Banshee Seduction (Montgomery's Sin Book 1) (3 page)

Roni tucked her hair behind her ear and gave her a sympathetic smile. “We’ve only been here fifteen minutes.”

“Oh.” Was that all? She blew out an impatient breath as Roni handed her a glass of champagne from the bottle she’d just ordered. It seemed like forever already, and so much for the magic seven. The other girls had taken off immediately to gyrate all over the dance floor.

With a quick scan of the room, Ginny believed she would do some serious damage to her insides if she attempted to move the way those women did. She’d had to suck in her stomach until it was concave just to walk into the place.

Roni was being kind by sticking with her at the bar. Music vibrated up through the floorboards and bounced off the walls, making her heartbeat uneven and staccato. She scanned the room. She’d never seen so many peculiar-looking folk. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear some of them weren’t human. Montgomery’s Sin seemed to have attracted a clientele from all walks of life.

She whipped her gaze away from the huge guy with the tattoo on his neck that ran riot and escaped up his face. Holy cow, it was hardly the serenity she was comfortable with in the library.

“Your eyes look as though they’re about to pop out of your head. Have a drink, relax. Maybe when you stop looking like a rabbit in the headlights, someone will come over.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.” There was no one there she wanted to have come over. She glanced around again. Especially not the big guy with long hair and wild smile, swamped with the other five women she and Roni had arrived with. Far too scary. A savage, he vaguely resembled a wolf. He caught her eye and gave her a feral grin, enough to bump her heart up into her throat. Fear coated her tongue and made her mouth dry.

She took a big gulp of her champagne. The bubbles fizzed wild and uncontrolled up her nose to push her adrenaline levels even higher as she gasped for breath. She slapped the glass down on the bar and shot through to the nearby ladies’ room, smacking the stall door shut behind her just as she burst into a fireball. Her atomic elements deconstructed and reformed in the blink of an ion, leaving her feeble and listless.

“Are you okay in there?” Roni tapped on the cubicle door, anxiety lacing her voice.

“Yeah.” Weak beyond measure, Ginny slipped the latch and let the door swing open while she collapsed on the closed toilet seat and breathed deeply. Roni handed her the champagne glass she’d left behind, and this time she sipped as Roni eyed her from the doorway.

“Your dress is fine.”

“Yup.” Her heart steadied, and she took another sip of the golden nectar. “It’s okay as long as it’s quick and there isn’t a whole host of wailers.” And boy, was that quick! She’d had no idea it was about to happen. Whatever it was about the place that put her on high alert, she’d never combusted quite as fast as that before.

She sighed and stared at her nails. In distress, she waved her fingers at Roni to show her the immaculate silver nail polish she’d spent precious time applying had gone.

“Toast.”

Roni leaned against the doorframe and stared at her with such concerned intensity, Ginny’s stomach churned. Guilt rolled thickly at the thought of further spoiling her best friend’s evening, and she opened her mouth to suggest she should go home. She closed it again as two women came bustling through the outer door, giggling and fanning their faces.

Their dress was conservative, their make-up immaculate, but they acted like a pair of teenagers as they fluttered into the room, fanning themselves with their hands. Ginny tilted her head to get a better look. They easily had to be in their forties. She caught the frenetic gaze of the darker-haired woman, who needed no encouragement to speak. “They’re here. The New York Chameleons have arrived—and The Dane is with them.”

“Wow.” Roni fluffed her wild red curls as Ginny’s heart dropped to her stomach. Her option to go had just evaporated. There was no way Roni would allow her to sneak away unless she was quick. She tried to catch her friend’s attention as Roni bestowed a vampish smile on the plump ladies before she turned to Ginny. The redhead narrowed her eyes at her. “You want me to take you home?”

“No.” It wasn’t going to happen. If the team had arrived fifteen minutes later, she could have made her escape, but the whole reason for Roni bringing her had just entered the place en masse.

“I’m sorry. I’m spoiling your evening.” She knew she was being pathetic, but really—it was tiring, all this bursting into flames every time something a little out of the ordinary happened. She was on Earth to be ordinary, but it didn’t seem to be working out too well lately. Certainly whatever strange atmosphere there was in Montgomery’s Sin seemed to have affected her more than ever.

She gave Roni a weak smile and watched the other woman’s expression toughen up.

“You’re not. But you will if you don’t come on out there and play with the boys.”

“I don’t think I can.” She heaved in a panicked breath. She was going to burst into flames in front of everyone, and then what would happen?

“What’s the matter with her?” One of the women poked her head around the compartment door.

“She’s shy.” Roni tapped her talons against the doorframe.

“Looking like that? You’re kidding.”

Insult bubbled at the woman’s tone, and Ginny’s lips parted, ready for a reply.

