by Lexi Blake
“I only want what’s best for you.” He barely touched me, but heat flared on my skin. His fingers were cool, but no amount of chill could make me forget how hot it had been between us. That single night was burned onto my soul.
“I don’t suppose pointing out that being with you is best for me will change your mind?” I asked quietly.
“I’m not good for you, baby.” I could feel him against me, his body making a liar of his words. His erection pressed against my hip. How many times had he worked over me, a smile on his face as he connected our bodies? He touched my hair so softly that I wondered if he meant to do it. “I was once but not anymore.”
“What do we have here?” Dev asked from the door.
Daniel practically jumped back, and I turned to see Dev and Neil standing in the doorway. Dev was standing with his arms crossed, his sensual mouth set in a straight line. Neil’s hand was on his hip, and I could tell from his expression exactly what he was thinking. Damn, girlfriend, you got caught with your hands in both the cookie jars. It was pretty much what I was thinking, too.
My heart fell. I needed to explain, and I wasn’t quite sure where to start. I hadn’t been caught safe cracking in…well, ever. It was a completely new experience, and one I found I didn’t relish. I really liked this guy, and while I might have been out of the dating scene for a while, I doubted that getting caught with my hands in his safe was the way to get a second date. To top it off, from Dev’s point of view, I was stealing from him with my “ex-boyfriend.” I blamed Daniel. If he hadn’t followed me up here and lugged all of our baggage along, I would already be downstairs discussing the situation with Albert.
“I was just…” I started, not really sure where I would go from there.
“Damn it!” Dev cursed under his breath when the safe came open. He punched a fist in the air to show his frustration. “Seriously? This is seriously happening? I can’t believe it. That freaking company came highly recommended. I wanted to go American, but no, I end up off-shoring my security to a bunch of Nagas because they give me this Buddhist ‘save-the-earth green security’ crap. Then they turn out to be scamming me? Do you have any idea how much I laid out for that system? I have them working on my new clubs. Now I have to change everything. Crap, this is gonna cost me a fortune. Next time I’m gonna say ‘fuck the whales’ and hire some firm that doesn’t recycle.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Albert talked to you.”
Dev finally took a breath and seemed to calm down a bit. “Yeah, I didn’t believe him. Then I watched the cameras from the security room. They didn’t pick you up at all. They picked up the big, scary vampire though. What the hell did you do to my bouncer? He’s asleep in the alley mumbling something about beef jerky and bunny rabbits.”
“I wasn’t trying to go unseen,” Daniel said in his defense.
Neil stepped forward. “Um, Daniel, Charlene said your time was up, and she left with a really hot shape shifter. She also mentioned you were a cheap date and there was some talk about your parents not being married, but I don’t think that’s a big deal anymore.”
“I don’t see how she can call me cheap with what she charges.” Daniel sounded offended. “I could only afford to pay her until two am.”
“I knew she was a hooker.” She just had that look about her.
“Did they really think I wouldn’t figure this out?” Dev was asking no one in particular.
“Yes.” I would have thought it was obvious, but Dev seemed to struggle with the idea.
“You didn’t figure it out,” Daniel seconded. “Zoey did.”
“Ooo, pretty guns.” Neil’s eyes widened as he looked into the safe.
There were three shiny handguns in the safe along with what looked like a big hunk of cash. That security firm was losing a rich score. I decided to ask Dev to maybe not mention my name when he confronted the Nagas. Nagas were Indian river creatures who were usually peaceful, but they could turn into giant ravenous snakes, and I didn’t particularly need anyone else pissed off at me. And their heist methods were actually quite earth friendly. They hadn’t planned on killing anyone, and I’d heard that they gave ten percent of all their profits to Greenpeace.
“Yeah, well I’m going to be using those on one slick salesman when I can catch him,” Dev swore.
Neil’s head came up, his whole body on alert. “Do you normally let people come up the stairs?”
Dev frowned. “No one should be here. I’ll go look.”
