This close, she could just make out the general shape of his features. They were even, symmetrical. High cheekbones and proud brow. His skin was pale in the faint light of the neon sign and his smile…
His smile was a thing of nightmares.
It unspooled slowly, like the drawing of a blade across a whetstone. She swore she could hear it, that distinctiveshwickof metal on stone — a promise of pain in a sound, alook.
The tip of his tongue danced along the edge of a sharp incisor. He said nothing, but something in the way the darkfringe of his lashes lowered over those horrible eyes made her hackles rise.
Normal people felt the impulse to fill the quiet. They hated the sound of their own thoughts. When faced with someone like Shade, they probably felt compelled to saysomething,anything at all, to fill the silence and assure themselves that he was actually like them. If they said something, he’d reply. That meant they didn’t need to be so scared, right? It was the impulse of the sheep assuring itself that the disguised wolf couldn’t be a wolf, no matter how odd its wool looked.
But Petra knew the game. She didn’t say a word.
After a full minute had passed, the demon’s smile widened into a grin. The sight of it was made all the more unsettling by the fact that he had a beauty mark above his lip. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her, only that it did.
Looking at her in a way that could only be interpreted as taking her measure, he said, “You left your drink.”
Her muscles coiled again. Shade’s voice was not the cold, flat thing she expected. It was a deep, unabashed southerndrawl.
“I’ll get another,” she lied.
Her stomach dropped at the sight of his widening grin. She’d always thought that the phrasethe cat that got the creamwas an exaggeration for run of the mill smugness, but looking atthatsmile…
The demon set the glass on the table between them. “How about we share?”
Petra didn’t spare the drink a glance. “No, thank you.”
He settled back in his seat, broad shoulders rounding in a careless slouch as his legs spread. They were long enough that the one closest to her nearly brushed her knee. Petra didn’t give in to the impulse to move away, but she wanted to.
“Why not?”
“I don’t drink hard liquor.”
“Why?”
Because it’s dangerous to get drunk around a predator. Because I can’t afford to walk back into the temple even a little buzzed. Because if my parents hadn’t ended up shot, they would have died in a bar, bottles in hand.
“Because I don’t like the taste.”
The demon said nothing. He pinched the tip of his tongue between his teeth and watched her, his big body as still as a corpse.
At length, he asked, “And what’s your name, pretty thing?”
“Didn’t Rasmus tell you?”
“Rasmus tells me a lot of things. I’d be stupid to believe even a fraction of them.”
That, she had to admit, was wise. Rasmus Adams was a good man — deep,deepdown — but he was only trustworthy if you squinted. Or if you planned on giving him something he wanted. In her case, she was desperate enough to do a bit of squinting as well as giving him what he wanted.
Or rather,whohe wanted.
“My name’s Zenna,” she told him, shoulders relaxed and tonejustthe right amount of nervous.
Shade picked up the drink again. Speaking against the rim, he murmured, “And what do you need from me, pretty Zenna?”
“I need information on someone. The kind you could only get if you… say, hypothetically, broke into their suite and hacked their computers.” She sucked in a deep breath as discreetly as she could. “Could you do that?”
He swallowed a sip and set the glass back down, closer to her side of the table than before. “Is that all? I’m a little insulted. You called for a racehorse when it sounds like an ass would suffice.”
“An ass wouldn’t qualify for this race, I promise,” she replied.
