Shadow Rites: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Faith Hunter Read Free Book Online

smoothing my hair back again. He rearranged the stakes he had misplaced in my bun. Kissed me again, much more softly and gently. “He will smell me on you.” He was speaking of Leo, who had once upon a time claimed me for himself, until it was explained tothe master suckhead that I was neither territory nor a slave. He had claimed Bruiser too, but that was before becoming Onorio had freed him from the chief fanghead.
    “Good,” I said. “Old guys sometimes need reminders about who belongs to who. Whom. Whatever.”
    Bruiser stilled, his brown eyes holding me. “And do we belong to each other?”
    I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. We were exclusive. But the relationship hadn’t gotten to the three-word-phrase, four-letter-word state yet.
I love you.
Which thought totally terrified me. I looked down, straightening my clothes. “We’re still finding out.” With that cryptic statement, I grabbed my lipstick that had fallen out of my one good pocket and opened the limo door.
    Bruiser said, “Don’t forget date night tomorrow night. You and me at the Rock N Bowl. And my place afterward to address the button problem.”
    I closed the door and escaped.

CHAPTER 3
    You Will
Not
Blow It Up
    Outside, Eli wore an expression even more obscure that usual. I expected him to tease me or say something, but he simply looked me over and handed me a tissue. “Wipe your mouth and put on new lipstick. You’re smeared.”
    “Spoilsport,” I accused. “You enjoyed that.”
    He chuckled evilly. Leaving me behind, he climbed the steps with the measured tread of a man with things on his mind. I wiped my mouth and chin and applied lipstick, following my partner up to the entrance of vamp HQ. This was why Eli and I were such a perfect team, the ability to anticipate each other’s moves, needs, thoughts, plans. It was especially effective in battle, and against vamps, battle was always likely.
    “Where do we stand on the ability to prevent a shooter across the street?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the windows there and surreptitiously watching the limo pull out of the drive and down the street. All the upper windows in the two-story building were closed, thankfully. I had been shot at recently from that vantage point, and the local law hadn’t caught him. Or her.
    Eli said, “Leo’s lawyers are still in negotiations with the owner and the property management company, but the offer Leo made was too good for them to pass up. They’ll take it. And if they don’t, we’ll manage something.”
    “You will
not
blow it up.”
    “Now who’s the spoilsport?” He flashed me a slice of a grin before we stepped into the glass cage at the front door.
    The front entrance system of the Mithran Council chambers was simple on the surface. Visitors stepped through the first “glass” door, which wasn’t just glass. It was triple-paned polycarbonate bullet-resistant glass, strong enough to stop most ammunition up to a small rocket. The doors locked behind the visitors, securing them in the see-through cage, also composed of polycarbonate bullet-resistant glass and steel supports. Then, when the security person watching the entrance on camera was satisfied that the visitors were welcome, the inner doors, ditto on the polycarbonate, opened. If the person watching wasn’t satisfied, the visitor would be asked to remove all weapons, empty all pockets, lift shirts, and remove shoes. Airport security measures had been incorporated too, with metal detectors built into the outer walls. As we stood inside the cage, Eli and I had now been scanned and inside HQ a quiet alarm had gone off. We didn’t have to do the partial strip show, however, since we were part of the team.
    Operation Cowbird was still in place, meaning that we were not just worried about attackers from outside, but were still apprehensive about bad guys already inside HQ, especially since two of the baddest of the bad were chained up in the basements, one