Leopard's Kiss (Shadow Guardians) (Shadows Guardians Book 1) (3 page)

S
lade knew
he'd broken his rule.

When he administered his kiss of death, it was always impersonal. Yes, he made sure they died in peace, but
he
never felt anything. It was important that he felt nothing. No joy. No remorse. No guilt. And no sexual attraction. It had to be simply a job.

But the moment his lips had touched hers, something inside him rebelled, refusing to allow him to feel nothing. He noticed how soft her lips were. He was aware of her breasts against his chest. He was entranced by the taste of her mouth, a sweet, decadent hint of white chocolate she must have just eaten. He took a moment, a brief moment, to
feel
her. He couldn't help it.

She melted against him, even as he felt her mind struggling to break the hold he had on it. He could sense the attention of the woman she'd been speaking with, watching warily, but not retreating yet. She was uncertain—

Now was the time he had to strike.

I love you.
He said the words again, because he could sense that those were the words that would give his victim the most peace, the ones she wanted to hear more than any others. He gave her the same gift he gave every one of his victims—true peace, before he took their lives.

Then he turned the kiss into what he was paid to do. He held tight to her mind, projecting images of being loved and seduced into it while he began to suck the life from her body. She stiffened, somehow sensing what he was doing, and he swore. Not a single one of his targets ever knew they were being killed. He would never allow them to suffer that kind of fear.
Ever.

Unwilling to allow her to experience the terror of imminent death, he backed off with his kill, and focused on the kiss itself. He deepened it, pouring more words of love and images of seduction into her mind while he slid his hand over her ass in the most sensual caress he could muster. He didn't seduce. He didn't caress. He never had to work hard to make a woman fall under his spell, but this time was different. She was struggling to surface, somehow sensing what he was doing, forcing him to go to a place he didn't ever go. He had to slow the kiss. He had to taste her lips. In order to convince her, he had to commit himself.

The moment he did, raw lust poured through him. Desire. Need. He swore under his breath, trying to hold his concentration as her essence as a woman filled him. Her scent drifted through him. Her body was warm and soft against his, and her mouth...
Hell.
Her mouth tasted amazing. Like sin and purity, entangled into a dangerous knot that he wanted to unravel bit by bit, until he'd revealed every last one of her secrets, until there was nothing left between them but nakedness and heat.

Shit
. He was losing control, not of her, but of himself. She was the one seducing him, not the other way around.

With a low growl, he fisted her hair and angled his head, kissing her even more deeply, pouring every last bit of his need and lust into the kiss. He had to overwhelm her, or he was the one who was going to be lost. He couldn't hold his focus under the assault she was waging on his senses. Her mouth... hell...it was like the ultimate promise of decadence, sex, and innocence. He struggled to make himself reach for her mind again, to mingle his consciousness with hers so he could direct her thoughts. Sweat trickled down his temple, as he fought against the need rushing through him. He needed her, right now, in every way. A lifetime of holding himself under lockdown and refusing to acknowledge his humanity was losing the battle fast.

He drew upon decades of practice, thrusting his mind into hers, dragging her into the delusion of seduction and fantasy, into a world where she thought she was being kissed by whoever represented her greatest fantasy. That was the gift he gave his victims, to be loved by the one they needed the most before they died. Not by him, by
the one.

He felt the moment she lost the battle. She sagged against him, pressing her body against his, fully succumbing to the illusion of seduction he had built in her mind. Her nipples were hard against his chest. Her body was warm and pliable against his, as she surrendered herself to him for safekeeping, even while he prepared to drain the life from her body.

A flash of guilt shot through him, and he swore, shoving it aside ruthlessly. He had no room for that shit. He had to focus. Tightening his grip on her hips, he shifted the kiss from being one that gave into one that took. Her life began to drain from her body again. She surrendered willingly, thinking she was giving herself to whatever man was in her fantasies...not to him. She was so deep in his illusion that she didn't even know she was kissing the Black Swan...and for the first time in his life, he felt like he was the one who was losing. She was tightly bespelled, blissfully unaware of what was happening. She had no idea he even existed, and she would die in that state, taking no memory of his kiss to the afterlife. For a split second, a deep longing rushed through him, a burning need to be acknowledged by her, to be noticed, to have her know, even for a fleeting moment, that he existed, that he was the one who she was kissing so desperately.

Pain suddenly shot through his chest, violent, incinerating pain. He stumbled back, his hands falling away from her as he looked down. Stunned, he saw a barbed tip was protruding from the upper left side of his chest. Smoke poured off the hook, black and purple smoke that smelled of sulfur and rot.

Gasping, he slid off the stool, his hands sliding down her hips as he fell. She grabbed his hand, her eyes widening as she saw the blood pouring from his heart. "Oh, God," she gasped. "What happened?" He knew she was reclaiming her senses, but he couldn't hold onto her mind any longer.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't use his legs. He couldn't hold himself up...

He looked up, and in the mirror behind the bar, he saw the demon that he'd mind-scrambled only moments before. It met his gaze in the glass, its eyes blazing. It was the demon's arm that was plunged through Slade's chest. "The Black Swan does not live up to his reputation," it snarled. It jerked its arm back, severing Slade's heart from his body. "He is pathetic. Distracted by a woman. He is no more."

Slade fell to the floor, the wood hard and cold against his face. The bar erupted in screams, and he could only lie there...dying... Hell. He was dying. How had that happened?

His vision began to darken, and his thoughts began to scramble. Swearing, he fought to hold onto his mind, fought to stay conscious. He had to think. There had to be something he could do—

Suddenly, the redheaded woman's voice rang through his mind.
You have a choice.

