I scanned some of the other links she’d sent, pausing for a long moment on a photo of Samson stroking his finger over my body paint, a focused expression on his face with the caption “Does the King seek a Queen?”
I phoned Leo. “Queen calling. How many jealous comments am I getting?”
“Eh. Haters gonna hate. Enjoy your fifteen minutes, baby.”
“Oh, I will. Though Snowflake is gonna have a coronary when he sees this.”
“Points for Snowflake,” Leo said. “I don’t like you getting close to Samson either.”
“No. Rohan gets no points. Fuck buddies do not require nor are eligible for points. Unless they’re Frequent Flier.” I kicked off the flats Rohan had thoughtfully brought up for me and sank onto the mattress. A highly disappointing sensation after Rohan’s bed. “I always knew I’d be famous.”
“For tap?” Leo snorted in derision.
I massaged my instep. “I’d rock fame. You know how people always say fame wouldn’t change them? Screw that. I’d become impossible. Treating everyone like little people. Reminding them they’re not worthy, but would be eligible for worthy-status with the appropriate bribe.”
“’Kay, you get you’re sounding like Samson, right?” Leo asked.
I switched my massage to my other foot. “All right, yes, but unlike him, I’d leave everyone with a warm glow for having been in my presence, instead of misery, humiliation, and world domination. Nava Katz. The gift that keeps on giving.”
“Like herpes,” Leo agreed cheerfully. “Speaking of STIs, did you sleep with Samson? Because I recognized that ecstatic look on your face.”
“You did. But nope.”
“Too busy servicing your rock star last night?”
“That didn’t happen either.”
She gasped. “Did you displease him? Were you displaced?”
“Since it doesn’t get better than me, I was not displaced.” Not yet, Cuntessa whispered. I mentally chucked a rock at her head. “I may have displeased, but that’s foreplay with us. What’s up with you?”
“Explain something to me, and use small descriptive words so I understand. You’re on a top secret mission, very thrilling and adrenaline-inducing, with the boy you’ve been having hot monkey sex with, under the guise of being the girl who is supposed to be having hot monkey sex with him, while being on ecstasy, and there was no sex to be had?”
“Monkey or otherwise. That is correct.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I stretched out my neck and shoulders. “I was fatigued. Even I need a night off now and then.”
“Did you not look at him last night?”
“I did, but I’m wondering how you saw him.”
“Photos, d’uh. The paparazzi love Rohan.”
Putting Leo on speakerphone, I followed the next set of links she texted me. “Rohan’s back and more delicious than ever!” read one website. He’d been a busy little beaver last night. No one chick was featured twice in the photos. Commodities indeed.
Please let these photos be the first thing Poppy sees this morning.
I paused over the snaps of Rohan chummy-chummy with Samson. Or, more correctly, Samson chummy with Rohan. I hadn’t imagined that look of hatred on his face last night. What was he playing at?
Leo gave a dreamy sigh. “Letting his rock star fly free. I would totally tap that.”
“You would have tapped that when you were thirteen. This is not news.”
“Nava.” Leo wasn’t buying my stalling.
I twisted around to prop my feet against my headboard. “Lightning girl is here.”
“I know you are. So?”
I gave a strangled laugh. “No, honey. The actual one.”
Her sputter was gratifying. “Who is she?”
“A beautiful genius. Very nice.”
“Shit. Total nightmare. Are they dating?”
“No. But there is definitely something between them. A tenderness. Which I don’t want from him, but sistah, it’s messing with me getting some.”
Her “then you need to get back on that, beyatch,” sounded even less believable.
I tucked my arm underneath my head, staring up at the ceiling. “Ever wish we could hide away until the sun explodes destroying all life as we know it?”
“Would we be hiding out with a lifetime supply of potato chips and vibrator batteries?” Leo asked.
“We could.”
“Hmm, still no.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Because we are socialized, highly functional human beings who don’t hide.”
“No, we’re not.”
Leo snorted her donkey-braying laugh. “Not even a little bit. Still. No hiding.”
