There were no corners.
“Base to cadet, we read you.” Rodrigo’s voice spilled into my ear unexpectedly enough to make my heart leap. It was the one and only time I was glad to hear Rodrigo’s nasally tone. “Do you have the package?”
“I’m safe, thanks for asking,” I said with an eye roll.
“Of course you are,” Rodrigo replied. “We wouldn’t have sent you in if we weren’t confident—”
“My ass, Rodrigo,” I cut him off. “Why didn’t you tell me that asshole was a hellhound?” I hissed. “Is this another punishment for turning you down last week?”
Faint laughter rang out on Rodrigo’s end. When Rodrigo spoke again, his voice was tight. “Do you have the package or not?”
“Yes, I have the—”
The fist came out of nowhere and caught me square in the jaw.
Lights exploded behind my eyes as pain lit up every inch of my face. I was thrown backward and spun until my shoulder slammed against the wall. I hit the cold concrete hard, grunting as my breath whooshed out. Pain radiated from my cheek all the way to the top of my scalp.
I blinked and cast a quick glance at my attacker.
Surprise—and then a fair amount of dread—washed over me as I recognized the man who’d hit me. It was the brick wall of a security guard I’d spotted earlier. Kristoff’s “plus one.”
And his right hook was about to be followed up by his left.
I ducked just in time to avoid a second hit but moving far enough out of his reach was a bit trickier thanks to my precarious heels. The man came at me again. Instead of dodging away, I smashed my fist into his nose. There was a small crack as I felt his flesh and bone give underneath my knuckles. The monster of a man stumbled back a step, shook his head as if to clear it, then came for me again.
Shit.
He was like one of those cartoons who saw birdies floating around their heads after they got hit. Those assholes always got right back up again. It wasn’t fair.
I managed to block the next swing—thankfully his massive size meant he was a little slower than me—but the one after that landed. My shoulder seized up at the force of his fist, and I let out a small sound of pain.
By the Angel, this guy was a brickhouse.
Before I could recover, his hand closed over my throat and squeezed. I struggled against him, gagging, but he had me pinned against the wall and no amount of scraping or hitting loosed him.
That magic Rodrigo had mentioned to me earlier—the spell work preventing violence—would be a nice surprise right about now…
Or was it only actual death it prevented? I couldn’t remember, but the idea of spending the next few hours as this guy’s punching bag made death sound sort of appealing.
Finally, I kicked out in desperation and my pointed toe landed hard against his groin. He groaned and released me so that he could stumble away, holding his hands delicately over the injured area.
The sudden imbalance sent me reeling. I managed to catch myself and turned away, ready to sprint for the doors—wherever they were—but another figure stood in my way, blocking my exit.
“Lita, where are you going in such a hurry? Don’t you know it’s rude to run out on a date this way?” Kristoff’s eyes narrowed shrewdly as he studied me, the dim sconces on the wall reflecting off the light in his pupils. Like earlier, a tiny flame flickered in his irises.
I didn’t answer, mostly because I was too caught up in trying to breathe again, and my throat hurt like it had just been set on fire and left to burn.
In my earpiece, Rodrigo’s voice was frantic. I’d ignored it for most of the fight, but now he was nearly screaming, “Base to cadet. Cadet?! What the hell is going on? Report!”
Kristoff strode forward, his creepy gaze locked on my chest as it rose and fell heavily. When he got close enough, he reached for my face. I forced myself not to flinch as I prepared for some kind of attack. Instead, he grabbed my comm unit and snatched it out of my ear.
“I can see why you’re so distracted,” he said, my comm caught between his thumb and forefinger. “You came here to meet me, but you’ve already let another man into your head.”
I pursed my lips, my expression carefully unaffected by the fact that he’d just exposed me. “I don’t think things are going to work out between us, Kristoff. You don’t trust me at all.”
He let out a snarl and leaned in close. “You will return what you took from me, or I will take it from you myself.”
