by Trina M. Lee
The demon eyed me suspiciously, one finely sculpted brow raised. “Yes.”
“Then tell me how to kill her.”
A frown marred Shya’s smooth features. “Killing her would only destroy her physical body.”
Oh hell, I groaned inwardly. Demons never ceased to astound me. Something came to me then; Lilah had handled Shya’s dagger gingerly.
“That’s something she doesn’t want either. She was wary of the Dragon Claw.”
“No, if her body is destroyed, she would return to her angelic cage.”
I was confused. “I don’t get it. That sounds like a pretty good place for her to me. So why don’t we just send her there?”
Shya leaned in close, invading my personal space. He smelled like cinnamon and sulfur. “No. Eventually she would manipulate a weak angel; she would return to destroy us. Do you understand? Even angels cannot destroy a demon as powerful as Lilah. They can only contain her. We should bind her here, where we have control.”
“A weak angel,” I whispered, more to myself than to Shya. “Like Falon?”
“Falon?” Shya repeated, his eyes on the front entry behind me. He didn’t get another word out before a commotion broke out in the lobby.
Shouts rang out, and the atmosphere became chaotic and frenzied. Several patrons stopped to see what was going on, but more continued to dance in oblivion. I got to my feet to check things out at the same moment my sister appeared in the doorway.
Two heavily built men in dark suits flanked Juliet. Each of them wore a gun at the hip. One carried what looked to be a heavy-duty taser. Shaz was at Juliet’s side, speaking in low tones. She ignored him, striding toward me while he kept pace with her. One of my other security guys lingered in the entry, blood streaming from his nose.
I turned to see what Shya made of this, but he was gone. The stool where he’d sat was empty. Only his fading scent remained. Figures.
“Nice to see you again, Ms. Fitzgerald,” I greeted her with a brittle smile. “I trust this is not a personal visit.”
So, the FPA had sent my own sister to bring me in for Abigail Irving’s death. Nice move. Very well played. I knew it had been too much to hope we could resume a familial relationship. We had been dead to one another since that night over a decade ago.
“I’m sorry, Alexa.” Juliet held her hands out in an apologetic gesture. In tight jeans and a cropped leather jacket, she looked both trendy and dangerous. “I thought it best if I came for this. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Shaz stood off to the side, looking helpless and angry. I knew this was going to get ugly. Besides, I wanted no part of any organization that would send one sibling after another. I was suddenly grateful Shya and Veryl had gotten to me first.
“I’m sorry you thought this was a good idea.” I crossed my arms and waited calmly. I was not going without a hell of a fight.
“We know you killed Abigail. You and Kale Sinclair.” Juliet held a hand up to her companions who were looking eager to get the ball rolling. “We’re here to officially detain you.”
“Sorry, little sister. I’m not going to make this easy for you.” I reached out with my power, feeling for Kale’s energy in the building and finding it. He shouldn’t be here.
One of Juliet’s partners stepped forward, threatening to get too close. He slapped the taser against his open palm and glowered down at me from his six foot five height.
“We don’t have to take you alive,” he barked. “One wrong move, and I will take you out.”
I laughed then and gestured for him to come closer. I’d slash his throat open before he could blink.
“That’s enough out of you, Agent!” Juliet snapped. She was clearly the one in charge here, and she wanted her people to remember that. “Back up and shut your mouth, or go wait outside.”
Agent Asshole stepped back beside the guy who was smart enough to stay quiet. Juliet shot him a dark look before turning back to me.
“Alexa, this doesn’t have to get violent or ugly. I don’t want that.” Her dark eyes were pleading. I’d seen her turn that same wide-eyed expression on our parents to get what she wanted, and it had usually worked.
“Have you stopped to think for just a second that maybe Abigail Irving wasn’t such a team player after all?” I asked. “She was a double agent, Juliet.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Juliet’s face. She was following orders without asking questions. Definitely the Juliet I remembered. I had always been the rebellious one. She’d been Mom and Dad’s perfect little princess.
“I have to bring you in, Lexi. If what you say is true, we’ll find out. We’ll get to the bottom of it. Nobody has to get hurt.”
