Page 9 of Claimed
At the hotel, we enter the elevator just in time for the male following us to grow visible in the large bank of windows across the way.
Pretending like I don’t see him, I allow Horan to press the button and we ascend to the top floor.
“Think he spotted you?” The angel remarks.
Frowning, I exit the elevator and follow him into the rented penthouse. “Only time will tell,” I admit.
The open layout reminds me of my home at Lock Lake. But instead of the sprawling city, one whole bank of windows offers an uninterrupted view of the ocean.
Horan drops onto the black leather sofa, a scowl on his lips. “It had to work, Caine. We don’t have fucking time for anything else.”
My smile grows. “Such foul language from one of the feathered kin.”
His amber eyes flash with anger. “I agreed to this stupid farce to watch your scrawny ass. Not to deal with your shit.”
It had taken all my powers of persuasion to get Horan as my faithful bodyguard. But of all those on the team, and all those at Lock Lake, he was the one I most wanted to bring down several pegs.
His immediate hate for me had only sparked the dislike from the others. The watchful eyes.
And it is a hate that I do not deserve, but one I fanned anyway. They all see what they want to see, and nothing I do can change it.
“We are on a mission, Horan. One I am in charge of,” I tell him as I walk to the bar near the tall windows. “Everything I do is being watched. You are my security, not my mother. So you will deal with myshitas you so elegantly put it, if you want the Brightex.”
“And you don’t think the auctioneers will find it odd that you wander around Miami on frivolous errands?” he asks, walking over the gleaming white marble floor.
“Not at all,” I admit. “Demons are rather arrogant. We live by our desires. Nothing more.”
He growls, the sound most unbecoming from a fallen angel. “So you had to go shopping?” His amber eyes roam over me, taking in my new attire with a touch of distaste.
Considering he seems to favor jeans and threadbare white tees, I don’t rise to the bait.
“Again, we want our hosts to see the demon, yes? That requires a bit of posturing.”
“Did you pay for the new threads or steal them?”
I press a hand to my chest. “That hurts, Horan. Really.”
His eyes narrow.
Unstopping one crystal decanter, I pour myself several knuckles worth of scotch into a tumbler. No ice. As I lift the glass to my lips, he continues to glower.
Sighing, I say, “I paid for them. Now, would you stop glaring?”
His phone rings and he pulls it from his pocket.
Shaking his head, his thick golden hair sways against his shoulders as he moves away to answer the call. I have always wondered if the mass of tendrils was once longer, and if he lost most of it when he fell. But I’ve never cared enough to ask.
I walk closer to the windows and gaze out over the city.
Ruin and the others are holed up somewhere in the steel and glass labyrinth. But the less contact they have with us the better.
Despite the tail, there has been no invite to the auction. An auction that our source believes will be sometime tomorrow night.
That does not give us long at all.
Horan’s steps approach, and his reflection fills the glass as he stops beside me. “Markus said the others have located a likely warehouse near the marina. But we still haven’t gotten an invitation.”
His power radiates over me like hot, stinging ants.