His stale breath washed over me, nearly gagging me all over again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kristoff’s muscle edging closer. Kristoff and the man shared a glance, and I knew muscle-brains was just waiting on the signal before he grabbed me and started in on round two.
I kept my expression carefully neutral, but inside, my heart thudded heavily against my chest. Fucking A. I was burned, and there wasn’t a damn thing base could or would do about it. Either I found a way out on my own or I became one of those girls who was never the same after the Monster Ball.
Every year there were one or two.
No one ever talked about it but the whole “what happens at Monster Ball stays at Monster Ball” wasn’t just a gimmicky line. You could do a lot of damage to a person without killing them. I knew that. Muscle-head knew that. And Kristoff damn sure knew that.
“Tell you what,” I said, meeting Kristoff’s gaze with the steeliest stare I could muster. “You tell shit-for-brains over there to take a walk,” I nodded my head at Kristoff’s guard dog. “And I’m sure you and I can come to an understanding.”
Kristoff huffed, not even a scrap of hesitation in him before he smirked and said, “Haven’t you heard? This is a party. And three’s a crowd.”
He shoved his knee into my stomach, and I doubled over, groaning.
Thick hands grabbed me from behind, yanking me into the unlit passageway at my back. Within seconds, the darkness had swallowed us up. I screamed, knowing it was the only chance I had left. The sound of my voice echoed, bouncing off the concrete walls surrounding me as if even it couldn’t reach beyond the dark passageway.
“Scream all you like,” Kristoff said. “Plenty of other guests here tonight are doing the same for their own reasons. Yours won’t have much effect.”
A hand gripped my hair, yanking hard, and I stumbled backward, dragged farther into the blackness of the passageway. Desperation clawed at me. I twisted and swung out, my fist connecting with a meaty arm, but it wasn’t enough to break the hold. I swung out a second time. This time, when my knuckles met his skin, pain ricocheted up my arm as my hand met with a hard surface. It felt more like stone than skin. What the hell was this freak?
Gargoyle, maybe?
Whatever he was, my fists weren’t making a dent.
A second later, we rounded a narrow doorway, and I yelped as the hand let me go with enough force to fling me against the wall of a small, dark room. Whatever light had reached us from the main hall was gone now.
Pitch darkness closed in around me, and I blinked, sucking in gulps of air that tasted way too stale for this room to be anything but forgotten.
My animal senses kicked in, my sight sharpening almost instantly.
Two shadows loomed in front of me, but neither one seemed put off by the darkness. I could only assume they both had the same night vision I did. Between that and Mr. Stone-for-Skin, I was going to have to up my game if I wanted to get out of this.
And I really wanted to get out of this.
In fact, the beast inside me was already straining to get out. I’d held him back until now in order to preserve my cover, but with that blown, I wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. He knew it too because it was getting harder and harder to hold him back.
We were about to test just how strong all this spell work really was.
For a split second, I was tempted to go with a carbon copy of rocks-for-brains, give him a taste of his own medicine, but it would have taken too long. I needed strength now. And there was only one c
reature I could conjure without concentration.
My face changed first.
The familiar stretching and popping filled the air as my facial features warped. My nose elongated, bone cracking as a giant beak formed. Then my ears vanished underneath a thick layer of feathers and down. The feathers spread from the top of my head down to my chest, covering every inch of skin in its wake.
My arms turned to wings, stretching and widening—and threatening to topple me if I didn’t hold them correctly.
“No,” Kristoff growled, lunging for me. “She’s changing. Stop her.”
I swayed hard to the right. Thanks to my wing position and my half-shifted body, Kristoff’s lackey was on me before I could evade him. A meaty hand wrapped around my throat. My beast squawked and squealed at the pressure, clawing harder to find a release.
