Diana Rowland - Secrets of the Demon

I leveled a glare at him. “There is no way that I will ever wear a corset on duty.”

Ryan summoned an innocent look. “But think of how well you would have blended in!”

“And think of how well I could manage in a foot pursuit wearing a leather miniskirt and red Mary Janes with five inch heels!” I shot back. Zack had enthusiastically produced the aforementioned “undercover” garb, and my reaction had been less than gracious. I’d very reluctantly allowed Zack to lace me into the corset, simply because I was curious to see if it could actually give me something resembling a figure. I tended to think of myself as shapeless—waist and hips damn near the same size, with the boobs barely edging them out. I wasn’t fat by a long stretch, but I had zilcho muscle tone, and I wasn’t going to be wearing midriff-revealing tops anytime soon. But the corset had given me a shitload more figure than I was prepared for. I’d taken one look at my corseted self in the mirror and then yanked it off, informing Zack that I couldn’t possibly wear it since I couldn’t breathe in the damn thing. But the truth was that I’d been stupidly and prudishly mortified at the thought of going out in public with my boobs shoved up and out like that—even though I was secretly tickled to see how I looked with actual cleavage and a defined waist.

I’d tried the shoes next. They were utterly lovely, but even though I’d enjoyed the sensation of being five foot ten, I was completely incapable of taking more than three steps in them without wobbling. And I’d flatly refused to try on the miniskirt, since there was no way in all of creation I was going to let the general public see my pale and out-of-shape legs.

Zack had finally exchanged everything for an outfit that I was far more willing to wear in public—a pretty nifty quasi-Victorian ensemble with ruffled blouse, fitted pants, and brocade jacket, along with a pair of gorgeous ass-kicking jack boots. My deeply buried inner goth had fallen madly in love with the boots, and was now trying to figure out some way to justify keeping them. For the rest of my “look,” I’d layered on the eyeliner and attempted to tease my hair out into something somewhat wild, but my hair had stubbornly refused to stay teased or wild and had quickly fallen back into its usual boring straightness. I’d finally streaked red and pink through it, while praying that it really was as temporary a dye as the package claimed. I wasn’t a huge fan of my natural hair color—I usually referred to it as “rat’s ass brown”—but I’d yet to work up the nerve to permanently color or highlight it, and pink streaks were certainly not the direction I’d ever want to go with it. I’d been briefly tempted to buy some colored contact lenses—blue or green . . . anything but the current dull dark gray—but finally decided that would be going a bit overboard.

For his part, Ryan was decked out in a black T-shirt with buckles along the shoulders and black industrial pants with more buckles and rivets down the sides. The shirt was tight enough that I could see the ripple of his abs through it, and I had to admit—privately—that he looked awfully damn good in black. Every other woman apparently thought so too, judging by the gazes cast his way.

“It’s too bad you can’t pull off the goth look,” I said with a shake of my head.

He looked down at what he was wearing and frowned. “What’s wrong with this outfit?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “But no matter how hard you try to dress the part, you still carry yourself like a federal agent.”

His mouth twitched in a smile and he slouched against the wall. “Better?”

I shook my head. “Now you look like a fed trying to look casual. I still think you could have shaved your head into a mohawk, like I’d suggested.”

He gave a mock-shudder. “I’ll take a lot of risks in this line of work, but that’s one thing I don’t plan to do.”

“Chicken shit,” I teased.

“My current style’s not good enough for you?”

My gaze flicked up to his hair. His natural color was brown with hints of red-gold highlights, and he kept his hair short enough to comply with FBI regs but long enough that the barest hint of curl showed. I’d never admitted it out loud—and probably never would since we seemed to be locked in a sometimes awkward “just friends” mode—but there were times when I really wanted to run my fingers through his hair.

Now was not one of those times. He’d used a frightening amount of hair product in what looked like an attempt to make it spiky. Unfortunately his hair was too short for him to achieve the desired look. Or rather, I hoped that what he’d achieved was not the desired look. And then there was the color.

“Ryan,” I said grimly. “Your head looks like a hair-brush that’s been soaked in grape juice. What did you dye it with? Kool-Aid?”

“Now that was just plain mean,” he said with a sad shake of his head.

I scanned the crowd, feeling a strange relief that tonight—so far—was turning out to have less than the usual amount of awkward tension between us. Ever since I’d saved Ryan’s life by swearing myself to the demonic lord Rhyzkahl as his summoner, any feelings Ryan might have had for me were locked down pretty tight—not that I had any certainty there ever were. And, unfortunately, I couldn’t blame him. The demons seemed to hold some sort of odd antipathy toward Ryan, calling him a kiraknikahl, or oathbreaker, though I had no idea why. And even though Rhyzkahl didn’t own me, or anything like that, and the only service I’d sworn to perform was to summon him, nonetheless I was still bound to the demonic lord, and I could understand if Ryan wanted to keep me at arm’s length.

I hated it, but I understood it.

My gaze was drawn to a black-clad figure smoking a cigarette against the wall near the bar. He wasn’t dancing or even twitching to the music, and when my eyes rested on him he turned his head to give me a lazy smile, as if he could feel me looking at him. For all I knew he could. This was the fourth member of our little team tonight. Marco Knight was a detective with the New Orleans police department, and since we were in the city, we needed someone with local jurisdiction in case anything happened. He’d apparently worked with the team before, when they’d worked cases in the city. Ryan hadn’t told me much about him, except to say that “he got it.” And I hadn’t picked up much more when I’d met him, though after he shook my hand in greeting I had the odd feeling that he knew a lot more about me. One eyebrow lifted and then a sardonic smile crossed his face as he murmured, “Complicated,” before releasing my hand.

Complicated? Yeah, that pretty much described my life.

I looked away, annoyed at myself for being . . . unsettled? Intimidated? I couldn’t really explain why, but I wasn’t comfortable keeping my attention on him. Or vice versa.

I returned my attention to the stage. Lida Moran was the lead singer for Ether Madhouse as well as one hell of a guitar player. Her fingers flew over the strings as she threw herself around the stage with gusto, belting out something that might have been lyrics. I really couldn’t tell, but the crowd didn’t seem to care whether they understood what the words to the song were. She was good, though. I had to give her that. Nineteen years old, five foot ten, and with the kind of body that most of the guys I knew would dub “smokin’ hot,” she had a powerhouse voice that wowed everyone who heard her, whether they liked her style of music or not. The other three members of the band had some decent musical chops as well, though I wasn’t much of a judge of that sort of thing. But I could tell that they didn’t suck.