Deceptions: A Collection (17 page)

“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 wanted 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 there.

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 trickled 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 heard 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.

“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.

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. 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.

He stumbled, caught off guard and as he did, I back-flipped away. There was a little noise and he could track that, but the second I was far enough away, I stopped with the fancy moves and just walked.

That, I could do quietly, moving into a busier area of the lair, hoping I could get far enough away from him that I’d be harder to track by scent. It worked. For a minute. I ducked through a door and found myself outside in a courtyard, surrounded by people coming and going into the lair.

It didn’t last for long. I saw it when he caught my scent and I ducked behind an arbor away from others, out of sight. As he came at me, I called my blade and it was in my hand just as he reached the area I’d picked to make my stand. I dropped the cloak of invisibility just as the tip of the blade pierced his chest.

“Back off,” I said quietly.

“You must really have a death wish,” he murmured.

“No. Actually, I’m kind of fond of life and it pisses me off that you led me in there knowing what she was going to drop on me.” I pushed the blade a little deeper and said again, “Back off.”

Instead, he took another step toward me. “Do you really think you can take me? Take any of us?”

“No.” I smiled and twisted my blade, watched as a pained look crossed his face as the silver took effect. “But I figured something out…she ordered you not to let anybody hurt me…didn’t she?”

His lids flickered.

No other response, though. No other answer.

Smiling at him, I gave the blade another twist. His skin was starting to smoke now—whatever kind of cat he was, he was strong, or he would have already pulled back. “That includes you…and her.”

He backed away. “You’ll end up dead before this is out and I’ll be the one to pay for it,” he muttered, disgust thick in his voice.

“Don’t worry.” I pulled a cloth from my pocket and cleaned the blood from my blade, tucked it away. “I’ve got a pretty good rep for landing on my feet.” Usually.

Damon stared at me. He didn’t look impressed.

“All you had to do was leave the fucking sword,” he growled. “That was what set her off.”

I was tempted to tell him that I
had
left the sword, that she had come to me when I needed her. But why? I might need the element of surprise later on. He obviously hadn’t figured it out on his own. “Hey, you saw me lock it up. Not my fault if you can’t pay closer attention.”

Those rather fantastic eyes of his narrowed.

I shrugged and turned away. I had a job to do. Not one I wanted, but since I wanted to keep breathing, apparently one that was going to have to be done.

“I need to talk to the boy’s family,” I said.

“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.