by Dianna Love
I spoke with intention, purposely keeping my hands loose at my sides. “You will tell me if there’s something I should be doing, or not doing?”
“Yes, this is one of my many duties.”
Right, micromanaging I got, but taking the time to chase around the bush with a hairdresser? What was the point?
Dominique lowered her gaze to her diamond-studded wristwatch then glanced up quickly. Her tone changed, from tight to something less rigid, maybe even buoyant, as if she’d scored a point while I was unaware of what the game was I played.
“I think we understand each other, Miss Noziak; you may leave now.”
Understand what? Would I lose my position if I pointed out that just the opposite was true? This useless conversation only muddied the waters. Something had happened here and I hated being in the dark.
“That’s all?”
“Yes.” She paused. “Except you can tell me which models are still on the yacht?”
Since I’d just left the staging room and knew most of the models were still prepping to leave I rattled off the half-dozen names I knew.
Dominique’s eyes were now solid brown, her skin looked very human and the waft of cinnamon and sandalwood was a faint tease. So whatever had threatened her seemed to have dissipated. But what? And why? And how?
Stone trained us as newbie agents that sometimes retreats were necessary. This seemed to be one of those times, even if I hadn’t even placed the listening device.
“Oh, Miss Noziak?”
My hand on the cool brass doorknob, I rounded at Dominique’s words but held my tongue.
“Would you mind finding the new model and sending her to me?”
“Sasha?”
“Yes, I believe that’s her name.”
Did I look like a messenger? On second thought, I was interested in seeing what Sasha’s reaction to a summons might be. So what if it meant missing the next boat back to the hotel for staff in town? In an hour I could catch the last one.
“Fine.” I nodded, my smile plastered on tight but it was there. “It may take a bit for me to track her down, but I’ll give her the message.”
“Oh, just as soon as you can. I’ll be here for some time.” Dominique smiled.
Definitely snake-like.
CHAPTER 24
I had no intention of being Dominique’s lap dog, but her wanting Sasha gave me an excuse not only to stay on the yacht after hours, it gave me an excuse to snoop around. A win-win for me.
Leaving Dominique’s room I stepped across the room to press an ear against Bran’s door. No sounds came from inside so I knocked. Nada. The hallway was empty, that tingle-up-your-spine-spooky kind of empty.
I already had accepted the constant noise surrounding me, people all around, guests as well as models, the sounds of the staff going about their business, even the lap of water against the hull. But as I stood in the shadowed hallway it were as if all the turbulence had evaporated. Or the ship held its breath.
Get a grip, Noziak. Find Sasha. Give her the message. Grab the last boat to shore. Get a way to break into that safe.
Easy peasey.
So why did I stand there, across from Dominique’s room, as if waiting for something to happen. A sudden near-silent click had me look to the left, down the hallway where I caught Bran’s wide shoulders stepping out of a room. He was closing the door behind him before he headed away from me.
I released the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. That could have been awkward, explaining why I was hanging around his and Dominique’s rooms. Now what? Follow him? Or avoid him for the time being?
Scaredy-cat? Or smart woman. Give him enough time to calm down from his scene with Dominique before I confronted him with some demands of my own. Demands I was still finalizing based on one priority. I wasn’t finding Van by pussy footing around Bran, powerful mage or not.
So first steps first. Find Sasha. As I turned to head in the opposite direction Bran had disappeared in, I nearly tripped over a mid-sized dog. Not just any dog but the one I’d seen at the chateau a few days ago, the buff-colored poodle.
Odd. What was it doing here? The guests weren’t on board so it couldn’t belong to them and no staff member had enough privacy to hide such an animal. Maybe Dominique kept one for show. It looked like that kind of dog, all poofed and fancied. Not a farm animal kept for protection or herding.
The poodle paused for a second, gave me a what-the-hell glance, then continued on its way as if it owned the boat. Which it might for all I knew.
With a shrug I headed in the direction the dog had come from, ignoring the goosebumps crawling up my arms as I crept along the shadowed hallways. Wouldn’t Mandy and Jaylene have a field day with the witch who was scared of her own shadow.
Good thing they weren’t around, but the thought of them put some starch in my backbone.
Twenty minutes later I wondered if I’d been played for a fool. We were on a bloody boat; where could Sasha be?
“Ask Frankie-O,” Collette suggested when I bumped into her heading to the last ferry boat. “He was looking for her a bit ago. Must have found her by now.”
Great. Two of us were searching for the same person. Just my luck he’d have already found her, and both of them were headed to the launch.
“How long till the boat leaves for shore?” I asked Collette.
“You have thirty minutes, luv, then you’re stuck here for the night.”
Why did that thought give me the shivers? As if Collette read my mind, or my expression, she added, “You want me to send the ferry bloke to pick you up if you miss the next trip?”
“Nah,” I waved her off. “Thirty minutes is plenty of time.” I hoped. But how big of a boat was this? It was beginning to feel like something from Alice in Wonderland as I opened one door after another, all empty.
Fifteen minutes more and still no Sasha or Franco. Could they have taken a private water-taxi back to shore for some reason?
