The screen went black.
“Dimitri and Rune, you’re up,” Jarvins called.
The silence between Dimitri and I stretched thin.
My hand twitched against my thigh. “Ready?”
His red eyes slid toward me. “Try not to make us fail.”
I smirked. “I’ll be the one making uswin. I beat you last time.”
He huffed, but he didn’t reply as we walked inside.
“Kill it, venom baby!” Slater cheered.
Zuko elbowed him. “As perfect as she is, we’re trying to beat their score.”
“But she’s our mate,” Slater whined. “I have to cheer for her.”
“You can’t go easy on her either,” Zuko snapped, but there was a hint of affection in his tone. “She’d kick our asses if welether win.”
“Letting her win and cheering her on are two different things,” Slater grumbled.
The simulator’s door shut and swallowed us whole. The scene built around us with fae light, velvet curtains, and a shit ton of smoke. Music boomed, vibrating through the floorboards.
A large bar gleamed under the floating fae orbs. Patrons lounged in different areas, and many of them looked sketchy enough to be targets. Three supernaturals glowed faintly in my vision as the simulator marked them for us: a banshee woman stacking chips; a fae man with too-bright fire red hair; and a bored-looking warlock tapping a pen between tattooed fingers.
Our glamours slid into place, and the information about our covers popped up in front of us.
Sally and Spunk.They wereabsolutely terrible cover names.We were info dealers who’d apparently rather kiss than kill but would happily do both for the right price. And we were…mated.Fated, arranged, or chosen, it didn’t say. But my stomach flipped at the word mated.
“Fantastic,” Dimitri grumbled, swiping away the text with a jerky motion. “Let’s go.”
“Be nice, yeah?” I whispered. “Youaremy mate. Aren’t you?”
He tensed but gave me a jerky nod. We moved in sync toward the table in the darkest corner. Dimitri’s hand found the small of my back, and mine slipped around his waist.
We sat right next to each other, and a server glided over.
“Order?” he asked robotically.
I leaned into Dimitri’s shoulder and smiled up at the server, feeling Dimitri tense. “Something spicy,” I said. “He loves spice too. Right, Spunk?”
Dimitri’s mouth curved in a lazy, dangerous smile. “Of course,Sally.”
“Spicy drinks for two,” the waiter replied.
Under the table, our fingers threaded. He trembled under my touch in a way that made my skin buzz.
We listened, zeroing our supernatural hearing in on the three targets, as the waiter walked away.
The banshee said nothing useful. She complained only about the smoke giving her a headache. The fae bargained with a woman who couldn’t look more uninterested, but the way his magic was buzzing around him made me suspicious. The warlock murmured softly to a courier whose hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Try not to fail us,” I repeated the same thing he told me before we started, gaze flicking toward the warlock. I was almost positive he was our guy, and it wasn’t even him who gave himself away. It was the courier.
But…it could’ve also been the fae. His magical essence was going crazy.
The only thing I knew was that it wasn’t the banshee, who had already set her head down on her arms to take a nap.
