To my surprise, he chuckled. “It seems she had a good read on you. You will get in trouble working this alone.” He reached into his jacket and five seconds later, I found myself staring at neat little stacks of green.
Money.
Lots and lots of cold, hard cash.
Oh, shiny…
“Your down payment.” Then he smiled. “And don’t worry…I’ll take care of my own meals and such.”
“Wait a second, I never said I was taking the damn job.” I continued to stare at the money. Damn, it was enough to set me up for a while. And then some. Abruptly, his words got through to me and I shifted my focus back to his face. “What do you mean, you take care of your own meals?”
“I’m part of the package, kitten. Your bodyguard, babysitter and tattle-tale, all rolled into one.” Flashing his teeth at me, he added, “Aren’t you pleased?”
Hell. No.
Two hours later, my self-appointed bodyguard was guiding me into the decidedly opulent lair of the Lady.
Somehow, Hell. No. had turned into Okay without a conscious decision from my brain. I didn’t even realize it had happened.
One minute I had been in the process of gathering up the money to throw at his face, and the second…the picture. I had looked back at the picture. The poor kid with stringy blond hair hanging in his thin face, his blue eyes defiant and scared.
Lost.
Sixteen. Out there, alone. Sixteen years old and his body was a ticking time-bomb.
I’d been fifteen when I’d run away from my mother’s family. Fifteen, and although I hadn’t had to worry about my body going nuts, I had spent the next three years convinced one of my aunts, or worse…my grandmother…might come after me. I knew what it was like to be alone and scared.
“Come on, kitten. She’s waiting for you.”
Glaring at the back of his head, I pointed out, “I have a name.” It wasn’t kitten. I didn’t like kitten.
“Yeah. Kit. Not too different from kitten.” He shot me a grin over his shoulder, one that was faintly demonic, I decided. “It’s too late to back out now. You already accepted the money. That’s pretty much akin to signing a contract in our world and you know it. She’ll take exception if you turn chicken now.”
I curled my lip at him.
I’d show him a fucking chicken—he’d squawk like one after I rammed my sword up his ass.
But I wasn’t going to back out. After all, he was right; I’d taken the money. And it was about that, right? I could try to pretend. After all, I like money. I didn’t get lots of it often and when I did, I got through it too easily. I was finally getting better at budgeting, but man, fifty thousand? I could splurge. A little.
Yet even as I tried to pretend, I knew better. I had a soft spot, all right. A weakness. And it was most definitely for cases that involved kids.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that boy’s face.
I was sunk. Completely.
“You ever going to tell me your name?” I asked, trailing along after him, eying his muscled back, those wide shoulders. In the back of my mind, some part of me thought: Pretty…
And I immediately wanted to punch myself. He was a damned cat. He still hadn’t confirmed or denied, but I knew a cat when I saw one. And regardless, he was a shifter, he was somehow connected to the crazy cat clan and that meant hell, no. Even if he was hotter than hell.
“I guess I should tell you my name, since I’ll be keeping you company for a while…” He smiled as we came to a halt inside a round room—it was draped with swaths of pink silk.
I felt like I’d fallen into a piece of bubble gum.
“And that name is…?”
“Damon.”
“Demon? That’s fitting.” I smirked at him and flopped onto a chair. I put my blade on the couch next to me and drew my knee to my chest, ignoring the pointed look he gave the sword.
“You don’t need that,” he said flatly.
“I do.” I touched it and smiled as the runes danced at my touch. My mother’s sword. It wasn’t as strong in my hands as it had been in hers—after all, I was half-human, but it was still powerful. And mine. I felt better just for touching it.
My mother’s sword. And she knew me.
“She isn’t going to like some trained killer sitting in her private quarters with a silver sword,” he said. His brows dropped low of those odd eyes of his and he came off the couch, prowling closer. “How did you get it in here, anyway? I saw you lock it up.”
I smiled. “We trained killers have our tricks.”
And my sword was one of mine…she had been my mother’s sword. She would be there when I needed her, or if I thought I might. An aneira warrior wouldn’t be easily parted from her blade.
“Put it away,” he ordered. “Now.”
I closed my hand around the grip. “No.”
The last time I’d gone into the lair of one of the damned Alphas, I almost hadn’t made it out alive. If he thought I’d go into this one willingly and unarmed, he was out of his pretty skull.
The door opened.
Damon spun around and immediately bowed his head.
I remained where I was. As far as they were concerned, I was just a human—well, they did see me as a trained killer. At least they acknowledged that, but I wasn’t a shifter, and by the Assembly charter, I wasn’t required to follow their stupid laws. Nor would I. As long as I didn’t attack her, I was allowed to carry whatever fucking weapons I wanted.
So I stayed were I was, sword in my lap, and watched the lady of the cats came into the room.
She was…unexpected.
Yes. Very unexpected. Diminutive and pale, her hair nearly as blonde as mine. Thick black lashes hid her eyes and her mouth was about as pink as it could possibly get and still be natural. Either she had a damn good hand with makeup or God had just been too kind. She was slender—small waist, petite, but well-enough endowed that I had to wonder if she didn’t use her ability to change shape to alter hers in other ways. Some of the stronger ones could do things like that for short periods of time. The Alpha definitely could do something like that.
