“At once,” the manager promised.
Crossing through the casino, Sloane headed to the elevators at the back of the hotel. She was exhausted after her long flight, and in dire need of supper and a hot bath, but she wasn’t going waste time freshening up. Not until after she’d spoken with Tiege.
The sooner he learned the truth, the sooner she could crawl into bed and sleep.
Besides, she wasn’t going to let the bastard think that she cared about his opinion.
When she’d become a guard in the House of Furia six months ago, she’d been hyper-sensitive to any hint of disapproval. After training from the age of eighteen to become a Nephilim Blade, she’d been tossed out of the temple when she questioned the need to kill the children conceived between an Incubus and human female. She didn’t regret her refusal to perform that duty, but she’d been acutely aware that others would consider her honor tarnished.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so eager to leap at Petros’s offer to become a guard in the House of Furia. She’d known the male was only giving her the opportunity because she was a cousin to his dead betrothed, Portia. But she’d been so relieved to have a respectable position that she hadn’t realized she would be working directly with Tiege, or that she would be so annoyingly sensitive to his mocking amusement.
He thought she was a priggish, inflexible bore who had forgotten how to be a female.
She thought he was a pain in the ass.
They clashed every time they were in the same space.
With a grimace, she resisted the urge to glance in the mirror on the elevator wall. She knew exactly what Tiege would see.
A slender woman who barely topped five feet, with shoulder-length honey brown hair that was pulled into a high ponytail. Her tiny face was heart-shaped and dominated by a pair of hazel eyes. With a slender, tip-tilted nose and wide lips, she looked more like a Dresden doll than a trained killer.
Currently she was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and T-shirt, with a leather motorcycle jacket despite the sweltering Vegas heat. She had to hide the two handguns and obsidian blade she had strapped to various parts of her body.
Hardly the type of female to impress a jaded Incubus Master.
Not that she wanted to impress him. Of course she didn’t.
Not. At. All.
There was a shudder beneath her feet as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. Jerked out of her ridiculous thoughts, she forced herself to walk the short distance to the door. There were only four suites on this particular floor. All of them large, and elegant, and obscenely expensive.
Tiege always chose the corner suite that overlooked the Strip. It was, of course, the largest and most expensive.
God forbid he not have the very best.
She didn’t bother to knock. She could already hear the heavy rap music and the shrill giggles of the bimbos who flocked around him like clucking hens around a crowing rooster. Instead she pushed the door open and battled her way through the half-dressed women and drunken males who filled the large room.
She had a vague impression of paneled walls and marble floors, with velvet furnishings that were in various shades of brown and tan. There was a bar at one end of the room and a hot tub at the other, but Sloane headed toward the attached suite.
There was only one place to find a sex demon in the middle of a party…
Stiffening her spine, she stepped into the bedroom, her heart slamming against her ribs at the sight of Tiege leaning against center of the massive headboard.
Dammit. It didn’t matter how she braced herself, the first sight of the male was always like a punch to the gut.
He was just so…outrageously beautiful.
It was unfair.
At the moment, he was framed by four naked females who were busily kissing and fondling his perfectly chiseled body that had been stripped down to a pair of black boxers. His dark hair was rumpled and his eyes glowed with a rich copper heat.
As she watched, he allowed his slender, artistic fingers to glide down the bare back of a gorgeous brunette who was kissing a path over his shoulder. Even from a distance she could see the sparks of energy that leaped over his fingers and trailed up his arms in a shimmer of energy. It wasn’t a full Incubus feeding. More like a pre-dinner snack.
Her lips pressed together, and she told herself that her stab of annoyance had nothing to do with the naked bimbos and everything to do with her personal sense of responsibility. Petros had sworn that Tiege’s presence in Vegas was a matter of life and death. And that she had to be willing to do whatever necessary to assist him in his duties.
Instead of preparing for his solemn ceremony, he was wasting time with yet another orgy.
Was it any wonder she felt like pulling out her gun and shooting the collection of drunken fools who filled the suite?
“Hello, Master,” she managed to force past her stiff lips.