Regardless, he had made it through her drawers and finally found a pen with a bank logo on it. Bryant quickly searched bank records, a handy skill he and his team had acquired. Sometimes getting to a possessed human in a place archmasters could be engaged required extensive investigation into a target’s life and activities. Walking up to someone in the middle of the grocery store, grabbing their forehead, chanting incantations, and then disappearing into another plane while the body flopped limp to the floor didn’t go over well with humans. Or with his boss.
Bryant had found only cash withdrawals and regular deposits from a company called Little Time in Odessa’s bank records, and judging from all the glitter he found, it was either a strip club or a craft store. A quick search revealed that it was a children’s clothing store.
Relieved, but more than a little perplexed, Bryant had located the mall with the store. All he had to do was take the escalator up to the third level and find out if Odessa was there. He chose to ignore the fact that if they had consummated their sync, he would feel her presence like a beacon anywhere on the earthly realm.
It took only a few seconds after stepping off the elevator to locate the brightly decorated store front of Little Time. It was nearly closing, and only two customers were left in the store, making it easy to find the statuesque brunette he hunted.
Odessa was folding small shirts and tops over a table. Her bright eyes sparkled as she smiled and laughed with a young woman who was rearranging and sorting clothing across the surface. The other woman was the complete opposite of his mate—petite with shoulder-length curly blonde hair. They must be close. Odessa’s face lit up as she chatted, her grin wide and genuine. Bryant’s gut tightened. He’d only seen her with a serious demeanor and a face lined with stress and worry. Now her smile went straight through him until he thought he should be striving to be the reason she was happy.
No. He couldn’t let his body’s reaction to her devastating beauty distract him from finding out what was going on with her and her work.
He ducked his head down, entering the store to pass a mom and her three kids. He usually tried to avoid catching the eye of any kids, but one was always looking at him. He forced a small smile, expecting a terrified look, maybe a shriek of horror, but instead the little imp revealed an impressive grin missing the two top front teeth. Bryant’s own smile broadened and the family moved past him out of the store.
Kids. When he expected the worst from them, he got googly eyes or messy smiles.
“Welcome to Little Time. What can I help you fi—”
Bryant raised his head to meet Odessa’s gaze. Her mouth hanging open, she stared right back, the purple shirt with a giant rainbow on the front forgotten in her hands.
“Odessa.” He didn’t mean to sound so irritated. It was like he couldn’t just say her name. Some sort of emotion laced that one word whenever it left his lips. Seeing her in a curve-hugging maroon tunic over black leggings and knee-high black boots accentuating her mile-long legs… He had to let some of what he was feeling out or it threatened to congregate in his nether region.
The blonde gasped. “Is that him?” She spun fully around, beaming with approval. “He is tall, dark, and brooding, isn’t he?” Leaning back against the table, the woman whose name tag read “Harper” shook a finger at him. “Don’t think popping up here means she’s not going out with me tonight.”
Odessa snapped her mouth shut and finished folding the rainbow shirt, an unreadable look on her face. “I’m done in fifteen minutes, Bryant. I can talk after that.” When Harper cleared her throat, Odessa added, “But only for a few minutes. Harper and I have plans.”
Not the reaction he was expecting. Unsure how to proceed since they had the attention of an avid witness, he’d take that fifteen minutes to figure it out. “I’ll be right outside.”
Watching Bryant’s fine form exit the store didn’t help Odessa’s erratic heartbeat.
I’ve done nothing wrong. So why did she feel like she was busted? Maybe because Bryant was the first to know of her extracurricular activities. She hadn’t intended for her part-time job and human friends to be a secret. Many angels dabbled in the human world. Odessa didn’t like anyone to know because then they couldn’t threaten the wonderful life she lived on the weekends.
What would Bryant try to do? Her mate that didn’t trust her, could barely stand her, had hunted her down. Why? Last night, they had actually talked, then made out in the kitchen. He’d even been willing to sleep with her. Like she had told Harper, who adamantly agreed, she wasn’t willing to be a charity case.