I sighed. “Fine. Everything good with you? For reals? Get your boy part fix yet?”
“Nope. Last night was all about the delights of girl bits.”
“Sweet. Well, I better go prep for my meeting. Got some possible intel to follow up on.”
“Good luck. Shmugs.” She blew a loud smack into the phone. “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Damn, I loved my bestie. “Schmugs.”
The second I hung up, I called Baruch back at the Vancouver chapter house. The top Rasha in terms of weapons and training, Baruch Ya’ari stood about six and half feet tall, with shoulder-length black hair and sharp blue eyes. Combined with the hemp bracelets he wore, he always reminded me of a surfer Special Ops guy.
Rasha weren’t just hunters. Their duties involved everything from training initiates and designing weaponry like Baruch did, intelligence gathering on demons like Rohan and Drio did via the in-house intelligence department, or coding surveillance software and top secret databases like Kane.
Baruch had been assigned as my personal fighting instructor, a.k.a. the one with the best chance of quickly giving me moves to keep me alive. I adored him, even though he gave me enough bruises to warrant calling a helpline.
“Shalom.”
I smiled at his Israeli accent rumbling over the line.
“Boker tov, Tree Trunk.” Baruch bore my nickname for him with the same stoicism he handled everything. Well, everything that wasn’t Ms. Clara, the person in charge of all Brotherhood administrative business in Canada. Rasha, rabbi, Executive whether living or visiting dealt with her. She also moonlighted as one of Vancouver’s top dominatrixes. Mad whip skills.
Demons were drawn to instability, be it civil unrest or natural disasters. The fault lines along the west coast appealed to them, which was why years ago, Vancouver had founded a chapter. Since then, we’d become the main Canadian hub, overseen by Rabbi Abrams in theory and Ms. Clara in all the ways that counted.
“Tell me you have a plan for dealing with those photos,” he said.
I scrunched up my face. “I do.” Carry on as planned. “I also have a favor to ask. Can you please keep an eye on Ari until this job is over?”
Tree Trunk sighed. “I’m going back to Jerusalem,” he said. “Back to HQ.”
“You can’t!”
“Maspik, Nava,” he said gently. “I can’t stay as your personal trainer either. The Brotherhood needs me.”
My lip wobbled. I didn’t mean to be a wuss, but for the past several weeks, Baruch, Rohan, Drio, and Kane had been my anchors in this funhouse I now called my life. Kane would be sticking around, since he was based out of Vancouver, and I’d be happy for Drio to move to an ice floe in the Arctic, but Baruch? I needed my Tree Trunk. I felt safer knowing he was around, guiding me.
You’d think that being a chosen demon hunter would be broadening my horizons. I felt like it was shrinking my world.
“I’ll put Kane on it,” he assured me.
Great. Babysitting Ari for yet another reason. If I didn’t get Ari Rasha’d soon and all magicked up, I feared the two of them might end in a double homicide.
“Beseder?” he asked.
“Okay,” I agreed. I thanked Baruch, making him promise to stay in touch. Tamping down
any residual Tree Trunk sadness, I fired up my laptop. One quick call to room service to order a club sandwich, fries, and chocolate cake, since the Brotherhood was paying, and I got to work tracking down the significance, if any, of the black sun. Even without access to Demon Club’s databases, the connections I found floored me.
Coming up for air a couple of hours later, I grabbed my pile of notes, stuffing them into my laptop bag to transport them up to Rohan’s room in the event Samson was still around, so he wouldn’t see them. Bag slung diagonally across my chest, I stepped into the elevator and found Drio. “Nice photos,” he smirked. “High much?”
“Took one for the team.” I tapped my bag. “Wait and be amazed. Where did you end up last night?”
“Took the boys to an S&M dungeon.”
I looked at him with horrified fascination. “Are they still alive?”
“Baby S&M.” Such disdain. The place must not have met his standards of true sadism.
“Sucks to be you.”
Drio shrugged. “T-Roy spent most of the night with a ball gag in his mouth so that was an improvement.”
“You mean Troy?”
