Deceptions: A Collection (18 page)

“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 breathe, 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.

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.

He frowned and looked over at me.

Then he stopped and went to catch my arm.

I backed away. Fast. Part of me wanted to cringe. The body remembers abuse. For a long, long time.

“Don’t touch me,” I warned him. I wouldn’t cower. Not in front of him. I could practically feel the fear bleeding out of me, replaced by anger.
I am aneira—my heart is strong
. And I sure as hell wouldn’t cower in front of this bastard.

Something flickered in his eyes, that frown still tightening his face. But he nodded. “Try to keep the fear under wraps, kitten. You don’t want to go breathing fear over a bunch of adolescent shapeshifters. They’ll think you’re hard up for a date,” he said, starting back up the path. “If you are that desperate for some rough fun, I can give it to you.”

His meaning hit me about five heartbeats later.

I would have laughed if it wouldn’t have hurt so much.

At the doorway, I was subjected to yet another pat-down.

This one wasn’t quite so impersonal, though. As the man’s hands lingered over my breasts, I hissed and drove my head back into his face. Pain bloomed through the back of my skull, but I heard the satisfying sound of his nasal bone crunching. I’d regret it in a second. My head was already pounding and once the adrenaline faded, it would be worse, I knew.

Well, maybe not—I might be dead before the pain caught up with the adrenaline. Either way, I didn’t care.

His hand fisted into my hair as I fought to twist away.

“You little—”

Then I was free and Damon was there. “Please tell me you didn’t just insult the Lady by taking the liberty I thought I saw,” he growled. “That woman is working for the Alpha. An insult to her is an insult to the Lady. Did I just see what I thought I saw?”

Even I could smell the stink of fear crowding the air now.

This time, it wasn’t mine. I cocked my wrist, tried to ignore the heat flaring there. Tried to ignore the sword’s whisper in the back of my mind.

The bastard who’d groped my tits went to the ground on one knee, blood dripping from a nose that had already healed. “Sir, I…I meant no disrespect.”

I stared at him. “You grab my tits and you mean no disrespect.”

Damon shot me a dark look. I glared at him and turned away. “Fuck, I never should have talked to you,” I muttered. I went to turn away, rubbing the back of my aching head, tacky now with the bastard’s blood.

“Get up,” Damon growled.

“Sir, I—”

I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Damon hammer a massive fist into the man’s face. He went flying into the wall about ten feet away. The concrete block cracked a little. The entire place was made of concrete block. If this was a regular occurrence around her, the décor made sense.

As Damon turned around to face me, I looked away.

So far on this job, I’d had the Bitch Queen tell me I was as good as dead if I failed the job. She’d stuck a crazy bastard on my ass to keep me safe and just a few minutes ago, he’d almost killed me. Thirty seconds ago, somebody had groped my tits.

Fifty thousand dollars wasn’t worth it.

“Ma’am?”

It was a quiet, polite voice and I turned, found myself staring into a handsome, lean face. Asian, with liquid black eyes and a courteous smile on his lips.

“If you’d allow me…?”

He gestured.

Oh, yes. They weren’t done patting me down.

“Allow me to apologize for Robert,” he said as he finished with the pat-down. “I assure you, he will be chastised.”

“Yeah. Because after all I’m working for the cat Alpha and nobody wants to piss her off,” I snapped. “But any other female who walks through that door would be fair game. I wonder how you all might feel if your sisters, mothers, daughters were treated so.”

Something flickered in his eyes and he inclined his head. “Point taken. Again, my apologies and I assure you, such a thing will never happen to you again in one of my establishments, even after your business arrangement with the Alpha has ended. And Robert will be dealt with.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a card.

I ignored it. “Don’t bother. I’m probably going to end up dead by the time this job is over anyway.”

“If you wish, there is a washroom just through the gates,” Mr. Courtesy began. “You could clean up…”

I turned my back on him before he could finish and moved through the gates, heading into the said washroom. The blood was still wet—if I rinsed my hair out in the sink, I might be able to get the majority of it now.

A few minutes later, with damp hair, I met a very brooding Damon out in the hall. We were the only two in the hallway—or so it appeared. I knew better. I could feel eyes resting on me as he crossed over to me. “You ready?” he asked.

I nodded, ignoring the whisper in the back of my head. I swear, I’ve never gone this long without calling her to me, not when I needed her so bad.

With Damon at my back, I headed down the hall.

He was silent for once.

Thank God.

I should have stayed in the restroom longer. I could have used the time to get my head together. A few hours. A drink. I really should have stayed home and done my taxes.

Sighing, I trolled through the club. That’s what this was, I realized. A shapeshifter’s version of a rec club. The scents of pizza and raw meat hung in the air, and a quick look in what appeared to be the café explained why. Yes. They could get pizza, or if they wanted…raw meat. Appetizing.

I moved away fast. As fast as I could, because my gut was churning and I didn’t want to puke. They might not like that. Down one hall, I heard some odd little yips and whines. Following the sound, I pushed open a door and found myself standing on a grate that overlooked what almost looked like a football arena up with one of those insane garden mazes in it. I caught sight of a furred hide, running at a speed too fast for my eyes to really lock on it. There was a growl, followed by the cry of something dying. And a howl rose through the room.