He started for the door, but Daniel stopped him. “Neil, pass out those guns. I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Take it.” Neil pressed a gun into my hand. He was the closest one to the safe. He tossed one to Dev, and then placed the third in Daniel’s hand before anyone could speak.
“Are you sure this isn’t overkill?” Dev asked. “It’s probably just a guest who thinks this is a snack bar or something. All of this could have been avoided if you hadn’t put my bouncer to sleep.”
I checked the clip and eased the safety off because the back of my neck was tingling. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t explain that to Dev.
Neil didn’t arm himself. Neil preferred the old ways. He would never use a gun when he could rip and claw an enemy. Of the four of us, Neil was the only one smiling. Despite his sweet-looking face, he genuinely enjoyed a little violence.
“If it’s a drunk guest, we’ll just quietly escort them back down,” Daniel explained, his voice tight.
The door to Dev’s office exploded inward, silencing any further discussions.
The sound cracked the air around me, and I acted on pure instinct as pieces of wood flew everywhere. I threw myself in front of Daniel.
Pain, pure and visceral, bloomed from my shoulder. I winced as I looked down. The door had splintered into stake-like pieces and one lodged itself just under my clavicle. It wasn’t deep, but there was just enough blood to worry me.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Daniel twisted me around so he covered my body with his.
I decided no answer I could give would satisfy him, so I pulled the stake out of my shoulder. It easily could have been Daniel’s heart had I not stepped in. The pain raced across my skin. I moved to get a glimpse of whatever had managed to make that lovely, heavy oak door explode.
Three large men walked through the door.
“Wolves?” Dev’s voice showed not a hint of the panic a normal person would have. I had to believe it wasn’t his first time at this particular amusement park. It was a good thing because I didn’t want to be the one to babysit the civilian.
Neil breathed the air deeply. “Oh, no. Those are shifters, my friends. Don’t worry. We’ll be all right as long as they don’t turn into bears. I’m sure they’ll turn into something less frightening.”
The three shifters filled the front of the office. Even without Neil’s super smell, I could tell they were more than human. They moved differently, holding themselves with an odd grace that came from spending much of their time in other forms. There were two large men and a slightly smaller one whose head moved back and forth in an almost hypnotic pattern. His eyes were pitch black, seemingly endless pools of darkness. While the other men were bigger, he was the one who scared me. He was the one who seemed the most far from human.
Dev’s workspace was large, but it was beginning to get the tiniest bit cramped. Adrenaline started to pump through my system. This wasn’t a friendly meeting.
The largest of the three men had scruffy gold hair and the beard to match. He stepped forward, his dark eyes on me. “Just give us the human and no one has to get hurt.”
And by “no one,” I assumed he meant no one except me. Who the hell had I pissed off this time?
Daniel tensed beside me and leveled his gun at the biggest shifter. “Dev, please tell me these rounds are silver.”
Dev took another target, aiming for the one with the beady eyes and the moving head. “Absolutely. Nothing but the best.”
“Excellent.
” Daniel took a small step forward, that gorgeous face set in arrogant lines. “Now, you tell me who hired you, and I might not fill your ass with silver. Though to be honest, I probably will anyway.”
Beady Eyes hissed a little as he looked at the guns. “I thought you said there were no weapons allowed.”
The boss smiled, a cold thing that held no humor. “We don’t need weapons to take down a Fae and a human. Only the vampire and the werewolf will be the slightest bit troublesome. And if they wish to live, they’ll give the human to me.”
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to go with them. And that whatever hot water I was in, it was beginning to boil.
I slipped off my heels. There was no way this didn’t end in bloodshed.
The thing you have to remember about fighting is comfort is everything. Hollywood movies might show women in martial arts battles while wearing four-inch heels and never mussing their lip gloss, but the truth is heels hurt you and not the enemy. You can’t run in them, and they break more often than you would think. They might be great as a projectile weapon, but they were not staying on my feet. They also weren’t cheap, and I couldn’t afford to replace them. Before my heels even hit the floor, the shifters started changing.
