2 SLY DOG #2
“We were coming back from a vet visit, and he’d been sedated, so I thought he’d be fine on the leash.
But he got the drop on me and pulled it right out of my hand before I could get him in the van.
I thought for sure he was going to do something terrible.
Scared ten years off my life.” She shook her head.
“Imagine my surprise when I ran here and found him lying meekly on his side.”
Raum glanced down at the animal. “He’s just scared.”
Caro nodded as if this pleased her. “So, you want a job? I’ll pay you to come in and work with the feral ones. If you can do half as much for others as you did with Tiny here, I’ll consider you a miracle worker.”
Raum rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t need money.” He and his brothers had amassed a fortune in Hell before they escaped, which they exchanged for Earth currency at the Blood Market. And if he ever ran out, he still had stashes of loot all over the underworld.
“Too bad. This job is too tough for volunteers.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t need to. We all have a past, and any man who shows kindness to an animal is a good man in my books. If you’re living … under the radar, I’ll pay you cash in hand. As long as you help my dogs, I don’t care where you came from.”
He couldn’t take a job at an animal shelter.
It was too risky mixing with humans in that kind of setting.
It was one thing to party and get drunk with faceless crowds he’d never see again.
It was another thing to interact on a regular basis with people who didn’t know what he was.
With everything going on with Murmur right now, it was an added risk they didn’t need.
So it surprised the hell out of him when he said, “Okay.”
Caro beamed. “You’ll do it?”
“Sure.” I’m an idiot.
“When can you start? Tomorrow? Eight a.m.?”
He winced. So early? But he said, “Sure,” again anyway.
The woman looked like he’d just handed her a million dollars. “Give me your phone. I’ll put in my number and the shelter address. Have you got transportation? I can pick you up if you need a ride.”
“Okay.” He didn’t own a vehicle, and Eva had sworn never to allow a demon to drive her car again because, apparently, they were reckless drivers.
And he avoided public transit because so many people in a tight space made the itch unbearable.
Everyone had bags and jackets with deep pockets.
He had yet to take the metro without ending up with a new collection of wallets and phones.
He and Caro exchanged numbers and discussed wages he didn’t want, and then he helped her walk Tiny back to her van. Apparently, Raum was feeling saintly today.
Tiny was terrible on the leash, pulling and leaping at every noise, but he couldn’t overpower a demon, and Raum held him easily. By the time they reached Caro’s van and loaded him into the crate in the back, she was staring at him with undisguised awe.
“You have a gift,” she said, like he was bloody Jesus turning water into wine.
He made a face.
“I’m serious. I look forward to working with you. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
As the van peeled away from the curb and gunned down the street in a cloud of black exhaust, Raum looked over to where Faust was waiting for him on the sidewalk.
“Guess I got a job now,” he told the hound.
He swore Faust cocked a brow.
Raum narrowed his eyes. “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”
Faust closed his mouth as if to say, Mum’s the word.
“Good boy. Let’s go home.”
Stupidly, Raum cast one last look at the park, searching for the woman in pink. There was no sign of her, of course.
He rolled his eyes at himself, and then took off at a jog, Faust at his side.
Sunshine rematerialized in her rental suite still gasping for breath.
She immediately went to the long mirror on the wall and assessed her appearance.
There were sticks and leaves in her braid.
When she turned around, there was mud all over her backside.
She’d had the wind knocked out of her by that fall, and she looked like it.
What a disaster. A colossal failure.
She’d had everything carefully arranged only for it to blow up spectacularly in her face. Ending up under a dogfight was not part of the plan in any way, shape, or form. Worst of all, when the demon had finally approached her, she’d …
Well, she wasn’t sure what happened.
She had looked into his bright golden eyes and lost her train of thought. Utterly. She’d forgotten what she was even doing there.
It didn’t make sense. She’d been in Montreal watching the demons for close to a month now. She already knew what they looked like. She knew everything about them, even their phone numbers. There should have been no surprises when she finally interacted with Raum in person.
From her spying, she knew he was athletic, so she’d dressed so she appeared to be exercising.
She knew he, like most males, had a critical weakness that could be easily exploited: a healthy sex drive.
With a coy smile, maybe bending to display her cleavage, she’d been confident she could lure him into her trap.
But when the moment came, her mind had blanked.
He was just so … intense. His dark skin was rich with bronze undertones, his mouth sensually full, and his eyes … The golden color was so otherworldly, it nearly sparkled.
Ridiculous. She was an angel and was not plagued by the urge to copulate, else she would have fallen from Heaven and become a Grigori as her friend Daniel had. And she’d already known what Raum looked like, so there should have been no reason for her to react so oddly.
She’d watched him closer than the others. From what she’d observed, he was always calm, often quiet. She’d never heard him raise his voice, nor had she seen him smile, though his closest companion, Meph, seemed to grin without cease.
He was also detached, always a little separate from the others, even when they were together in a group, and that suited her needs in this case. She needed someone who could keep secrets, who kept their emotions hidden.
It was why she’d chosen him as her target.
You erred once, but you won’t again , she told her frazzled reflection. There is no harm in making mistakes so long as we do not repeat them.
She was in uncharted territory with this plan. A slip-up was likely inevitable and excusable so long as it didn’t recur.
Guilt assailed her. Not for the first time, the knowledge of who she would have to become to complete this mission—a liar, a cheat, a traitor—plagued her to the point of nausea, but she pushed the sensation away.
Everything was riding on her success. She needed this. She deserved to reascend and finally atone for the past.
She could do this. She just needed to modify her trap slightly.
The next time Raum left the safety of his apartment, from behind the wards where she couldn’t touch him, she would be waiting and watching. When the time was right, she would lure him, and she would ensnare him.
He would not escape her again.