“Stop saying that. If you really came here thinking I’d come quietly, then you don’t remember me at all. I haven’t changed that much.” I gathered my power tight, ready to use it if I had to. Please don’t make me, I prayed silently.
“Where is Kale Sinclair?” Ignoring my firm refusal to co-operate, Juliet continued as if she were in charge. But, she was forgetting that she was in my club. “We know he’s here. I’ve got men on the back exit. There’s no escape.”
“He’s busy right now. I’ll get him.” Spinning on a heel, I strode toward the back hall, gritting my teeth.
Agent Asshole made as if to come after me. Juliet stopped him with a hand, indicating that the other agent should accompany me. Without a second look at him, I crossed through the back foyer and down the hall, headed for Kale’s room. When we were a safe distance down the hall, I slammed a foot into the side of the agent’s knee as hard as I could. He let out a scream that I quickly silenced with punch to his throat.
He crumpled immediately, sliding to the floor unconscious. I swiped the gun from the holster at his hip and checked the chambers. Wooden bullets. They had definitely come prepared to take on a vampire. Or, a werewolf that would rise as a vampire upon death. Crap.
I sprinted the rest of the way to Kale’s room and banged on the door. I would have burst in if I hadn’t been afraid of what I’d find inside.
I kept up the incessant banging until the door swung open suddenly; I almost fell inside, into Kale’s arms. The scent of blood and sex was overwhelming. Kale’s robe did little to hide his nudity. The three naked brunettes huddled in his bloodstained bed didn’t help. If the FPA hadn’t just stormed my club, I’d be more actively disgusted at what I saw in Kale’s room.
“Alexa, hello. Come to join the party?” Kale snickered and reached for me. His pupils were huge. He was high as a kite.
“Oh for fuck’s sakes.” I slapped his hand away and punched a hole in the nearest wall. It didn’t help, but I needed to blow off some steam. “The FPA is here for us. Because of Abigail Irving. You need to get dressed right now and pull yourself together.”
To Kale’s credit, he sobered noticeably. “The FPA? Here? Son of a bitch.”
“They’ve got wooden bullets and people at each door. I’m not sure how long we should play along. We’re going to have to take them on; I’m not letting them take me out of here.”
Kale picked up his pants off the floor and let his robe drop. I turned away with an embarrassed blush but not before catching an eyeful. This was no time for unwelcome flashbacks, but they came unbidden.
I left the room, unable to take Kale’s nudity or his giggling playmates a second longer. He caught up with me when I was halfway down the hall. The FPA agent I’d knocked out was struggling to get to his feet, and I threw another punch followed by an elbow as we passed.
I emptied the gun of bullets and dropped the empty weapon beside its owner. I considered killing him and every person Juliet brought with her. But, sending her back to her boss with that kind of news wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to harm my sister. I just wanted her to go away and leave me alone.
“You really have no idea who she is, do you?” Shaz’s voice was loud in the unusual quiet.
The band had stopped, and my remaining staff was ushering patrons
out the door. Shawn hung back, well away from the scene taking place near the bar. Making a peace sign, he subtly let me know he was ready if I needed him. Despite the trouble I’d had with vampires, Arys included, they made great allies.
“It’s ok, Shaz.” I announced our presence. “Everything’s cool.”
Kale swept past me to walk a slow circle around Juliet and the remaining agent. He looked amazingly well put together for a man who’d been naked just a minute ago. Leather duster over a dark shirt and pants with his hair in disarray, he looked exactly the way he must have felt, like he’d just banged and bled a few humans.
Juliet turned slowly as he made his way around her. She stood ready to defend herself, unwilling to pull her gaze from the vampire looking her over like she was a tasty new treat.
Kale’s honey-sweet power was running high and heady. I couldn’t let that distract me; I wasn’t able to hold my shields in place and use my power.
“So you’ve come to police the supernatural for the human government.” Bemusement shone in Kale’s mismatched eyes. “I’m surprised that for an O’Brien, you’re such a fool.”
