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until the waiter who’d just dropped off their drinks left again. “They’ve got a good recruiter. They don’t need that many hunters, but hey, it gives people a break from fighting Hell all the time. That can get kind of old after a while.”
    Colin snorted. “A good recruiter? What, are they offering sign-on bonuses?”
    Luca’s smile broadened into one Colin and Anna both recognized and they didn’t need him to explain, but they knew he would anyway. “Oh, you’ve got to meet her. I’ve gotta keep my angel away from this woman, or she may tempt him into falling.”
    Anna crossed her arms and scowled at him. “That’s a myth, and you know it. Angels don’t fall over sex. They don’t even have bodies like ours. Men wrote the Bible, and men are just obsessed with sex.”
    Colin and Luca nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s pretty much true,” Luca said.
    “So you think she’s hot, and that’s how she’s getting so many guys to become hunters.” Anna studied Luca, because the smirk hiding behind his eyes told her he was up to something.
    “I’m pretty sure that’s what she’s doing, because she’s trying to recruit me.”
    Colin groaned. “God, Luca, what did you do?”
    “ You know better than to ever ask him a question like that, ” Anna warned him.
    “Not her yet, if that’s what you mean,” Luca responded.
    “ See? ” Anna chided.
    Colin pretended to read his menu.
    “ Coward. ” Anna didn’t want to be left alone in this conversation with Luca, but Colin didn’t look up.
    “I told her I was traveling with a couple of other hunters, and she wants to meet you both tomorrow,” Luca continued. “She just thinks we’re drifters. She doesn’t know anything about us, obviously. But networking is always a good idea.”
    “ Colin Aedan O’Conner, you have two seconds to put that menu down and get me out of this, or I swear to God … ” Anna didn’t have a chance to finish. Colin dropped his menu and told Luca using them as any part of his plan to try to sleep with this woman wasn’t going to happen.
    Luca held his hands up. “Hey, I’m serious. Networking is advantageous. Everyone knows that.”
    “Not when you’re immortal, Luca,” Colin grumbled. For the most part, it was true. Years had a way of flying by without them realizing how many had passed, and so often, it seemed that soon, friends they thought should still be young and healthy were old and dying.
    Luca leaned back into his booth and his eyes darted between them. “You should still meet her. If we’re going to stick around here for a while, it would be smart to get to know the local hunters so we don’t step on any toes.”
    “Now you’re using your brain,” Anna smiled.
    Luca glanced up and raised a hand. “I’m glad you think so, because I actually asked her to meet us here tonight.”
    Anna kicked him under the table and he tried to keep the pain from registering on his face as an attractive woman with chestnut hair and hazel eyes approached their table. She was wearing dark slacks and a tight salmon pink top, and Anna tried not to think it, but the thought emerged anyway. “ Bet you those aren’t real. ”
    Colin pressed his lips together. “ We can find out from Luca soon enough .”
    She reached their table and the hunters stood to greet the leader of the Denver group. Luca introduced them. “Lacey, this is Colin and Anna.” They shook her hand and Anna still found herself thinking things she shouldn’t be thinking. She was never this catty. “ Lacey? I was expecting something …”
    “Trampier?”
    “Is that a word?”
    “Sure. In ancient Gaelic.”
    “Smartass.”
    Luca was shooting them stop-being-so-weird looks, because they’d gotten quiet with their private conversation, and Anna realized they were still staring at her. “Sorry,” she fumbled. “We’re just still exhausted from the long drive.”
    Lacey offered a sympathetic smile and Luca extended an arm for her to sit on the