She watched him walk over to the empty bar where Emerie was taking orders and dealing drinks. He moved with purpose, almost like he knew others would step out of his way as he approached. And they did. Gods, they parted like any wrong move or glance his way would burn them.
They were probably right.
And that’s exactly what Brela needed; to burn Ovir off her skin.
Brela looked back at the table, Farrah and Elias both staring at her with the widest grins. “What?”
“You didn’t last five whole minutes!” Farrah laughed.
“It’s a miracle that fire wielder still had his eyes on you with those snorts,” Elias chuckled.
“You know what,” Brela replied, smacking Elias’s arm. “I should be getting some slack tonight after the events of the last day and a half.”
“You’ll definitely be gettingsomethingtonight,” Farrah answered, very obviously nodding her head toward Valkip.
Brela rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Do you want your drinks now?”
Elias dropped his coins on the table to cover his loss from last night. “I think Farrah has reached her limit so I’ll take her home.” The woman just shrugged and tilted her mug back, emptying the last drops. Elias patted Brela’s hand. “Don’t stay out too late. There’s a shadow wolf on the loose.”
He slid out of the booth and helped Farrah out of her seat. The woman wasn’t a lightweight by any means, but a mixture of sleeplessness and alcohol had caught up to her. She blew Brela a dramatic kiss before letting Elias drag her out of the inn.
10
Tempting the Dragon
Brela finished her drink and swiped Elias’s coins off the table as she made her way to the bar. No one sat within three seats of the captain, but he didn’t seem bothered as he spun a knife in his hand.
Four hells.Herknife.
So that’s where her missing weapon had gone.
She didn’t bother avoiding the man as she slid into the seat to the right of him. Besides, even with dulled sun-blessed senses, he would know she was approaching.
“Emerie will ignore you until you put that away,” Brela said.
But just as the words left her mouth, Emerie danced by and swiped an empty plate that had been obscured on his left side.
“Nonsense, Maeve,” the waitress purred. “He stopped by earlier this morning and gave me a heads up about those other men. They might be idiots, but we need more men like Cason to rid our forest of those vile shadow cultists.”
“Indeed,” Brela ground out as she pushed Elias’s payment across the counter and another silver of her own. “For dinner and two more drinks, if our shadow hunter is interested?”
The captain traded her silver for his own. “I think I should be the one paying after the way you dealt with Rynn.”
Brela shrugged and pocketed her coin, eyeing the bruised and cut knuckles on his hand. After Emerie deposited their drinks, she nodded toward his fingers. “Did you start the fight or did you have to rescue those idiots?”
The man let out a laugh as he inspected the cuts. “I wouldn’t call it a rescue when the men we were trying to capture got away.”
Brela choked on her drink.
He raised his brow at her. “You seem to have trouble with your drinks tonight.”
She set her mug on the counter, forcing the lump down her throat as she swallowed. Warley and Ripley got away. All Gerrart’s men survived. So, instead of solving her problems, she had just created bigger ones—muchbigger ones.
Shit. She didn’t have time for those problems, she needed to fix a bigger one. She flashed her eyes toward him.
“I’m better known for myunladylike noises,” she replied. Flawless recovery.
His cheeks turned red as his eyes dropped to the mug in his hands. Where had her knife gone? Hells, she needed to stay focused on one thing, but which one? Blade, information, or…
