Cursing Athena (Order Of Seven) (2 page)

Shaky, and fighting back tears, Danika exhaled a heavy breath and quickly dressed. Between her crazy ex, her pervy boss, and the scum that filled the nightclub, she wasn’t sure there were any decent men left in the world.

Not that she was looking.

After snatching up the awkward mask that completed her ensemble, Danika walked over to the nearby mirror and frowned. Skin flushed and mottled from her confrontation with Tony, she resembled a giraffe with her spotted skin. Still sporting her professional “day job” hairstyle, she smoothed a few stray pieces of her long, wavy blond hair that had fallen loose from the bun she wore. Upset and covered in silver Spandex, she looked like a speckled, out-of-this-world, naughty librarian. Sexy…
not!

“Suck it up, girl,” she said, swiping away a few stray tears. “You can do this.” Resigned to her fate, she pulled the alien mask over her head and sighed. Two bulging alien eyeballs stared back at her in the smudged mirror.
Go get ‘em, tiger!
With a groan, she walked out of the locker room and through the small hallway toward the back of the bar.

She’d made it all of two feet behind the counter when a black plastic serving tray was thrust into her hands.

“It’s about damn time,” Kathi said with a scowl. She eyeballed Danika with a venomous smile and chuckled as she spied her otherworldly attire. Dressed as a pirate wench, Kathi, the club’s oldest and most experienced server, sported a full figure and a robust personality people either loved or hated. Most days Danika could take her or leave her, and tonight, well…she was leaning toward the latter.

A queen at multitasking, Kathi continued to speak as she loaded her tray with martinis and shot glasses. “I started a tab for you at table ten.” She inclined her head toward Danika’s section and shook her head in disgust. “Good luck. The guy’s a real asshole…all smug and shit. Demanded a full bottle of tequila. A full fucking bottle. Ha!” She mashed her lips together and stole a quick glance over her shoulder before making a “tsk” sound. “Too bad, too, ‘cause he’s a real looker.”

Apparently done making small talk, Kathi took hold of her full tray of drinks with an ease that reaffirmed she’d been waiting tables for quite a while and vanished into the crowd.

Just great
. Danika grabbed a pen and pad of drink tickets from beneath the bar and headed into the crowd. Though she’d been at Masquerade for a few weeks now, she still wasn’t able to memorize drink orders like the other girls and botched things up on a regular basis if she didn’t write her orders down.

Wearing a fake smile, she readjusted the mental armor she’d donned back in the break room in preparation for what was to come. The last thing she wanted to deal with was a smug bastard who thought he was God’s gift to women.
No, thank you.
She’d maxed out her lifetime quota of douchebag dealing with James.

Busying herself, she walked toward her section and quickly began taking orders. Two tables and a round of Screaming Orgasms in, the usual “germ under a microscope” sensation she carried with her throughout the bar faded away. Intense heat seared her back, warming her from the inside out. The sensation was pleasant and altogether different from the nauseating response the horny gawkers filling the club typically elicited. A delicious tingling sensation radiated upward though her body from her center, causing her nipples to harden (which was not a good thing in her skimpy, unforgiving get-up) and a rush of warmth pooled between her thighs.

What the hell?

Danika peered over her shoulder and scanned her section for the source of her unwanted feelings. Muscles stiffening, she froze, a small gasp squeaking past her lips as the air she so desperately needed seeped from her lungs like a tire with a slow leak.
Holy snot rockets!
Seated at table ten was the shmexiest man she’d ever seen.

Chapter 3

Two weeks. It had been two fucking weeks and he still hadn’t bagged the Hirudo.
Godsdammit!
It had never taken him this long to track and kill a mark. Never. Ty felt a sudden tinge of remorse for riding his comrade, Lynx, so hard a century ago when he struggled to kill a leech. They were damn near impossible to track.