Kristoff loomed in front of me, his fingers fumbling with a small vial he’d produced from who knew where. I’d checked his pockets earlier and hadn’t felt anything like that inside them. Before I could speculate what he’d smuggled in here, he was uncapping it and emptying the contents into my half-open beak.
I writhed away from him, but there was nowhere to go, not with the vise grip around my throat holding me in place. Too late, I remembered the silly “weapon” Rodrigo had stowed inside my purse—and the fact that I’d left my purse on that couch inside the ballroom.
Dammit.
So much for smuggling things in under the radar.
The mystery liquid, warm and thick, coated my eagle tongue. Within seconds, my inner beast stalled and then receded altogether. My human form reappeared, my bones aching at the half-shift they’d been forced back from.
“What the hell…?” I managed in a choked voice.
“What’s the matter? Not feeling like yourself?” Kristoff asked and then laughed at his own joke.
“What did you give me?” I demanded.
“Just a little something to keep you out here and whatever’s inside you in there,” he said, an edge to his words.
I strained, searching through my mind for some sign of my inner creature, but it was just gone. Desperate, I tried shifting into my mother instead. Her fae body was the second easiest form I could take; the first being the griffin Kristoff’s magical drink had just blocked.
But that one didn’t work either.
Staring hard at the man holding me in his clenched hand, I gathered my strength and used everything I had left on one last attempt. It had always been easier to mimic a subject when I had them in my sights.
I felt my skin ripple and my flesh stretch as my face changed. The man holding me blanched, and I knew my features had morphed enough for him to see my goal. “Boss, she’s…me.”
“Yes, I can see that,” came Kristoff’s reply.
The grip around my throat loosened slightly. “But how?”
“She’s a shapeshifter, you idiot. She can look like anything she wants,” Kristoff said.
I couldn’t, actually. Not anything. But there was no point in telling either of them that.
Glaring at my doppelgänger, I gritted my teeth and willed the change to completely take me over. If I had to look like this guy in order to beat them, so be it. Although, if Rodrigo asked, I was going to maintain I’d beaten them with my disguise intact and let that be the end of it.
But just as quickly as the change had come, it vanished again. This time, it left behind a strange burning in my stomach. And underneath that, an emptiness. I knew without even trying to draw on it, there was nothing left.
No magic.
No ability to shift.
Nothing.
“What the hell did you give me?” I demanded again.
“A cocktail,” Kristoff replied vaguely.
Fear lanced through me, but I shoved it away. Panic would only cripple me now. I had to think straight for as long as that drink would let me.
“Poison?” I asked.
“Just something to level the playing field,” Kristoff said.
I glared at him. “Hardly level when you still have the power to change and I don’t.”
“I have no intention of changing. Not when this form is capable of having so much more fun with you.” Even as he said it, his eyes rippled again with the flames I’d seen earlier. “Women,” he snorted to his friend. “Always wanting a man to change for her.”
The second man frowned at me, but it wasn’t much more than a murky line where his mouth had drawn down. With my fae sight gone, I could barely make out his face in the dark room. That scared me more than these two assholes. Not once in my whole life had my extra senses failed me. But they were failing me now. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t call up a single remnant of my beast or my fae traits.
Thanks to that drink Kristoff had forced on me, my eyesight had dimmed, my strength had dwindled. All my power was gone.
Kristoff watched me, his lips twisted weirdly in cruel enjoyment. “How does it feel to be robbed of something so important to you?”
“Kiss my ass,” I snarled at him, straining against the hand that held me by the throat.
“What a delicious invitation,” Kristoff whispered. He turned to his minion and snapped, “Hold her still no matter what.”
Kristoff’s hands landed on my chest, fingers exploring the seam where fabric met skin. His fingers pawed at my breasts, and I had to swallow the bile that rose in my throat. With a disgusting smirk, Kristoff reached into my dress and drew out the tiny chip I’d stashed earlier.
“Bingo.” He held it up then slid it into the pocket of his pants.
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
Kristoff’s palm shot out, landing with a hard crack across my cheek.