“How in the world did you tear yourself away from that man candy last night?”
Odessa peeled her gaze off Bryant’s sculpted backside. “Harper! I told you why.”
“I don’t know, hon. You mentioned he’s got that damaged bad boy appeal, but day-um.” Harper’s gaze flicked back out to where the imposing male sat on a bench, arms propped on his knees. His head was down, but turned slightly so he could watch everyone that passed from under the rim of his ball cap.
Odessa couldn’t agree more. He’d be a catch—if he wasn’t such a prick. “Until he’s a decent husband, he’s not getting in my pants.” Or under her robes.
Harper shot her a proud smile. “Why don’t you go chat with your man, ’cause I’m dyin’ to find out why he’s here. I’ll finish closing, then we’ll hit the town.”
Odessa steeled herself to walk out and face the perpetually irritated male waiting for her. The two of them talking on the bench felt more intimate, though they were both wearing more clothes than they would in Numen.
Heat streamed through his eyes as he took in the heeled boots that made her nearly six feet tall. His gaze burned up her legs and torso to the hair she had left hanging down in waves, curled slightly at the ends. Once his gaze met hers, they had cooled considerably.
“What do you want, Bryant?” From his slight wince, her curtness wasn’t missed. But dammit, she was tired of always feeling inadequate around him.
“Is there somewhere private we can talk? About home?”
She’d been looking forward to tonight for weeks and she almost gave it up for him. Now he wanted her time? No. She wasn’t that girl anymore, the one Crestin had apparently told him about. “If you want to talk privately, we can wait until tomorrow. I’m going out with people who hang with me because they genuinely like me. I think I deserve that after the week I’ve had.”
Bryant opened his mouth as if to argue, but closed it again, slightly chagrined. “Is it really necessary?”
“Of course it is. What could be so important that we can’t talk tomorrow?”
“Cal’s dead.”
“Cal is— What?” She couldn’t do more than stare at Bryant. Had she heard him correctly? Cal was alive and well. She’d just talked to him yesterday.
“Sit.”
She plopped down on the bench next to him, nearly on top of him. He slid over an inch, but not too far, and his solid warmth comforted her. Tears welled, but she rapidly blinked them back and looked around. Stores were shutting down for the night, but this still wasn’t the place to cry. If she learned one skill in life, it was to hold onto her sorrow for a later time, when she could unleash the flood gates and sob in private.
“How?” Her voice shook.
“That’s the bit of it,” Bryant said quietly. “Two of your coworkers, Bill and Davon, stopped by to give you the news and I had a chance to talk to them.”
Bill and Davon. Competent analysts, compassionate males. They would have shared the news with more caring and less bluntness than Bryant. She tried to be upset, but she was too grateful he’d found her to tell her.
“They don’t believe the enforcer’s word that your boss killed himself,” he said. “And all of the work you gave Cal is missing.”
Odessa let that sink in. “Someone killed him?”
“What were you working on that had him troubled?”
Cal was murdered? Her work was missi
ng? It all seemed so preposterous.
Yet fourteen years ago she learned the hard way bad things happened in Numen—to her and to people she cared about. Sometimes they did it to themselves. But Cal hadn’t been suicidal. She’d bet all she had on it.
She thought back to her last assignment, the one she hadn’t completed. “I was working on a watcher’s notes, comparing them to others on duty in the vicinity. I was asked to discern any trends in human behavior that might be aiding the demons. Usually we turn up nothing unusual, you know, beyond the wannabe cult here and there. Most of those are human-based cultures, and don’t call on forces outside the human realm, but…”
“You found something.”
Odessa lifted a shoulder. She couldn’t image her notes getting Cal killed. “It’s nothing concrete, just a trend I noticed. I brought it to Cal’s attention regardless. He was going to study my work, see if we could make a more definitive observation of the perceived threat and then bring it to the senate.”
