The gun clattered to the floor. Simon didn’t even glance at it. He wouldn’t need the weapon. The gun really would be too easy, and so not his style.
Simon grabbed the squirrelly bastard, wrapped his hand around Frankie’s throat, and pinned him up against the wall. Frankie’s fat legs dangled a good two feet off the ground.
“How the hell—”
Simon smiled.
Frankie started to shake.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Simon whispered, the scent of his own blood clogging his nostrils. “You had your chance.”
Now, it was his turn.
Chapter 2
“Ready for a new case?”
Dee glanced up when Jason Pak strolled into her office. The guy had on one of his fancy suits—always, the fancy suits—and he was smiling.
A smile from Pak was never a good thing.
Dee slowly eased her feet off the desk. “What kind of case?” She’d been thinking about taking a break. Maybe heading over to Biloxi and staying at one of the casinos and enjoying the beach.
He shut the door. No sound. Pak was good at not making any noise. He’d told her once that he’d learned to hunt and track with his Choctaw grandfather.
And that he’d learned to kill by trailing his Korean mother.
He crossed the room and tossed a file onto her desk. “We’ve got word that a Born Master is in town.”
Her blood froze. The ice thickened inside of her, then rose to coat her skin as the chill enveloped her.
Born Master. She licked dry lips. Okay, not a lot scared her, but those bastards did. “What’s a BM doing in this city?” Born Masters were rare, thank Christ. Only a handful were in the United States. Most of them preferred to stay in Europe or Africa.
Born Masters were the vamps who were born bloodsuckers. Well, okay, technically, they were born looking human, acting human, but they weren’t.
Eventually their bodies stopped tolerating human food. The hunger for blood consumed them. Their teeth sharpened. Their senses kicked up to super level, along with their strength.
And then you knew, those freaks weren’t human. They were pretty much immortal.
Pak gave a shrug and his dark eyes never left her face. “I’d guess he’s looking to build a beautiful little vamp army.”
Her back teeth locked. The disease of vampirism had come from the genetic jokes that were the BMs. The Born Masters had gone out, bitten their prey, exchanged blood, and what should have been a few DNA freaks way back when—well, they’d multiplied. Nearly swept away a whole country back in the Middle Ages.
Black Plague, her ass.
It was so easy to rewrite history sometimes. Especially when you were trying to stop the humans from panicking.
Dee pressed her palms against her jean-clad thighs. The better to wipe the sweat away. Because, yeah, she was sweating. Taking down a Born Master wasn’t an easy task. BMs were too strong. All the ones she’d ever heard of were close to a millennia old.
In the vamp world, age brought strength. Especially to the Borns.
“The streets can’t be flooded with Taken,” Pak said, crossing his arms over his chest and watching her with the cold stare that always saw too much.
She rolled her shoulders and tried to look like her heart wasn’t about to break out of her chest. “Maybe the bastard isn’t planning to change folks.” The Taken were the vamps who were killed, then reborn to a life of blood and fury. Not everyone could survive the transformation. “Maybe he’s just looking for some kills.” Her voice was cool, expressionless. “Could be he just wants a bloodbath.”
Sandra Dee! Run, baby, run—
The scream pierced her mind and her hands pressed harder against her thighs. No, can’t think about that now.
Not with Pak watching her like she was some kind of lab rat.
“Been a long time since the city saw a vampire rampage.”
Her face had been ice cold, now her cheeks burned with pinpricks of heat. “Yeah. About sixteen years.” Could have been yesterday though. Because those blood-soaked memories weren’t ever gonna fade.
Mama? Not sleeping. No, she wasn’t sleeping in her bed.
Pak’s head cocked to the right. “I need you to be straight with me, Dee.”
Now that snapped her out of the past. She sat up, fast, eyes narrowing. “I’ve always been upfront with you, Pak. Always.” There wasn’t a shadow in her life he didn’t know about. Without Pak, she would have been on the streets.
