Page 7 of Fanged Secrets
Dylan’s expression softened slightly when she noticed my reaction. I saw her hesitation and her glowing eyes flickered with something like regret. She sighed, the shadows dissipating as she ran a hand through her hair. Wearily, she dropped her gaze and her lips moved slowly, more deliberately when she spoke.
“Whatever. Do what you want.”
She turned on her heel and disappeared amongst the foliage, vanishing like she’d been swallowed up by the dark.
Standing alone in the garden, the confrontation left me raw and exposed. Memories of my father’s overbearing presence flooded my mind, and it was a long time before I finally made my way back to the living room. Dylan was nowhere to be seen and her bedroom door was closed.
I curled up on the sofa, not bothering to fetch a blanket, and fell into a restless sleep.
It must have been a few hours later that I woke, vaguely conscious of the soft blanket draped over me. Through fluttering, heavy-lidded eyes I saw Dylan moving through the living room. There was an eerie grace to her, a fluidity that seemed almost otherworldly. Foggy with sleep I blinked to clear my vision, struggling to decipher what I was seeing.
Dark tendrils of shadow seemed to flow around her, swirling and undulating like living smoke. They wrapped around herleather-clad limbs, clinging to her form as she headed for the door. The whole scene felt surreal, like a dream. But the blanket tucked snugly around me was a real, tangible reminder of her presence.
Dylan paused with her hand on the knob and glanced back at me, her strange eyes aglow. I quickly shut my own, but I could have sworn I saw a softness there, a stark contrast to her earlier hostility. When I opened my eyes again, Dylan was gone and I stared at the closed door, a faint shiver quivering down my spine.
Chapter 5
Dylan
“Did you find them?” Jordan’s voice was faint in my mind. Our mental connection was no good over long distances and I was halfway across the city, deep in Don Leone’s territory.
“Yes Jordan, hours ago. Get out of my head and let me do my job.”
Crouched in the shadows of a rickety rooftop, I fixed my eyes on the entrance of one of Don’s infamous nightclubs below. It was one of his grimier establishments and the stench of cigarettes, alcohol, and general debauchery was palpable even from my elevated position. The neon lights flickered, casting a garish glow over the inebriated crowd that spilled out into the street.
Jordan’s tone was speculative in my head. “River had another vision. She was certain about what she saw, but what do dragon shifters have to do with Don Leone?”
I shrugged automatically, adjusting my crouch as I scanned the street life below.
My mission was simple enough: keep an eye on some of Don’s gang members and make sure they stuck to their end of the peace bargain. And verify River’s prophecy of dragon shifters in the area. The clairvoyant vamp was usually spot on with her predictions, but the dragon-born had not set foot out of Russia in centuries so the likelihood of them roaming around New York was slim.
“Maybe the two are unrelated,” Jordan mused. “But River swore she saw them on Don’s turf. Have those guys doneanythingunusual tonight?”
“If they had I would have reported it,” I stated blandly. “Can you shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.”
The gangsters hadn’t done anything suspicious all night. I had followed them as they stumbled from bar to club – drinking, smoking, and being generally unremarkable. They were certainly plastered and plenty problematic with their drunken catcalls to every passing woman, but that was nothing new.
It was a task I had performed countless times by then, but the stakes were always high. My presence in the area could be construed as a breach of the agreement, so I was relegated to watching from the shadows.
Jordan’s coy voice in my head was maddening. “Someone’s cranky tonight. Trouble in paradise?”
I let out an audible hiss, baring my fangs to no one in particular. “If you’re referring to married life, I assure you it’s hell. I don’t know how you and Sky do it.”
“We’re technically not married yet. But if you want to know how to make a relationship work – communication and compromise, Dylan dear. And the occasional mind-blowing sex. You should try it.”
“Thank you, I’ll take that to heart,” I muttered dryly and narrowed my eyes at the club entrance. The crowd writhed under the neon lights and faint thumping music reached myears. Don’s men were on the move again, I spotted three of them jostling through the horde of bodies toward a nearby alleyway.
I followed silently, keeping to the shadows of the rooftop. There was a thrill to this kind of work, stalking unsuspecting prey. This was what I did best, lurking in peripherals, watching from a distance… Definitely not avoiding my real mission.
Jordan’s voice echoed in my head again. “Do you think she’s spying for Don?”
I scowled, darting over a dormer and keeping pace with the stumbling men below. “Who, Amara? Maybe. I’ve already caught her snooping around the apartment. She’s either working for her father or she’s just incredibly nosey.”
A brief spark of anger flared in my chest before it guttered out and died just as quickly. Hovering around the apartment didn’t necessarily make the woman a spy. But it did make her a pain in the ass. Finding her on the rooftop had been… unpleasant. It was like ripping open my insides and letting her inspect my organs, or wrap her fingers around my fleshy, beating heart.
“You know it would be easier to assess her loyalties if you weren’t avoiding her 24/7. Someone else could have handled this recon mission.”
“I’m not avoiding her!” I slipped silently down a fire escape as Don’s men disappeared into the alleyway. I followed after them at a safe distance, slinking around dumpsters and wrinkling my nose at the sharp stench that seemed to stick to my pores. The familiar aroma of piss, trash, and greasy pizza – the eau de Cologne of New York City.
