“Pardon me, but can I ask y’all a question?” their waitress said with a bright smile. She tossed her loose blond curls over her shoulder, openly flirting with Woods.
Woods smiled, as did every male at the table. “Shoot… but only with a very small-caliber weapon.”
The young woman giggled and poured coffee all around. “I was wondering if there was one of those conventions in town, you know those science fiction kinds of things where people dress up? I know we get all kinds for Mardi Gras… but you fellas have the wolf-eyes contact lenses in, and a little earlier there were some real handsome gentlemen with long hair and bows and arrows and multicolored contact lenses in… but I never knew you could get the kind that changed colors depending on how the light hit-and they had the ears, too,” she said laughing, gesturing to her own to describe how the ones she’d seen had been pointed. “I’ve always wanted to go to one of the cons, I guess they’re called… Are they fun?”
Stunned silent for an awkward few moments, no one spoke. Finally Bradley piped up to cover for the group. “It’s actually being held in Houston and all of us are just passing through… but they are fun. If they have one here next year, you should go.”
“I think I will,” she said brightly. “Thanks, guys!”
Fisher and Crow Shadow got up from the table.
“Reconnaissance,” Fisher said. “Gotta get a visual.”
Crow Shadow nodded. “Definitely.”
Clarissa covered the receiver with her hand, and then quickly got off her cell phone with Ethan. “Call you back.”
No one spoke until the two soldiers returned, shaking their heads.
“Dudes were probably long gone,” Fisher said, sliding into his seat.
Crow Shadow confirmed Fisher’s assessment. “No fresh scent of Fae.”
“But did you hear that?” Bradley hissed in an urgent whisper, looking around five ways.
“The Fae glamour isn’t holding in the streets-normal humans like me and Winters, and, and that waitress saw Fae archers?” Bradley took an agitated slurp of his coffee as Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow leaned in closer. “Now tell me that’s the way of the wolf. Something really freaky is going on and I don’t think we’ve been fully briefed.”
“I thought it was just me, just second sight kicking in stronger this time for some reason,” Clarissa said as she glanced around the table. “But Ethan is also wigging out and won’t say what he needs to speak to Sasha and Hunter about.”
Woods’s line of vision was still on the retreating waitress’s butt, however. “She sure is a pretty young thing, though.”
Bear and Crow pounded each other’s fists as Fisher nodded and released a low whistle of appreciation.
“Is it just me, or do you guys with a little canine in you seem to be inordinately preoccupied with tail?” Bradley folded his arms over his chest, drawing snarls. “Seriously. Plus, we’re told to sit outside of The Fair Lady for over an hour with no explanation. Something went down. It’s clear from the little bit of Clarissa’s conversation I could hear that something else happened at Ethan’s establishment-something he’s not willing to discuss with us, and our fearless leaders are AWOL. All of this is just a little coincidental for my liking.”
“Dudes,” Winters said, his gaze ricocheting around the group, “not being judgmental but, you all have been a little extra… just a tad over the top. Like, on edge.”
Clarissa nodded and then closed her eyes. “Winters is Winters, Bradley is Bradley… I’m all right.” She opened her eyes. “But anyone with some paranormal in their DNA just feels a little off center, energy wise. I can’t explain it.”
“Do you think that’s what hit our alpha, some funky mojo?” Fisher said, wiping egg yolk off his plate with his toast and then stuffing it into his mouth. He held up his hands when Crow Shadow snarled at him. “Hey, hey, hey, I’m trying to be sure that everything is cool. I admit, I wasn’t feeling altogether a-okay when the big guy came out of the bar.”
“Honesty will keep us all alive if something untoward is happening all around us,” Clarissa said, giving Fisher a high five. “Talk to me. When Hunter exited The Fair Lady, what did you notice?”
“Aw, man, it’s personal,” Fisher said, taking a big slurp of coffee. “Let’s just say I was really hungry and cannot wait for this party in a few nights.”
“Woods?” She stared at him, but his gaze was still fixated on the blond’s backside.
“Yeah. Me, too,” Woods muttered, not looking at Clarissa as he spoke. “I definitely need to walk the dog tonight. I won’t last three days.”
“Ooookay, that was TMI, but appreciated data. Bradley?” Clarissa folded her arms over her ample breasts, clearly becoming perturbed.
Bradley held up both hands in front of his chest. “Don’t look at me; I’m cool as a cucumber.”
“Winters?”
“I’m good. No issues here, just looking forward to the party like any good soldier would, but I’m cool.”
“Bear?” Clarissa said with less attitude in her tone as the huge enforcer’s gaze locked in on hers.
“I need to hunt.” Without further comment, Bear Shadow stood, slapped a twenty-dollar bill down on the table, and walked out of the diner.
All eyes went to Crow Shadow.
“I respect you as my half-sister’s closest female companion… as her team’s third eye,” Crow Shadow said in a low, sensual rumble. “I think you know the answer to the question. None of the wolves in this pack are settled this morning. And the longer I am in your presence, dear lady, the more unsettled I become.” He stood slowly, still holding Clarissa’s stunned gaze, dropped cash on the table and then left in a graceful, fluid, wolf move.
“Okay,” she said, releasing a shallow breath with her eyes on Crow Shadow’s retreating, athletic form. She tried to stop looking at his fantastically tight ass as he walked away, but miserably lost that battle.
“That clinches it. There’s something floating in the air that’s affecting some of the supernaturals.” She fanned her face and looked around at her teammates. “Okay, so maybe we humans are a little affected too.”
Sasha looked down at her cell phone the moment she and Hunter came out of the shadow lands. It was vibrating so insistently once a signal had been restored that it was practically making her teeth chatter. Eight missed calls from Ethan and Clarissa combined, and they’d only been gone at most forty minutes. Not wanting to waste time, she began reading text messages from her cell phone out loud to Hunter as he loped by her side.
“Ethan just said to get in touch-repeatedly said that. Fisher left our ride in the back.”
Hunter didn’t comment. His gaze was straight ahead on their parked jeep that was sitting just where Fisher said it would be.
She glimpsed Hunter from a sidelong glance as they entered the parking lot of what used to be Elf Dugan’s Bed & Breakfast. Her entire team was put up there, along with Hunter’s men. Thankfully, Doc and Silver Hawk would be coming in soon, too. It would be good to have everyone with a concentrated set of skills in close proximity, given the strange circumstances. Dugan had to be spinning in his grave. She was just glad that the little rat bastard’s estate had lost his establishment to Ethan for siding with Vampires in the double cross against the wolf packs.
Seemed a fitting punishment-Dugan had done a foul deed and would have been banished from New Orleans under Sir Rodney’s Fae martial law, had the baron not blown the greedy black heart out of his little weasel chest in open court. Vampires hated being snitched on. But since Dugan had acquired his B &B via Vampire blood money, literally, it was seized by Fae Parliament and awarded to the one who’d turned state’s evidence-Ethan.
Poor old Dugan had also lost Finnegan’s Wake, his prized bar across the street. When the sentence was levied, she could only guess that he’d probably put up a pitiful fuss from Hell. Taking material goods from Dugan was worse than having him drawn and quartered. Same held true of Baron Geoff Montague, Vampire extraordinaire. Word on the streets was that he’d paid a hefty tax for his troubles, enough to almost cost him a premier blood club.