AFamiliarFace Read Free

she couldn’t help turning back to Rattler’s suggestion. The duvet looked soft, inviting.
    The bed seemed as close to heaven as she might ever get. Without another thought, she lay down and sighed at the feel of silk under her tired and aching muscles. She closed her eyes, and in seconds sank deep into the comfort of sleep.
    Minutes or hours might have passed when a noise interrupted her rest. Shouts and moans, what sounded like fighting and impossibly, sex, increased in volume until she couldn’t stand it. That curiosity again. But at least she felt refreshed. She mentally thanked Rattler for her small nap.
    A loud thunk rapped the wall outside the door, and she heard what she imagined to be cursing and threats in a foreign language. Opening the door, she came face to face with a man who could have been Rattler’s twin. He had shoulder length black hair, gray skin, and a snake tattoo curled around his muscular body. A leather kilt wrapped around his waist, over which a thick belt rested. Straps crossed over his chest and attached to the belt. She could make out the hilts of crossed swords behind him, caged in a back harness, she guessed.
    All in all, this guy looked like a hunky hero from the historical romances she liked so much. But none of them had ever featured gray-skinned warriors.
    She had to clear her throat. Unlike his twin Rattler, nothing about this guy felt comfortable or safe. He easily could have passed for security, as big as an ox and wearing a mantle of menace over those brawny shoulders. Her blood heated and her heart raced, in fear and surprising arousal, and worried her more than she liked. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d even fantasized about sex.
    “Um, Rattler said it was okay to be up here.”
    His eyes widened and he stared down at her—way down—his gaze first suspicious, then bolder. His study moved from her face, lingering over her lips, to her breasts and the slim expanse of abdomen showcased by her cropped shirt. She had an urge to cross her arms over her chest, doubly so when her nipples peaked under his regard.
    “ Cuwenicu ,” murmured throughout the crowd, and she was momentarily distracted by the foreign word.
     Without warning, he latched onto her wrists and pulled her from the room. The minute the door closed behind her, he let her go, and the Lounge fell into complete and utter silence.  
    “Hey buddy, what the hell is your prob…lem?” She trailed off as she watched his eyes turn into something she’d never before seen. As a witch, Mallory knew all about the otherworldly creatures in existence—the vampires, ghouls, shifters and mages that wandered her neighborhood. But this guy… He didn’t fit into any category she knew.
    She glanced nervously around her and couldn’t help gaping at what looked like a Rattler family reunion. Every single male in the place had height, muscles, and gray skin. Several had hair, but none sported any body piercing that she could see. She turned back to the one responsible for pulling her out of her safe haven. Good night, but his eyes! Moonlight and fairy dust, this guy wasn’t human. Wasn’t otherworldly, either. But what he was, she didn’t yet know.
    His eyes, at first a vibrant gray-green, changed, the pupils thinning and elongating as the irises took over the whites of his eyes. His teeth lengthened, not just his incisors like the fangs of a vampire, but his entire mouth , and his skin started hardening, resembling iridescent scales more than flesh. He didn’t transform into a snake. And no shifter that she knew of could remain between forms. You were either human or animal, but not both.  His teeth didn’t look like they belonged to any vampire she’d ever met. Besides, this guy was gray and now shiny, but not white. The language he’d been speaking hadn’t been anything she recognized.
    He hissed at her, and the rumbling all around her returned to normal.
    “Look, I’m not sure what all this is about.”