Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
As I stepped off the porch and walked toward the front yard, I told myself it was just my imagination, but I couldn’t shake the eerie sensation.
Couldn’t shake it at all.
Emerald green beads whizzed through the air as the drunken college-aged guy in a one-piece hot pink bathing suit twirled in the middle of Bourbon Street, his white sneakers pounding off the pavement. The suit was cut high along the hips and the front was nothing more than two panels of cloth held together by a jeweled clasp. It was not the kind of bathing suit made to wear when someone actually planned on swimming.
Or made to wear on a chilly March evening.
The man spun, winging another strand of beads into the night as the crowd cheered him on. The back of the suit showed more of the man’s ass than it covered, but I had to say, it was a nice ass.
Mardi Gras had ended over a month ago, so I really had no idea what this dude was doing with the beads and the bathing suit. But it was Friday night in the French Quarter, so I knew I was going to see far weirder crap before the night was over.
Leaning against the brick wall of The Swamp, I sipped my ginger ale as someone shrieked happily from the courtyard behind me. Raucous laughter followed, and I figured someone had gotten thrown from the mechanical bull.
One of these days I imagined that bull was going to snap and pitch a person head first through a window.
Grinning at that because I was a terrible person, I took another sip of the carbonated goodness as I scanned the packed streets, looking for people that weren’t quite… people. I reached into the pocket of my lightly lined cotton peacoat, feeling a sharp trill curl down my spine as my fingers brushed over the warm, slim piece of metal.
There was an eight-inch iron stake in my pocket and I was so not afraid to use it.
I couldn’t help but wonder what I would be thinking if I had been out here two years ago. I wanted to be doing this, but I didn’t have the lady balls. Not only would the Order members have laughed like deranged hyenas, I would’ve laughed… and had a minor panic attack simultaneously, because I’m a good multitasker like that.
Now I was more than capable of patrolling for the Order, but they didn’t know that and if they did, it wouldn’t matter. Just look at how they’d treated me today. Even if they saw me in action, it wouldn’t change their views.
In their eyes, I wasn’t the same as them and I’d never be ready to take to the streets. Not at my age. It was so ridiculous, considering the Order had been nearly decimated.
I drew in a shaky breath and it got hung up on the knot that had formed in my throat as my gaze swiveled back to the mayhem in the middle of the street.
The guy in the hot pink bathing suit had no idea how close the world had come to chaos. None of the people partying in the streets, laughing, drinking, and shouting knew that so many people—people I missed with every breath I took—had their lives brutally ended in an unknown war with the fae.
Hell, they didn’t even know that the fae were a real and almost always deadly thing that walked among them, blending in and hunting them. I never once wondered what it would be like to not know there were things out there that could end your life in a snap of their fingers, but I guess there was a blissfulness in that ignorance.
Across the street, a woman stepped out from the throng of people milling up and down the narrow sidewalk, dressed in black leather pants and a tight black thermal.
Crap.
Recognizing Jackie, I slinked back against the wall and reached up, tugging the bill of my Saints’ ball cap lower. The dark-skinned Order member stood on the curb, arms crossed as she watched Hot Pink Bathing Suit Guy, out of beads now, bend over and twerk.
Jackie was grinning now, but if she saw me, she wouldn’t be smiling anymore. She’d legit kick my butt and then drag said butt back home, because she’d know what I was doing out here.
Which was utter bullshit. Logic dictated that the Order needed all the help they could get.
But I wasn’t out here to patrol. I really was keeping an eye out for the younglings. I’d saved their photos to my phone, and pretty much had their faces committed to memory at this point. I figured if they were anywhere down here getting into trouble, they would be near Bourbon or Royal.
Part of me didn’t think it would be a big deal if Jackie saw me or not. Probably would never cross her mind that I’d be out patrolling or anything like that. She’d probably think I was out grabbing dinner or something.