Sin City Collectors Boxed Set: Queen of Hearts, Dead Man's Hand, Double or Nothing

by Kristen Painter

  “As you wish. What would you be drinking, if you were?”

  “Perrier-Jouët rosé in the flower bottle.” Champagne was a major weakness. Again, probably due to her heritage.

  He glanced up at the server, who was waiting expectantly. “Do you have that wine?”

  “It’s champagne,” Seraphina whispered. How did he not know that?

  “Do you have that champagne?” he corrected.

  “Yes, sir,” the server answered. “We do.”

  “Good. Bring us a bottle of that, and I’d like a bottle of your best single malt.”

  The server nodded, then paused. “I’ll need a credit card.”

  He whipped out a black rectangle and laid it on the table, causing the server to have to pick it up.

  Seraphina waited until the server had gone. “Run out of cash?” she teased.

  “No. That was my company card.” The slightest hint of wickedness played in his dark eyes, and for a moment, she could almost imagine he was human.

  She laughed softly. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. We might only be here a few minutes.”

  He leaned back on the velvet couch. “True, but we might also be here for hours. Either way, we’re taking up the club’s space and asking them to accommodate us, so…” He shrugged.

  Seraphina crossed her legs and got comfortable. “You come here a lot?”

  “No. I’ve only been here once. On a Collection.”

  “For that private company?”

  He nodded, his gaze now fixed on the club’s entrance.

  “What was it?”

  “We don’t discuss Collections.”

  “Didn’t it go well?”

  “It went perfectly.”

  His profile was gorgeous in this light. Like he’d been carved from stone. She scooched closer. “Then why can’t you talk about it?”

  That got his attention, but only for a moment. He glanced at the space between them, then went back to watching the door. “Because I can’t.”

  She settled in beside him, crossed her arms and started watching the door, too. “Is this more of that top-secret government stuff?”

  “It’s not a government organization.”

  “Okay, top-secret agency stuff. I feel I should mention I’m a really good listener.”

  He grimaced like she’d hit a nerve. “Are you always this persistent?”

  “No.” Because most people spilled their guts around her. Scratch that—all people. Except this guy. Had she actually come across the one person who wasn’t influenced by her? The thought sent a shiver of excitement through her. The idea that there might be someone out there who would react honestly to her was more stimulating than she’d realized. “I just figured, you know, if we’re going to sit here, we could at least talk.”

  “Fine. Pick a subject.”

  “How about that last Collection?” She burst out laughing as soon as she’d said it, unable to help herself.

  He shook his head slowly, the slightest hint of a smile warping his mouth. “No.”

  “Then let’s go back to what kind of supernatural you are.”

  He looked around. Was he worried someone had heard her? “I’m a wraith.”

  “You mentioned that. I still don’t know what that means.”

  His gaze shifted to her, his dark eyes piercing. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  He turned his head away again. “How long have you and Javier been together?”

  She laughed, her nose crinkling. “If I had a dollar for every time someone thought he and I are an item…”

  “You aren’t?” He seemed genuinely surprised.

  “No. I work for the man. That’s it.”

  “How did you get to be Javier’s assistant?”

  “I was the most qualified for the job.” Not a lie.

  “In what way?”

  “I, uh…” Who she was—what she was—wasn’t something she shared with anyone. Her value as a muse could put her life in danger. Her mother’s past was proof of that. But this man, by his own admission, was a protector. Did that protection extend to her?

  He snorted softly. “I see. It’s fine for me to spill my guts, but you don’t want to do the same.”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s just…” She sighed. Fair was fair. He had confessed he was a wraith. Not that she had any idea what that was. “I assume you’re good at keeping secrets?”

  “There’s no one better.”

  “I’m a muse. Half muse, actually. My mother is a muse. My father…” She looked away, her smile tight-lipped. “No idea who my father was. Just a guy who didn’t stick around.”