I gritted my teeth as pain radiated up to my temple.
“Boss,” warned the brute. “We can’t leave evidence. You know what happens to people who break the rules.”
Kristoff grunted. “Calm down, Lopez. We aren’t going to kill her,” he said as if that made all of this okay.
Huh. So there was at least one person Kristoff was afraid of.
“Hey, Kristoff,” I said, my voice low and throaty, and not just because my neck was being squeezed. “I think you’re on to something.”
Kristoff leaned in—way too sure of himself to be cautious now. Fingers grazed my arm. “Yes?”
“I just wanted to say that you were right,” I said, wheezing through the words.
“Right about what?” Now his hand was rubbing the length of my arm.
“As long as you don’t kill, you haven’t broken the rules.” I brought my knee up as hard as I could into his groin.
Kristoff screamed—a long, high-pitched keening sound that was more beast than man—and went down to one knee.
The hand squeezing my throat released me. I sucked in a couple of unhindered gulps of air and then rounded on my opponent. Kristoff was bent over at the waist, one hand braced on the floor for balance as he continued to howl. Lopez stood beside him looking torn about whether to try to help his boss somehow or pummel me.
“Boss?” Lopez asked uncertainly.
I couldn’t help the satisfied smirk that ghosted my lips. “Did you get everything you wanted from me or shall I keep dishing it out?”
Kristoff shot me a look, still hunched over. Then he turned to Lopez. “Kill the bitch. We’ll worry about the rules later.”
Lopez straightened, his eyes shuttering and his hands fisting the moment the order was given. He took a step toward me.
I backed up, stopping when I hit the wall.
Lopez didn’t stop coming, and no matter how much I strained to call up my inner beast, no answer came. I was on my own here.
“Ah, hell,” I muttered just as Lopez raised a stone-cold fist and swung.
Chapter Five
In the split second it took me to duck away from Lopez’s outstretched fist, someone screamed. It sounded like Kristoff. Again. Except that I hadn’t touched him. Stepping out of my shoes, I slid silently along the wall to
the far side of the room, hoping the inky darkness would provide enough cover to at least slow him down.
Straight ahead, in the open doorway, something moved. A shadow or a silhouette—Lopez blotted it out before I could be sure.
I sucked in a gulp of air and kept weaving.
On the floor, Kristoff writhed. I tried to figure out what had sent him into another fit of pain, but my own problems were much more urgent.
I was forced backward again by Lopez, both of us grunting with our efforts. He finally wised up to my defensive maneuvers and instead of swinging sideways, he stepped forward, closing the distance between us until it was impossible for me to slip away again.
He reached for me. Instead of landing another blow, he grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking it up and away until I was on my tiptoes before him.
Something ruffled in the still air.
A piece of fabric? The shuffle of quiet feet?
Lopez must have heard it too because he hesitated, turning his head only slightly at the tiny sound.
It was all I needed.
Bending at the knees, I dropped straight down and thrust my hands out, feeling around on the dark floor. My hand closed over one of the shoes I’d abandoned earlier. I grabbed it and yanked it—and myself—back up to where Lopez waited above me.
His hands grabbed my arms.
I brought the shoe up and then back down again as hard as I could. The tip of the heel sank into Lopez’s eye, sticking there when I finally let it go.
He let out a howl, stumbling away and pulling desperately on the shoe. It made a disgusting sound of wet suction as he wrenched it free. With a snarl, he chucked the shoe across the room and spun toward me. Blood and fluid oozed from his injury.
I ducked out of his reach, intent on making it through the door, but Lopez was faster. He grabbed me, slinging me backward.
I hit the wall with a thud sending a crack through my shoulder blades.
The air whooshed out of my lungs, and Lopez closed the distance between us. My shoulders sagged. Whatever he had planned, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop him. With my fae energy gone and no ability to shift, I was at his mercy.
The Monster Ball: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 17