No, she would have been dead.
She’d been eighteen and he’d given her a place to stay. He’d taken shit for it, too. A forty-year-old man bringing in a stray from the streets.
Sex hadn’t been an issue with them, though most folks didn’t buy that. Course, Dee didn’t give a shit what most folks thought. Pak hadn’t been a father figure. She’d had a father. Pak had just been someone to keep the monsters at bay.
Then someone to teach her how to kick the monsters’ asses.
And he’d been someone who understood loss.
“This is different. This case is going to be different.” The man was so still. She’d never understood how the guy could be so motionless. She was always moving. Twitching. Tapping.
“It’s just another vamp,” she said, and tried to believe the words. “Born Master or Taken, they can all die.” Just getting them to die was the tricky part.
Getting them to die again.
“If you can’t handle this, I’ll put Zane on point. He can go after the bastard.”
“Zane doesn’t know vamps like I do.” Zane Wynter was a good hunter, no denying it. But the demon didn’t understand the undead like she did.
A pause from Pak. “Zane also isn’t human. He won’t have your…weaknesses.”
Oh, now, that was just hitting below the belt. So Zane was half-demon. Dee shot to her feet. “Charmers don’t have any damn strengths that put them above humans, either.” So the charmers could talk to animals—yeah, like that was an advantage when you were hunting paranormal predators. Over a dozen agents at Night Watch were charmers and they had no advantage over her.
She stared down the lead charmer. “I’m not weak.”
“Never said you were.” Another pause. Jeez but the guy was always working the silences. That tactic used to drive her crazy. Okay. Still did. “Never said I was going to put a charmer on point, either.”
No, just a demon.
“Zane would be a lot harder to kill than you,” Pak said flatly.
“Maybe.” Yes, dammit. Freaking demon strength. He wouldn’t have been caught unaware last night. “But I’m one hell of a better vampire killer than he is.” True and so what if she sounded bitchy?
His nod had her breath easing out. “Yes, you are.” He pointed a finger toward her. “But you’re going to need help on this one. I want Zane watching your back.”
Not going to argue. She could always use the demon’s powers.
“And I’ll get Jude to come in for cover, if we need him.”
Ah, Jude. The tiger shifter who was currently blissed out with his new mate. Dee gave a nod. No way would she turn down a shifter’s nose when she was tracking a vamp.
Her pounding heartbeat still shook her chest, but her palms were dry now, and she asked, “So what’s the target’s name? Which badass thinks he’s taking over our city?”
Pak smiled then, his gator grin, and Dee’s muscles locked. “Don’t know who is he. Just what he is.” He inclined his head toward the file. “Intel says word is ripping through the city about the BM. No name. No face. Just the knowledge from every witch and psychic in the area that power is coming through—and it’s coming through hard.”
Her brows shot up. No name? “Then who’s the client on this one?” There was always a client with Night Watch. The agents didn’t hunt for pleasure. They weren’t supposed to, anyway. They hunted the Other because the cops couldn’t track those killers. When a supernatural went on a killing spree, the higher ups at the Ba
ton Rouge PD called in Night Watch.
Sure, the Night Watch team brought down some humans every now and then, just for the sake of keeping their cover in place as a legit bounty hunting agency, but the paranormals were the real targets.
Pak straightened his already straight suit. “On this case, I’m the client.”
Damn. He must think this threat was serious because Pak never let the cases get personal. His rule number one.
“And Dee—I want this bastard taken down, got me? Because I don’t want to see blood pouring in my streets, not again.”
With a Born Master, that could happen. Hell on earth could happen with one.
“Consider him staked.” Easy words, hard job. But she’d do it, because no way was she going to stand by and watch innocents get slaughtered by vamps gorging on blood.
As Pak had said, not again.
Time to sharpen up her stakes and hit the hunting grounds.
The music was terrible, the food was shit, and the crowd of dancers were all but screwing on the floor.