  He squinted and was about to speak when the server returned, two other servers in tow, with their bottle service. The girl quickly went to work setting up the ice bucket for the champagne, the flutes, Ares’s scotch and glasses, along with a separate ice bucket that held perfectly spherical balls of ice for his drink. Another of the servers presented them with a tray of cheese, crackers, grapes and chocolate-covered strawberries flecked with gold leaf, while the third opened the bottles and poured drinks for Ares and Seraphina.

  At last, the other two servers left, and the girl smiled at them. “Is there anything else I can bring you?”

  Ares raised his brows at Seraphina. She shook her head.

  “We’re good,” Ares said to the server. “Thank you.”

  “Enjoy your evening. I’ll be back to check on you.” With a nod, she left.

  Seraphina picked up her flute. “How can I not drink this when it’s right here in front of me, bubbling away in all that happy pinkness?”

  He raised his own glass and sipped the amber liquid.

  “What?” Seraphina asked. “No toast?”

  He pulled the tumbler away from his mouth. “I’m no good at those.”

  “I am. I go to a lot of social functions with Javier.” She lifted her flute higher. “Here’s to new friends with old secrets.”

  He didn’t drink. “I don’t need new friends.”

  “Yes, you’re a regular Dale Carnegie.” She drank her champagne, then set the flute down. It was delicious, but she needed to keep her head. Especially since she was beginning to regret confessing her true identity to this guy. That might have been a mistake. Of course, he hadn’t even commented on it. Maybe he hadn’t heard her.

  He swirled the tumbler, causing the scotch to slosh around the sides. “A wraith is the offspring of a vampire and a reaper.” His eyes slanted toward her for a second, as if he gauged her reaction, but then he was all focus again, gaze pinned to the door. “What’s a muse? Or do you mean in the general sense of you inspire him?”

  Holy Zeus. He was a vampire. Half of one, but still. His confession took away her regret. So he was a little socially awkward. Everyone had their shortcomings. It was strangely attractive that he wasn’t perfect. “Yes, I inspire him.” She was so used to men who thought themselves kings of industry, men with egos the size of Texas, but this guy, for all his money and stupidly exquisite car, seemed to have no inflated self-image.

  If anything, he wasn’t quite as aware as he should have been about how powerful an aura he projected. “But,” she continued, “it’s more than that. My mother was literally one of the Greek muses.”

  “Doesn’t that make you a goddess?”

  “Demigoddess, but yes.”

  He nodded. “That explains why you’re so beautiful.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.” That compliment had followed her through life, enough that she’d come to disregard it, but from him it sounded so genuine, she believed him.

  “Does your mother work for an artist also?”

  “She did. Once upon a time. My mother’s…not in my life anymore.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  She didn’t correct him. She didn’t correct anyone when they thought her mother was dead. It ended the questions. Kept her from having to explain that her mother hadn’t passed away so much
as reinvented herself in order to leave her past behind. Her daughter included. For her own good, Cleo had always said, but Seraphina couldn’t help but feel abandoned. She knew her mother’s life had gotten complicated. It happened with muses who spent too much time on the mortal plane. People begin to want them more than was healthy. One of Cleo’s admirers had lost touch with reality. Threatened her.

  Why her mother hadn’t sought refuge at Mount Olympus, Seraphina didn’t know. And it wasn’t a question Cleo would ever answer. There were a lot of those. Seraphina had learned to live with her own best guesses.

  But the loss of her mother was part of the reason she would do everything in her power to get Dahlia back and keep Javier from experiencing the same break in his own family. The memories threatened to pull her into sadness, and the mood between her and Ares had grown uncomfortably somber. She put on a smile and changed the subject. “You’re not hard to look at yourself, you know. Must be that vampire blood.”

  “Perhaps.” His lower lip twitched. She’d almost gotten him to smile.

  She put her hand to her neck. “Speaking of blood, do you drink that or…”

  “I can. I don’t. I eat and drink like most supes.”

  “Good to know.” She looked at him with new eyes. “Supes? Supernaturals?”

  He nodded.