“I dressed her,” Roni confessed, a wry smile on her perfect lips, and Ginny wondered if the place had caused her to overreact.

“Ahhh.” All three women stared at Ginny from the doorway. The older two nodded wisely as though it explained everything, and her breath came in shorter, harder hitches.

“I can’t breathe.”

The blonde woman leaned in, hauled her to her feet, and before she could heave in another lungful of air, the lady dragged her through the booth door into the main bathroom area.

“I’m not surprised, honey. Your lungs must be crushed flat in that dress. You need to stand. I wish I could pour my body into something so delicious. Here…” The woman wrangled her in front of the bank of mirrors, shoved a comb into her free hand, and gave an insistent nudge of the champagne glass toward Ginny’s lips. “You need to drink up. It’ll give you Dutch courage. You’re going to need it with those boys on the rampage, especially when they get an eyeful of your skin in that slutty little dress.”

Ginny choked on her drink, and the woman gave her a hearty slap between her shoulders. She caught the reflection of her own eyes in the mirror just as they started to glow an ethereal, icy cobalt, and wondered how long the woman had to live. She didn’t really have the power to kill anyone, but the screeching chorus she conducted in her head could sure as hell make the woman’s ears bleed. Ginny just had to concentrate on not letting the sound escape from her mouth. The whole swirling ice storm in her eyes was just a glimpse into the blizzard in her soul.

“Wow.” The darker-haired lady stepped in close and stared hard into her face. “I love your contact lenses. Where did you get them?”

Voices screamed inside her head, and she tried her best to contain them. She licked her lips, and a brief swell of noise emitted from her throat, making her wonder how the heck the women weren’t bleeding by now.

The blonde gave a comforting rub between her shoulder blades. “Oh, honey, maybe you shouldn’t drink champagne. You sound like you have gas.”

The three of them stood in front of the bank of mirrors, and Ginny pursed her lips in a tight pout while she allowed her gaze to scan them all.

The two older women fussed, touching each other’s hair and smoothing one another’s clothes, full of genuine kindness and sweet concern, no different than they had shown her, and Ginny suddenly started to giggle. She’d been about to incinerate the darker-haired one for no other reason than her own fear and panic. The way she was feeling, Ginny was pretty sure she could send someone else up in a ball of flames if she concentrated hard enough. She looked them over. These sweet ladies didn’t deserve it.

One of the women rummaged in her purse and produced a red lipstick. Ginny hoped she wasn’t about to lick her thumb and scrub it across some imagined blemish on her face like her mother used to. She smiled. There was a similar look to them that meant the two small women were possibly related to each other, but their attitude reminded her of her mother.

“I think this is your color, sweetie. Put it on. Blot. Go get a big handsome football player. Maybe you should tug your dress down an extra inch. You don’t want the boys to get the wrong impression.”

As she tottered out of the bathroom on her mile-high heels behind Roni, she had the distinct feeling something strange had just occurred, but the heat in her skin had cooled, and her heart rate had returned to normal.

Ginny smoothed her hands over her dress and raised her chin. She was going to be a brave banshee.

•●•

The small dark-haired woman leaned closer to the mirror and patted a little powder across the top of her nose. She rubbed her lips together and gave a smile as she met the eyes of the blonde next to her.

“Do you think she recognized us, Lorna?”

“No, but I thought she was going to zap you hard, Ellie. Honest, her eyes got that look, just like when she was little, all icy twinkling stars.”

“I would have zapped her back twice as hard—just like I did when she was little.”

“Well, that would have given the game away, wouldn’t it? It’s not what we’re here for. We’re supposed to be lending a helping hand.” Lorna smoothed a finger across her arched eyebrows and then dusted her hands off as she turned from the mirror and met her sister’s gaze. “I think the vampire made us, though. Notice how she stayed in the doorway away from the mirror?”

“Oh yeah, she knew what we were. She can’t know we’re Ginny’s aunties, though. Not unless she’s a mind reader.”

“Well, she is a vampire.”

“Not really. I spoke with her aunty the other day. She’s mortified Roni is living as a human. She can’t believe the girl won’t suck blood like she’s supposed to. Apparently, the poor child faints at the thought. Always has done since they turned her. She was a vegetarian. Her aunt’s going to send someone to get her back soon. She said Roni’s had quite long enough to sulk.”

“Yeah, but our baby’s not coming back. She needs to live here. She has far too gentle a disposition to live with all those banshee girls. We just have to make sure she finds her mate here on Earth.”

“Is he here?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but this is the first time I’ve ever known a gathering place for creatures of the underworld in the Earth domain. I’m amazed at how many Montgomery has attracted in so short a time.”

“They say he bested the devil and came back to Earth to punish the humans who’d sent him to Hell.”

“Hmmm, maybe so. He’s certainly attracted a lot of darkness.”

•●•