A quick check with the launch crew nixed that idea, though it seemed Sasha had made arrangements for an earlier trip to shore, but never showed.
Now I was down to ten minutes before the last launch left.
Stop by Dominique’s and tell her I was sorry out of luck or keep searching?
There really was no reason for me to continue looking so I headed to Dominique’s room again. I’d just stepped into the hallway near her suite when I smelled it. Not it but them—the two men with crossed arms standing outside Dominique’s door. I didn’t need my ring to tell me they were non-humans, my nose did. And these weren’t the regular security detail. They were new.
Growing up with shifter brothers had trained me to a shifter’s scent, even in human form. Think wet dog, sweat, and anger all rolled into one eau du shifter. Most shifters carried a residual chip on their shoulders for a lot of reasons: being the strongest in a world where they couldn’t show their might or just for being different. My brothers never believed I could smell them; after all the ability to smell keenly was one of their gifts, but I could. At least shifters. No other non-humans, except vampires. They had that whole undead whiff about them.
Just about the time I was making up my mind to turn and leave, the two goon guards glanced in my direction. A very creepy move that had them both swiveling their necks my way at the exact same time, as if pulled by puppet strings. Their bodies remained motionless but poised, as if ready to launch, which had my neck hairs standing straight on end.
But why? I wasn’t a threat to them. I wasn’t a threat to anyone, except for the small throwing anathema attached to my right ankle. But these guys were big enough, easily over six feet tall, and broad enough, that steroid kind of pumping weights bulk, that I should barely register on their radar. Sort of like a mosquito threatening a pair of hungry lions.
So why the tightening of their facial muscles and the rocking forward on their feet?
Maybe I was being paranoid. So I gave them a tight smile that felt like it would crack my face, a
small hey, hi-ya wave and a chin nod. No harm here guys. Then I took a step backwards. Not even a big step, more I’ve-changed-my-mind step to let them know I wasn’t even going to cross into their territory.
That should have been enough.
Yeah, I could have turned my back on them and acted as if I were just a lost, dumb chick, but there was no way I was going to give my back to these two. Which was probably a smart thing as they stepped forward.
“She the one?” one of them mumbled to the other.
“Yeah.”
They both took a step toward me.
I took off, scrambling up the stairs I’d just exited, the hounds of hell pounding after me.
I had no idea what kinds of shifters they were, but it didn’t really matter. All shifters were faster, meaner, and more dangerous than I was. If I had ten to twenty minutes, I might manage a containment spell or create a protection circle for me, but they were right on my ass on a boat that suddenly seemed way too small.
Up the stairs, out on the deck, skidding to the right. Where were other people when you needed them? Franco? The crew? Somebody?
These guys wouldn’t take out others would they? Who knew? Maybe a crewman or kitchen staff, but not somebody who’d be missed. Like Bran.
But I didn’t want to take the chance, or miscalculate, and bring a threat barreling down on him. Or any innocent.
Wait a minute. Why was I worried about a warlock? He could take care of himself.
My first instinct, to run to anywhere there might be more people, the safety in numbers instinct, was quickly tossed. I had no idea where there were people, except for Bran and Dominique, and my gut told me Dragon Lady was most likely behind this whole mess. And I didn’t want the ferry crew put in danger.
Next option? Weapons. Where?
Shifters were like vamps, damn good fighters and almost impossible to kill. Except something sharp to the heart or capable of lopping off a head. My ankle anathema wasn’t going to do either. If I got close enough to use it with a shifter I was already dead.
So where? Where? Sweet Jesus they were gaining on me. Whipping around a corner I leaped over a doorway and almost took a header down some stairs. Hurdling over steps, another corner, duck in a door, and I skidded to a stop.
The kitchen, or galley, or whatever they called it on the yacht.
Good. Knives. Plus the lingering smell could mask my own for a few seconds. Nothing would hide the sound of my pounding heart from a shifter so there wasn’t a point in trying for a cloaking spell. No time to do anything except run or fight.
I glanced around the metal contained room, shrouded in half-light and empty as a church with free drinks at the nearest pub.
Knife? Where were the damn knives?
There. A row of them along a magnetic strip. I grabbed the longest, sharpest two, much better than my anathema for defense and paused, listening for the goons.
“They want her alive,” one voice said, just outside the galley door. “Don’t forget.”
A laugh that sent shivers through me answered. “Alive doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun first.”
In your dreams a-hole. Or my nightmare. But now I understood why they hadn’t shifted yet. In human form, it was a lot easier for them to snatch me without too much damage.
I looked around. Two exits. The one nearest where the shifters were, and a door at the other end of the rectangular room.
Door number two it was. No idea where it went, but it gave me a few more feet between my new fiends and me.
What then?
I’d figure that out when I got to it.
I crept along as silently as I could, feeling each breath I chugged, sounding like air bellows wheezing and each step I took rocking the boat. But I kept going. Incremental movement forward.
I was almost there. Almost, when two things happened at once.
Suzette stepped through the door in front of me and I heard a bellow behind me, “Got her!”