  “And the reaper part? As in grim reaper?”

  “Yes. If you’re a muse, why don’t you know more about supernaturals?”

  “It’s just the way I was raised. We’re…two different worlds.” Two that were better left separate, according to her mother.

  He glanced at his watch. “No sign of Dahlia yet. You sure she’s coming here?”

  “That’s what her friend said.” She was about to pull Dahlia’s iPad from her purse to have another look at the girl’s social media when her phone rang. She answered it. “Javier, have you found her?”

  “No.” Raw pain edged his voice. “Worse. I’ve received a ransom note. She’s been kidnapped.”

  As soon as they were back in the car, Ares called Romero. “Everything’s changed. Bares received a ransom note. The girl’s been kidnapped.”

  Romero cursed softly. “Whatever you need to get her back, we’ll do it. The Boss will want Mr. Bares to have our complete support. Whatever’s necessary.”

  “Understood.” Ares had never had a mission that involved saving a life. He wasn’t about to screw this up.

  “Where are you now?”

  “In the car, headed back to Bares’s.”

  “Is his assistant with you?”

  “Yes.” Ares glanced over at Seraphina. She stared straight ahead, her mind clearly elsewhere. She looked like she was either about to cry or punch someone. Maybe both.

  “Okay. After you get there and see the letter, let me know if you get any clues off it. We’ve had kidnappings before, but it’s been awhile.” Romero growled. “Damn shame it had to involve one of the Boss’s personal friends.”

  “When’s the last time there were kidnappings?”

  “Maybe a decade ago?”

  “The gob—Gozer individual?”

  “Yes.”

  A hunch formed in Ares’s head. “Are there any pixies on staff?”

  “Hmm. Yes. And that’s a brilliant idea. Pixies have a knack for locating children.”

  “Amongst other things.” Pixies had a natural enemy that made them experts on certain kinds of supernaturals. One he was starting to think might be behind all this. He could hear Romero typing.

  “Okay, I’m sending another Collector over to help. A pixie by the name of Minka. She’s at your disposal until you find the girl.”

  “And after the child is safe, should I treat the kidnapper like all the rest of my Collections?”

  “For now, take him into custody.”

  Another new assignment. Leaving the Collected alive. “Understood. I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve seen the note.” Ares hung up and tucked the phone away. He sneaked another look at Seraphina. “You all right?”

  “Yes. No.” She pushed the long, loose curl by her cheek out of the way. “I can’t believe she’s been taken.”

  “We’ll find her. It’s what the Collectors do.”

  She finally looked at him. “We? You mean you and the pixie you mentioned?”

  So she had been listening. “Yes. My boss is sending another Collector, a pixie, to help. They’re good at locating children, but I’m also hoping she can confirm a hunch of mine.” Seraphina nodded and went back to staring out the windshield. She looked so sad. Ares wanted to distract her, but he wasn’t great at small talk. Wasn’t even that sure what to say in a situation like this. “I told you I was at that club before.”

  She nodded absently, like she was only half-listening.

  “Only once before, actually. See, Lux is a human club, so there’s really no reason for me to go there unless I’m on a job.”

  She turned, a slight interest in her eyes. “That job you won’t talk about?”

  He nodded. “I tracked a demon there.”

  That hooked her. “A demon? What kind?”

  “A lethe demon. They lull humans to sleep, then suck out their brains.”

  “Gross.” She grimaced, but didn’t look away. “And he was there to find some victims?”

  “Yes. Humans on their own and too intoxicated to know what was happening. Easy pickings.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Waited until he found a victim, followed them outside and…put an end to him.”

  “You mean you killed him.”

  Ares paused. “Yes.”

  She relaxed. “Will you kill the kidnapper?”

  “I’ve been directed to take him into custody.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “Who was that guy, Leo, you were talking to in the club tonight? What was he talking about when he said he had to finish his patrol?”

