It was hard to tell with Pace as to whether or not he was being serious or not. He had a look like Wile E. Coyote, but with a spark that suggested he was now intrigued by the idea of completing their evening with a foursome. Uninhibited by the shame of humans, the monster in man skin took his pleasure where it would, regardless of anything else. Only it hummed especially loud before the witchy woman that had wandered into his bar. Loud enough that he wondered when she would figure out that he wanted to keep her in ways that had nothing to do with a penance for breaking rules.<br/><br/><br/>He was already breaking enough as it was.<br/><br/><br/>Even though it didn’t outwardly show, his little pull of power to try and scare the half demon had drained even more of his reserves, and that was already draining fast the longer he was away from the bar itself. It wasn’t something that he had revealed yet to Nora and, for whatever reason, he didn’t want to reveal that particular weakness.<br/><br/><br/>“And I’m the sort that would prefer to stay the fuck out of the politics,” he finally commented, though his eyes narrowed when her hands fell on the other man’s shoulders, making his voice lower to a growl. He stopped himself as his lips curled up and cleared his throat, straightening back up to his full height. It was irrational, that he might be bothered by her touching Tobias, when he himself had propositioned them into something else.<br/><br/><br/>His hands were back on her when they stopped again, a subtle touch at the small of her back, yet his presence just above her shoulder was a notable thing. Even though his direct attention wasn’t on her -- it was on the computer that they used to look over the useless piece of jewelry that had been stored here -- he was acutely aware of her.<br/><br/><br/>“Is it intentional that this Lucien took the stone without the Wight inside of it? Would he be the sort to release the Wight?” Ever the optimist, Pace’s thoughts were already on motive. One did not simply release what was held in the Wight Stone precariously. Gilles was a warlock and a serial killer besides. It took a special level of chaotic to release that back into the world, bumbling idiot or not. “Surely, this man who apparently has enough influence to sign off on these things, is not so idiotic as to release a mass killer back into the world? Especially one that can use magic?”<br/><br/><br/>He found his hand taken by Nora soon after that and allowed himself to be led back out, his own fingers curling around her smaller appendage. His brows were knitted as he turned his face down to meet her eyes. The playfulness in his eyes was gone, replaced by mistrust in where they were, “This Society of yours stinks of something gone bad. Which figures -- they sound a lot like the Syndicate, in that they make their own rules. We need to get Gilles back in the stone. Then I will get the stone to where it needs to go to stay safe. Now, where is this Sera?”<br/><br/><br/>Finally, his lips twitched back up, the devilishness back in his stare, “If poor Tobias doesn’t want to play with us, well…” This time, he was joking. Squeezing her hand in his, he leaned down and pressed his lips to her brow, then lowered his head further so that he could whisper in her ear, “Once this is all said and done, I want to give you a reward for handling your first mission for me so well.”<br/><br/><br/>He was teasing her, his voice dropped down to a flirtatious octave. While he didn’t specify just what her reward would be, she could use her imagination as to what he intended. “Maybe I can tell you my dirty little secrets during pillow talk…”