Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“It’s an issue of consent.”
The female paused and looked over her shoulder, her breath leaving her red lips in clouds that disappeared over her head. “What a human doesn’t know—”
“They can’t agree to. Just because we can get into their memories, doesn’t mean we should.”
Mharta laughed. “Well, at least we won’t have to worry about the bouncers. You can take that right off your conscience.”
As the female resumed her march of superiority, her stride became more exaggerated, all watch-this—and sure enough, as she approached the two big men, they strong-armed others out of the way like they were parting a crowd of concertgoers for the rock star everybody had been waiting for.
“She’s with me,” Mharta tossed over her shoulder.
All sorts of yes-ma’am spun around like flurries falling from the winter sky, so pleasing—and neither of the men spared even a glance at Nalla’s parka or her jeans. And they weren’t wincing like their heads hurt, or rubbing their temples, either. So no mental manipulation.
Then again, Lycra over a body like that was its own form of mind control. Especially with men who thought with their little heads as opposed to their big ones.
Inside, Mharta’s reception was the same. People got out of the way, and not because they were scared. They were in awe, and even the music seemed to change its bass beat to match tempo with that toe-heel strut.
Must be nice, Nalla thought as she glanced around the dim interior. To dictate the world around you, instead of the other way around—
A human man bumped into her, part of whatever was in the six glasses he had corralled between his hands splashing onto her sleeve. With her super-sensitive nose, it was like taking an inhale directly through the neck of a gin bottle, and as a chaser, he shot her a glare, even though he’d been the one with the swerve.
“Sorry,” she muttered because she didn’t want trouble. When he kept on going, she rolled her eyes. “And Bitty thinks this is evolving?”
“What was that?” Mharta said while ignoring all the men around her.
Then again, maybe she was blinded by the blue and purple laser beams that shot through the music, ocular superheroes with nothing to save—or how about the floor that glowed, all blue lava without the heat. More likely, she was so used to the attention, it was like the air she breathed, something that was taken for granted even though it was necessary.
One thing about being a social worker? You learned a lot about how people operated, and the Mhartas of the world had a tendency to feed off the adoration they ignored, their boredom with it a calculated shield so nobody knew how much the ones they shunned mattered. Nalla had to try to fix a lot of the problems created by folks with that kind of attitude. In young. In partners who had been mistreated. In parents who were at the ends of their ropes. She did her best not to become jaded, but as somebody who connected deeply with her clients, it was hard not to be.
“Where are we going?” she asked because she didn’t like the generalizations she was making in her head. However true they might be.
“You don’t know?” The female glanced over, her hair shifting like a silk scarf down her back. “We’re behind the velvet rope.”
Some distance later, which probably wasn’t all that far but felt like a mile or two, Mharta stopped in front of an archway guarded by another pair of bouncers. Unlike at the front entrance, these guys were in black suits and thin ties, and instead of seventy-five pounds of extra muscle and a matched set of don’t-fuck-with-me frowns, this twosome looked like they used the pen, rather than the sword, to make their cuts.
And once again the unclipping of the velvet rope—yes, it truly was velvet, and blue—and the brisk nods through were too immediate to have been a mental trick on Mharta’s part.
Things were no quieter in the VIP section, but they were certainly less crowded. Instead of all kinds of humans milling around a dance floor where people with little rhythm were having sex with their clothes on, sunken seating areas that could hold a dozen or so I’m-cooler-than-you’s populated the floor plan like separate and distinct rooms: Each sectional was bathed—natch—in a different shade of blue. There was robin’s egg Tiffany, middle-of-the-road sapphire, a bright teal, a lavender-ish periwinkle.
She didn’t need her tour guide’s direction to know which one their group had claimed. In the far corner by the emergency exit, there was a black-light glow, the midnight color falling from the ceiling so dense and dark, it was as if a void had opened up to claim the weak of mind and heart.
Nalla’s eyes adjusted quick as she focused on the darkness, and she recognized some of the faces: Ahgony and his best friend, Bedlam. Rhamp and his fraternal twin, Lyric. And laying back in a sprawl, yet somehow still taller than the others, L.W., the heir to the throne. There were also others who ran with the pack who she didn’t know, even though she’d seen them once or twice before.