“Troy doesn’t come with the cred he so desperately craves. He’s T-Roy now,” he said. I laughed. “Logan is the one constantly texting.” He pitched his voice lower in impersonation. “Dope messages bespelling importance, bro.”
I stumbled. Drio was cracking me up. What bizarro world had I landed in? “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Yeah. I try not to listen when he speaks. My IQ has dropped ten points on this mission.”
We stepped out of the elevator, bound for Rohan’s suite at the far end of the hall. “You think they’re,” I pitched my voice lower, “human?”
“I don’t know what to think.” He shrugged out of his jacket, his quiet tone matching mine. “Part of me thinks the two guys closest to Samson have to be demons. But in all the time I’ve spent with them, they haven’t made a single suspicious move. No sign of any evil agenda.”
“Could they be under strict orders to behave? In case they blow Samson’s cover?”
“They cause a scandal, Samson gets rid of them. If anything, his celeb status gives them leeway to let their demon tendencies out. Perfect cover for bad behavior. They could be human, but my gut is saying otherwise.”
“Could be PDs,” I suggested.
Half-demons were known by the pejorative term PD, from the old Rasha joke, “What do you call a half demon? Practice.” The only way to tell that they weren’t full evil was that when killed, PDs exploded in a shower of gold dust. I’d learned using that term around Leo was at my peril.
“Even so. Something doesn’t add up.”
“How do they feel about Samson?” I adjusted the weight of the strap on my shoulder.
“Troy doesn’t say much unless he’s kissing ass. Logan talks a lot of smack about King but never anywhere near him.”
I veered around a housekeeping cart piled high with fresh linens. “Does the American accent get tiring?” I asked. “Do you ever slip?”
He shook his head. “Too many years doing Mom impersonations.”
“Your mother is American?!”
It was Drio’s turn to laugh. “Which part are you struggling with? That she’s American or that I have a mother?”
“That you have a mother, obviously. I thought you were spawned.”
A door opened revealing Poppy backing out of a suite with a cat-like smile. Rohan’s suite. He of the rumpled clothes and messed hair framed in the doorway beside her. She trailed her hands down his chest.
I contemplated breaking her fingers. And his balls.
“Quit it. You’re short circuiting,” Drio grabbed my hand, flinching at the spark that arced off my palm against his.
“Excuse me,” Poppy huffed as Drio pushed the two of us into the room, effectively breaking the two of them apart.
Drio flung his coat onto a chair. “You’re excused.” He made a shooing motion at her.
She looked at Rohan waiting for her knight in shining armor to step in but he’d registered my presence. His face colored in that purple apoplectic way as he opened his mouth, shut it, then jabbed his index finger between me and a chair. “Sit.”
Guess he’d seen the photos.
Chapter 14
Poppy’s mood perked right up at Rohan’s anger toward me. Smiling, she ran a finger along the outline of her obviously newly reapplied lipstick.
Refusing to sit, I batted my lashes at him. “Punish away, baby.” I visibly shivered.
Drio unsuccessfully smothered a laugh.
Rohan murmured bullshit platitudes to Poppy, ushered her out the door, then slammed it shut.
Drio didn’t let it bother him. He sank onto the couch. “What’s the matter, Ro? True love getting you down?”
“Shut it, Desiderio.”
Oh joy! That was his real name? I clapped a hand over my snicker.
“Call me that and die,” Drio informed me.
I mouthed his full name at him before broaching the subject of the photos before Rohan could. “Admit it, they got my best side.”
“You think this is a joke?” Rohan turned the deadbolt on the door with an ominous click. “I just spent twenty minutes talking Mandelbaum out of putting your ass on the next plane home.”
I pushed aside a lipstick-stained wine glass. “You must be quite the multitasker.”
“I took the call in the bedroom.” His gaze turned flinty. “Don’t worry. I made it up to her.”
I dumped my bag on the table next to Rohan’s laptop with a hard thwack. “On what grounds did the good rabbi want me recalled?”
“Endangering the mission.”
