Page 31 of Don't Bait Me (Nora Jacobs 3)

The second she’s gone, Illren focuses on me again. An awkward silence stretches out between us. Well, awkward for me, anyway; he seems all too comfortable with making me squirm. I lean back in the booth and clear my throat. “So, what information do you have that’s so secret you couldn’t say it in front of my friends?”

A small, amused smile forms on his lips. “Nothing. I just wanted to see if your guardians would give you a little slack on your leash, but it appears you’re the one in control of them, aren’t you?”

I blink at the man, and my jaw drops. What a jerk. Once I can shut my gaping mouth, I scoff. “I do notcontrolthem. We trust each other. If I say I can handle something, they let me. And if they were really that worried about me sitting here with you, they would have said as much, and I would have listened. You know what? It doesn’t matter. Let’s just stick to the topic of the murders happening around the city. You said you have information…?”

Our server returns with our drinks. She doesn’t stick around to chat this time. Illren sips at his drink and eyes my bottled water with a quirked eyebrow. “I’m not a drinker,” I grumble.

He smiles and scoots a little closer to me, throwing his arm around the back of the booth behind me. His voice becomes a seductive purr. A deadly, seductive purr. “And what, exactly, are you?” He leans in and takes a deep breath, sniffing my neck the way a shifter would. “You smell of Summer. Are you of the Seelie Court?”

I push him back to his side of the booth. “Your guess is as good as mine. Watch the personal space.”

He ignores my warning and sips his drink again. Eyes narrowed in contemplation, he looks at me over the rim of his glass and says, “You’re powerful.”

I huff. “I said as much on the phone.”

“More powerful than I expected.”

His voice sounds curious and accusing at the same time. He seems to want an answer to this, but I have no idea what to say. “I still don’t even know what people mean when they say that.”

“It’s an inner strength that all fey have, similar to the dominance of shifters.”

“Oh.” Huh. “Well, that makes sense, I guess.”

“You, Miss Jacobs, are the strongest fey I’ve come across in this city in many years.”

Again, he waits for some sort of reply. He’s probing for information. He’s not getting it. “I don’t have any answers for you. I have no idea what my history is. I didn’t come here to talk about me, anyway.”

“And what if that’s what I came here to talk about?”

This guy is starting to irritate me. I shoot him a glare. “Then you’re wasting my time. I’m trying to find a killer. If you’re not going to help me, then I’m leaving. I’ve got a whole list of other people who would probably talk to me without all the games.”

I start to slide out of the booth but stop when he grips my wrist and gently pulls me back to him. “Don’t go.”

The main focus of his thoughts is intrigue.She’s got a lot more fire than she lets on. I’d love to push her just to see her control snap. I bet she’d be brilliant.

I pull my wrist away with another glare. “Hands to yourself, buddy.”

He gives me that infuriating, amused smile that seems to say he’s enjoying a private joke. Funny, I’m not laughing the way he is. “Are you going to be helpful or not?”

It’s probably not wise to snap at a known killer, but he’s irritating me like no other. He seems to realize I’ve reached my limit for his games and sits back, taking another sip of his drink. I mentally sigh in relief when he gives in and tells me what I want to know. “I don’t have much to go on. Shael and Nei were mates. We’d been having drinks together at the casino, and they left while I stayed behind to attend to some…business.”

“Business.” I scoff. “Right. You mean picking up a contract on someone’s life.”

He smirks. “Like you, I have skills that make me useful.”

“Do you have a conscience? At all? Just wondering.”

He shrugs. “I’m particular about the jobs I accept. Most of my targets are demon scum. Between the East Side and West Side hordes always trying to get the drop on each other, I have more than enough business without having to harm innocent people.”

“You kill demons?”

Illren picks up his glass and swirls around the liquid before taking another sip. “It’s not all that hard,” he says. “They feed off human energy and can mess with your mind, but physically they’re not much stronger than humans. They even kill people in a similar fashion, using human weapons. That’s why I first suspected demons behind the killings. Using a ranged weapon like a bow and arrow is a cowardly way to kill. Most underworlders are more hands-on. Demons, on the other hand, use things like human guns. They kill from a distance. Some of the fey tend to like archery, but they’d use spelled arrows, not iron-tipped.”

My eyebrows climb my forehead. I hadn’t expected that. “You thinkdemonsare doing this? Like a warmonger or something? Trying to start a fight with the fey? I thought they usually just stick to tormenting humans.”

Illren nods. “They do. Which is why I dismissed the idea quickly. I have my ear on the demon pulse in this city enough that I would have heard something about a rogue demon targeting the fey.”

I finally open my bottle of water and study Illren as I drink. “So what’s your theory?” I ask. It’s clear he has one.

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