Free Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3) by Regan Summers

the heat, but caught myself. A superior vampire wouldn’t apologize for such a thing, and we were maintaining protocol. The key turned with a solid thunk. “Have you been standing out here all day?”
    “These are your rooms.”
    How was that an answer? “Do you have one of your own?”
    He shifted his weight and squinted as though looking into the distance. I rolled my eyes and pushed the door open.
    “Thurston, you can’t stay in the hall.” He hesitated and I crossed my arms, holding the door open with my heel. Time to be all mastery. “Get in here or I’ll make you go back to the car again.”
    He did a big man’s impression of slinking as he dodged past me into the room, then turned in a circle, probably seeking a place to stow himself. The sitting room was spacious, with large, geometrical paintings where the windows should have been and two open doors with the shapes of beds beyond them. A metal locker stood in the corner, probably for securing electronic equipment. There might even be a phone or a TV in it. Mickey had spread her purchases over an orange couch, three low-backed yellow chairs, and a rusty red table. It looked like a department store had exploded on a sunset.
    “What did that witch want?” she asked, hands on hips.
    “She was just, you know, welcoming us.”
    “I prefer hugs and pastries.”
    “Yeah, well, maybe she’ll work up to that.” I turned to find Thurston staring, like he’d been focused on the back of my head. “We met Chev on the way in. The owner. She said that you can ask the front desk for…um…for when you get hungry.”
    “Should I go now?” he asked, uncertain.
    “If you want,” I muttered, distracted by a sudden rush of warmth. I drifted toward the door as Mickey started speaking to Thurston in Spanish. She was her usual enthusiastic self. His responses were brief and tense. I opened the door and leaned against the frame as Malcolm walked into view.
    He wore a thin brown sweater over a white T-shirt, and the cuffs of his dark pants were red with dust. Petr shuffled along beside him, his limp more pronounced as he pointed something out on the armful of paperwork he carried. Mal raised a hand to wave him off and, anticipating it, Petr shoved a couple of pages into his palm before falling back.
    “Of all the hallways in all the prickly vampire hotels in all the world, you walk into mine,” I said. “Whatcha been doing?”
    Faint lines crinkled around his eyes and his dimple emerged as he smiled.
    “Communing with scrub brush and cacti. It’s therapeutic, and pointy. What are you…”
    His smile faded as he stared past me. I turned. Mickey held a pair of tighty-whities in one hand and plaid boxers in the other. Thurston slumped in the armchair in front of her, glowering up from beneath heavy eyebrows. Mickey tsked and gave me an exasperated look.
    “Tell him he has to choose one.”
    “What? No. I’m not telling him that.”
    “He can’t go without.” She shook them at Thurston. “You cannot go without.”
    Malcolm backed away.
    “Don’t you leave me here with this,” I hissed.
    “As if I’d leave a lady in distress.” Malcolm’s arm snaked around my waist and he swung me against his side. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find something to erase that scene from our memories.”
    “Are we going to drop acid?”
    “I was thinking dinner, but do what you need to.”

Chapter Five
    M alcolm and I sat in a red booth, sharing a side like we were at a diner, except the booth was velvet instead of vinyl. And diners didn’t usually have Asiatic lilies floating in a carbonated pond inside the tabletop. Or a view of vampires and their huge stacks of luggage entering a lobby like they were boarding the Titanic two stories below.
    “This is the best sandwich ever,” I declared, blissing out on smoked turkey and blistered Hatch peppers. Malcolm arranged papers over the table, blocking out the water and flowers eight by eleven inches at a time.
    “Have