“You just did.”
Stopping, I turned and stared at him.
“My Lady is his only family. He was orphaned. Her brother was his father. His mother dumped the kid on him a few months after he was born and disappeared. Nobody really knows anything about her. The kid’s dad died when he was five. My Lady took him in and raised him.”
Damn. No wonder the boy ran away.
I was smart enough to keep that bit behind my teeth.
Damon saw it, though. His eyes narrowed and I heard the growl trickling from him. Shrugging, I turned and walked away. Hell, if I was expected to start censoring my thoughts, they might as well kill me now. I’d never survive this.
“Friends, then. Somebody.”
“What, don’t you want to talk to My Lady again?”
Suppressing a shudder, I continued to walk. “Absolutely. But his friends first. A kid that age, sometimes you get a better feel for them by talking to their friends anyway.”
“He didn’t have many.” Stormcloud eyes rested on my face. “I already explained this. He was something of a loner.”
Yes. He’d explained that. But even outsiders tended to have a couple of people they hung with. Not always, but usually. “Many isn’t the same as none. So did he have anybody he spoke with? Ever?”
Silence stretched out between us and I braced myself, prepared to wait endlessly if I had to. Patience wasn’t one of my stronger virtues, but I could stand there for hours if need be. It only took about two minutes. Either he was a weird-ass cat or he didn’t see the point in wasting time.
“There are a couple of kids,” he finally said, inclining his head. “But they aren’t going to talk to you.”
Yeah. Like that was any surprise. Shooting him a narrow look, I said, “Well, maybe you should tell them it would be wise to. You’d think they’d want him found. And while I might not inspire them to fear…you should be able to.”
“Shit, kitten. I think you just said something almost smart.”
I didn’t grace that pithy comment with a reply. There really, really wasn’t any point.
Doyle’s friends didn’t hang out at the lair—not many of the teens did.
No surprise, really.
What teenaged kid would want to hang around a place where that crazy bitch might show up? The aunt alone was a good enough reason to run away, if you asked me. Hell, if Kitty-cat Barbie was my aunt, I would have run away, too. I knew what it was like to have blood-thirsty relatives who were somewhat lacking in the sanity department.
Mine had been my grandmother, Fanis. The mega-bitch to end all mega-bitches. She could even give Kitty-cat Barbie a run for her money as far as cruelty went, I’d imagine.
Just think about her made me twitchy and I couldn’t be twitchy, so I shoved the thoughts aside and studied the long, low building in front of me. It was cordoned off by chain-link fencing, marked with the insignia of the ANH. Perched on the border of East Orlando, it was clearly non-human territory. Humans could go in, but if they did, there was an acceptable risk.
Acceptable risk.
Why did they even bother?
If anything bad happened, anybody inside with non-human blood was still screwed.
As long as all the bad shit happened on our side, it didn’t matter.
But if a human was harmed, we were fucked.
Of course, if humans ganged up and hunted us down? Not an issue. That had happened just a month ago up in Atlanta. Eight men had kidnapped a high-school-aged girl. Her mother was a shifter. Her father was human. The girl hadn’t manifested.
That didn’t matter.
Even though the men had been caught on video as she was forced into a van, nobody was pressing charges. She was still missing and nobody in the human world cared.
If she’d been my daughter, I would have gutted the men. Quietly. Taken my time and taken them out one by one.
One thing about that sign, though, it made it clear to me that was I traveling on dangerous ground. People in there played by shifter rules.
I was now on the job and that meant I’d end up stepping on toes. No safe passage. Didn’t matter if I had some bruiser at my back or not. I was going to step on toes.
“What is this place?” I asked as Damon came around to stand beside me.
“Just one of their hangouts,” he said easily, a smile on his face.
That smile alone was enough to warn me.
With a critical look at me, he warned, “They won’t let you in with weapons. And if you try to sneak that sword in, they’ll put you in a world of hurt. Just so you know—they will pat you down. You’ve got a known face, so…”
“Pat me down? Wonderful.” I started stripping out of my gear. I made a show of taking off my sword. Then I held it out to him. “Why don’t you lock it in the truck, hotshot?”
The look in his eyes was so full of distrust, I almost laughed. Instead, I just fished my keys out of my pocket and popped the lock, heading to the back of my car and stowing away the knives, my gun, the garrote that worked into my collar. He carried the sword, watching as I put away one weapon after the other. “You’d think you were going to war,” he drawled. “Are you afraid I can’t keep that cute ass of yours in one piece?”
I kept my head down, letting my hair hide my face as blood rushed up and set my cheeks on fire. I could handle being a little embarrassed. What I couldn’t handle was the other reaction.
It had been way too long since I’d been laid.
And he was pretty to look at in a rough kind of way, but there was no way I was doing this. He was just as much trouble as Jude was…
Jude—
Like a whispered summons, I grew painfully aware of his presence. It stroked across my skin, brushed across my mind even as I swore and fought the urge to kick at something. What in the hell...I thought. Why now?
Jerking my head up, I turned around in a slow circle. My unwanted bodyguard noticed and he shifted, moving to stand in front of me, effectively blocking my view. I shoved at him. “Would you get the hell out of the way?”
