“This is from the gentleman across the room.”
The waitress gestured to a group of young men—some of them with visible glyphs on their arms. The Breed youths were civilians from the area Darkhavens, no doubt on the prowl for human blood Hosts before the nightly feeding curfew went into effect.
While most of the little pack were chatting up human women, one of them stared directly at Brynne. Dark-haired, serious, the Breed male nodded in acknowledgment as the waitress started to hand her the frou-frou cocktail.
Brynne shook her head. “Please tell the gentleman thanks, but no thanks. I prefer whisky, and I prefer to drink it alone.”
The waitress shrugged. “Whatever.”
Just brilliant, Kirkland. That’s two for two on failed attempts to engage.
No wonder she sucked at sex.
Growing more frustrated with herself by the moment, she swung back around in her seat and slammed the shot—her fourth tonight, but who was counting?—then set the glass down on the bar.
That’s it. No more dragging her feet about this.
She’d come here to self-medicate and forget the empty mess she was making of her life, and that meant she wasn’t leaving this club alone.
Time to check her excuses and her conscience into her panties for the night.
As the Glenmorangie burned a soothing trail of fire down her throat, Brynne made a promise to herself.
She was going to scratch her itch on the first viable man to approach her.
It didn’t take long. No sooner had she made her ridiculous vow than a wave of heat moved in beside her at the bar. Awareness prickled along her nerve endings like electricity, lifting the fine hairs on her arms and at her nape, making her nipples tighten in immediate response.
“This seat taken?”
The low, aggravatingly confident voice was familiar to her.
As was the pair of unearthly cerulean blue eyes that arrested her gaze and didn’t let go as she turned her head to look at the man who’d just arrived.
No, not a man.
An immortal male.
Atlantean.
Golden-haired. Handsome. Arrogant beyond compare.
Easily the last person she wanted to see, especially tonight.
He grinned at her, that broad, sensual mouth of his sending a spike of outrage—and something far more troubling—through her veins.
“Hello, Brynne.”
“Zael,” she all but growled. “What the hell are you doing here?”
CHAPTER 2
Ekizael had walked this earth for thousands of years, every last one of them lived with the full awareness of what his sculpted, ageless face and sun-kissed, chiseled body did to the sensibilities of the fairer sex. His flawless Atlantean looks and preternatural sensuality had always been part of his charm.