Most Wanted - A Fantasy Romance Novel (The Shadow Blade Series) (4 page)

Ariel frowned.
She hadn’t heard of any new Sucker nests. Usually Suckers banded in small
groups. She was fairly sure he was spinning her a story so he could get to see
her again.

‘And if I do
help?’ she asked.

‘Then I’ll help
you with whatever job you need help with,’ Jax answered.

‘Who says I need
help?’ Ariel shot back, straightening her shoulders. But the truth was her
heart had started to beat faster and she had started to see that there might be
something in the partnership after all. Jax smiled at her. He took hold of her wrist
again, his thumb caressing the red mark he had left as though trying to rub it
away. Ariel’s pulse jerked violently beneath his thumb, her blood becoming
electrified.

‘We all need
help sometimes,’ Jax said.

Less than
twenty-four hours later, Ariel stood waiting on Venice Beach pier avoiding the
stares of a group of guys who were sitting on a bench drinking Tequila from a brown
paper bag. She’d agreed to Jax Sayer’s offer for one reason and one reason
alone. Or so she told herself.

As much as she
hated to admit it she did need help. For eight years she’d been working as a
bounty hunter, barely making ends meet, and she didn’t do it out of a love for
the job, no matter how enjoyable it was to put a blade through Suckers as
attractive as Ezekiel. No. She did the job because it was the fastest way to
make the cash she needed. She lived in a dive apartment and ate macaroni and
cheese most nights because she needed every spare cent she could set aside. It
had cost her a hundred grand to buy the information she needed on Rikon Fayette,
the man, or rather monster, who had killed Saul. Ten grand short and with the
offer about to be withdrawn, Ariel had been forced to take a loan from an
underworld moneylender. The same amount plus interest was already overdue, and
if she didn’t pay up she knew the next visit the moneylender’s goons paid
wouldn’t just end up with her apartment being trashed.

Ariel walked a
little way down the pier and stood watching the waves smashing into the wooden
struts below. Out of nowhere tears pricked the back of her eyes sharp as
needles. She angrily blinked them away. Ariel didn’t cry. She’d given up crying
a long while ago. She figured if Jax could help her bring in a bounty or two
tonight it would at least get the moneylender off her back. Then, when they
were done, she could turn Jax over to the Brothers and make a sweet amount of
money on top. They’d pay his weight in gold. A Blade was a Blade after all. The
money she would make from that would give her enough to get close to Rikon Fayette,
close enough that she could kill him.

Of course, she
could just hand Jax over straight away, but she knew a guy like Jax wouldn’t go
easily, she’d have to find a way to gain his trust before she could lay the
trap.

 
‘Hey.’

Someone brushed
her shoulder and she turned around, her hand coming up, blade in her fist. It
was just Jax though. She dropped her arm. ‘Don’t sneak up on me like that,’ she
hissed angrily. ‘Unless you want to end up with this in your gut.’

He caught a
glimpse of the steel shining in her hand and smiled ruefully. ‘My mistake.’

Ariel pushed
past him, sheathing her blade. He was wearing blue jeans, a dark gray T-shirt
and a black leather jacket. They were almost a match, like those couples you
sometimes saw at the mall, holding hands after twenty years of marriage,
dressed identically. Lunatics. She wished she’d worn something else instead of
the jeans, a back Tee and the long black jacket she’d thrown over the top to
hide the blades hanging at her waist. Jax must have knives in his boots she
guessed.

She let her eyes
wander over the rest of him, telling herself she was checking him for weapons,
when really she was just checking him out. Yeah, he was still hot. Damn him. In
fact, if possible, he looked even more attractive than he had the previous
night. It was because he hadn’t shaved and the stubble darkening his jaw was
lending him a disheveled, just rolled out of bed, look. Something twinged in
her gut. She hoped he hadn’t just rolled out of bed. Before she could stop
herself she was imagining him in bed with a woman, making heated, passionate
love to her. Fire licked through her veins, then all of a sudden the woman in
her head morphed into her, and she was picturing herself naked in bed with him.
Her breath caught, her face flushed. Pushing the thought away she started
striding down the pier. Jax kept pace with her easily, his stride much longer
than hers.

‘So, why don’t
you have any Blade buddies to help you?’ Ariel asked, determined not to let her
imagination or his closeness get the better of her. ‘Why’d you need me?’ She
still wanted to know why he needed her help, what this was really all about.

