by Nalini Singh
I’d only met Yasha a few hours ago, but it was long enough to know we had the same sense of humor. If the Russian werewolf nearly busted a gut laughing because of that clover weed stuff and it “compromising” Steve and Mike, then chances were good I’d get a chuckle out of it, too.
I was straddling and staring down a scrawny guy in the ladies’ room of a sex club. I deserved a laugh.
“Uh . . . I’d rather not sit here all night,” I told Ian. “Especially not here here. Can we get this guy cuffed?”
Ian grappled Jeans Guy into a pair of glowing green handcuffs.
The instant I “dismounted” and took my eyes off of his, the leprechaun reverted to his true form—and the cuffs shrank right along with him.
That didn’t go over well.
The leprechaun’s face twisted in rage, his green eyes went huge, and he started shrieking again, though this time it was in a language I’d never heard before, but I didn’t need to know what it was to know that it was what the old-timers back home called language you didn’t use around the womenfolk.
“Guard that entry,” Ian told the bouncer. “No one gets in or knows we nabbed these two. And when transport gets here, we’ll take these two out the back. Don’t want to spook the other three if they’re here.”
The bouncer nodded. Looked like he worked for SPI, too.
Ian helped me to my feet. “Let’s get you out front. Two down, three to go.”
I about said the hunting’s better in the bathroom. My headache was gone and I really didn’t want it coming back.
AMAZINGLY enough, no one out in the club had seen or heard either me or the leprechauns. Maybe the music had covered the noise we’d made, and people were, um . . . focused on their own activities. The leprechauns probably could have set off a bomb in here and no one would have noticed.
The whiff of whatever I’d gotten in the ladies’ room had definitely taken a big chunk out of any embarrassment I may have had left. Tonight had been my first time in a big-city club of any kind, let alone a strip or sex club. I had questions, was intensely curious, and between the clover weed and my partner’s hands all over me less than a half hour before, I wasn’t the least bit shy anymore about asking those questions. The little voice in my head was frantically waving for me to stop. I kicked the door shut on my little voice. Party pooper.
I half turned on my tuffet toward Ian, my right leg crossing over my left, also toward Ian. My little voice was banging on the door and screaming at me.
“Are people listening with our table anymore?” I whispered.
Ian glanced at the glowing surface. “No.”
“Good. So, what is it with men and titty bars?”
Ian was only pretending to take a sip of his wine, but that didn’t stop him from nearly choking. “Pardon?”
“Titty bars, or as Grandma and Yasha call ’em, hoochy-koochy parlors. You’re a man, and don’t think I haven’t noticed,” I added in a singsong voice. “And we’re in a titty bar.” I glanced around with even more appreciation at the scenery. “Among other nice things. If you weren’t here to hunt and hog-tie some leprechauns, why would you be here?” I lowered my voice conspiratorially. “Come on, you can tell me. We’re partners.” My voice of reason was banging on the door in my head and screaming for me to Shut. Up.
Ian’s eyes were intent on mine. Lord, but they were nice. He was looking at something.
“What?” I swiped my tongue over my teeth. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth?”
“No. Your pupils are enormous. Did you inhale some of that blue smoke?”
I shrugged, the movement only made the room do a half spin. “I’ve never inhaled.” I gave him a goofy grin. “But a girl’s gotta breathe.”
“Mac.”
“They blew it in my face, okay?”
“I thought so.” He took out his phone. “Can you still function?”
I looked him up and down with a lazy, appreciative smile. “I’m functioning just fine, darlin’.” The little voice groaned and gave up. Good. She was giving me another headache.
“I meant can you do your job?”
I had to think about that one. After pondering for a pleasantly dazed moment what my job was, and why I was doing it here, the blue-smoked brain fog parted ever so briefly.
“Do you mean whether I can still see little green men?”
“That’s right. Can you?”
I looked around. “Dunno. There ain’t none to be seen right now.”