I might as well have been shoving at a boulder for all the good it did.
But it didn’t matter. What I needed to see wasn’t in front of us.
It was driving down the street and as I turned my head, I saw it.
Long, sleek black car. A warning thrummed in my head. Getting louder and louder until it was a roar. By the time the car stopped, I was ready to gouge through my eardrums just to shut it up. Yes. Problem. I’m aware. Thank you very much, brain.
The door opened and the roaring faded away as I saw who stepped out. It wasn’t Jude. I already knew that. It was early yet for him. Even though I’d long since figured out he could handle sunlight, he didn’t bother unless he chose to and only God above knew what motivated him.
I knew the woman climbing out of the car, though, her movements all liquid grace and sex personified.
It was Evangeline, his personal assistant, a woman who hated me with every fiber of her being. If it wasn’t for the hold Jude had on her, I had no doubt she’d do her damnedest to kill me. She’d had a hard time of it. Evangeline was a vampire’s servant and their blood bond gave her an extra kick, not to mention seeming immortality.
But she was more human than not.
I thought I could probably take her.
My palm itched and I clenched it. If I wasn’t careful, the sword Damon held was going to leap to my palm and that sweet little secret was going to be out of the bag. Evangeline pissed me off and I’d like to fight her, but she wasn’t a threat until Jude decided he was done toying with me. And I think he was having too much fun for that to change any time soon.
“Hello, Angie,” I drawled.
The faint line between her brows was the only sign of her displeasure, but it was enough. I wasn’t choosy. I took what I could get. Dismissing her, I went back to stripping off my weapons. The only things left were a couple of knives tucked inside my boots. I placed one foot on the bumper as Evangeline came
closer, her movements sinuous and boneless, like an eel’s. She’d been one of Jude’s since before the mortal Civil War, nearly two centuries earlier. Her humanity died a little more every year. She was almost as graceful, almost as scary as some of the vampires. Almost.
“Jude would like to know why you haven’t answered his summons,” she said, a pretty polite little smile on her Cupid’s bow mouth. And her eyes were pools of seething, ugly hate.
“Oh, that’s easy,” I said cheerfully, drawing out one knife, laying it in the trunk. I did the same with its mate and then shifted to my other boot. I laid one of the blades in the trunk, but the last one, I held onto as I turned to face Evangeline. “You see, he keeps summoning me like I’m his little dog, or one of his little servants. Like you.”
I started to toss the knife. Sunlight danced off the silver surface, casting slivers of light all around. “I’m not.”
“He has a job for you,” Evangeline said.
“Then he can make an appointment.” I shrugged and continued to make the knife dance. “Or he can call me. E-mail—does he know what e-mail is? Hell, he can send you with the information or send it via courier pigeon for all I care. I don’t give a rat’s ass. But I don’t answer to his summons.”
“Rat’s ass…” Evangeline came closer. “It’s ironic that you say that. Considering that he saved you. Your ass, might I point out. From the rats.”
“True. But if the whole lot of you had been doing your fucking job?”
She snaked out a hand to grab the knife. I saw it coming and caught the blade, pointed it at her throat, just a whisper from piercing her skin. “I wouldn’t have had to do that damned job…meaning I wouldn’t have to deal with any of you,” I finished. “I could have continued my happy little existence, none of you would know about me and my life would be so much easier. I’m still pissed off over that.”
“Please do it.” Evangeline leaned against the blade, staring at me and for once, the smile on her face was echoed in her eyes. “I beg you. Draw my blood. Then I can convince my master what an utterly worthless use of space you are…I’ll kill you for attacking me and he won’t be terribly aggrieved.”
I pressed harder with my knife, cocked my head as the tip came ever closer to breaking the skin. “Sugar…killing me won’t be as easy on you as you think. Jude could tear me apart…but you can’t.”
A hard, brutal hand closed around my wrist.
Damon jerked my hand down and shoved me back.
“Leech-lover, go tell your master she’s working for the Queen of the Cats,” he said, sending me his infamous dark look. “She’s not available for anybody else at this time.”
“Like hell.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
He ignored me as he wedged that wide, powerful body between me and Evangeline.
Her eyes widened.
She might not fear me—and that was really, really short-sighted of her, but Damon apparently worried her a little.
“If he wants her, he’s going to have to get in line. She’s busy,” Damon murmured. He leaned in, crowding into her space.
A human would have backed away.
But a vampire’s servant was a different matter and Evangeline just stood there, even though something that might have been fear glittered in her eyes. “Is that a fact?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you pass the message along?”
“I’m afraid I’m not your errand girl, cat.” Turning on her heel, she walked away. “He’ll be in contact soon, Colbana. You don’t want to keep ignoring him. It won’t go well for you.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’d been getting variations of that for the past two or three years, ever since I’d decided that life was better without Jude in it. The first few years after I’d met him, I’d gone when he called, feeling like I owed him, but then I’d realized he was trying to put me on a chain. A pretty, polite one, but a chain nonetheless. I’d spent too much of my life caged and I wasn’t doing it anymore.