Dee leaned against the bar, trying to ignore the throbbing in her temples and letting her gaze sweep past the throng inside Onyx.
This was the eighth club she’d been in since she’d hit the streets. Humans only. Well, mostly humans. Onyx catered to the unaware, and that made the place perfect for vamps. So much easier to pick up prey when the humans didn’t realize the danger they faced.
They didn’t realize it, not until their dates stopped seducing them and started feeding from them.
By then, it was too late to scream.
Her nails drummed on the bar. Zane lounged in the back corner, his emerald gaze sweeping over the room. Some big-breasted blonde was at his side. Typical.
Jude hadn’t made an appearance yet. But he would soon. She’d use his nose to sniff out the place. See if he could detect the rot of the undead and—
“Let me buy you a drink.”
She’d ignored the men beside her. Greeted the few come-ons she’d gotten with silence. But that voice—
Dee glanced to the left. Tall, Dark, and Sexy was back.
And he was smiling down at her. A big, wide grin that showed off a weird little dint in his right cheek. Not a dimple, too hard for that. She hadn’t noticed that curve last night, not with the hunt and kill distracting her.
Shit, but he was hot.
Thanks to the spotlights over the bar, she could see him so much better tonight. No shadows to hide behind now.
Hard angles, strong jaw, sexy man.
She licked her lips. “Already got one.” Dee held up her glass.
“Babe, that’s water.” He motioned to the bartender. “Let me get you something with bite.”
She’d spent the night looking for a bite. Hadn’t found it yet. Her fingers snagged his. “I’m working.” Booze couldn’t slow her down. Not with the one she hunted.
Black brows shot up. Then he leaned in close. So close that she caught the scent of his aftershave. “You gonna kill another woman tonight?” A whisper that blew against her.
Her lips tightened. “Vampire,” she said quietly and dropped his hand.
He blinked. Those eyes of his were eerie. Like a smoky fog staring back at her.
“I hunted a vampire last night,” Dee told him, keeping her voice hushed because in a place like this, you never knew who was listening. “And, technically, she’d already been killed once before I got to her.”
His fingers locked around her upper arm. She’d yanked on a black T-shirt before heading out, and his fingertips skimmed her flesh. “Guess you’re right,” he murmured and leaned in even closer.
His lips were about two inches—maybe just one—away from hers.
What would he taste like?
It’d been too long since she’d had a lover, and this guy fit all of her criteria. Big, strong, sexy, and aware of the score in the city.
“Wanna dance with me?” Such dark words. No accent at all underlined the whisper. Just a rich purr of sex.
Oh but she bet the guy was fantastic in the sack.
Find out. A not-so-weak challenge in her mind. Why not? She wasn’t seeing anyone. He seemed up for it and—
Dee brought her left hand up between them and pushed against his chest. “I don’t dance.” Especially not to that too fast, pounding music that made her head ache.
He didn’t retreat. His eyes bored into hers. “Pity.” His fingers skated down her arm and caught her wrist. He took her glass away and placed it on the bar top with a clink.
She cocked her head and studied him. “Are you following me?” Two nights. First one, sure, that could have been coincidence. A coincidence she was grudgingly grateful for, but tonight—
The faintest curl hinted on his lips. “What if I am?”
His thighs brushed against her. Big, strong thighs. Thick with muscle.
Dee swallowed. So not the time.
But the man was tempting.
She couldn’t afford a distraction. Not then. “Then you’d better be very, very careful.” Dee shoved against him. Hard.
He stumbled back a step and his smile widened. “You keep playing hard to get, and I’m gonna start thinking you’re not interested in me, Sandra Dee.”
Who was this guy? Dee jumped off the bar stool. “You’d be thinking right, buddy.”
He took her wrist again with strong, roughened fingers. The guy towered over her. Always the way of it. When you couldn’t even skim five foot six with big-ass heels, most men towered over you. And since Dee had never worn heels in her life…
The guy bent toward her when he said, “I see the way you look at me.”
