Thin Skinned, Margo Collins [recommended reading TXT] 📗

words. The men in front of our group did the same. The exchange had the feel of a password, though it was not one I recognized, of course.

Then everyone stopped and waited.

Lori and Hale, off to one side of me and trying to keep their distance, shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “What is taking so long?” Lori asked. “I need a hit.”

“Just hang on,” Hale hissed. “Phil promised me they’d take care of us. He’ll get us hooked up.”

I glanced back at Phil, who smirked at me. I didn’t think he was going to keep that promise, whatever it might have been.

I figured out waiting for when the men in front snapped to a sort of attention. They didn’t exactly salute, but their body language went from tired and irritated by a difficult trip to almost subservient. But also almost military.

Over the heads of the men in front of me, I caught a glimpse of dark hair.

That must be El Lobo. The Wolf.

Phil moved up and around me, fanning out to one side far enough so El Lobo could see him. “We’ve got something you’ll want to see,” he announced without preamble.

“Oh, yes?” came a deep voice with a Spanish accent and a hint of a rumble in the chest of the speaker.

It was a voice that dripped sex, even in only those two words.

One of El Lobo’s men said something in Spanish, and the voice changed, snapping out sharply, “Show me.”

As everyone around me drew away so El Lobo could see me, I suddenly felt more exposed than I had been even before I got Ron to give me a shirt.

Phil stepped forward just as I finally saw El Lobo himself, and said, “El Lobo de la Selva, I present to you your very own Santa Muerte.”

Chapter 13

But El Lobo already had his gaze fixed on me. After Phil’s introduction, I expected the drug lord—because that’s what he had to be, right?—to order me taken off and caged immediately, creepy isolated-island-style experiments to commence forthwith.

Instead, his eyes narrowed as he took in my half-serpent form and the shirt I wore, and he turned to Phil to say, in that beautifully accented voice of his, “You fucking idiot.”

Phil’s expression, so pleased mere seconds before, went completely blank as El Lobo unleashed a torrent of Spanish on him.

Whatever he was saying to Phil had to be rough, too, because the longer it went on, the paler Phil grew behind his beard.

With a final, particularly expressive swirl of his arm into the air ending with one hand pointing back toward the plane, El Lobo said something about abuela. Phil nodded meekly and turned to return to the aircraft without another word. Ron followed him, his face having grown equally pale.

What the hell had the Wolf said to them?

I stiffened up a bit when El Lobo turned to me next, stalking up to stand next to me. But instead of a berating, he gave me his hand. “My lady,” he said, “are you well?”

I blinked, trying to think of something equally polite to say. Instead, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Am I well? You know, the only way I could have enjoyed that any more than I already did would have been if I’d understood a word of it. Other than abuela.”

He laughed aloud, then nodded and tucked my arm into his, turning to walk toward the house. The entire entourage followed along silently behind us—even Baby Paige, who had fallen into an exhausted sleep in her mother’s arms. “Ah, yes,” El Lobo said. “Abuela. Regrettably, an elderly relative of mine passed away and had to be brought home on the plane.”

With her chest stuffed full of cash? I doubt it.

But I managed to keep my mouth shut for once.

Phil hadn’t had a chance to tell El Lobo about the diamonds I’d swallowed. But I was sure he would. In the meantime, I had no idea why this drug lord was being so nice to me. So...courtly.

I finally spent a moment looking at him carefully. His voice wasn’t the only part of this man that oozed sex appeal.

He was stunning—maybe in his late thirties or even early forties. It was hard to tell because his dark hair had a single shock of white running through it from the right side of his forehead back. I couldn’t tell if it was age, artifice, or simply nature.

His eyes were an ice blue like nothing I’d ever seen on a human before. His cheekbones were high, his jaw chiseled, his lips just the right mix of full and defined.

He could be a model.

He was prettier than any man I’d ever seen in real life. And yet he called me “my lady.”

Was he afraid of my snake form? I didn’t think so. He hadn’t been surprised by it, at any rate. Whatever was going on here was moving way too fast and had undercurrents I didn’t understand.

But maybe I could get some information. “Your men, the ones on the plane?” I gestured behind us. “They called me Santa Muerte. I think that’s where Phil got the idea. Do you know why the called me that?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “A local legend.”

“Legend?”

He laughed lightly. “Not without some basis in truth, apparently.”

“Phil called you El Lobo de la ... something.”

“Yes—de la Selva. It means of the jungle. It is a joke, of sorts. My name is Antonio Lobo, and La Selva is the name I give my home, though my men simply call it La Casa.” He waved his arm around us to indicate the entire compound before turning his laser-focus attention back to me. “Please, call me Antonio.”

“I’m Lindi,” I managed to reply. This man’s attention could distract me from any number of important things.

We arrived at the enormous villa, entering through a side door, and Antonio led me through an opulent room to a dressing room with a surprising number of styles and sizes of women’s clothing.

Or, looking