Pretty as a doll, I decided. And probably every bit as vapid. I couldn’t even get a read on whatever animal she was, although I knew she was cat. There was just…nothing there.
It was almost as bad as looking at Jude, although I knew why I couldn’t read him. My ability to read people came from their souls. He just didn’t have one.
That wasn’t the case here. Vampires lost their souls over time after they were bitten, losing them slowly. They didn’t just feed on blood—they fed on the psychic energy that came with it, and reveled on the punch of emotion that came with the feeding, since they lost their ability to feel with the death of their soul.
This woman wasn’t a vampire. She was…inanimate. Kind of like a doll. Damon had more presence than she did, I remember thinking that.
Then she turned to face me and the power of her gaze almost sent me crashing to the floor.
I gripped my blade, harder, harder, until the grip damn near bruised my hand and it still wasn’t enough. She moved and a breath later, so did I. It almost wasn’t fast enough but I’d had to rely on my instincts to survive the training of my grandmother and aunts.
I was still holding my sword in the seconds that followed and Damon stood between us, his hands raised in that calming, easy gesture people so often used.
“My Lady, you want to speak with the investigator. I brought her so she could talk to you about Doyle.”
She backhanded him—if I’d ever needed the evidence of shapeshifter strength, I had it now. He was over six feet and I imagined he weighed two-fifty, at the least. The Alpha? She was smaller than I was. I was five foot five, and she looked to be about three or four inches shorter. Save for the boobs, she was fluff all over.
But that single strike sent him flying across the room, crashing into one of the bubble-gum pink walls. He didn’t stay there. Even as she came for me again, he was ther
e.
What the hell—?
“My Lady, you’ll be very angry if you harm the one who can help you find Doyle,” he said, and his voice had a soothing tone that seemed out of place. But then again, if he was trying to calm her down, the smart-ass mouth he showed with me wasn’t the ideal, I figured.
“Damon, are you standing in my way?” she asked. She had a lovely voice. It was like bells tinkling.
Poetic. I was getting poetic in my near-death state.
“I’m just following orders, My Lady,” he said, bowing his head.
“You followed orders by letting her bring a blade in here? To threaten me?”
“How am I a threat?”
Damon shot me a dirty look. His left eye was black, his mouth was busted and blood tricked down his face. He was trashed, and he was pissed, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. But I didn’t look at him. Focusing on the cat alpha, I asked again, “How am I a threat? I bring the weapons I normally carry on a job and if you weren’t prepared for that, then I’m sorry, but I don’t do my job unarmed, especially not when I’m working with shifters.”
“Are you implying I brought you here to harm you?”
Her head cocked to the side and I had the impression of a snake getting ready to strike. Not a pleasant picture. If I lied, she’d know. And if I lied right now, as pissed as she was…damn it, why didn’t anybody see fit to mention that the cat alpha was missing a few marbles? Of course, it wasn’t surprising, considering how fucking nuts all of them were. Maybe it was a pack thing and it all came from her.
The pieces clicked into places and I figured it out. She wasn’t soulless. She was just a sociopath.
I shook my head. Mustn’t enrage the antisocial monster standing five feet away. “I’m not implying anything. I’m treating this job the same as I would any other. I go into it knowing nothing—and that’s the way I’d prefer it.”
Her gaze, pale, pale blue held mine.
Then slowly, she nodded. When she looked away, I let myself breathe.
“Damon, look at your face…”
From the corner of my eye, I watched. She rose on the tips of her toes, touching his cheek, his nose, his bruised eye. “Oh, you poor thing. Does it hurt?”
I didn’t gape, but I wanted to. She’d knocked him into a wall…and she wanted to know if he hurt.
But of course, instead of saying something honest like Yes, bitch, it hurts, Damon just shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
Ten minutes later, they were seated on the couch having tea and I was trying not to stare.
Tea.
For Pete’s sake.
“Do you take sugar?”
I stared at the small cup. I’d rather not take it at all. “Please.”
She nodded and I waited while she played the hostess. Damon sat across from us, his face healed, but there was still blood on him. I’d have liked to ask him why he didn’t bother to go wash it off, but I had a feeling I knew why.
His alpha was a fucking crazy bitch and he was better off not drawing her attention in any way, shape or form.
“So Damon must think you can find my nephew,” the lady murmured.
I needed to think of a name to call her. Nobody would give me her name—I had rumors of shifters who’d served her for decades who didn’t know. She shifted once more in her seat, took a sip from that delicate little mug of tea and then set it down, folded her hands primly in her lap.
I had a suspicion she was posing for me. Like an oversized Barbie doll…ah, bingo. Barbie. It also made her a little less scary in my mind—maybe not in reality, but who cared about reality?
Still pondering the statement she’d made, I finally made myself answer. “I never said I could find him. I don’t even know what’s going on with him. I just know I was offered a job.” Slipping the demonic Damon a look, I resisted the urge to point out that I hadn’t exactly been given much of a chance to refuse. I could have walked away from him. Tried harder. I hadn’t. Damn it.
