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Authors: Kaye Chambers

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal

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BOOK: Angelic Avenger
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“Fair is fair,” I whispered huskily to the trumpeter as I steadied myself, “you need to get me out of this room without having me look like a drunk.”

I winked back at the bartender and let him assume whatever he wanted. Since I had no idea who knew what about their identity, I was playing plain, dumb human. I needed the practice, anyway. The trumpeter smiled and offered his hand, holding his arm stiff enough so it steadied me as he led me from the room with the sound of the bartender’s laughter trailing after us.

“So—” I smiled as he took me through a door to a small room that had another door branching off it, “—are you in the habit of kissing strange women that you meet?”

I liked his blush. It said a lot about his character.

“Well, not really, but it worked, didn’t it?” He shrugged and looked even more uncomfortable, but he fought it back with a smile.

I met his cheeky smile with one of my own and asked the question that popped into my mind and out of my mouth before I could edit it.

“What’s your day job? You’re way too clean-cut to be one of those starving artist types.”

“Oh.” His face fell a little and I realized I’d probably hurt his feelings. Damn, me and my big mouth. I was really going to have to work on that. “I’m an accountant. What do you do?”

Turnabout is fair play, I supposed. I replied with the carefully prepared answer I’d spent years perfecting.

“I don’t. I live off an inheritance. It leaves me plenty of time for hobbies. Who knows, I might even be in the market for a kept man or two.”

His mouth fell open as I gave him my best saucy smile. Poor man gaped like a fish as his mind worked, probably trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. I left him to it and swept through the door into the larger room ahead of him. It was obviously rented out for private parties complete with a table with covered dishes. Well, you could see how many of the men were not married by the vast amounts of take-out trays arranged on it. There were three actual covered dishes, so unless Honora had brought them all, at least one of them had a wife or a live-in girlfriend. There were several ladies already in the room as well as a few gentlemen, but I didn’t have a chance for introductions as the band swept in from the stage.

The momentary respite from the scope of the magic had given me a chance to clear my head, but that didn’t help much as the residual force of it washed over me. Damn, but these guys were a heady mix. I was still trying to find my balance in the midst of it when Honora hugged me tight, babbling on so I had to blink at her to try to catch up.

“…so glad you could come. You have no idea how excited I was when Gray asked about you. I didn’t think you were going to make it, but there you were…”

She was fairly bouncing while standing still. Her energy shivered across my body and I gently untangled my hands from her. For the first time, I understood why some Reapers went rogue and started harvesting souls to keep. I wanted to live again on that level of excitement. I wanted to feel joy and revel in the vivacity of it. Don’t get me wrong, I felt as much as the next person did, but there were some things you needed your soul to fully appreciate. This was one of them.

“Anyway,” she gushed on, “I talked to the boys before we went on about the demo and we all agreed that we should follow through on your contact since Andy is dragging his feet. He seems to think we need to do a contract so that we’re properly represented and all that jazz, but…”

She rambled on about how the “boys” didn’t want to agree to something like that right off the bat and I had a moment to applaud their good sense even as my gaze drifted to where they were greeting their friends around them. Only she could possibly think of them as boys, I mused, because she was probably immune to the power of them, which seemed like a waste of magic.
Every
woman should be able to feel the thrill of them.

I had to stop the train of thought before it derailed on my slow wit. Instead, I turned back to the runaway train in front of me and couldn’t resist a laugh at her excitement.

“Honora, slow down and breathe. I’ll get started on it tomorrow. Trust me when I say that I’m still reeling from your set. I didn’t realize it could get better than it had been the other night, but tonight was out of this world.”

“Oh, that’s because Gray was able to drop in.” She smiled and her face brightened further to an almost painful brightness. “He’s not really a member of our band, but he likes to sit in when he has the time. He managed to get a night free and thought he’d drop in on us. He’s the most amazing player! He always adds so much to our performances. I keep telling him we’re going to recruit him.”