There were times when circumstances jerked me back into his orbit, but usually I was able to stay away from him. I’d managed to avoid His Arrogance’s presence—in person—for going on seven months now. That wasn’t going to last much longer, but I also wasn’t terribly concerned he was going to go apeshit, either.
He was having too much fun playing with me.
Damon remained in front of me, blocking my view of the car until it rolled out of sight. Then he turned around, studying me with that odd look in his eyes. The one that made me think he was trying to decide if I’d be fun to eat or more fun to just slice to ribbons and play with.
“I think I’ve seen five year olds with more sense than you,” he said flatly. “How in the world are you even still alive?”
“Dumb luck?” I stepped back and nodded to the sword in his hand. “Are you going to lock that up or what?”
He tossed it in. Shut the trunk and then he turned to me. “Put your hands on the damned trunk.”
I cocked a brow at him. “Excuse me?”
“You carry more firepower than a Banner extermination unit.”
A Banner extermination unit—the slang term for the assassination units out of Bureau of American Non-Human Affairs—was a human group of killers. They went after the non-humans who were deemed too dangerous to exist.
And no matter what, any kill made by the Banner unit was pretty much considered a ‘righteous’ kill. Thankfully, they weren’t used too often—we preferred to handle our problem children on our own. When they did go on a hunt, they went loaded for bear.
I snorted and crossed my arms over my chest. “I hardly carry that many weapons.”
“Sure. Now turn around and put your hands on the fucking car,” he snapped.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to pat you down and make sure you don’t have anything else.” He leaned in and all but snarled the words into my face.
He reached for me. I lifted a hand to block but damn he was fast. A split second later, I was face down against the trunk of my car, the metal smashing against my cheek while one big arm crushed against my neck. His other hand jacked my wrist up high between my shoulder blades. My bones screamed and thanks to the pressure he had on my neck, the oxygen in my lungs dwindled down to nothing and panic tried to crowd in on me. Pain and dread gripped me and my free hand itched, so desperately bad. The blade…my sword, she sang to me, called to me…Ask, just ask…
No. Not yet—
I lay there, limp, fighting back the rush of fear. If I panicked, it would be worse. It would use up my oxygen and make it that much harder to fight when I had to. And, if I did fight, it would be worse—
No. You’re not back there. He’s not Fanis—
I battled back the terror, focused on the pain and called up anger. Anger grounded me. Focused me.
No fear, damn it. I could still breathe…barely…and he wasn’t trying to kill me. He just wanted me afraid while he yelled at me.
My blood is noble. My heart is strong. My aim is true. I am aneira…my heart is strong—
No fear. I could be drowning in it, and he damn well could smell it on me, but I sure as hell wouldn’t show it.
As he leaned in closer, his mouth against my ear, I clenched my jaw.
“Listen, you little fool. You’re going into a place that we keep safe for our young,” he growled. “You got that? And while you aren’t exactly what I’d call a threat in our world, our young still aren’t precisely ready to defend themselves. You go in there swinging silver or anything else, it’s going to piss them off. Some of them may try to shift, which will scare you enough that you might try to defend yourself and you’re obviously too stupid to know when to pull back and when to fight. If you hurt one of them, somebody in there will try to kill you. Which means I’m bound, by my word to My Lady to kill them—just because they are defending our young.”
He all but spat each word and I knew if he wanted, he could snap my neck in an instant. It was getting hard to b
reathe, too hard, and I could all but feel the warming in my palm as the magic that connected me to my blade started to waken.
Then it was done. Damon loosened his hold and let me go. “Do you think you can get that into your fool head?”
Shoving upright, I glared at him over my shoulder. “Go fuck yourself,” I rasped out and it was like I had to choke the words out through a fucking straw. My face throbbed; my wrist and arm weren’t feeling too much better, but my throat felt like it had been pulverized.
Burning hot with rage and humiliation, and yet somehow cold with fear, I placed my hands on the truck and stood there as he did a quick, impersonal pat-down.
One thing was certain.
He was enough of an ass that my long-dormant libido had settled back into complacency.
Hell, he might be on the same level of dangerous as Jude, but he was a few steps higher on the asshole meter. Kind of pathetic. I hadn’t thought anybody could outpace the vampire, but this guy had managed to do it in a day.
Now that takes talent.
Chapter Four
My right hand itched.
From the minute we stepped foot inside those gates, it itched.
I had no weapons.
I didn’t have my sword.
And although I could have the damn sword at any time I wanted, if I let her come to me, it was going to incite riots, according to my asshole bodyguard, and if that happened, he’d have to kill people to protect me.
That shouldn’t bother me.
The problem was that it did and he’d figured out exactly what nerve to hit.
I didn’t like death.
I’d killed people and I’d do it again, probably before this job was out. I definitely didn’t want it to happen if I could avoid it, but what was the problem with me carrying my sword?
“If you go in there stinking of fear, you’re going to set them off,” Damon muttered.
“Well, if you didn’t want me afraid, you shouldn’t have set me off,” I pointed out, then I scowled at the sound of my voice. Fuck. I sounded like I’d swallowed a bunch of broken gravel and rusty nails and my throat hurt. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t dealt with before, but it still pissed me off.
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