Spell Bound

Spell Bound Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Gods be damned, there he was, Mr. Brown, their supposed savior, drinking himself into a stupor.

For the third night in a row.

Shea grabbed the pole in the center of the catwalk and gave the few men sitting in the Spyder Club’s front row a good view of her naked breasts as she swung around a second time. She needed the tips.

While the midnight regulars lining the catwalk ogled her, Mr. Brown never glanced toward the stage from his table in the back corner. She didn’t think he even realized there was a dancer up there.

The dark-haired man with the don’t-fuck-with-me expression probably wouldn’t recognize her if he fell over her on the street, which was a distinct possibility at the rate he was sucking down tequila.

Great. Just great. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

She barely heard the throbbing beat of the Black-Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” as she went through her bump-and-grind. She knew it well enough not to trip over her four-inch, stiletto heels. But the chill spreading through her body scared her.

Four days ago, she’d called the number in the phone book, the one she and Leo had found using the locator spell.

A female voice had said hello but when Shea had asked for Mr. Brown, she’d been told he was unavailable and would she liked to talk to Mr. Blue?

Her mother’s letter mentioned only one name. Mr. Brown. Not Mr. Blue. She’d hung up without answering.

That night after work, she and Leo had cased the street listed in the phone book. They’d scrutinized every building for ten blocks and she had known immediately which house was Mr. Brown’s. The Etruscan runes carved around the door like decoration gave it away.

They’d parked and staked out the house, her ’72 Dodge Dart blending in among the older Plymouths and Chevys on the street. Later that night, an unfamiliar dark-haired man had walked into the building.

They’d left without knocking on his door.

Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d approach him tomorrow.

But the next night, that man had taken up residence at that table and begun to drink. And drink. And he’d returned to that table every night since.

He hadn’t said a word to anyone except Harry. Of course, “Give me the bottle” wasn’t exactly conversation.

This was the man her mother wanted her to entrust with Leo’s life?

Uh, no. She didn’t think so. Not until she’d learned a lot more about him.

* * *

“Leo? Hey, hon, I’m back.”

Shea shut the door to the dressing room behind her, walking through the cluttered space to throw the few scraps of material she’d stripped off on stage in her cubby.

“Shit, you done already?” Vibia groaned at the makeup mirror, outlining pale blue eyes with black liner, dark hair already teased and sprayed into carefully tousled waves. “Guess I better get a move on. You know how Marci gets when I’m late. What a bitch.”

Shea just shrugged her shoulder. No way was she getting between the two lucaniversipelli. Skin-shifter tempers were infamously short, particularly the Etruscan wolves, who had the whole Latin temperament going against them, too.

The fur would fly, literally, if the women shifted into their wolves and went after each other.

“Hey, Vi, is Leo in the bathroom?”