Page 95 of Kiss of Wrath

“Crowds R Us. There are already seven of us here, and people coming and going like a revolving door at Macy’s.”

“I don’t understand why you would warn me away from the city. Roger has no bone to pick with me. I doubt he even knows we’re friends.”

“It’s not just Roger. Something bad is going down in Vegas any day now, and take my word on it . . . you don’t want to be around.”

“And you’re not going to tell me what this something bad is?”

Miranda shook her head. She wished she could tell Darla about the vangels and the Lucipires and the whole St. Michael the Archangel business, but she’d promised Mordr that she would say nothing. Besides, Darla would never believe her. Miranda wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

Mordr opened the sliding glass door to the kitchen and, without greeting, addressed Darla, “Did you bring a weapon with you? Can you stay for a few hours until I get back?” He had a high-tech cell phone in hand and appeared to have just finished a call. “I need to go out, but I can’t leave Miranda and the children without protection.”

“Uh, I’m standing right here,” Miranda said.

“I know you are, sweetling.” He leaned down and kissed her smack on the lips before turning back to Darla, whose mouth had dropped open at such open affection. His kiss must seem like a declaration of some sort, but Miranda knew better. It was just Mordr getting horny again.

Darla clicked her jaw shut. “Yes, I have a pistol in the glove compartment of my car, and I can stay as long as you need me. Is it Roger? Jeez, I’d love to nab the creep myself. A bullet to his family jewels, for a start.” She made a gun with her forefinger and thumb. “Bam, bam!”

Mordr fought a grin at Darla’s bloodthirstiness. “No, it’s not Roger this time. Leastways, I do not think it is. This is another danger.”

Darla exchanged a quick glance with Miranda.

“I do not think there is any threat out here in the suburbs, but do not take any chances. Keep all the doors and windows locked. Open to no one.”

“Except for you and your brothers, right?” Miranda asked.

“Not even for us.”

The implication was they could teletransport inside, if need be. Oh boy!

“Keep your weapon at hand at all times, preferably on your person. Miranda can give you a shirt or something to hide it from the children.”

“Wow! You’re really serious about this danger, aren’t you?”

“Serious as sin.”

“And you’re not going to tell me jackshit about what’s going on. I don’t like being kept out of the loop when my person and that of my friends and associates are in peril.”

“It has to be that way.”

“Sort of like, if you told me, you’d have to kill me.”

“Exactly like.” He waggled his eyebrows at Darla to confuse her about whether he was serious or not.

After giving Darla more instructions, Mordr flicked his fingers for Miranda to follow him upstairs. Under normal circumstances, she would tell him what he could flick, but he added, “Come, talk to me while I change my clothes, sweetling.”

Sweetling? Darla mouthed at her, but Miranda suspected that, despite the endearment, Mordr had something else in mind.

Man in Black. Cloak and weapons. “I thought this was supposed to happen tomorrow night.”

“Schedule change. Jasper and his demon vampires will be gone by midnight.”

Once they were upstairs, he shut the door behind them and tossed her onto the bed before she could blink. He spread her legs and knelt between her knees.

“I thought you were in a hurry.” Men! she mused. Even in the midst of impending danger, or perhaps because of impending danger, they had to have one last roll in the hay.

He pulled his T-shirt up and over his head, tossing it over his shoulder. “I have a half hour. I can be reclothed in three minutes. That leaves me twenty-seven minutes with nothing to do. Any suggestions?”

“Not as many as you have, I’ll bet.”