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Muffled music seeped inside, the floor vibrating a little beneath us.
“I had it under control,” Ciara snapped, collapsing onto a tufted settee.
Her brother crossed his arms, leaning against the closed door. He glanced at me. “Cate, will you please tell her that tiny human females cannot lift two-hundred-pound men without raising some suspicions?” But I shook my head. I was not getting in the middle of this. He sighed. “Lach will flip if someone got a picture of it.”
“Who cares? Lach can cover it up. It’s his city,” Titania butted in. The statuesque brunette seemed to vacillate between being the life of the party and stirring up drama. Or, given what she’d just said, maybe she just spilled whatever bullshit popped into her head without thinking.
Shaw threw his hands up. “Because that guy was an NFL linebacker. It’s a lot harder to get a—”
“Blah. Blah. Blah,” Ciara cut him off as she slipped out of the pearl-studded Louboutins that she’d purchased earlier at Saks. “More importantly, my feet hurt. Rub them?” She shot Shaw a dazzling smile, but he grimaced.
I refrained from reminding her of my warning that six-inch stiletto heels were ambitious, even for a fae. Instead, I dutifully sat next to her and patted my lap. She grinned as she plopped her feet onto it.
Titania pretended to gag. “I can’t believe you would do that.”
“This?” I couldn’t help laughing. “I’m a nurse. This is nothing.”
“A nurse? You have a job?”
“Human, remember?” I held a hand to a round ear. Titania’s gaze narrowed on it and lingered, like she might just be realizing this.
Ciara yawned, mumbling a complaint that I’d stopped. “I’m exhausted.”
Titania glowered. “It’s not even midnight. You can’t be tapping out yet.”
“I’m probably just tired because I had way too much sex last night.” Ciara giggled.
Still safely across the room, Shaw groaned. “I did not need to hear that.”
“What were you doing last night?” Ciara called back cheerily, not the least bit embarrassed. Meanwhile, Shaw’s cheeks matched his hair. She swung her feet off my lap. “And don’t worry, I’m not that tired. Where should we go next?”
“Home,” Shaw offered.
Relieved of my duties, I decided to let them debate what happened next and beelined for the private bar. I fished a few bottles of water out of its reach-in and held one against my cheek, still trying to cool down from spending the last hour packed with hundreds of others into the club like tiny, happy sardines.
“Can I have one, or are they all spoken for?” Sirius leaned against the marble bar and pointed to the water bottle in my hand.
“Sure.” I tossed him one. Not that he really needed it.
There wasn’t a drop of sweat on his forehead, while I was busy peeling plastered strands of hair from mine. Despite Ciara’s complaints about her feet and exhaustion, she looked absolutely flawless as well. They all did. It was hardly fair to be blessed with immortality and such impressive stamina.
“You look a little tired yourself,” he said softly. “Not having fun?”
My eyes strayed to Titania, who had joined in the debate about our plans. “I’m just waiting to get stabbed in the back.”
He followed my gaze and nodded. “Fae can be a little weird around humans,” he said as I took a swig from the water bottle, “and I don’t think anyone expected to see Lach with one.”
I choked, spraying the bar with water. Everyone looked over at me, but I waved them off with a weak smile. “Wrong pipe.” The others went back to their bickering as I wiped the counter with a napkin. “Lachlan and I are…” I stopped. I wasn’t really sure what we were. Finally, I settled on, “Complicated.”
Sirius chuckled. “Something complicated between a man and a woman? That would be a first.”
“But we aren’t together,” I said, keeping my voice low enough that I wouldn’t attract anyone else to this conversation. “Is that why she hates me? Because I’m human?”
“After the war, things changed between our species.”
“War?” This was the first I was hearing about any war.
“World War Two,” he said to my surprise. He must have noticed my eyebrows flick up, because he continued, “Officially the last time fae participated in a war effort to help humanity.”