Bryant’s gaze sharpened. “What was it?”
“Hey, you two!” Harper bounced out of the store. Seeing Odessa was clearly distressed, she stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“My…” Odessa couldn’t tell Harper that her boss had died. She didn’t know she worked anywhere else but here. The story she fed her human friends was that she was a rich socialite who worked for fun and got roped into an arranged marriage. Which was almost true.
“Her cousin passed away.” Bryant rescued her and Odessa sagged with relief.
Harper rushed over to give Odessa a hug. “I’m so sorry, hon. Were you close?”
Bryant’s expression said he’d step in if needed, but he remained quiet. Confidence resonated from him. He must be incredibly adept at dealing with humans.
Odessa swallowed and took a moment before she answered. “Not terribly, but he was a good guy. I liked him.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
Harper stepped back. “’S okay. I understand if you need to get home tonight.”
Odessa shook her head. “No. I can’t go home.” She couldn’t hang out in that mansion waiting for something bad to happen—again. Life before Cal’s death was nearly unbearable, she couldn’t go back now. Bad things were already happening. Was she next? “I mean, there’s nothing I can do now anyway. Let’s go out.”
“Are you sure? Abby’s meeting us at the club, so it’s not like you’re letting me down. It’s only a short walk away. I’ll be all right.”
“I can’t go home,” Odessa said quietly, aware of Bryant’s speculative attention. “I can’t go and think of all the horrible things that happen to people I care for. Please, let’s just go out and have fun.”
“I’ll come along,” Bryant announced. “I’ll make sure she gets home okay.”
A refusal formed on Odessa’s lips.
Harper spoke, her smile wide and encouraging. “Sure. The more the merrier.”
Odessa knew her friend well, and Harper couldn’t resist the chance to interrogate the man making her friend miserable.
“Surely, I don’t need a babysitter,” Odessa said rigidly.
Bryant shrugged and stood up, holding his hand out. “I’m here anyway. Let me help.”
Uh-huh. He hadn’t done anything out of the goodness of his heart since she’d known him—except try to sleep with her. What was he after now?
Sliding her hand into his, she braced herself against the soothing heat of his skin and how he firmly grasped hers. She could melt into his support too easily. He even held onto her for an extra second after she stood before reluctantly releasing her.
If Odessa wanted to harbor wistful, girly thoughts, she’d think about how if this had been a real relationship, he would’ve held her hand all the way to the club. Instead, she caught up with Harper and walked next to her out of the mall and down the street to their destination while he followed.
Chapter 7
Watching Odessa’s hips sway under that top as Bryant walked behind them to the club was dangerously mesmerizing. Every time he would scan around them, sensing for demon presence of any kind, monitoring human activity to see if they were being followed, his cursed gaze landed back onto Odessa’s derriere. Then they’d drift up to the shiny mane that hung halfway down her back. It made him imagine things. Like how he’d wrap that hair around his fist, bringing her head up for a scorching kiss as he took her from behind. She would be on her hands and knees, or standing—
Gah! He had no business thinking those thoughts about Odessa. Continuing to monitor their environment, he concentrated on what the girls were discussing during the short walk. Odessa was filling Harper in on her deceased “cousin” and how they thought he killed himself and, no, they had no idea why. He wanted to be surprised at how she effortlessly fibbed her way through the human world, but she’d been doing that all along in Numen. After all, no one else seemed to know of her earthly activities and she still hadn’t said why she mated him.
Was she behind Cal’s demise?
His gut said no. Despite her superficial lifestyle—not fully in the Numen world, not really in the human realm—he didn’t get a murderous vibe off her. Logically, it would make no sense for her to turn over notes to get Cal killed. Unless it was a test to see what the analyst would do with such information. And what the devil was the information?
As soon as he could tear Odessa away from her friends without a scene to interrogate her, he’d do so.
