Page 33 of Aberrant Monsters
The lift opened to the inside of the bar.
I stalked toward the exit and yanked.
“Morals mean nothing if keeping them can kill you,” Telarion said softly. “Trust me, I know.”
He swept past me and out into the night.
Damn him and his contradictory personality. I’d been so pissed off at him, but now I was intrigued.
* * *
I ordereda pizza on the way home. Now that my mystical carnal craving had been satisfied, my stomach was growling like a beast.
I shucked off my coat, pried off my shoes, and stepped into the kitchen to find it empty. Well, that was a first. Someone was always in the kitchen. This was the hub of the house. The hangout. We even had a radio and a TV in here.
No one ever used the lounge, not really. Which reminded me, I should dust that room.
I put the kettle on and then went in search of my housemates. Voices drifted down the corridor on the first floor where our bedrooms and Uncle Frederick’s office were housed.
I recognized Nandi’s slightly raised tone interspersed with Uncle Fred’s low timbre, but there was another unfamiliar voice, smooth and melodious, that nudged at my memory.
I hurried down the hall and stopped in the open doorway of the office. Uncle Fred stood by the bookcase, arms crossed defensively, while Nandi stood feet shoulder-width apart, hands on hips, glowering at the third occupant of the room—a man with golden hair who was busy unpacking a box set on my uncle’s desk.
I stepped into the room. “What’s going on?”
The man stopped unpacking and locked gazes with me.
I stared into his azure eyes and anger starburst in my chest. “You! You’re the wanker who drugged me.”
ten
The man with the azure eyes stared at me unblinkingly, then slowly, deliberately arched a brow. “Wanker?”
For some reason, embarrassment colored my cheeks. I soon recovered, though, because I had nothing to be embarrassed about. He’d bloody manhandled and drugged me.
I crossed my arms and arched an eyebrow right back at him. “Yeah, you’re awankerfor drugging me.”
He sighed wearily. “I didn’t drug you, August. I was merely holding on to youwhileyou were drugged.”
“Semantics, dude, and that does not make it okay.”
He pressed his perfectly formed manly lips together in an action that held scholarly disapproval. “It makes it anecessaryaction. You were a threat. Now you’re an ally, and I’m your handler, so you’ll show a little respect.”
I raked him over openly, wanting him to notice the assessment. He couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than me.
Who the hell did he think he was, talking down to me? “How old are you?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up slightly. “Twenty-eight, and you’re twenty-four, your best friend Nandi Roja is also twenty-four, and your uncle is forty-seven. Your New Blood associate, Archie Blaine, is twenty-six. He’s hiding from me because he’s worried that I’ll report him to the government for a) living in the city and not in the Underbelly, and b) for tampering with his ankle. But I don’t intend to report him. Not if he remains useful to our investigations.” He smiled thinly. “So now that we’ve exchanged ages, shall we get on with business?”
Yep, I was not going to like this dude. Not one bit.
“He’s taking over the study,” Nandi said tightly. “Just waltzed in here and commandeered it.”
“It’s fine,” Uncle Fred said.
But the set of his jaw and his stiff stance said otherwise.
My handler went back to emptying books out of the box he’d brought.