Her eyes narrowed with consideration and the look that flashed in her face was quite clearly calculating. There was no warning at all as she turned and waved her hand. I suddenly wished I’d held onto it.

“He’s single, you know. And between you and me, I never liked the last girl he was seeing. Maggie was just so not his type. Oh look, he’s looking our way. Gray, Gray!”

I barely repressed a shiver as those blue eyes found us. He smiled as he made his apologies to the woman who was hanging on his arm. Her gaze followed him as he walked toward us with such an interest that it made her pout. I was held captive as his gaze slid down me and back up to lock against my own without giving a hint to what his summation had told him about me, especially in light of my behavior this morning.

The way he looked at me made me think of Peter when I was bringing in a soul I’d harvested because they had pissed me off. I had this misplaced opinion the world would be a better place without those fools who liked to abuse those smaller, younger, or weaker than themselves. Most of them ended up in the reincarnation pile, but that suited me just fine since karma is a beautiful thing.

“Thank you, Honora.” His voice was husky and held the depth and promise of things best left for the dark as he hugged her close. Somehow, I repressed the shiver that threatened to run down my spine at the wicked thoughts racing about in my head. “We really need to find Emily a new man. She’s turning part octopus.”

“Emily sings our back-up vocals,” Honora explained as she turned to me with the type of innocent look that could only work on the very young or the infirm. She was none of those things, so it had me backing up a pace despite being pretty convincing. I didn’t know her well enough to be this suspicious, but I couldn’t help it. “She’s had a cold this week, so wasn’t able to go on today. But where are my manners? Gray, this is my new best friend, Arabella Morrison. Arabella, this is Gray Devereau. Gray, this is the wonderful woman who’s going to help us with our demo, which you’re going to sit in on, by the way. Oh, look, let me go over and drag Emily over to Melinda’s brother. I didn’t know he was going to be here tonight.”

Just like that, she was gone, leaving me staring at the first man who’d had me tongue-tied since I was fifteen and locked in a broom closet with the object of my adolescent desires, Tommy Campbell, football quarterback and hometown hero.

Chapter Four

“That was about as subtle as a truck,” I muttered under my breath as I lifted the coffee up for a drink. I’d forgotten how keen a halfling’s hearing was until his laughter washed over me. This time, I couldn’t have repressed the shiver that ran down my spine. Granted, I didn’t need to breathe, but my body still went through the motions of it.

“You think?”

I looked up and smiled. I let my gaze sum him up much the same way he’d done me on the walk over, but made no effort to hide my approval. For one night, I could flirt a little on the wild side, I told myself as a spark of return interest flashed through his eyes. How much damage could it do?

“You really have to stop that, you know. If you could bottle that laugh, you’d be a millionaire in a year.”

“Maybe money isn’t that important,” he bantered back as he stepped closer to me, leaning down a bit to whisper in my ear. “I like to save it for people who deserve it.”

Oh me, oh my. This wasn’t going to go over well at all with the Powers That Be, but I couldn’t resist. I stepped closer and whispered back.

“Careful, I might feel pressured to do something to deserve it, then.”

Heat lashed out from his aura and surged through mine, but whatever he’d been about to say was lost along with the moment as we were interrupted by raised voices across the room.

“You can’t go cut a demo with someone else,” Andy argued with Honora and I saw her glance around as she shushed him. “Tim and I have been working on this for months. All you have to do is sign the damned contract and he can get you into the studio tomorrow.”

Flirting was forgotten as I squared my shoulders and strode across the room to break it up since everyone else appeared too surprised by the outburst to take any action. Of course, they were bound by their friendship with her. I didn’t have to worry about that little restriction. Once I got the band in the right direction, I was likely not to see them again. It made this so much easier.

“Ya see,” I began from a few feet away, “that’s where you’re in left field, Andy, old boy. Why do you want a contract for a production demo? The object is to get someone with an ear and a heart to the industry to want to sell her records. The demo, itself, isn’t worth anything. In fact, most studios only charge a flat usage fee.”