Bryant suppressed a groan as they arrived at the club. The place was a bumping throng of bodies where liquid stupidity was dispensed by the shot or pint. He and his team avoided places like these, too many witnesses and camera phones around to take on demons. They had to scout their targets in places like this and it was too tempting to intervene when a poor soul would be coerced into acting undesirably. Bryant hated sitting by to watch a tormented person down shot after shot and disappear into a backroom with one—or more—individuals. Not when it was the furthest thing from normal for that person, or worse, when they wore a wedding ring.
And those were the unpossessed. Humans being human. An overtaken soul would be driven to debase themselves or others so badly the soul may willingly give up the body. It was ripe for archmaster possession. The body was nothing more than a puppet and the demon had more use of its power if it wasn’t fighting a soul.
Weaving behind the ladies, he wanted to growl at any males that looked Odessa’s way. More than a few did. Relief filled Bryant when the ladies made their way to a back booth that was sheltered from the worst of the music. Another young woman with dark hair bundled atop her head waved excitedly from one of the seats.
“We like to be able to chat in between dancing,” Odessa shouted into his ear as they slid into a corner booth. She mouthed a quick “sorry” which he shook off before she turned to talk with Harper and the woman that must be Abby.
Great. Dancing.
If Odessa thought he’d sit by as she gyrated with human males, she would learn quickly that he did not play that game. The thought of her writhing and grinding amid a throng of females…not nearly as unappealing. He would tolerate that. Out of duty.
A round of drinks was set in front of them, but Bryant ignored his and not because it was a chick drink. Prickles streamed across his back. He was being watched.
He’d use the drink after all. He brought the straw to his mouth as if he was taking a sip and let his gaze wander. There were a few clusters of men casting quick glances to their group, eyeballing the women. They quickly moved on to the next booth, then the dance floor, looking for lonely groups of ladies to hit on. All other men appeared to be taken. Two men walked in and were scoping out the place for where to sit.
Setting the drink down, Bryant shifted and brought his arm down across the back of the booth behind Odessa. She turned her head slightly to glance at him, then his arm, and went back to chatting with her friends.
It was like he wasn’t even there. She must be really pissed at him for last night. Pity fuck. A poor excuse
his jacked-up brain gave his hard-up body to get her into bed maybe, but not out of sympathy. She’d just been so vulnerable. After they had gotten home, she had listened attentively as he damn near gushed about his team. The back-to-back instances made him forget she was a senator’s daughter, raised in scandal and corruption. And not just any senator’s kid, but the power hungry one that had cost him four team members and nearly destroyed his own life as well.
“We’re going to dance,” Odessa informed him as she was sliding out of the booth. She followed the other ladies to the dance floor, clearly not wanting him to follow.
As if.
A waltz maybe, but not the jerky gyrations with flailing limbs and thrusting hips the youth of today liked to do.
Still, he couldn’t wait to see how Odessa’s body moved.
Quite well, it turned out. Bryant was riveted. Her arms were in the air, hips swirling and swaying as she dipped and popped that divine figure. Odessa resembled a goddess. The lights touched and caressed her hair and face, giving her an ethereal air.
When the song ended, the girls dissolved in laughter. Bryant snapped to attention. He’d forgotten to inspect the other patrons and evaluate any possible threats.
It had been worth it.
Another fast-paced song began, catching the ladies up in its rhythm. Taking the chance at redemption, Bryant studied the room. The three women were young, attractive, and appeared single. They were earning their fair share of glances. The two men Bryant had observed earlier entering the club had indeed found a seat and were intent on the group. Or rather, Odessa.
Their gaze wasn’t leering, hopeful, or enamored. Both men were somber, unsmiling.
Odessa may be in danger after all.
Odessa breathlessly crawled back into the booth, stopping a little closer to Bryant than she intended. She should scoot away a few inches, but the lure of his body heat eased her frazzled nerves too much.
Angel Fire: Angel Fire, Book 1 Page 6