“Are you telling me you can’t?” she asked, once more tilting her head to the side. There was something creepy about that. It made her look too…practiced. Like she was mimicking human motions without actually understanding why she was doing it.
“I never said that either. I just don’t know anything about the case and I need to do a little more research before I can begin to think about whether or not I can find him.” There. That was honest enough, right?
“Are you good at your job?” She reached for her cup of tea again, staring at me over the rim as she took another small sip.
Cautiously, I answered, “Good enough, I think.”
“Hmmm.” After she set it down, she rose from her seat.
Like he was jerked up on a set of strings, Damon was on his feet. He shot me a narrow look.
I stayed on my ass. That woman might scare me shitless, but I’d grown up around women who scared me shitless and I was done living my life kowtowing to the people who frighten me. If you gave in and did what they wanted, they just pushed for more anyway.
And besides, I wasn’t a damn cat. I didn’t have to follow their fucked-up sense of hierarchy.
She paced the room and when she turned back, she narrowed her eyes as she saw me still sitting. “You really are a bit of a problem child, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s in my nature.”
“I know. Your kind have always had that sense of…arrogance.” Her nose wrinkled when she said your kind. Like we left a bad taste—literally—in her mouth. “I was hoping that you’d be a little less so, since your blood is weaker.”
“Well, you know what they say. Blood is thicker than water.”
“Is it really, though?” She rubbed one hand against the other and resumed her endless prowl around the room. “They cannot stand you, little warrior.”
Little warrior…
I grimaced. Had she been talking to Jude?
Most people didn’t know enough of us to really understand what we were. A handful of the older ones did. Others might know the name but they didn’t understand, didn’t realize what we were…somebody had once called me a watered-down offshoot of a nearly dead race. Not terribly complimentary, but it said it all well enough.
We’d been forgotten, by and large. So it was kind of disturbing that she knew anything about me at all. And even more that she knew of my troubled relationship with my family.
“Whether or not my family can stand me doesn’t have much standing on my ability to do the job, now, does it?” I asked, forcing myself to stay focused on Kitty-cat Barbie. Losing focus with her around was a certain way to end up dead. “All that matters is if I can find him or not. Do you want me to try?”
“No.” She smiled and as she did, the incisors in her mouth lengthened. That was the only thing that changed and it was awful to see. Pure awful.
She continued to smile even as she lisped out, “I don’t want you to try, little warrior. I want you to do it.”
Then, as her teeth shifted back to normal, she came back and sat down. “You’ll find him, Colbana. And you’ll return him to us, unharmed. Or I’m going to come after you and rip out your heart. I’ll feast on it after I bury my nephew.” She said it in the exact same tone she’d asked me if I’d like sugar, and she said it while reaching for her damned tea cup.
Part of me wanted to point out that her terms weren’t entirely fair, but I was outmatched here. Outmatched, outclassed in every way and if she came for me here, on her terms, on her turf, I’d die. From a distance, it would be different and if she wasn’t expecting it, it would be different.
But right now, if I pissed her off, I was dead. I rather liked not being dead. So I held my tongue and stared at her for a long moment. Then, without looking at the man next to me, I folded my hand around the sword on my lap and rose.
No wonder the damn thing had come to me.
I was in a room with a crazy bitch and a man who’d all but led me to slaughter.
Chapte
r Three
I’d barely made it out of the lair when Damon grabbed me and shoved me against a brick wall. We were alone in the corridor. Wonderful. No witnesses to see him try to kill me.
“Are you trying to get us both killed?” he demanded, his voice not much more than a growl. The rage I saw in his eyes practically burned my skin.
This close, my blade wasn’t going to do me much good.
I banished her, although it felt like I was cutting off my arm. Once I had my hands free, I smiled at him. As he snarled, I reached for the dagger I had stashed inside my jacket before we left. I only had about fifty places to hide them. He would have been hard-pressed to find them without searching me.
This was the only one I’d carried on me. It wasn’t silver and it wasn’t very big. It wouldn’t hurt him much, but if I got away from him, I could call my sword and that one could do some damage.
Assuming I could move fast enough—my head was ringing, damn it. Hell, I might be better off doing one of my other tricks. Not that I had many that worked for fighting, but there was one…
“Sure,” I said. “I woke up today just hoping some idiot shifter would appear in my office and drag me off to face his Alpha without warning me that I’d either successfully do the job she was shoving on me or she was going to declare open season on my ass. That just sounded like loads of fun, you dolt.”
Then, I shoved the blade into his side at an upward angle, twisting it as I went.
It stunned him enough that I managed to get away.
Once I had a few feet between us, I held my breath and just…faded out. My ability go invisible is just a part of me. It’s not witchcraft, although it’s probably pretty close. It’s an ability the aneira alone possess, and I had enough of the blood that even I could do it. Once you tap into that ability, it’s as natural as breathing. And it’s very useful. Even a predator has a hard time finding what he can’t see…at first.
Blade Song Page 3
