Free Redeeming the Night by Kristine Overbrook Page A

Latina guises and chose seats at the center bar. Over several hours, they watched him and who he approached.
    He was buying drinks for girls too young to be in the club in the first place. He was hunting too. Finally, one of the young women giggled to her friends and kept looking in his direction. The hunter grinned, not in excitement like his quarry, but in satisfaction.
    Nichole and Ashley exchanged a glance. The hunter had found his prey. And they’d found theirs. With a nod to Ashley, Nichole moved off to the ladies’ room to change her appearance. He would be hers so she would be the lure.
    Ashley stayed in place and in her current form and watched the girls move closer to the hunter. Gazelles, not realizing they were being stalked.
    With her friends surrounding her, the hunter’s target remained safe. Separated from the herd she’d be easy pickins. The way she kept looking in his direction, she seemed to be waiting for his signal to approach, ready to break away at any moment.
    The hunter pushed away from the wall. Crap, the bastard didn’t waste time. Even as she moved to intercept the girl Ashley scanned the crowd for Nichole. She finally spotted her, in the form of a petite blonde, wide-eyed and well-endowed, just leaving the ladies’ room.
    Nichole only needed another minute or two, so Ashley retrieved a discarded, half-full glass and bumped into the innocent girl, dumping the dregs of a strawberry daiquiri down the front of her blouse.
    “Oh, crap, I’m sorry.” Ashley slurred her speech and swayed, grabbing a napkin off a nearby table to dab at the blouse.
    “Oh my God!” The girl fanned her hands in the air and backed away from Ashley’s napkin.
    The girl’s friends surrounded her immediately and ushered her off to the bathroom. Ashley stumbled up to the nearby bar and ordered a daiquiri to keep in character. She didn’t want to tip the hunter off.
    Then she heard Nichole make her move. Did he have the time? Ashley nearly flinched, the line was so transparent, but then any line delivered with vacant wide eyes was believable.
    Ashley turned and leaned against the bar. With peripheral vision, she watched Nichole talk to the hunter, yelling in his ear and occasionally giggling when he yelled in hers.
    All that was required of Ashley now was to watch and wait.
    • • •
    Once back in his hotel room Eric sat at the small table by the window. The evening had been a great way to blow off steam. He hadn’t had a night with the guys in ages. Mostly because once he’d left the force he didn’t feel right going to McDaniel’s, the local cop bar.
    He glanced at the desk with the work folders on top. Then at the large empty bed. The bed reminded him he was alone, which in turn gave him an image of the woman he’d met at the bar. She was human, but also something more. She intrigued him, more than any case he’d ever worked.
    At one time in his life he would have been attracted by her beauty. Her smile. Her eyes. Knowing that her looks weren’t the real her, he struggled to determine what caused his instant attraction. Her scent? The way she seemed to see into him? Whatever it was, he needed to forget her. A supernatural woman with far too many secrets, he would never be able to trust her. Nothing good could come from that woman.

Chapter 6
    Ashley sipped her daiquiri and studied the club. A large dance floor surrounded a central bar and was packed with couples gyrating to the pace of the music.
    One of the blessings of the sisterhood was that alcohol and other deleterious substances had no effect. On some nights, Ashley would have given her right arm to be able to numb her mind and drift like the humans around her. Like she used to.
    When she’d been mortal she’d drunk. In the beginning, she did it to feel warm and fuzzy. Just a way to relax and unwind. But then after she got married it became a way to escape. Her husband hadn’t been an ass when they met. He was strong and possessive, but in that