Taking advantage of the portal Athena had opened for him, Ty had scoured Arcane’s downtown area in search of the demon. Sadly, it hadn’t taken him long to find the leech’s original host body. The forty-something female had been bled dry and dumped along the edge of the Fortuna River, her body a mere husk of its former self. The parasite had jumped, which meant it could be anywhere—anyone. His best move…
shit
…his only move at that point was to troll the local hotspots with the hope of catching the underworld douche as it preyed upon hapless souls. Not exactly the scenario he’d hoped for when he set out to destroy the soul-sucking demon, but one he’d have to live with.

Eager to bag the demon and move on, Ty had instructed Ren and Pyro, two of his warrior brothers who weren’t currently on missions of their own, to fan out and patrol the downtown area in search of the wayward soul-sucker. The sooner they bagged the insatiable killer, the better. The longer the demon roamed free, the more likely it was a mortal would discover the killings were supernatural. Humans were much easier to manage when they didn’t know the ugly truth of what went on around them.

Ty scoured the northeastern corner of the city from the financial district all the way to the dive bars located on Tycho Street and came up empty-handed. There’d been no sign of the demon, which was both a blessing and a curse. No dead bodies meant the trail was cold. While he didn’t relish the idea of the creature feeding off innocent souls, the only way to track the damned thing was to follow its trail of carnage.

Determined to nab the bottom-feeder, Ty rolled into Masquerade, a popular nightclub located just south of Arcane’s financial district. Ignoring the wide-eyed stares and muffled gasps as he walked by, he situated himself at the back of the club, sitting at a table that gave him a clear view of his surroundings.

Ty scanned the crowded club, a mixture of agitation and disgust gnawing at his gut. His job, his sole purpose for being was to protect mankind from the scourge of the underworld. But how was he to do his job when mankind had no interest in protecting itself?

He took in the mass of sweaty, writhing bodies on the dance floor and groaned.
Oblivious.
Mortals were ignorant fools. Would they never learn? They pumped their bodies full of drugs and alcohol, sought fleeting pleasure through empty, nameless sex. Desperate to find something, anything, to make them feel alive, the mindless throng remained blind to the fact they were slowly killing themselves. Hedonism, debauchery—both led to ruin more often than not. For some, it would be liver damage that claimed their lives, for others, overdose. Sadder still were the unfortunate souls who lost their lives to parasitic bottom-feeders like the Hirudo because they were too fucked up from partying to realize their new friend wasn’t human.

Ty shook his head and swore beneath his breath. “Fucking fools.” They’d no clue a murderer lurked among them, seeking his prey, hungry for his next kill.

With a labored groan, he slammed a hand onto his table, eliciting a frightened squeak from the lanky frat boy and his date seated at the table to the left of him.

By the Gods! He’d walked the earth for centuries, witnessed technological wonders, and things that would amaze Zeus himself. But for all the change he’d seen, one thing remained constant: stupidity. People were just plain foolish, and sure as shit, he was tired of cleaning up the mess they left in their wake. Athena be damned!

“Oooh…hello there, baby.” A shrill, grating voice tore his eyes from the massive crowd on the dance floor. A particularly curvy waitress, borderline plump, stood before him clad in a pirate wench’s costume. Her enormous breasts spilled out of her low cut bodice. To most of the drunken lot that frequented the club, the busty server would appear attractive. But to Ty, she simply looked like she’d been rode hard and put away wet. He was completely uninterested in anything she had to offer. Except, maybe alcohol. If she was peddling the hard stuff, he wanted some. Booze didn’t affect him like it did the humans, and it was a vice he’d be hard-pressed to give up.

“What can I get you to drink, sugar?” The busty server leaned forward, the stench of cigarettes and rank perfume wafting off her faux-tanned skin. Eyeballing him as if he were a juicy steak, she planted a hand onto the table and leaned down further, her medically enhanced breasts threatening to topple out of her too tight corset.

Ty clenched his jaw and fought the urge to gag. Busty Mathilda was sooo not his type. Easy and overused was unattractive; a cold hard fact no amount of alcohol would change. Breathing through his mouth, he shot her a quick answer. “Tequila. I’ll start with the bottle. We’ll see where things go from there.”

