If Shepherd were his father, he would have bought him gloves. Not because of the cold, but a Sensor that age was too young to be touching things in public without proper guidance. People left behind all kinds of dirty emotions on inanimate objects. Patrick wouldn’t know something like that—he wouldn’t understand the harm it could do to a child.
When the automated doors opened, Wyatt emerged. “You bunch of heathens!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Can you believe that? They were going to call the cops on me for playing a little music. That’s what’s wrong with people—they don’t know how to have fun. Rules, rules, rules. Do you think a Breed bar would toss me out or report me to the higher authority for dancing on a table? Hell no.”
“Where’s Blue?”
Wyatt hugged his bare arms. “Inside paying for everything. They wouldn’t let me help her out, so now she’s stuck with a shitload of bags. You better go in there before she gets pissed and flattens your tires with her axe. Bring my jacket out while you’re at it.”
Shepherd heaved a sigh and tried not to look back toward Patrick, but he couldn’t help himself.
Damn, he missed Maggie. It gutted him to look into that little boy’s eyes and see a piece of her staring back.
Wyatt followed his gaze to the man disappearing through the fog. “You know that guy in the trench coat?”
Shepherd managed a dispassionate reply as he lightly touched the tattoo on the back of his neck. “He’s no one.”
Chapter 9
Techno music pulsed like an adrenaline-fueled heartbeat, and bodies swayed as the weekend crowd engaged in their ritual mating dance. Christian and I had decided to stay at the club a little longer to get a sense of the crowd and how busy the evenings were. Most of the women wore painted-on skirts, tall heels, and heavy makeup. My hoodie, jeans, and lace-up boots weren’t going to cut it if I wanted to blend in.
We didn’t plan on returning until after Wyatt posted his message on the Vampire website. I could have written one myself, but I wanted professional nerd advice in case we needed to cloak the profile to make it untraceable. I knew nothing about the Vampire we were tracking and how computer savvy he was, so I wasn’t taking any chances.
I’d lost track of Christian, and the few times I found him, he was dazzling a woman with his roguish charm. Had I been a jealous woman, it would have bothered me. But flirting was the most effective way for him to go unnoticed. Loners stood out in busy clubs, one reason I was more chatty than usual with the people around me. I glued myself to the bar to avoid weirdos asking me to dance. Niko hadn’t made an appearance after I’d left him with his women, but it wasn’t unusual for him to step outside when there was an abundance of charged energy in the air. Club energy was like a heartbeat against my skin—so chaotic and wild that it reminded me to conceal my light. Even though we were supposed to flare our energy in public places, I was undercover, so waving a sign around that I was a Mage wasn’t an option.
“I like your necklace.”
I turned to the woman sitting next to me at the bar. She’d been nursing a margarita for so long that the crushed ice had melted.
“I noticed it earlier.” She twirled the ends of her short blond hair.
“Thanks.”
Over the years, I’d developed a talent for reading people. This one was in a transitional phase of her life. Late thirties, insecure, professional manicure, and she wouldn’t stop touching her hair. People usually underwent drastic makeovers when starting over. Probably a recent divorce. Either that or she was trapped in a loveless marriage and searching for a man who would give her the attention her husband didn’t. I couldn’t see her ring finger to confirm, but the desperate look in her eyes whenever a man walked by hadn’t escaped my attention.
“Did your friends ditch you?” I asked.
“No. I’m all by my lonesome. I haven’t been here in a long time. It seems different, but nothing’s changed.”
“I guess that means you changed.”
She smiled ruefully. “I guess it does. Are you waiting for someone?”
“Mr. Right.”
She belted out a laugh and raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that.” I didn’t have a drink in front of me, so she went ahead and took a sip.
I wrinkled my nose at my basket of mini pizza rolls, which had turned out to be thoroughly disgusting.
“Sorry if I’m bothering you,” she said, watching me tuck my necklace beneath my shirt.
“No, you’re the best conversation I’ve had in here all night. And that’s not saying much.” I grimaced, hoping she didn’t take it as an insult when I just meant that we’d only exchanged a handful of words.
“I’m too old to dance, and I’m too young to sit home alone. What’s a girl gotta do these days to get a man’s attention that doesn’t involve shaking her assets?”
I bristled when someone wedged between us. He leaned his hulking body against me to grab the bartender’s attention. The man had thick arms beneath his long-sleeve shirt. Not exactly muscular, but I thought he had large bones, judging by the size of the meat hooks he called hands. Why the hell was he wearing leather gloves? This wasn’t a biker bar.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked the blonde next to me.
“Um…”
I couldn’t see her face, but it sounded like she was terrified and uncertain. Maybe this guy was her last hope.
“What’s your name?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling like thunder.
“Denise. And you are?”
“Boomer.”
I snorted.
Boomer was the name of a three-legged Chihuahua my childhood neighbor once owned. Before the lady died from a stroke, she used to come over to our trailer with her dog under one arm and oatmeal cookies in the other hand. She didn’t seem to mind my daddy’s surly demeanor or the fact he’d lock himself in the bathroom each time she appeared at our door.
When Boomer glared over his shoulder at me, I caught my reflection in his wraparound sunglasses. I bet Claude would have loved to shave off this guy’s thick, blondish beard. It practically had room in there for spare keys and a phone.
Boomer and Denise made an odd pairing, but they chatted for a while. Maybe it was the tight pants she wore or the copious amount of perfume, but Boomer was so enamored by her that he didn’t care that his big ass was all brushed up against me. He was acting as if this was his turf, yet he didn’t exactly blend in with the other men hanging around the club. Could this be our Vampire?
I decided to sit back and observe.
As Boomer stepped away, Denise slid off her stool and winked at me. “Good luck,” she whispered, as if we were part of some secret club of women who were desperately hoping to find true love in a bar.
Though I had to laugh, considering where Christian and I had first met.
My attention wandered about the room as I searched for possible suspects. When I turned back around, I caught a flash of someone’s arm moving away from my basket. I looked left at a man with fat chipmunk cheeks. He held a casual pose and attempted to smile with a mouthful of food.
I shoved my basket of uneaten pizza rolls toward him.
With a sheepish grin, he scratched the back of his head. “Didn’t think you’d mind,” he said, attempting to swallow what he’d already pilfered.