  “Another Collector. Well, a Collector in training. It’s standard procedure for rookie Collectors to patrol places like that and keep an eye out for supes targeting humans. That’s how we found out about the lethe demon to begin with. But there was no reason to have two of us there.”

  “If it’s standard procedure, then why was that your first time there? Didn’t you have to do those patrols, too?”

  She was quick, he’d give her that. “No. I have very specific abilities that have allowed me a certain level of privilege. Like skipping the typical rookie training.”

  “Didn’t you have to train at all?”

  “Not exactly. And don’t ask me what my very specific abilities are, because I’m not going to tell you.” He didn’t need her afraid of him, not when a child’s life was at stake.

  A few moments of silence passed. She sniffed. “Poor kid. Must be scared out of her mind.”

  He searched for something else to distract her. “That necklace you wear. Is that a muse thing? Or a gift from Mr. Bares? I’ve never seen a nine-pointed star before.”

  Her fingers went to it. “Not a muse thing exactly, although there are nine muses. And no, not a gift from Javier. I’ve worn it all my life. My mother said it’s an amulet of protection. A gift to her for me from one of the other gods.” She let it drop. “You’re observant.”

  “Part of what I do.” He pulled into Bares’s neighborhood.

  She sighed and looked toward the house. “Do you think Dahlia could have been taken by another of those lethe demons?”

  “Not if there’s a ransom note. Lethe demons aren’t known for their literacy.”

  She let out a breath. “That’s good then, right?”

  He parked the car in the drive beside another vehicle, but got out instead of responding. Yes, it was good that Dahlia hadn’t been taken by a lethe demon, but that left a host of other options. Some worse. Hopefully, his hunch was wrong and the perp who’d snagged her was human. That would make things a lot easier.

  Seraphina was out of the car before he reached her door. They headed into the ho
use. Voices sounded from another room. She pointed straight ahead. “Living room.”

  He followed her in. Javier Bares sat in a large leather chair, head in his hands, in obvious distress. Beside him stood two other women. Seraphina introduced Javier to Ares, but the man only nodded without making eye contact. Then Seraphina introduced the woman in the navy and white housekeeper’s uniform as Lucinda. The other, a petite, serious-eyed blonde, she shook hands with. “You must be Minka?”

  The blonde nodded. “Yes. I just got here.”

  Seraphina gestured at Ares. “You must know Ares already.”

  “I know of him.” Minka’s wary gaze slid over him. “We haven’t been formally introduced.”

  Very few of the Collectors had been. There wasn’t much need, and he preferred it that way. They knew what purpose he served. That seemed to be enough for those he had met to want to keep their distance. He nodded. He’d never met a pixie before, just as he was sure she’d never met a wraith. That put them on fairly even footing. “What do you need to help us locate the girl?”

  Minka pointed at the table between them. On it rested a grimy piece of white paper, nearly illegible black script scrawled over it. “The note and something personal of the girl’s.”

  Javier stood. “I can get her jacket.”

  “No,” Minka said. “Something more personal.” She stared at the note and tapped a finger to her lip. “Blood would be best—”

  Javier moaned. “My baby girl…”

  “Hair from her hairbrush will work fine.” Ares shot Minka a warning look. Pixies weren’t known for their tact.

  Minka nodded in understanding. “That would do.”

  Lucinda piped up. “I’ll get it.” The housekeeper rushed off.

  Ares held Minka’s gaze. The pixie might be here to help, but she needed to exercise discretion. He also wanted to fill her in on his idea. “I’d like a word with you in the other room.” She opened her mouth, then apparently thought better and closed it. She strode past him toward the kitchen. He lifted a finger to Seraphina. “We’ll be right back.”

  Seraphina had never known pixies existed, let alone met one, but this one was gorgeous. Maybe they were all blond and curvy with an edgy no-nonsense kind of vibe. Very warrior princess. Or Tinker Bell on steroids. But all Minka’s badassery and good looks meant nothing if she couldn’t find Dahlia. Seraphina whispered a prayer to Zeus that Dahlia was safe and that Minka actually could help them.