Ian swore under his breath and dropped his head into his hand. “See Steve over at his table?”
“You mean Steve the elf?”
“Yes. Steve the elf. But can you see that he’s an elf?”
“Yeah. Pointy Spock ears, clear as day.”
Ian sighed in relief and put his phone away.
I didn’t mention that every bit of stress had floated out of my body. New job nerves? Gone. Awkwardness being in a sex club with my hot new partner? Buh-bye. Giving a damn what any man, woman, or combination thereof around me was doing? Vamoosied.
Suddenly my partner wasn’t the only badass at the table. I was starting to feel downright invincible. I felt the urge to pull a couple of tuffets together and make myself comfortable, maybe even put my feet up on the bugged-for-sound table and really give whoever was listening to us one hell of a show.
Oh yes, I felt much better. And I felt myself smile, which was pretty danged impressive considering that I couldn’t feel my lips anymore. Then the room spun in a slow, languorous circle.
Ian took a good look in my eyes and sighed in resignation. “Dammit, the boss didn’t tell me you were part elf.”
“I’m not.”
“Are you feeling good?”
“Quite.”
“Confident?”
“You know it.”
“Absurdly relaxed to the point of doing something stupid?”
I scooted my tuffet toward my delectable partner. If Ian wanted to ensure every man here knew I was taken, I was more than willing to help spread the word. “Why don’t you come over here and try me.”
“If you’re not an elf, clover weed shouldn’t affect you, but it does. We’ll deal with the why later. Right now, we need to find those other three leprechauns and get you the hell out of here.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I never said I was.”
Elana was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Elana?” I asked.
“With Yasha and our prisoners waiting for transport from HQ.”
The next dancer was slinking her way over to Mike and Steve’s table. She was acting awfully friendly, and I think the boys were about to become part of the next show.
“Shit,” Ian hissed in a whisper.
Their replacements hadn’t arrived yet, and Ian had wanted them to just sit at their table, mind their own business, and stay out of trouble until their replacements arrived. Let’s just say that due to the influence of the clover weed, the boys were getting into the spirit of the performance. Since our table was right up front, I got an all-too-close look at—and scent of—what covered Miss Congeniality’s costume.
I gaped in disbelief, then giggled. “Are those Red Hots?”
Ian started to get up. I grabbed his arm and sank my nails in, my eyes wide.
Oh. My. God.
Miss Red Hots was none other than our AWOL leprechaun prince.
If I’d ever needed proof that leprechauns liked practical jokes, the proof was staring Steve right in the face—or at least his . . . uh, her Red Hots-spangled G-string was. She’d already tossed her top on Mike’s head, and both elves looked like they were about to indulge their collective sweet tooth.
Prince Finnegan was a sex-shifting, cross-dressing leprechaun.
Well, they’d said back at headquarters that as far as shapeshifting went, leprechauns could go either way. Prince/Princess Finn looked like he was ready to go all the way.
If I hadn’t now seen it all, there wasn’t a damned th
ing left to look at.
I snuggled down beneath Ian’s arm like a woman on a date with a hot guy in an even hotter club. In addition to being fun, it also gave me cover to speak.
“Found him. Our little prince is playing with fire—or at least spicy-hot candy.”
Ian stiffened in realization next to me, and not in the fun way.
“You got it,” I told him. “That ain’t no woman.”
Ian’s only movement was an imperceptible upward twitch of his lip before his poker face smoothly slipped back into place. “Stare at him. When he looks at you—and he will—we’ve got him.”
“Can’t you make eye contact and get him?”
“I can’t see his true form. You can.”
Made sense.
“Think he knows who they are?” I asked.
“I think the probability is high. He . . . she came out from the back and made a beeline straight for them. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“Get the guys going and then change back into a leprechaun?”
Ian nodded once. “That’s what I’m thinking. He’s already humiliated five SPI agents tonight. I think he’s looking to add to his score—”
I snorted with laughter. “In more ways than one.”