CHAPTER 25
Time squeezed to a stop. Suzette poised in front of me, one foot inside the door, one out, her mouth a round O of surprise, her eyebrows arched. Behind me, enough growls and oaths to wake the dead.
Which we’d be if we didn’t escape.
Then I caught the direction of Suzette’s gaze. She wasn’t stunned by the goons bearing down on us; she was staring at the knives white-knuckle gripped in my hands. As if I was the threat.
“Come on.” I leapt toward her, half-shoving, half- pulling her out the door. “Run!”
I had to give her credit. Except for a small stumble that cost us a second we didn’t have, she followed my lead, through the dining room, into one of the main staterooms, shadowing me like a good little new best friend. Not that she had a choice as I clutched her wrist with a steel-banded grip, the knife hilt I clutched biting into her.
We didn’t have enough time and nowhere to go.
Nowhere safe.
Then I spied an oversized lounge chair. All I cared about was it was big, big enough Suzette could ditch behind it.
“There.” I pushed her toward it, managing not to slice her in the process. “Hide there.”
“But—” her gaze danced in the direction mine did, waiting for the threat thudding down the hallway toward us.
“Hide.” I wanted to scream, but that’d take breath I didn’t have. “They’ll follow me. When the coast is clear, circle back to find help. Go to Bran.”
“But—”
“Don’t have time. Hide. Now.”
I didn’t blame her. Hiding felt like being a sitting duck, but no time to explain as I vaulted toward an outside door. I hated abandoning her, but it gave her the best chance to survive. For one of us to survive.
If I was going to die here I damned well wanted to take down Dominique with me and the only way to do that was to alert Bran to what happened. Then it was up to him to connect the dots back to his cousin.
Why I trusted him in that second didn’t make sense. But I did trust him. Not with my life, but with Suzette’s, and with doing the right thing.
I hoped I was correct.
As I catapulted toward the door, I shouted like a girlie-girl, “Help. Save us.”
My brothers would have wondered what the hell I was doing.
Buying time for Suzette.
I didn’t even glance behind me to see if she followed my directions.
If the goons weren’t following me, they didn’t deserve to catch me.
The chill of the ocean air slapped me. Cold on my heated skin; waves smacking the lower decks a good two floors beneath me. I was in the front of the boat, or the foredeck. A few deck chairs, but nothing to obscure the view in front of me with a wall of glass to my back.
Great. Only my knives as weapons, which meant closer fighting than I wanted.
What was even worse was that the two goons had split up. One coming from the door I’d exited and the other from the opposite door, which is why they hadn’t been on my tail. A classic pincher movement with me the idiot in the middle.
A protection ward wasn’t going to keep them away from me, not without glyphs drawn on the deck to back it up. A propulsion spell might push one of them away for a moment or so, but not for long and not very far. Besides I’d need to drop my knives and anathema dagger to make any magic work. That whole no physical weapons while using magic problem.
So what now?
I bluff.
“You guys don’t know who you’re messing with,” I lied, brandishing the knives I held as if I chopped up shifters on a daily basis. “I thought shifters were smarter than that.”
The fact I knew what they were had them pausing, casting a quick glance at one another, then me.
“That’s right,” I taunted, each word made husky as I gasped. Racing around a yacht was not good for cracked ribs. “Didn’t think I knew what you were. But I do. Which means I also know how to kill you.”
“Big talk, girlie,” one said, tucking his head between beefy shoulders.
His voice was the one who’d said I was to be taken alive. The brains of the two of them, which wasn’t saying much.
“Oh, I know more than you think.” I shuffled backwards, until my back touched the cold metal of the rail. Nowhere to go from here but over. Which gave me an idea. “In fact.” I stepped one leg on the other side of the lower rail, which gave me just enough space to duck through. “Your bosses won’t be too happy if I jumped and left you two with no prize to return with.”
“Whoa, now girlie,” Brains shouted as the other guy scuttled forward. Just enough that I shifted to make good on my threat.
“Back, Gurn,” Brains growled at his partner. “All the way back. Now.”
Gurn looked like he was debating with himself, or considering insubordination. Most shifters believed strongly in obeying a hierarchical order. But not all, especially if they owed no allegiance to each other, and I was counting that these two lobos might fall in that last category. Divide and conquer. Or buy a few seconds for me to come up with another plan.
Then Gurn started shifting: bones cracking, skin tearing, a long, vicious snout replacing his face. Guess he didn’t like my threat.
Brains pulled out a 9mm pistol with a silencer, raised it, and shot Gurn in the head.
Poof. Splat.
Gurn dropped like a mighty tree, his brain matter scattered over the deck.
Not exactly what I’d planned, but the odds had just improved for me.
“There, girlie,” Brains soothed, obviously having no love lost for his partner as he barely batted an eye at the dead shifter at his feet. “It’s just you and me and I don’t mean you no harm.”
“Except that whole kidnap thing,” I pointed out, me and my big mouth as I cast a quick glance at the black water below me. Could I survive the jump? And then what? The lights of Monte Carlo were in the far distance, too far to swim with beaten ribs and not a lot of stamina as a swimmer. But I might be able to make it to a nearby boat. If I could find one.