Jax’s face
turned stony and hard to read. ‘It’s just me,’ he answered tersely. His jaw
tensed and he looked away. She’d touched a nerve.

‘What about you?
No one to watch your back?’ he asked after a moment of silence.

Was he probing?
Ariel shook her head. ‘I don’t trust most people,’ she muttered. ‘Human or
otherwise.’

He gave a rueful
smile half-smile. In the moonlight the sharp angles of his face gave him a
rugged, wolfish intensity. It made her cautious, like she didn’t want to turn
her back on him.

‘So how do you
want to do this?’ Ariel asked, feeling her cheeks start to flush once more.
God, she needed to get a grip. He was just a guy. So what if he was hotter than
a Hemsworth?

Jax lead the way
off the pier and down onto the boardwalk. ‘They’re apparently hanging around
here,’ he said over his shoulder to Ariel.

She seemed
skeptical, prickly as a thorn bush. Tonight she’d worn all black - tight jeans,
a figure hugging T-shirt visible beneath her jacket, but her cleavage
mercifully wasn’t on display. He was pleased, he really didn’t need the added
distraction. It was hard enough having to watch her walk ahead of him, her hips
sashaying in time with her stride. That was why he was keeping pace with her as
she marched down the boardwalk like they had no time to spare. He’d been hoping
for some casual conversation before the slaying began but he guessed she wasn’t
the kind of girl who went in for chitchat.

‘How’d you know
they’re here?’ Ariel asked.

‘Someone told
me,’ Jax answered. He was starting to have second thoughts about bringing her
here. Not only because he couldn’t take her eyes off her, or because his head
was swirling with her scent, but because he wasn’t sure what he was doing
asking for help from a bounty hunting demon. If he’d really needed help he
could have asked another Blade. The obvious truth, which he had to admit to
himself, was that he’d just wanted a reason to see her again. He wondered if
she had guessed as much.

‘There’s a group
of them under the pier causing trouble,’ Jax explained. ‘A few kids have gone
missing in the area and some of the homeless guys.’

‘So why’s that
your responsibility?’ she asked, her expression bored.

‘This is my
sector,’ Jax answered calmly.

She cocked an
eyebrow at him.

‘LA’s divided
into quadrants and sectors,’ he explained patiently. ‘Broken up, with a Blade
or several Blades policing each sector. Venice is mine.’

She considered
him, seeming unimpressed, then shrugged. ‘So how many are there of these
things?’ she asked, glancing over his shoulder. Jax caught the flash of silver
at her waist. The hilt of a knife.

‘Twenty or so.’

She looked at
him dubiously then yawned. Admittedly twenty Suckers wasn’t a lot. She was
probably wondering why he was bringing her into this. Maybe she’d figured out
it was purely a self-interested request.
 
‘They’re apparently not your average Sucker,’ he told her, aware that he
had already used this excuse back in the bar but feeling like he needed to
justify himself. Cy had said something about them being harder to kill, faster
and stronger, but he hadn’t been paying much attention; he’d been distracted by
Ariel walking into the bar.

She glanced at
him curiously, her eyes glimmering like a predator’s in the darkness.

‘I figured maybe
you might know something,’ Jax said, unable to prize his eyes away from her
lips. Now was really not the time to be thinking about kissing her.

She shook her
head. ‘I’ve been out of town for a few weeks.’

‘Holiday?’ Jax
asked, unable to hide his curiosity. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might
have a boyfriend, she just didn’t seem the type. A lover maybe, but he couldn’t
imagine her in a long-term relationship. Something about her brittleness and
her attitude told him she was single. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe she did
have a boyfriend after all. Maybe he’d been stupid to assume otherwise.

‘A holiday?’ she
said, pulling a face. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had one of those. I was
in Montana on a job. A Chameleon who was wanted for some betting scam.’

A wave of relief
rushed over him. Not a lover then. He was about to ask her whether she’d managed
to catch the Chameleon she was after, but his question was cut off by a
high-pitched wail that froze him in his tracks. He caught Ariel’s wrist and
pulled her to a stop beside him. She tried to snatch her arm away but he
tightened his grip and held her against his side. The noise came again, this
time barely heard over the crashing of the waves in the distance.