Ian ignored me. “He’s also after the danger rush of turning into a leprechaun in the middle of a goblin sex club.”
“And after that?”
“He’ll run like hell, and I predict he’ll go out the way he came in.” My partner inclined his head toward the rear of the stage area.
“What are we going to do?”
Ian slowly set his drink down. “I’m going to grab and cuff the little bastard.”
“And run like hell.”
“Considering where we are, that would be the prudent course of action.”
“I’m right behind you, partner.”
I hadn’t known anything about leprechaun sexuality, and I’d already learned more than I ever wanted. Ask the average person on the street to describe a leprechaun, and you’d get the little green-coated guy on the Lucky Charms box. Come to think of it, I’d never even heard of female leprechauns; but since Finnegan here was getting married tomorrow, and leprechauns had yet to become extinct, I assumed there were at least two sexes. And from what I was watching, there might be more than that.
Though from the lascivious grin Finn was wearing—with little else—you had to wonder if leprechauns had a loose interpretation of gender, or if the future princess knew what she was getting into. Even if Mike had been a seer, the prince didn’t have to worry about being captured by his gaze. Mike’s dazed eyes hadn’t wandered north of her boobs the entire time. And at the moment, Steve’s drug-addled peepers were locked and loaded on the top of Finn’s G-string.
I had my eyes on Finnegan’s face, but it figured that the leprechaun only had eyes for Mike and Steve and their imminent humiliation.
Mild-mannered human financial advisor or lecherous leprechaun? Which one was Finnegan gonna change back into? Ian was right. If Finnegan was going for maximum fun and thrills, he’d go leprechaun.
Prince Finnegan dropped his glamour right along with his Red Hot–covered G-string, leaving the boys ogling a three-foot-tall, naked-as-the-day-he-was-born leprechaun. Quick as a drink-delivering pixie, Finn grabbed Mike by the ears and kissed him smack-dab on the lips.
Without making eye contact with any of us. Crafty little bastard.
Then all hell broke loose.
Mike was too stunned to grab him. Ian made the dive—and the catch. Finnegan caught Ian in the forehead with the heel of one tiny foot. Unfortunately, all the bouncers manning the stage area saw was Ian’s dive—and a now missing adult entertainer.
Oh crap.
Finn was unveiled and looked precisely like what he was. A leprechaun. SPI’s primary mission was to keep the presence of supernaturals a secret from the general population, including overly large and testosterone-laden bouncers charged with the safety of Bacchanalia employees, especially from grabby customers.
Ian had yanked Finn off the stage and out of sight, but when Ian hit the floor, he was on top of an overly endowed dancer wearing nothing but a vindictive smile. Two bouncers grabbed Ian. Finnegan squealed, giggled, and hightailed it toward the dressing rooms, not stumbling once in the only things she was still wearing. A pair of platform, six-inch heels.
I had a moment of open-mouthed amazement. Where the hell did a leprechaun learn to run in stripper heels?
Ian might have thought of himself as my babysitter, but dammit, the boss had told me he was my partner. Partners backed each other up.
The bouncers were easily double my weight, and while I had a Taser in my purse, I’d only have one chance to use it on one of them. The other no-necks running toward the melee weren’t going to stand by and tap their toes while it recharged.
Right now, the bouncers thought they had the troublemakers. The four shelves of desk flair back at the office told me that Ian could take care of himself, and if he needed help, Yasha and Elana were a hell of a lot more qualified to give it than I was. With a werewolf’s hearing, he was probably already in the building. That problem was taken care of. Finn had vanished behind a curtain, presumably leading to dressing rooms. Even an exhibitionist like Finn was unlikely to run outside while starkers. He’d have to slow down to grab something.
I’d have to catch Finn myself.