I could see the controlled fury on his face as he turned toward me and watched it melt away as he realized everyone else could see him, too. I wondered how the talented people in the room could have fallen for the ruse, but then felt Gray at my back and realized that none of them had. Only Honora was blinded by this creep, and the rest cared too much to tell her what they saw. I could sympathize, but being too nice was never something I’d ever been accused of, even in life.

“Demos,” he continued after his pause in a voice rife with condescension. “Take money to produce. If Tim did them free, he’d go under inside a month since only about one in a thousand make a penny. He’s simply trying to make sure he gets a return on his investment since he’s only charging us a pittance on what it really costs.”

“Good.” I smiled coldly. If only all the bad guys were this stupid, life would be good. He’d walked right where I’d wanted him to go. “Then he won’t mind not having to front the actual cost of it since I’m paying the entire thing to have it done…my way.”

I watched his face pale as he understood the meaning a heartbeat before I finished making sure there was no doubt in anyone’s mind.

“And that means your contract can go hang. The agreement I had drawn up this afternoon calls for an equal share of any and all profits from any music carried under the name Angelic Melodies, and is to be split equally among the performers involved after a one percent surcharge by the agent that I took the liberty of hiring out of my own pocket this very afternoon.”

Okay, it sounded good. Had I done any of it? No, but Orifiel owed me and could work around it so it got done with a few whispered impulses in the right ears. I suddenly understood why there was a rule against angels interacting with their half-blood offspring. I was walking this line for him so he could follow through for us.

“You can’t mean to cut me out,” he snarled and his true nature ballooned across his entire body language. “After all I’ve done for you. I got you where you are today and you’re going to let this little tramp…”

“I’d stop there, if I were you—” Gray’s voice cut over him and he stepped back involuntarily toward the door at the threat in the tone, “—because Honora brought that contract to me and asked me to look it over. I came by tonight in hopes of taking her aside to talk to her about some of the peculiar wording in it.”

I suddenly liked Mr. Charismatic Devereau a lot more than could be justified by the obvious physical chemistry. I couldn’t see his face, but felt the gathering of his power at my back. It held such a degree of menace that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end. More than that, every inch of my skin shivered as it brushed against me. Honora’s soon to be ex-boyfriend, judging from her expression, wasn’t immune to the wrath of an angel, even a halfling.

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

Her voice held a fragile undercurrent that nearly broke my heart. There’s nothing worse than having your illusions shattered in front of your closest friends.

“I’m afraid so,” Gray confirmed. I wondered if the rest of them could hear the depth of sorrow under his words. It was a good thing there wasn’t anyone around to shoot the messenger but me, and I had other ideas for this one.

I watched her face fall as the tears gathered in her eyes.

“Get out, Andy. I never want to see you again.”

“Sunshine, you don’t mean that.” His face was stunned as he blinked at her. “I’m sorry. I was a little shocked. I should have been more open to the idea of it. I didn’t mean to put my business relationship ahead of you.”

“Just go,” she whispered and turned away from him. “Don’t make it worse.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he insisted as he took a step back toward the door.

“Please don’t…”

“I’ll be by to see you in the morning, Honora, honey,” Gray assured and I wished he wasn’t standing so close to me so I could see his face. “I’m sure Andy understands that you need your space to heal, don’t you, Andy?”

I knew he was bluffing, but the look Andy gave both of us promised retribution and told me he believed the threat. I smiled serenely as I mentally cataloged his fate. He was cosmically screwed, anyway, because there was no way anyone could get away with manipulating the bloods without consequences. That thought brought me back to the one standing behind me, close enough where his fury still radiated across my senses.

Was there a rule against dating half-bloods?

I didn’t think so. No one had bothered to tell me, anyway. Maybe it really was better to ask forgiveness over permission, after all.

The thought was broken when Honora left the room. Stepping away from Gray, I followed her, knowing there was no help for it. I knew first-hand what it felt like to find out the love of your life was out to take you to the cleaners. It hurt, but she had something that I hadn’t. Me.

BOOK: Angelic Avenger
2.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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