My jaw dropped in surprise. So did Juliet’s. Her eyes narrowed.
Drawing a stake from inside her jacket, she faced off with Kale. “You murdered a government agent.”
“Come now,” Kale admonished. “We both know this is just a play the FPA is making to introduce themselves to Alexa with a bang. They fear her. And rightfully so.”
“This is about justice for a dead woman,” Juliet’s snarl was low and deadly. Her wolf paced behind her eyes.
Agent Asshole pulled his gun, aiming it at Kale’s chest. “Where the hell is Kellum?”
“Agent Easy?” I quipped, jerking a thumb toward the back hall. “I put him to sleep. He’ll be fine. Might have a bit of a concussion though.”
A vein pulsed in the agent’s forehead, and his finger tightened on the trigger. I let the energy flow down my arm to pool in my hand. If he shot Kale, I’d make that agent wish he’d never been born a thousand times over before I killed him.
Someone must have sounded the alarm because several dark clad agents came in both the front and back doors, surrounding us on all sides. They were all human except for Juliet. Interesting. I was willing to bet the FPA saved their big guns and used the humans as disposable soldiers.
Juliet looked from Kale to me, deciding which of us was a bigger threat. Right then, it was Kale. He was eyeing her with a predator’s stare, likely imagining if she’d taste as good as I did. A shiver crept up my spine at the thought.
“We can do this peacefully.” Juliet’s tone was strong and fierce, but I could sense her unease. “Come willingly, and we can avoid a lot of trouble.”
“You overstep your bounds, wolf. Humans have no place in the affairs of monsters. Your choice to represent them will come back to haunt you,” Kale promised.
With a shrug and a smirk, Kale lashed out with a kick that Agent Asshole never saw coming. It caught him in the temple, and he dropped to his knees. Kale grabbed the agent’s arm and twisted. The snap was audible. The agent’s gun dropped to the floor with a clatter.
Everyone moved at once. Three agents swarmed Kale, including Juliet. He turned to take on those with guns first, leaving his back exposed. Juliet saw her brief opportunity and went for it.
I caught her wrist in a bone-crushing grasp. Using the momentum from my swift action, I followed through with a shove that sent her sprawling. But, Juliet was no easy opponent. Both highly trained for her position and having the natural abilities of the wolf, she was on her feet instantly, ready to take me on.
“Don’t do this, Lexi,” she pleaded. Despite the emotion in her voice, the wolf in her eyes was a stranger, and it wanted a fight.
We were the only two moving in slow motion. As we stared into one another, our companions were locked in combat. A blur of white-blonde was all I could see of Shaz as he took down an agent waving a gun. A shot was fired, hitting the lights over the dance floor. A shower of sparks cascaded down around us.
Kale was throwing off FPA agents like they were children. Using both physical strength and metaphysical power, he had little problem fending them off. For now. Eventually, someone was going to get hurt.
“I’m not going to be treated like a criminal by an agency that would use my own sister against me. Think about what you’re doing, Juliet.”
She flipped a long curl out of her face and clenched the stake tightly. “I’m doing my job.”
Talking it out like long lost family made whole again just wasn’t going to happen. I spared a glance at Kale, finding him overrun with agents. Where were they coming from? I let loose the blast of energy I’d been holding. It slammed into the agents, taking several of them down.
I nodded to Juliet. “Fair enough.”
For a split second, there was only us, my sister and me, and the memories of the night everything had changed for us. And, then time resumed its regular pace, shattering the dark cloud of nostalgia. We were never going to get that back. Those young girls we’d both been, they had died that night. We weren’t the same anymore. That was painfully clear when I blocked Juliet’s first hit.
She was a good fighter. Gone were her days of scratches and hair pulling. She knew how to throw her body around, how to take a hit and to throw one, but after so many years on the mean streets at night, so did I.
I knocked the stake from her hand with a kick. She used the opportunity to grab my ankle and twist. I went down hard on the floor, twisting along with her to avoid a broken ankle. Jerking my foot from her grasp, I threw a psi ball at her to gain the seconds needed to get to my feet. Another shot went off, and an agent dropped, holding his leg and screaming.