The bouncers, if they’d even noticed me at all, didn’t see me as any kind of a threat. And hopefully, between the liquor and the lights, any customer who saw Finnegan the naked leprechaun would talk themselves into believing they’d either had one or five drinks too many, or set up an appointment with their shrink to talk about what it meant to hallucinate a naked leprechaun in a sex club. I was sure it couldn’t have been the first time a naked man had run through Bacchanalia.
I pulled back the curtain and stopped.
Talk about a needle in a haystack.
Either the staff of Bacchanalia was seriously disorganized, or a tornado had just come through here. From what little the boys and girls out front had been wearing, you’d think there couldn’t be so many costumes strewn about.
Sparklies and spangles the likes of which I’d never seen in my life.
There wasn’t a leprechaun to be seen—though when you’re only three foot tall, hiding wouldn’t be difficult in this mess.
This was a dressing room in an exclusive sex club on a Friday night. When the fight started out front, any staff still in here must have run out the back. Considering that there might be a naked leprechaun hiding among the sequins and bugle beads, they’d made the right choice.
A naked leprechaun was many things, but scary wasn’t one of them.
But the man standing across the room from me was.
He wore a dark suit so well tailored it made Alain Moreau look like he shopped off the rack, with a long jacket that was more like a form-fitting frock coat.
He looked human.
But he wasn’t. No human male looked that perfect.
For one, a human couldn’t look that good on their best day. But mainly, it was the way he glided toward me so smoothly it was like he wasn’t using his feet that clued me in.
My seer vision showed me what he really was.
A goblin.
A goblin who dropped his glamour completely as he slowly came toward me.
In a word—wow.
Goblins were mainly nocturnal. They could be out during the day, but their dark eyes were painfully sensitive to sunlight. Goblins were tall, sleek, and sexy. Combine that with darkly seductive—and light-sensitive—eyes and you had a race that took sunglasses to the heights of high fashion. Goblins were gorgeous all by their lonesome, but they took their wardrobes and accessories just as seriously as their tangled court politics. Goblin politics was a full-contact—and often fatal—sport chock-full of seduction, deception, and betrayal.
Goblin hair was dark, often worn long, and the silkiness of it would make
a Pantene shampoo model kill from jealousy. Their skin was pale gray, with a silvery sheen, their eyes dark, their ears upswept to a nibbleable point.
And they sported a pair of fangs that weren’t for decorative use only.
With supernaturals that had a tendency to prey on humans, I’d been taught how to act from a young age should I find myself in the presence of one. It all boiled down to one absolute rule—don’t act like prey. But faced with what was quite possibly the hottest creature I’d ever seen in my life, and under the influence of a drug that had essentially evaporated my inhibitions, I suddenly found that rule increasingly difficult to follow.
“Vivienne’s new seer.” The goblin’s voice was a whispered breath against my throat even from several feet away.
So much for being undercover.
“Uh . . . you have me at a disadvantage—”
A slow smile spread across the goblin’s unwholesomely handsome face. “But at least I have you.”
As he spoke, he came closer, and with a negligent flick of his long fingers, the door shut and locked behind me. Neat trick, said part of my brain; the other part was wondering what those fingers would feel like brushing against my throat, and was really hoping I’d get to find out.
“We fulfill fantasies here,” he all but purred. “What is yours, little seer? If you had the chance to gain your heart’s desire, what would it be?” He smiled, giving me a glimpse of fang. “And don’t say finding a certain leprechaun prince. I know that is far from what you truly want.” He gave me a dangerous, knowing smile, like he’d seen every dirty thought I’d ever had, flipped through them like a deck of cards, and set aside the ones he wanted us to try first.
“Sounds like we’re looking for the same guy.” I held my shaking hand out at hip height. “About this tall, red hair, green coat—unless he’s still naked. Turn-ons are amateur-night exotic dancing. Turnoffs include SPI bodyguards and goblin stalkers.”
I tried to take a step back, but my feet had other ideas. The goblin was now within arms’ reach. His. He noticed me noticing, and his laugh warmed the air around me.