Straightaway
Ariel’s blood started to tingle, though that could just have been the pressure
of Jax’s fingers searing into her skin. Then she heard the noise once more, an
ear-shattering scream, the sound an animal caught in a trap might make, and her
blood started to sing, her senses tuning into the surrounding area as if
someone had just turned the dial to high.

‘What is that?’
she whispered to Jax, peering into the darkness under the pier. It was almost
two am. The boardwalk was deserted except for a couple of homeless people lying
on the grass close by, passed out.

‘It’s them,’ Jax
said. He was still holding her arm, keeping her pressed against his side. She
pulled her arm from his grip, admittedly with a little reluctance. The warmth
of his body was drawing her in.

‘Come on then,’
she said impatiently. ‘Let’s see what’s going on.’

Jax caught up
with her as she strode across the beach. She was glad she’d worn flat shoes, as
the sand would have been hard to walk across in heels. Having said that, she
rarely wore heels anyway, only when she was on a case and the case required her
to doll herself up and flirt with some unsuspecting idiot. That wasn’t the case
tonight. Though, glancing Jax’s way, feeling the reassuring warmth of his body
at her side, she wasn’t sure if flirting was entirely off the menu.

‘Watch
yourself,’ Jax said, taking hold of her elbow and trying to get her to slow
down. ‘I wasn’t kidding about these guys.’

Ariel rolled her
eyes. Whatever. A Sucker was a Sucker. She could take out twenty with her eyes
closed. Jax should be able too to. He was a Blade. That was the equivalent of a
wolf going up against a pack of bunny rabbits. No contest. Maybe if he’d said
one hundred Suckers. It occurred to Ariel then that maybe Jax wasn’t as good a
fighter as he looked. Maybe the fight yesterday with the bikers had just been a
fluke. What if he was partnering her because he was actually crap at fighting
and needed her to do all the hard work for him? Or what if this was some kind
of trap? Her spine went rigid, her hearing pricking. Usually she was pretty
good at reading her gut but Jax’s proximity was muddling her mind

Suddenly Jax was
in front of her. A wall of solid muscle. She pulled up short and stared up at
him. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, feeling a trace of fear ripple through
her. The sound of cackling laughter rose up behind him and the lights filtering
through from the pier cast his face with hollow shadows.

‘I don’t think
you get it,’ he hissed. ‘These aren’t normal Suckers. I didn’t bring you here
to get you killed. We need to figure out a plan. We can’t go breezing on in
there. I thought we could recce them, find out how many there are, and then
come back tomorrow once we’ve made a plan.’

Ariel pulled a
face at him. Really? He thought she had time for that? She had moneylenders
riding her ass. She needed to help Jax with this so then they could go and earn
some actual money. She slid past him. ‘I got it,’ she told him. ‘If you want to
wait this one out, fine by me.’

Actually it
wasn’t fine by her at all. She wanted to see how he fought because if it turned
out that he couldn’t fight then what use was he going to be helping her bring
in the bounties she needed?

Jax caught up
with her again and when she glanced at him out the corner of her eye she saw
his jaw was set and his eyes were glinting with that same light she’d seen in
the alleyway before the fight with the bikers. He was gearing up for a fight.
In his hand she caught a glimmer of silver. Saw discs. Nice.

A high-pitched
scream jolted her to a sudden standstill. Shadows wavered and moved like dark
flames in the gloom beneath the pier. The scream was suddenly cut off with what
sounded like a blunt force blow. It was a girl. That was all Ariel could think.
Anger shot hot as lava through her body. She gripped the hilt of her blade.
Time for a little slaying she thought to herself with a grim smile.

Beside her she
could feel Jax breathing, hear his heart beating loudly. She grimaced. They’d
sense him any second. Hell, she would be able to sense him from the next State.
‘I’m going to fade,’ she told him. ‘And get nearer. I’ll take them by surprise
and drive them towards the gap in the pier.’

Jax nodded silently.
She made to move but he suddenly caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘Be careful,’
he said under his breath.

For the first
time Ariel didn’t snatch her arm instantly away but let her fingers linger in
his, feeling the heat travel from his body into her own. Her gaze flickered to
his lips and she had the sudden desire to kiss him. She dismissed the thought
instantly. When her blood was up, it wasn’t just her fighting instinct that got
aroused.