Juliet was ready for me with a fist that I narrowly dodged. We danced then, a back and forth game of hits and blocks, trying to catch the other off guard. She was spry and light on her feet. More than once, she caught me by surprise. I wasn’t above using metaphysical assistance to push her back and knock her feet out from under her.
I kept expecting her to come to her senses and call a stop to this madness. What drove her wasn’t simply a desire to do her job. It was having me in front of her after so long, and finally being able to unleash her anger over what Raoul did to us. She wanted me to pay for being his lover.
Seeing fangs on my sister was unnerving. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I wasn’t giving in either. Shots went off, and this time one of my vampires fell, injured but not dead. I couldn’t allow anything to happen to Kale or Shaz. I was going to be forced into admitting defeat.
Juliet rushed me again, and this time she had claws. No deal; I wasn’t willing to kill her, so this had to stop now. I rounded on her with a high kick. It hit her square in the forehead, and she went down. I got on top of her, pinning her with my weight and a push of power.
“Tell them to stop!” I demanded. “Now.”
She stared up at me with angry wolf eyes. I could feel her hesitance. With a hand on her throat, I gave her a shake. “Dammit, Juliet. Can’t you see that our people are going to die over a dead woman who was a goddamn traitor? Stop them.”
Rationale battled passionate, righteous fury behind Juliet’s dark eyes. “Enough!” She shouted, and like magic, every agent took a defensive stance but obeyed her command.
Shaz and the few vampires who had come to our aid dropped back, watching me for direction. Kale wiped blood from the corner of his lip. A dead agent lay at his feet. Well, that was really going to help our case, wasn’t it?
I groaned inwardly before standing up and pulling Juliet to her feet. “You want to watch me suffer. I get that. Really, I do. So you win. Let’s go.”
Juliet pulled away from me, her eyes downcast. “It’s not like that. I have a job to do.”
“Let me save you the family drama.” Kale stepped forward with a confident swagger. Every agent’s gun was trained on him, but he paid them no mind. “You don’t want Alexa. You want me. And, I’ll go w
ith you right now without any further trouble if you leave her out of this.”
Agent Asshole practically threw himself at Juliet in protest. He clutched his broken arm to his chest. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow and his breath came fast. “Hell no. She was at the murder scene.”
Kale set his sights on the agent, and the power just oozed from him. “I acted alone. I killed Abigail Irving, and I loved every damn moment. You only want me.”
The heady allure of vampire power was so strong that I almost believed him. A human like Agent Asshole didn’t stand a chance under that kind of persuasion. He nodded, dumbfounded and silent. Juliet appeared uncertain. I wanted to protest what Kale was doing, but I couldn’t form the words.
“Just you?” Juliet repeated, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Taking in one of us would be better than neither. “You freely admit this?”
“I’ll freely do anything you want me to. As long as Alexa is left alone.” The seductive lilt he spoke with was like a hand sliding down my spine.
It seemed to have a similar effect on Juliet because she nodded and gestured to her men to grab him. I watched in shock and awe as Kale stood quietly, willingly allowing them to cuff him. The restraints they used hummed with magic, and that’s when my internal alarm went off.
“No,” I shouted. “You can’t take him. He hasn’t done anything. Irving was a fucking traitor.” I shoved an agent aside so I could get close to Kale. Placing both hands on his face, I stood on my tiptoes and whispered, “What are you doing?”
“You saved my ass. Now I’m saving yours.” Taking advantage of our close proximity, Kale pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was brief but intoxicating. He tasted like blood and honey, waking my hunger. Draped in his saccharine pull, I ached for him.
I wasn’t content to keep my mouth shut and let him take the fall for me. We had both taken Abigail’s blood. She had been our victim.
“Juliet, be reasonable. You’re a pawn to a political agenda. That’s not the Zelda Fitzgerald I heard you talk nonstop about.” It was desperate; appealing to the girl she’d once been was my last resort. We were both sporting some ugly cuts and bruises. Now that we’d scrapped it out the way siblings do, there was nothing else for us to do.