The air around me felt charged with power as they shifted before my eyes. Limbs moved and cracked and reformed. The largest made a loud chuffing sound as he dropped to all fours, golden fur spreading to cover his previously human flesh.
Daniel didn’t wait for them to finish. He took the high ground, leaping on to Dev’s desk and firing. I winced at the sound, so much louder since it was contained in a small space.
“Look, Zoey,” Neil said as he pulled off his shirt. “That one is shifting into a bear. Idiot, I’m not really afraid of bears. I just love the way they taste.”
With that Neil changed so fast I could barely register it. One minute he was my debonair friend, and the next he was a hungry werewolf hot on the trail of some bear meat. The big bear roared, the heat and weight of the sound heavy on my skin. Neil went for his throat, leaping through the small space.
I leveled my gun at the third shifter. Daniel was taking on the big guy who was now the largest lion I’d ever seen. The lion roared, and I was sure I could feel the office shake.
That left me and Dev with the smallest of the three, the one who seemed more animal than man. And he was. The third shifter came straight for me, and naturally he turned into a snake. I really, really hate snakes. They’re gross and tend to eat their prey alive and feet first for maximum horror. I looked too good tonight to end up in a snake’s belly. I took aim and fired, but snakes are shifty little fellas even when they measure at least nine feet in length and weigh a good one hundred and fifty pounds.
It looked at me with its dead eyes, and I managed to turn away before he caught me. Snake shifters have the insidious power to catch and hold their prey with those big, dead, black eyes. The very darkness is hypnotic, and you suddenly find yourself powerless to move. I unloaded the rest of my clip into the snake’s body.
Unfortunately, he just kept coming. I found myself backed into a corner, trying to get a decent shot. Hitting the body hadn’t slowed it down and the snake’s head moved so fast, whipping back and forth until it was damn near impossible to hit. I could hear the hiss and see those white curved fangs flashing as he neared. My heart pounded, the need to flee riding me strong, but there was nowhere to go.
Dev jumped on the snake’s back and started firing straight into his body, proving close contact had some effect. Blood soaked the carpet. The snake jerked, causing Dev to fall backward, his tall body crumpling.
The snake was slower now but infinitely more pissed off. He gave up his pursuit of me and turned on Dev.
I threw down my utterly useless gun and looked around for another weapon.
When fighting with supernatural creatures, I have discovered that guns, while almost always the first line of defense, don’t always finish the job. Unlike my poor human body, shifters can handle a lot of bullets, even silver ones. Though I try to keep fighting to a minimum, I have done it enough to know that creativity can shift the balance of power.
I found what I was looking for hanging on the coat rack. I jumped over the chair and managed to avoid Neil, who was wrestling with his opponent. The bear was howling and trying to fight back, but Neil had the advantage. His enemy was on its back, writhing under the power of Neil’s bite.
I grabbed the umbrella hanging on the rack and turned back to the snake. My hand accidentally hit a button on the handle, but to my surprise, the umbrella didn’t open. Instead, a long, thin blade popped out of the end. I silently thanked Dev for turning his cozy office into a weapons cache, and then it was my turn to jump into the snake’s den.
I planted my feet on either side of the snake’s body as he was rearing back to strike Dev and positioned myself as close to the head as I could get.
I lifted the sword high and brought it down with all my might. The sword did most of the work, the silver cutting through thick skin and tissue and planting itself in the floor beneath. I threw every bit of my weight into sinking the sword in deep, pinning the snake to the floor, his natural predatory grace caught and useless now.
No one has ever properly explained to me why silver has the effect it does on weres, shifters, and vampires, but right then all that mattered was the fact that it worked. Whether for biblical reasons or because it was an allergic reaction, the snake writhed in obvious pain, and my warm heart was not moved a bit. The snake hissed and twitched the tail end of his body, using it like a whip, trying to strike at me.