What did that mean?
“Curious…but more. Like maybe you got a wild side lurking in you. A side that wants out.”
Maybe she did. The guy sure looked like he could play. After the case.
“I don’t know you, Chase,” she finally told him, too aware of his touch on her skin. Too aware that her nipples were tightening and she was leaning toward him as her nostrils flared and she tried to suck up more of his scent. “I don’t know—”
“I saved your life.” A fallen angel’s smile. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
Maybe.
“Dee!”
Jude’s hard snarl.
Chase’s hold tightened on her.
Maybe not.
The white tiger shifter stormed through the crowd. People jumped out of his path because they were semi-smart. In seconds, he was at her side, nostrils flaring, lips curling back, blue eyes…watering?
“Uh, Jude? What’s going on?”
“Problem,” he growled and the man was good at growling. His eyes—and, they were most definitely watering—zeroed in on Chase. The two men were about the same height, and had the same rough, strong build. But Jude was light, his skin fair, his hair blond, and Chase…
Darkness. The thought came to her once more.
Jude’s gaze dropped to the hand that still bound her wrist. “Man, you’d better not be bothering Dee.”
Great. Because she needed him to act like an overprotective jerk right then. “Got it covered.” More than covered. So what if Chase’s thumb was sliding back and forth over her wrist and the movement had her heart jumping? No big deal.
Jude’s stare turned back to her. “We’ve got a situation.”
One that shouldn’t be discussed in front of an outsider. She got that. She tossed a careless smile Chase’s way, and tried really hard not to care. Her life wasn’t like other women’s. She couldn’t go out, find a great guy, and forget the world while they had sex.
Not when killers were waiting.
If the people in this bar had half a clue what was hunting them…
“See you around,” she told him, keeping her voice bland and tugging her hand free. His fingers had been rough against her, lightly callused, warm, and strong.
Too easy to imagine those fingers sliding over her flesh. Cupping her breasts. Spreading her thighs.
Dee swallowed. Okay. So maybe it had been too long since she’d been laid.
“I can help you.” His cool words had her hesitating, glancing back, dammit.
He stared at her, unblinking.
“Not amateur night, buddy,” Jude murmured and his nostrils twitched. “Dee and I have a job to do, we don’t—”
“Maybe you need prey to draw out the vampire,” Chase continued, never taking his eyes off her. “Maybe I’m the man you need.”
Only one way to find out.
“Hell, what have you been telling him?” Jude demanded, swiping his hand across his forehead. “Low profile, woman, low profile.”
Dee ignored him. Pretty easy to do most days. “We’ve got this one covered.”
Chase’s jaw worked but he shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a card. “You change your mind, you call me.”
Don’t take it, don’t take it, don’t, ah…hell. Dee’s fingers curled around the card.
She didn’t even see his hand move. But in the next instant, his fingers were around hers and he brought her hand to his mouth. His lips pressed against her flesh, his tongue tasted her.
Two seconds, maybe three. Then he dropped his hold and flashed that bad boy grin. “I wanted a little taste.”
So did she.
“Dee…”
She knew that tone. Jude would be having a fit any second—or as close to a fit as a tiger could have.
Chase brushed past her and disappeared into the crowd.
“Shop for a new lover later, we’ve got problems now.” He bent his head toward her and whispered right against her ear, “Kymine.”
Dee sucked in a sharp pull of air.
“They’re pumping it in the place. And if the kymine is here…”
Then the vamps were, too.
Kymine. A sweet little concoction the vamps had created about ten years ago, a brew that they pumped into the air in order to screw with a shifter’s sense of smell.
With about 95 percent accuracy, shifters could pick up the stench of a vamp in a crowded room. Jude had told her once that, to him, vamps smelled like corpses. Yeah, that made sense, considering that vampires were dead. Kinda anyway.
To be reborn as a vampire, a human had to die. The heart stopped. The brain ceased to function. The lungs didn’t rise.