Jennifer Estep: Poison Promise

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your movie,” I said, waggling my eyebrows in the direction Owen had gone. “Especially since I have my own hot date tonight.”

Eva and Violet both laughed and threw more popcorn at me, chasing me out of the living room.

I headed down the hall, past Owen’s office with its rows of weapons mounted on the walls, and over to his bedroom. I opened the door, stepped inside, and let out a surprised gasp.

Warm golden light enveloped the area, as flames danced on the tops of dozens of lit candles. The slender white tapers covered every available surface, from the dresser to the nightstand to the desk in the corner, and still more candles flickered in the attached bathroom, as though they were peering at their own reflections in the mirrors there. Their vanilla scent tickled my nose in a pleasant way. Moonlight beamed in through the open curtains, adding to the soft, muted, romantic atmosphere. So did the silver platter of chocolates and the champagne chilling in a bucket of ice sitting next to the bed. Music hummed in the background, a soft jazz tune.

It took a lot to surprise me, but Owen always managed to do it. He stepped forward out of the shadows along the wall and held out his hand. I took it, enjoying the feel of his warm fingers wrapping around mine, and let him lead me deeper into the room.

I gestured at the candles, chocolates, and champagne. “This is a little more than just dinner and watching TV.”

He grinned and pulled me into his arms, his violet eyes glinting with a mischievous light. “I know, but I wanted to do something special tonight. Just because. Although you can think of it as part of your birthday surprise if you want, even though it’s a few days early.”

I gasped, clutched my hands to my heart, and looked around in mock horror. “Please, please tell me that Finn is not hiding in your walk-in closet, waiting to jump out and scream at me.”

Owen laughed, the deep sound rumbling like thunder out of his chest. “Trust me. Finn isn’t here. Tonight it’s just you and me.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “And that’s just the way I like it.”

“Me too,” he whispered back.

Owen’s lips met mine, and I forgot about everything else except him.

We spent a very pleasurable night together, before I left the next morning to go open the Pork Pit for the day’s cooking and customers.

The lunch rush passed by in the usual hurried fashion, and I managed to hold on to my mellow mood all the way until three o’clock, when some idiot tried to crack open my skull with a baseball bat as I was taking out the trash in the alley behind the restaurant. It was hardly a surprise, since that’s how a lot of my midafternoon trash runs ended these days. At least the bags of garbage helped hide all the bodies that I littered the pavement with.

I opened the door and stepped into the back of the Pork Pit. Sophia Deveraux, the head cook, was standing by one of the freezers, tying on a black apron embossed with tiny grinning hot pink skulls. The apron matched the rest of Sophia’s Goth clothes—black boots, black jeans, and a black T-shirt with a single large pink skull on it. Bright pink gloss covered her lips, and silver streaks glittered in her black hair. A black ribbon ringed her throat, a pink cameo dangling off the end. The delicate necklace looked a little odd with her T-shirt and skull apron, but I wouldn’t dare tell Sophia that. I had no desire to hurt her feelings or get knocked into next week by her dwarven strength.

Besides, I wasn’t exactly presentable right now, given the blood that coated my hands. So I went over to one of the sinks, turned on the tap, and started washing my hands. Sophia’s black eyes fixed on the pale pink stains that swirled down the drain.

“Problem?” she rasped in her eerie, broken voice.

I shrugged. “No more so than usual. Just be careful where you step. There’s another pool of blood right outside the door. And we have another visitor sleeping under some garbage bags who needs to be put on ice. Regular size. Nothing special.”

Sophia nodded, understanding my cryptic words, since she disposed of many of the bodies that I left behind as the Spider. On her break, she’d haul the dead guy over to the refrigerated cooler that she kept in the next alley over for these situations. Yep, just the usual routine around here these days.

“Who was he?” she rasped.

I shrugged again. “Just some guy. No obvious runes on him, but then again, I didn’t look too hard.”

I’d been too busy slicing his guts open with one of my knives to pay much attention to what he looked like. Then again, I never did that. Not anymore. Not these days, when pretty much everyone in the underworld wanted me dead. I was mildly surprised that Troy and his friends hadn’t yet made an appearance at the restaurant to get revenge on me for kicking their asses last night.

Then again, the day was still young.

When I’d washed away the blood, I dried off my hands, put on a clean blue work apron over my own dark jeans and long-sleeved black T-shirt, and stepped through the double doors into the front of the restaurant.

The Pork Pit was something of a dive, the sort of place that outsiders would turn their noses up at, but the locals flocked to it because they knew we served up the best barbecue in Ashland. Blue and pink vinyl booths squatted next to the windows, while more tables and chairs crouched in the center of the storefront. Matching fading, peeling blue and pink pig tracks curved over to the men’s and women’s restrooms, while a long counter close to the back wall featured padded stools.

It was too early for the dinner rush, so only a few folks were currently eating. My gaze roamed over the customers, but they were all engrossed in their barbecue sandwiches, burgers, fries, and other fixings, along with their sweet iced teas, fruity lemonades, and cold sodas. No one paid me any attention as I went over to one of the tables, grabbed a plate with a fresh grilled cheese sandwich and an untouched mound of onion rings, snatched a parfait glass that held a triple chocolate milkshake, and took everything back over to the counter.

“Well, that took forever ,” a snide voice chirped as I rounded the end of the counter. “What did you do? Kill somebody while you were gone?”

The voice and the attitude belonged to a guy sitting on the stool closest to the cash register. With his expensive suit, chiseled features, and perfectly cut and styled walnut-colored hair, most women would have considered him exceptionally handsome. Me too, if I didn’t also know how totally annoying he could be. I stopped and shot a cold, withering look at Finnegan Lane, not that the expression bothered my foster brother at all.

“Ah,” he said in a sly, knowing tone. “You did.”

His green eyes locked onto the food in my hands, and he perked up, like an eager puppy about to get a treat. “Hey, are you going to eat that?”

I rolled my eyes, but I set the plate and the milkshake down on the counter in front of him. Finn shrugged out of his gray suit jacket, tucked a white paper napkin in at his chin to protect his gray silk shirt and tie, and enthusiastically dug in. Chowing down on a dead man’s food didn’t faze him in the slightest. Few things did.

“As I was saying before you so rudely left to take out the trash,” Finn said, once he’d slurped down half the milkshake in a long swallow, “I really think I’ve outdone myself when it comes to your birthday this year.”

I sighed. “And I’ve told you, repeatedly , that I don’t want, need, or desire some stupid surprise party. We go through this same song-and-dance every single year.”

Finn grinned. “Exactly! Why, you might say that it’s our own little tradition. One that I am more than happy to uphold.”