A tux should soften a man up a little. It should hide his rough edges and fool the eye into believing the man is tamed, if not harmless.
The tux wasn’t doing its job. Samael oozed danger. His silver eyes scanned me, and while his expression didn’t change, I practically choked on the satisfaction wafting from him.
My dress was a purple so dark it was almost black. It shimmered in the light, falling over my skin like water. While the dress fit like a glove, Samael had obviously memorized where I liked to keep my weapons. The fabric draped over my right thigh, allowing me easy access to my Mark II, which I’d switched from my spine sheath.
My Nim Club was tucked into the sheath around my neck– connected to a leather lanyard covered in sparkly gems. It looked cheap next to the dress, but would hopefully appear to be a necklace with the end tucked into the low neckline and the sheath beneath my breasts.
“You rip the breath from my lungs.”
I flushed as Samael stepped closer. Distantly, I was aware of Linetta and Dorielle hightailing it out of Samael’s bedroom. I cleared my throat.
“You clean up nicely yourself.”
His bowtie was the same deep, dark purple as my dress. We were going to be matchy-matchy. Cute.
“There’s something you need to know,” Samael said. His eyes were burning with what looked like retribution and I stiffened.
“What?”
“The Mage Council have publicly named you as the lead suspect in the attack on Gary the gnome.
I reached out a hand to steady myself on the vanity. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll kill them,” he said it casually as if stating that he’d order them a drink. “But in the meantime, you need to keep a lookout for any bounty hunters with a point to prove.”
I had a pretty good feeling Rose would’ve told everyone and anyone about my little reaction to the Naud Chains. And the demon who’d appeared and scared the crap out of the mages.
I sighed. “You can’t kill them, Samael. You need them. You know that as well as I do.”
Samael had a symbiotic relationship with the mages, and unless he wanted to end up taking responsibility for the safety of every human in the triangle, he needed them alive.
No paranormal wanted to return to the Decade of Despair. Even humans could cause damage to paranormals if they had both the numbers and the sheer desperation.
“I don’t need all of them,” he said silkily.
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t matter if you killed them now anyway. Word will have already spread. They’re doing this to distance themselves further from me after leaking the video. It’s diabolical, really.”
“I am sorry.”
If I thought about it for too long, it made my chest ache. “Me too.” Time for a change of subject.
“I got a new case today.” I didn’t know why I was telling him, but he looked pleased that I was.
“What kind of case?”
I filled him in. “So far, they’ve lost a sword, an amulet, and a belt. But there will be more. Someone is targeting the seelie.”
“They have long collected artifacts of power. It surprises me that they would risk losing them.”
“Yeah, well, I think it surprised the hell out of them too.” I angled my head. “Question.”
“Potential answer.”
“Mariam told me that some of the light fae artifacts can suppress demon magic. Is this something that the light fae themselves can do?”
“Yes. They would have to be extremely powerful, or the demon would have to be young and unshielded. They would also usually require the demon’s cooperation.” He studied my face.
“What is it?”