She shook her head and frowned. “Sorry, baby. That’s a no go. What I can do, though, is take you into the back room and…”

Ty slapped a hundred dollar bill onto the table and glared at the waitress whose piercing voice threatened to shatter his eardrums.

“Bring. Me. The. Bottle—” he glanced down at Busty’s nametag, “—Kathi.”

Wide-eyed and greedy, Kathi nodded her head and thankfully hurried away to fill his drink order. Several other scantily clad barflies approached him looking for a good time, only to be swatted away in similar fashion.

With his tanned skin, muscular build and messy blond hair, he knew he was attractive. A favored warrior of Athena, he’d been blessed at birth with the gifts of beauty, strength and agility. There wasn’t a female on the planet immune to his presence and striking good looks.

The truth of the matter was, though he secretly yearned to find his life mate, Ty didn’t have time for romantic entanglements, and he was damn sick of anonymous sex. Thank fuck his job left little time for either. The chase, the hunt…those were the only things keeping him going, the only things fueling his step.

Ty cursed under his breath and raked a hand through his hair. “Damn you, Athena. Even your blessings turn out to be a curse! I—”

An electrical shock, searing hot and powerful blazed through his frame, hardening his cock and stirring the predatory beast within.
What the fuck…
He scanned the unruly crowd and was broadsided by an aura the likes of which he’d never encountered. So bright, so pure, he found himself craning his neck in the direction of the bar as he searched for its origin.

Another jolt of desire shot through him, causing his skin to tingle and his already granite hard cock to stiffen and jerk. There! There she was.
Sweet, Blessed Aphrodite…
He couldn’t see her face under the odd, alien mask. But given the magnificence of her body, he knew she was beautiful. Thin, but curvy in all the right places, the female sported a perfect pair of what he was sure were all natural breasts, and a round, tight ass that sent his libido into overdrive. He was an ass man, and hers…
oh yeah
—it was sheer perfection. A low rumble vibrated through his chest, his beast equally attracted to the unknown waif.

Rocked by his body’s immediate, primal reaction to her, he gnashed his teeth and swiped a hand over his face.
Slow your roll, Ty. This girl is nothing to you. Remember your mission! Remember your mission!
Unable to tear his eyes off of her, he sat sweating and impatient as she slowly turned and scanned the area, her gaze finally settling on him.

Great Zeus above
! The heat of her hidden stare sent every last drop of blood in his body straight to his aching Johnson.
Goddamn alien getup!
He wanted to see her eyes, wanted to feel her gaze piercing through him without the weight of her mask coming between them.

“Fuck!” he muttered under his breath, as she slowly began walking toward him. He didn’t have time for this. Not with a demon running loose throughout Arcane.
Shit.
Now was not the time to give in to his lust. Even if the pull toward the angelic little alien was more powerful than anything he’d ever experienced.

With his jaw clenched, he centered himself, doing his best to rein in his lust and dampen his inner beast. He might have been successful had he not caught a whiff of her delectable scent. A heady mix of citrus and flowers filled Ty’s senses. His lion roared from deep within, his attraction to her magnifying ten-fold, threatening to blow the top off his cock. Who was this little minx, and why was he so drawn to her?

She sidled up to his table like sex on wheels. “Here you go: one bottle of tequila and a shot glass. Can I get you anything else?”

Her voice was sheer perfection. Muffled by the annoying mask, he could still make out its smooth tone and gentle lilt.
Great Zeus!
He was dying to hear her clearly and needed to see her face. There was no question in his mind, no hesitation. That damn mask of hers had to go. He needed to see her, and he needed to see her now.

Ty leaned forward and raised a brow. Lifting a hand, he hooked his finger, signaling her to move closer. When she stepped forward, he whispered in her ear. “As a matter of fact, you
can
do something else for me.” He felt the corners of his mouth pull up into a wide grin. “Take off that wretched mask so I can see your face.”