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vampires?”
    â€œI can’t sense any entities.” She shrugged. “So what? Hey, I still do my job. My boss gives me a description or picture of the bad guy, and I go get him. I found Jinx, didn’t I?” Her expression dared him to deny her success with the thief.
    â€œDon’t mean to rain on your parade.” Sure he did. “But it would be hard to miss a snake slithering across the floor with a ring around its body.”
    Donna looked confused. “Okay, I know this probably makes some kind of sense, so why don’t you explain everything to me while we hunt?” She urged Gerry toward some benches set in the shadows where a few people sat by themselves. The look she threw at Conall when Gerry wasn’t looking said, “Sit. Stay.”
    Stubbornness warred with common sense. For once common sense won. Conall took off his sword before easing himself onto the nearest bench. Hell, old Mick Kavanagh was looking damn good right now.
    â€œOh goody, I found you alone.” Sparkle Stardust’s voice was low and husky, a sexual purr honed to perfection over thousands of years. But Conall knew the sensual persona was a useful front few saw past. He’d seen what she could do, and he’d never underestimate her. She skimmed her fingers across the back of his neck, and he tensed at the tingle of power she left behind.
    Sparkle sat down next to him, and he watched all the guys within staring distance fix their gazes on the glide of her short black skirt up her bare thighs as she crossed her legs. She leaned toward him, and every man’s attention snapped to the front of her black top as it gaped open. Way open.
    She slid her gaze to the staring men and then offered Conall a sly lift of her lips. “Men have such simple needs. What about you, Conall? What do you need?”
    Sparkle was working the room right now, but he wasn’t in the mood to amuse her. “I need to be left alone. Why don’t you get your kicks by playing to your audience? Cross your legs again. Pick up that penny from the ground.”
    â€œMmm. Are we grouchy tonight? An angry male animal has a sexy primitive aura that excites me.” She watched him from those strange amber eyes.
    â€œAll men excite you, Sparkle.” She wasn’t going to leave him alone.
    She smiled. “That’s what Mede always says.” Her smile faded. “I miss him.”
    I miss him, too. Ganymede was a cosmic troublemaker of such immense power that Conall didn’t doubt he could destroy the planet or help the Texans win the Super Bowl if he so chose. He was also the “twisted being” who’d made Brynn’s life a misery for so many centuries. Ganymede had sort of redeemed himself with that one, but Conall didn’t trust him. Ganymede lusted after the dark side too much.
    Right now, though? Conall wished Ganymede was here to distract Sparkle from him. “I hear you got a new guy to help you. What’s he like?”
    She stopped smiling. “I don’t want to talk about Edge. He’s not what I was hoping for.” She took a deep breath, and her male audience took a breath along with her. “So what do you think of Gerry? With someone to tweak her wardrobe, she’d be spectacular.”
    â€œI didn’t notice.”
    Sparkle patted his knee and then let her hand rest there. “Of course you did. I can feel that you’re conflicted. The scale right now is perfectly balanced: attraction to a beautiful woman versus hatred for all Kavanaghs.” She studied him. “I wonder what it will take to tip that scale?”
    â€œThere won’t be any tipping going on. I’ll do my job for as long as it takes, and that’s it.” He scowled. “If she’ll let me.” Okay, a moment of self-honesty. He was attracted. And he hated it.
    Sparkle shook her head. “You’re so not getting it, Conall. I don’t even have to root around