“Hunting games,” Damon said. “Not all of them get out of the city much, so we set up mock hunts in places like this. It spreads out for about a half mile underground and we stock it with game animals.”

I didn’t respond, just turned away and slipped back out the door into the relative quiet of the hall.

“Doyle’s friends were usually more for the arcade or the lounge. None of them were spiking yet, except him. They don’t go for the hunts until they can shift, usually.”

I continued to walk around.

“The arcade is—”

I found it. It wasn’t that hard. Arcades made a hell of a lot of noise and teenaged kids made even more.

Except when I pushed the door open, the noise stopped.

Gazes swung my way and my heart leapt to my abused throat as some of those gazes went predatory.

Damon reached up to rest a heavy hand on my shoulder but at his touch, I moved away.

“Don’t touch me,” I said again, feeling like a broken record. I stood aside and waited for him to go in first. He had an unreadable look in his eyes, but he circled around and fell in front. I stayed about four steps behind him, eying the people around us narrowly.

Some of the kids in there pressed close. Too close. My hand itched—so badly it burned.

Call me, call…I am here
…

The sword whispered to me, the voice as clear to me as if I stood by the trunk where we’d locked her away. It didn’t matter what the distance was. I could have her in my hand in a second.

But I wouldn’t.

These were just kids. I didn’t need a damned sword to deal with kids.
I am aneira—my heart is strong. My heart is strong
—

Keeping my eyes trained on Damon’s back, I continued to walk.

Somebody touched my hair.

I heard the gentle clearing of a throat. Looking up, I saw the Asian man from earlier standing on a catwalk over us. He was staring at somebody behind me.

Damon whirled and with a flash of his teeth and a snarl, I was in front of him. “The next person who touches the girl is going to have my boot up their ass, is that clear?”

Whines and weird little mewling sounds flooded the air.

His hand rested on the back of my neck and I tried to jerk away.

“Don’t,” he warned quietly.

That wasn’t enough to stop me, but since I couldn’t exactly break that iron grip, I was sort of trapped. Fighting in here would be bad. Very bad. My instincts were pretty clear on that. And, I’d already noticed, nobody was close enough to touch me anymore. Except Damon.

“There,” he said, pointing to a small clutch of kids gathered around an old-school video game.

Mortal Kombat…awesome.

I twitched under his hand. “This would be easier if I didn’t have a leash.”

His hand fell away.

I swallowed. Kicked myself because it hurt so fucking bad to do that. Then, mentally bracing myself, I approached the kids. They knew I was there. “Man, I used to kick ass at that game.” I mentally groaned at the ruin of my voice..

One kid, hair dyed black and a gold ring in his nose, flicked me a disinterested look. “Fuck off, nugget.”

Nugget. One of the nicer names werecreatures called humans. As in chicken nugget. Snack. Food.

I didn’t really smell much different than the typical human, I’d been told. Some could scent magic on me, but it wasn’t like the witches, and since most of them couldn’t define it and since I didn’t look very strong, they just pegged me as one of the watered-down specimens that popped up every now and then. An interesting peculiarity, but nothing to get worked up over.

As long as they didn’t pay me much attention, I didn’t care.

Moving close to the vintage video game, I peered at the high score.

“Who holds the high score?”

He huffed out that put-upon sigh that the teenaged set perfected. It didn’t matter what their race was. “I do. Go away.”

Excellent. I could top that score. I used to do better than that. Way better. “Bet I can beat it.”

He snorted. “You wish.”

“Try me.”

With another derisive look, he said, “I would, but my dad doesn’t want me touching humans. He thinks I’ll catch it.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Cute, kid. Don’t worry. You’re not my style. I always wait until the fur comes in before I go chasing them. You’re no fun until then.”

A dull red flush settled over his face and he turned away from the game to glare at me. Ah, that’s better. He was looking at me now. Fishing out one of the bills Damon had used to lure me into this mess, I waved it at him. “Come on. One game. If you can beat me, this is yours.”

His eyes widened on the bill, then narrowed on my face before flicking to the man at my back. Nerves danced on his face and I thought,
Please. Just one thing. Let one thing go my way
…If I could get them to talk to me without Damon pulling that snarl-and-growl act, I’d feel like I was in control over something at least. Just then, I desperately needed it.

I beat the high score.

Much to the dismay of the boy and the amusement of his friends.

He sneered at me as I pushed the money back into my pocket. “I ain’t got any money, nugget,” he said as he flung his long, skinny body down on the couch a few feet away. “So you just wasted your time.”

I sat down on the coffee table a few feet away, holding his gaze. “Nah. I love Mortal Kombat. They made a movie out of the game, you know. Kind of sucked but had some fun actors in it. Lots of ass-kicking.”

“Humans like you don’t know shit about kicking ass.” He gave me another one of those sneers. I wondered if he had another expression.

Sighing, I said, “I’m looking for Doyle.”