“So many girls come in here. I don’t remember every face.”
Nick analyzed Connor’s body language. He was telling the truth.
“What about this?” He slid the picture of the tattoo across the bar between Connor’s hands. “She had this tattoo on her wrist. You ever see this tattoo before?”
Connor went absolutely still.Gotcha.
“No. Sorry.” Connor’s eyes shifted away toward the woman three stools down who was motioning for his attention. “I need to get back to work.”
That wouldn’t do. Nick reached across the bar and grabbed Connor’s hand before he could go anywhere, twisting and bending his little finger toward his wrist. It was a little trick of the trade. Uncomfortable. Got their attention. “I have a few more questions.”
Connor froze and slowly looked down at Nick’s grip on his hand and wrist. His free hand balled into a fist. “Rowan, tell your guest to unhand me or I’ll pretty up his mug with a bit of black and blue and a few more scars for his collection.”
Locked in eye-to-eye combat, Nick prepared himself for whatever Connor could dish out. He didn’t want to fight the guy, but he needed answers. “You’re lying about the tattoo. Tell me what you know.”
Rowan’s manicured hand landed on Nick’s, and all his aggression seemed to drain out at her touch. “Let him go, Nick. Connor is a friend. This isn’t how we treat friends here.”
Ah, hell. He didn’t want to burn any bridges with her informant. He released his grip and watched Connor stretch his fingers and massage his wrist.
“Connor?” Rowan moved closer to the bar. “This is important.”
Connor shook his head. “Don’t get involved in this, Rowan. Trust me on this one. Drop it. I don’t know nothing about the girl.”
“But you’ve seen the tattoo,” Nick said, catching the nuance in the man’s voice.
Rowan squeezed his upper arm and said, “Nick, come on. Dance with me. Connor has things to do.”
Nick scowled at the bartender, who vamoosed without another word. He swept the picture off the bar and stashed it in the interior pocket of his jacket with the other one. Rowan led him to the dance floor and slipped her arms around his neck. Thank God for slow songs.
“You know he was lying, right?” he whispered in her ear.
“If Connor’s lying to me about something, it’s because he has to. It must have something to do with Verinetti.”
“Tell me the truth. Did things between you and Verinetti end badly?”
“No, just sooner than he would have preferred. He still occasionally buys art from Zelda’s Folly, but Harriet handles those transactions.”
“So if Mr. Art Aficionado had a secret that Connor was keeping for him, who in his inner circle would be most likely to crack?” He’d like to crack someone right now. Anything to finish up here and get to the good stuff with this woman in his arms.
She tilted her face up at his, and he had a moment to take in her softly curved nose, smooth olive skin, and amber eyes. “I think the first thing we should do is visit the VIP room.”
Chapter Eleven
Nick was going to be a problem. Rowan hadn’t felt her inner dragon roil inside her like that in a long time. Dancing in his arms, his sandalwood-and-spice scent surrounding her, it was all she could do to keep her mating trill from rumbling in his ear. What was wrong with her? This man could ruin her, and she’d do well to remember that.
Had he picked up on the supernatural energy in Wicked Divine? Or did the tattoo of a wolf howling in front of the moon on the bouncer’s neck seem like any other tattoo? Connor’s red hair and green eyes revealed more than an Irish ethnicity; he was a leprechaun and a magical slave to Verinetti, who held his pot of gold in a vault under this place. He couldn’t have told Nick anything even if he’d wanted to. Which meant Michael was hiding something, something about NAVAK.
No, she didn’t think Nick had noticed anything strange about the place at all. Although Rowan was rather fascinated by the human’s speed and agility. One did not easily snatch the wrist of an adult leprechaun. Odder still, Connor hadn’t immediately responded with a blow, which was curious indeed. The leprechaun was an infamous hothead. Which meant something about Nick that had given him pause. Rowan saw it too. Nick was imposing for a human.
The scent of shifters grew stronger as Rowan led Nick up the stairs toward the VIP lounge. The upstairs bouncer recognized her immediately and let her through. She couldn’t remember his name, but knew he was a shifter whose animal of choice was a tiger. He winked one yellow eye at her as she passed by.
Unlike the dance floor, which was mostly populated by humans, the VIP lounge was brimming with the most important members of the Manhattan supernatural community. She noticed Eva Hart right away. Her latest single was rising up the charts like it was strapped to a turbo booster. What it was actually strapped to was anohrwurmspell. Eva was a powerful witch, and if you heard one of her songs, you never forgot it.
As Rowan moved deeper into the dim room filled with leather couches, she saw Travellers like Harriet; a slew of werewolves; a handful of fairies, none of whom she’d ever seen before; and a gnome who was a popular fashion designer. Just like the rest of New York, Wicked Divine was a tossed salad of diverse supernatural beings, drawn here by the promise of liberty, the vast natural resources, and the cloak of human weirdness that made it easy for them to blend in and disguise their true nature.
Only one supernatural group wouldn’t dare set foot in Wicked Divine: vampires. Vampires and shifters did not, historically speaking, get along. Even from her earliest memories in Paragon, her family’s political connections with Nochtbend, the vampire kingdom, were tentative at best. Two different worlds, the same challenges. Luckily, Manhattan had always been a shifter territory. The New Amsterdam pack had been the preeminent supernatural rule in Manhattan for hundreds of years. For all intents and purposes, Verinetti was king. Not of her, of course. She’d been around long enough to secure her independence from the pack and stake her claim as an equal, but still, her past relationship with Verinetti had elevated her power and influence in Manhattan.
He’d also kept her secret. Most people she interacted with had no idea she was a dragon. They suspected she was some type of were or shifter, but no one would be so rude as to require a demonstration. It was better that way, though the magical energy she put off did not go unnoticed. Even now, Eva turned to look her over, attracted by the power in the air. Rowan kept what she was carefully hidden to all but Harriet and Harriet’s people, which included Djorji. She hadn’t revealed it to Michael until they’d become physically intimate, a time in her life when she’d thought she might love him. That was before she’d learned that the only thing Michael truly loved was power.
