Devil's Gate: Elder Races, Book 3 Read Online Free Page A

intoxicatingly underneath her creamy light green skin. “You are?”
    “I am. Now, don’t argue with me,” he said as she took in a quick breath. He began to wonder just how far she would let him push her. In wondering where her boundaries might be, and what she might do should he cross them, he began to enjoy her even more than he had before. “Just do as I say.”
    She shut her mouth with an audible click. “Can’t. Won’t. Don’t. You’ve used a lot of archaic-sounding prohibitives in the last fifteen minutes.”
    He could tell she wasn’t really angry. She was, ever so gently, warning him not to go too far. It pleased him so much he ran the tip of a finger very lightly down her cheek. “You might have noticed, my dear,” he murmured. “I happen to be a nineteenth century kind of a guy.”
     
    He left her sputtering and rosier than ever, and he spent a pleasant ride in the elevator to the basement garage wondering what she would say to him when he picked her up. A few minutes later, he called Carling and Rune’s house. Rune picked up.
    Carling was a Vampyre, but Rune wasn’t. Rune was Wyr, and just under a year ago he had been First sentinel for Dragos Cuelebre, Lord of the Wyr in New York, until he had mated with Carling. Rune and Carling had relocated to Miami, and for several months they had been gathering underutilized talent from across several different demesnes.
    Now Rune and Carling were setting up an international consulting agency so that they could put to use the talent they had gathered around them. Some parts of the agency, such as consultations with the Oracle, would be operated on a sliding scale fee, and other parts would be profit-based only. Carling must have told Rune about Seremela’s email, or perhaps Rune had read it for himself.
    “Seremela and I need to fly to Reno,” Duncan told Carling’s mate.
    “Yo-okay,” said Rune. “Duncan, you dog.”
    “You had to go there,” Duncan said. He smiled to himself as he negotiated the afternoon traffic. He liked Rune. They had learned to work well together when they had traveled to the Dark Fae Other land of Adriyel to see Niniane Lorelle safely to her coronation as the Dark Fae Queen.
    “Seriously, is everything all right?”
    “I hope so. Seremela has a runaway niece who has ended up at Devil’s Gate, of all places.” He paused briefly as he listened to Rune mutter a curse. “We’re going to extract her from the situation and escort her home to her mother.”
    “Anything we can do?”
    One of the first acquisitions their brand new consulting agency had purchased was a private jet that could seat up to twelve people and that had the capacity for international travel. They were serious about the agency and were allocating enough money to set it up with top notch resources.
    Of course Duncan was well aware that the plane also had the capacity to travel quite comfortably across the continental U.S.
    “It would be nice,” Duncan said, “to get to Nevada as quickly as possible before her niece has a chance to get hurt.”
    “Is this urgent enough to bargain away a favor to a Djinn?”
    Duncan gave the question serious consideration. Most people had never even met a Djinn. Still fewer were able to draw a Djinn’s attention long enough to bargain with one. Duncan and Seremela were acquainted with Khalil and could talk with him, but Khalil’s Djinn sensibilities were such that he would probably see nothing wrong with bargaining with them for a favor in return. While the situation at Devil’s Gate was unsafe and volatile, owing a favor to a Djinn could be an expensive and even more dangerous business over the long haul.
    He said, “I don’t think so. Still, we should get there quickly.”
    “I’ll have the plane fueled and on the tarmac inside an hour,” Rune said.
    “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
    “I wish Seremela had felt comfortable enough to ask us herself.”
    “Borrowing a plane is quite a big favor to ask, Rune,”