Читать книгу Strangers of the Night - Меган Харт - Страница 14

Chapter 5

It was a rare day when Persephone didn’t have anything going on. No repairs to make or schedule for the building. No appointments with the small but consistent stable of men who paid her to be the woman of their dreams...or sometimes, nightmares, depending. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken feeling semi-rested, without even a tinge of anxiety following her around.

It wouldn’t last, she thought as she headed out into the morning, taking the concrete steps at the front of the building two at a time so she could get to the bodega on the corner for a cup of coffee and a candy bar. Caffeine and chocolate in hand, she was already tearing open the plastic when she bumped head-on, literally, into a man as solid as brick. She hit him hard enough to bounce off, stumbling back.

“Watch it,” she muttered, preparing to push past him.

The guy snagged the sleeve of her sweatshirt, turning her to face him. Persephone was already working, shifting, smoothing the lines and curves of her face to look like someone else. Dark hair instead of bright red-gold. Big tits. Tight top. His eyes went right there, and even if she hadn’t masked her face he’d have barely paid attention, so taken was he by the sight of her knockers.

Men, she thought with a sneer. So predictable.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “You seen her?”

The picture he pulled up on his phone was blurred, but definitely her. Thank god she’d automatically put on the glamour for him. The question was, why did he have a picture of her in the first place?

“Nope. Never,” Persephone said. “What’d she do?”

She thought he might say she owed him, or someone he was working for, money. That she was part of a scam. That she’d been caught up in a kinky prostitution ring, and he was part of the sting operation.

“Nothing.” Something in his cold, dead eyes left her shivering. “Just looking for her.”

Then he backed up and kept walking, leaving her behind. She watched him go, knowing that if he turned to glance back, she would still look like someone else. Uncertain if, in the end, it would matter. If a man like that was on her trail, she might be in trouble sooner rather than later.

He was from Wyrmwood. She felt it. He wasn’t one of the soldier guys who’d raided Collins Creek; they were drones that followed orders. This guy was the advance scout, sniffing around to see if he could catch wind of her anywhere.

And if he found out where she really was, Persephone thought, then the other men would come.

Then, they would try to take her away.