“Because of the photos? Why just me? You’re all over the web, too.” I breathed through my mouth attempting to minimize the cancerous, pervasive reek of Poppy’s floral perfume.
“It was a given I’d be recognized. The Brotherhood was prepared for that.”
“First off, I haven’t been identified.” I pulled out my laptop and plug.
“Yet.”
“Second, the Brotherhood should have been prepared for me.”
“No one can prepare for you,” Drio quipped. Pulling out his phone, he pushed the coffee table farther back with his foot. All the better to take up more space. “Not even FEMA.”
“That’s a bullshit double standard.” I pried my fingers off my laptop and placed it gently on the table, wishing all manner of pointy dry anal probing on Mandelbutt. Stupid misogynist douchebag. “I’m hanging around a rock star and a famous actor. I’m not invisible.”
“You were supposed to be.” Rohan stalked toward me. “Groupie. Background. Furniture.”
Drio whistled through his teeth, not looking up from his phone.
Anger ballooned up inside me, my skin tightening from the strain of trying to contain it. “Furniture?! I’m not some half-assembled IKEA bookcase!”
“That’s your role.”
Electric sparks flew off my skin, singeing the carpet. “Is yours asshole?”
Rohan barked a laugh. “Yeah. You think Samson doesn’t know about my rep back in the day? Why would I behave other than how everyone expects if that would raise more questions and suspicions?”
I turned around in a circle. “I don’t see Samson here so what’s your excuse now?”
A vein twitched in Rohan’s temple. “Drio, a little back up?”
Drio glanced up from his phone. “Mom always told me not to eavesdrop on this part of the conversation.”
Rohan looked at his partner with murder in his eyes. “It’s only a matter of time before King learns your name,” he said.
“Big deal.” Now was not the time to voice any of my concerns about the possibility of discovery. Now was the time to play it like I had nothing to hide. Which honestly, was the only way to play it. With Rohan and Samson. “I was introduced to him as Lolita, for fuck’s sake. Not even Samson thinks I was born with that name. Should my real identity
come out, I’ll say I’m reinventing myself.” I pulled a sad face. “It was just so boring being good little Jewish girl Nava Katz.” I fluttered my eyelashes.
Rohan wasn’t amused.
“Relax.” I flipped open my laptop and powered it up. “It’s all part and parcel of this quest of mine to be famous. This quest you yourself approved last night.”
“Much as I hate to agree with Nava,” Drio said, “she’s right. Samson isn’t going to think twice about the fact that she didn’t give him her real name. The photos mean squat and don’t endanger the mission. Hell, he probably orchestrated them. The only reason King would target her is if he discovers she’s Rasha.”
Holy shit. Drio defending me? He laughed at my floored expression. “I live to keep you off-balance.” He put his phone away. “Now can we get down to business?”
“Happy to.” I sat down in the chair, dumping my laptop plug on the ground. It landed next to two odd indentations in the carpet. Something had crushed the pile. Something like…
Poppy’s knees? “You forgot to tidy up after your toy.”
Rohan was supposed to look blank, not confirm my suspicions with his involuntary glance at that specific spot.
Helpless against the onslaught imagery of red lipstick on specific portions of his anatomy, I shot him a scathing look. “You fucker.”
“Not technically,” Drio said.
“Working smart, not hard,” Rohan fired back at me.
“Five bucks says hard too.” Drio smirked, then held up his hands at the death glare I leveled his way.
Rohan grabbed a bottle off the top of the suite’s small bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey. “Wasn’t that the game plan you set for this mission, Nava? Like I said, why behave other than how I’m expected to?”
The tiny rational slice left in my brain conceded his point. It wouldn’t surprise me if Poppy swallowed and spilled–the details right back to Samson. So Rohan had gotten a blow job. We weren’t exclusive. In fact, this was good. If I ever decided to sleep with him again, and knowing where his dick had been, it was debatable, he’d be in no position to criticize my “no kiss” stance. I forced the part of my brain screaming obscenities at him to return to my best Rasha self and get with the program.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 41
