CHAPTER 8

We entered The Mother Goose, a bar a block from my apartment, at a little after one in the morning. The place was packed with drunken henchmen, down-on-their-luck princesses, and the occasional CPA. What The Mother Goose lacked in class it tried to make up for with watery booze and Ferns.

I hated the Ferns.

“Look who it is,” Fern said to her Siamese twin, Fern, who sat planted on a barstool, a gin martini grasped in her willowy hand. The second Fern, her mouth stuffed full of peanuts, waved at me. “Well if it ain’t Little Boy Blue. Why don’t you come blow my horn?”

I hustled Izzy to a table at the back of the room without acknowledging either woman and flagged down the bartender. “Two bottles of mead.”

Izzy glanced about the place, her nose wrinkling. “Come here often?” She brushed at the cracked red vinyl on the booth before sitting down.

I laughed, drawing a few stares from a table of humorless ugly ducklings next to us. “Sorry it’s not up to your high fairy standards.”

“Please stop saying that,” she said after the bartender set our bottles and two glasses on the table and then quickly walked away.

“Say what? Fairy?” She nodded but didn’t explain, so I pressed her. “What’s your deal?”

“What’s yours?” she countered, forgoing the smudged mug in favor of the green bottle. Her lips curled around the bottle and she drank deeply. When she finished she licked at the grape mustache staining her upper lip.

“Let’s start over,” I said, taking a deep breath as my gut tightened. “My name’s Blue. Your uncles, Clayton and Peyton, hired me to save you from your kidnappers. Since I don’t see any kidnappers, I’m guessing you weren’t kidnapped.” I waved at her. “Now it’s your turn, Tink.”

“My name is Izzy. I-Z-Z-Y.” She frowned. “And those freaks who hired you are not in any way related to me.”

Little sawed-off bastards. They’d lied to me. Again. When I got my hands on them, they were going to wish Band-Aids came in 31 flavors.

Izzy wasn’t finished with her tirade. “And now, thanks to you, someone found me and tried to blow my brains out. Again.”

“Again?”

She sighed, her mouth thinning. “Three days ago someone broke into my apartment and attacked me. I managed to get away. Barely.” She pulled up the torn sleeve of her dress, showing off a colorful array of bruises along her arm. Bruises I hadn’t noticed before. In my defense, if I had one, my attention hadn’t exactly been focused on her arms.

I ran a gloved finger up the bruises, anger burning inside me. “I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt.”

She covered her arms. “After the attack I sought refuge at the church, where I thought no one could find me. Until you led them right to me . . .”

A part of me—a very small part—wanted to argue with her last statement. Unfortunately, it was all too true. It was obvious I’d guided the would-be assassin right to her. “You’re right. It is my fault.” I took a drink of my mead, enjoying the grapy aftertaste. “The question now is what the hell do we do about it?”

A satisfied smile formed on her lips. “Tell the Fairies you failed. Tell them you couldn’t find me.” She reached across the table for my gloved hand, but I pulled back. No sense in getting too touchy with the client. Not when I would never know if her skin was as soft and warm as it looked.

I couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched me or I them, truly touched without protection, and I’m not referring to a condom. I’m talking full-on electrical tape and surge protectors.

I quickly glanced away from her soft, freckled skin, disgusted by my desire. I wasn’t some little boy with blue balls. I was a man, a man with blue pubes sure, but a man nonetheless. Isabella Davis wasn’t the first beautiful woman I’d encountered, just the first with a nice pair of wings.

“Lying to the Fairies won’t do any good.” I rubbed the indigo hairs on my chin. “They’ll just send someone else to find you. What we need to do is figure out who wants you dead.”

Her eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch. “We?”

I nodded. “We.”

The smile on her lips should’ve put me on full alert, but instead, I returned her grin, happily oblivious to what was to come.