A choice. What kind of a choice? Between death or something else? Her face appeared before his eyes, swimming in and out of focus. He knew his eyes weren't open anymore. He could barely feel his body. He was already drifting. Red eyes gleamed at him, and he could smell the burning fires of hell awaiting him.

We need you to be a guardian,
she said.
One assignment. If you fail, you go to hell. If you succeed, you get your life back. We need you, Slade Cross. You get a second chance because we need you more than hell does.

A guardian? Was she kidding?

She began to fade from his sight, and somehow, he knew that once she was gone, his moment of choice was over. What kind of guardian? A protector of some sort? He was an assassin. He cared about money and death, not saving people.

She wanted him to
save
someone? No chance. How could he go there? How could he walk a path that made him think of mercy? He'd never be able to live with who he was if he went there.

Choose, Slade Cross. Choose now. There is no second chance.
She fluttered and faded, until only her eyes remained, boring into him.

And yet, he said nothing. He didn't want the choice she offered him. There was no room in his soul for a mission of mercy. It would open the gates to the personal hell that he kept locked away. He'd never survive the onslaught of who he was if he stepped out of the path he'd carved out for himself.

Disappointment filled her eyes as she realized he wasn't going to take her up on her offer.

Her disappointment bore into him, unleashing a roar of denial within him. He wasn't a failure. She was wrong. He realized suddenly that if he died now, he would leave his contract on this woman undone. He
would
die a failure.

Screw that. His reliability was the only thing he had to be proud of. He could do this guardian thing, and then take his life back. He'd take her assignment, come back to life, finish the assignment he'd come to this bar to complete, and then do that guardian thing for a day or two, until the redhead was satisfied. Easy. Done. Simple.
I'm in. What's my assignment?

A ray of hope flashed in her eyes, and her relief washed over him, a fierce burst of emotion.
You will know.
She met his gaze.
May strength guide you on your journey, and wisdom be your light.

Then she was gone.

* * *

S
lade bolted awake
, gasping as air rushed back into his lungs. The bar was filled with screams, and the acrid smell of sulfur filled the air. Slade scrambled to his feet, slipping in his own blood as he tried to stand. His body was trembling violently, his legs so weak he could barely stand. Swearing, he leaned on the bar, frantically searching the chaos for the woman he'd been kissing. Where was she? He had to kill her before he did the guardian thing. He couldn't screw up his assignment.
He couldn't.

He saw her then, across the bar, racing out the door...being followed by the demon. Shit! He leapt after her, then stumbled, crashing into one of the tables. Beer and wine glasses flew everywhere, the glass shattering as they fell. He scrambled back to his feet, grabbing people he passed to stay on his feet. The redhead had given him his life back, but that was about it. His body was wasted.

The demon leapt through the glass-plate front window of the bar, tackling the woman. She screamed as he dragged her to her feet. Slade fell, his legs giving out as the demon yanked her close to him. His eyes were glowing red, and his mouth opened wide, baring fangs.

Shit. It was going to kill her. Not just kill her. It was going to brutalize her. "No!" he bellowed his denial.

The woman slammed her knee into the demon's crotch, but it didn't even react. Slade went down on his knees, too weak to stand. The demon slammed his mouth down over the woman's, and Slade attacked its mind, lacerating through the demon's strongholds and attacking it psychically, just like he had before. The demon screamed and dropped the woman, gripping its head as it went down under the fresh assault on its barely-healed mind.

It wouldn't last long. Slade had to act. Had to get her. Take her away. Kill her.

She scrambled to her feet, and looked over at Slade, as if she'd somehow known that he was the one who'd helped her. Their eyes met, and instantly, the rest of the world vanished in a white light. The only thing in color was her, a radiant, glistening beacon of life and energy in a world that had been frozen for a split second.

Shock spliced through him. Son of a bitch. It was
her.
She was his guardian assignment.
She
was the one he had to keep alive. What the hell? If he kept her alive, after he'd taken a contract to kill her, everything that mattered to him would be destroyed. He couldn't do that.
He couldn't do that.

The world flooded with color again, and she spun away to run down the street. As she turned, he saw the flash of a knife blade to his right, cutting through the air right for her. "No!" Sudden strength rushed through him, and he leapt to his feet, sprinting through the ravaged bar with lightning speed. He tackled her just as the knife hit, and the blade thudded deep into his shoulder.

They hit the ground hard, sprawling across the cobblestones with an embarrassing lack of grace. He groaned as he hit, his recently dead body utterly drained of resources. Swearing, he summoned strength he didn't have and lurched to his feet.

She was already standing, her clothes smeared with his blood, her eyes horrified as they took in the knife in his shoulder. "What happened?"

He yanked it out. "They're coming for you. We have to go." He reached for her, but she leaped back, holding her hands up defensively, as if she could actually block him.

"You tried to kill me! You messed with my mind!"

"Yeah, I did. Now I'm your only chance to live. Coming?" Something made him hold out his hand, instead of grabbing her and forcing her to leave. He gave her the chance to make the right choice.

She looked at his hand, and then at his face, then past his shoulder. Her eyes widened, and she paled. "Oh, no."

He spun around to see what she'd seen, scanning the screaming crowd rapidly, searching for the threat she'd noticed. The demon was still down, and he didn't feel anyone's focus was on her. What had she seen?

He turned back to her...only to discover she was gone.

Son of a bitch. She'd distracted him and then taken off. She'd played the Black Swan, and beat him like he was an infant.