Dev scrambled up and pulled yet another sword from under his comfy chair. For a man who claimed to love peace, he was awfully well armed. His hair was a bloody mess, and his clothes were torn, showing off bits and pieces of a really nice-looking chest. Dev turned the sword in his hands a few times, obviously relishing the feel of it. He walked straight to the snake and lifted the silver sword with both hands.
“This is a place of peace, asshole.” He swung the sword in a perfect arc. The snake’s head hit the floor with a satisfying thud. He let the sword relax at his side and gave me a ridiculously sexy smile. “Is it wrong that I find you incredibly hot right now?”
I’d wanted to break out of my rut. The rut was utterly ruined and replaced by sheer panic and an oddly elated feeling. I was definitely alive.
I was about to tell him I didn’t mind at all when I noticed that Daniel and the werelion had taken their fight to the balcony. Dev’s door was totally ruined. Daniel and the lion hadn’t bothered nicely moving their argument outside. They had decimated the structure, putting a massive hole in the wall.
Daniel was in full bloodlust mode. His fangs were long as he pulled his fist back and used his preternatural strength to shove the lion over the metal banister and down to the floor below. The lion flew through the air, but even before he could hit the ground, Daniel leapt after him. I could hear the screams from the crowd below, and then Dev was cursing as he followed Daniel over the balcony, clutching his sword.
I, not being able to physically survive a fall of that magnitude, chose to use the stairs.
The dance floor was in complete chaos by the time I got there. The blood from the werelion’s fall managed to arouse some of the more bloodthirsty of the dancers, and all around me shifters were shifting, witches were chanting, and demons were licking their chops. Albert was already on the floor with the rest of the staff trying to control the crowd with water cannons that blasted the clients back and cooled some of the bloodlust. Dev’s staff, it seemed, was well trained in the art of riot control.
I ran, pushing my way through the crowd.
The lion lay in the middle of the previously packed dance floor, the glitter of the surroundings marred by blood and death. Blood coated Daniel’s hand. His fight with the lion seemed to have ended with him punching his way through the lion’s chest cavity.
“Are you okay?” I asked the question as quietly as
I could, putting as much calm into my voice as possible.
He grabbed a napkin off one of the tables close to the dance floor and wiped down his hand with precise, controlled movements, his jaw a rigid line. When he was done, he closed his eyes and took a long breath before tucking his formerly perfect white dress shirt back into his slacks. The lion’s corpse was a couple of feet away, and I tried not to look at it. Daniel could do plenty of damage without a gun.
Daniel declined to answer me. When he opened his eyes again, he simply picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. My world upended. It was obvious he was through talking to me.
Before I could protest, he turned to Dev. “I’m going to get her out of here until we can figure out who’s trying to kill her. Thank you for a lovely evening. Sorry about the destruction.”
Dev shouted to Albert, trying to be heard over the anarchy around him. “Get some body bags, and we’re gonna need the flame thrower. And there’s a werewolf having a late-night snack up in my office. Don’t kill him. He’s a friendly.”
I managed to catch his eye as Daniel hauled me off the dance floor toward the door. He was standing there in the middle of the mayhem, with his shirt ripped and his formerly perfect hair a glorious mess. A cut bled slightly on his bicep, and his lip was a little swollen. He looked really delicious, and I was the girl who destroyed his club on our first date. I should have at least had the courtesy to wait until the third or fourth date before unleashing destruction on him. He would surely regret pursuing me.
My neck was killing me, but I tried to get one last look at the man who was almost certainly going to run the next time he saw me. Then he looked up and Dev gave me a slow, sexy smile and winked. I yelled the only thing I could think of.
“Call me!”
Chapter Eight
“I’ll drive.”
Daniel tossed me in the back seat of his Council-owned Mercedes. A vampire needed to keep up appearances apparently. Daniel was given a yearly allowance from the Council that included an undead friendly apartment, the shiny Benz, and a clothing budget that he was supposed to use for top-of-the-line designer wear. Anything else Daniel had to scratch for like the rest of us. He was a well-dressed bum in a really nice car.
