. He is right about everything being encased in a shiny blackish-red material. Perhaps we did build a tolerance so we were not affected by the onyx shields.”
“And what if that’s not it?” I asked, hating the icy feeling slushing through my veins.
Luc’s amethyst gaze was concentrated. “What if it’s not? I have a feeling that’s not going to stop you from trying again. It’s a risk and everything has risks. You’re lucky you got out of there last time before anyone realized what happened. You get another chance. Most people don’t.”
Talking to this kid was weird, because he had the mannerisms and speech patterns of a well-educated adult. “You’re right,” I said. “We’re still going to try.”
“But knowing all the perils ahead seems unfair?” He tucked back a strand of brown hair, his angelic face impassive. “Life’s not fair, babe.”
Daemon stiffened beside me. “Why do I have a feeling there’s a lot you’re not telling us?”
Luc’s lips formed a half smile. “Anyway, you came here for a reason other than those onyx shields? Let’s get to the point.”
Annoyance flashed across Daemon’s face. “An unstable hybrid attacked Kat.”
“That’s what unstable people do, hybrid or not.”
I bit back a snappy retort. “Yeah, we figured that much, but she was my friend. She gave no indication that she knew anything about the Luxen. She was fine, got sick, and then came to my house and went nuts.”
“You didn’t give any indication you know ET didn’t phone home.”
What a little brat. I took a deep breath. “I get that, but this was out of the blue.”
