THE MAN SMILED AND I LET MY GAZE LINGER over his
face. His eyes were a lovely shade of pale blue. Their color reminded me
of a Siberian husky, except the person sitting next to me was no animal.
Of course, he wasn’t human, either.
“I have to leave now, Nick,” I said. “Thanks for the drinks.”
He stroked my arm. “Have another one. Let me enjoy your beautiful
face a little longer.”
I stifled a snort. Wasn’t he flattering? But if he liked my face so
much, then his eyes wouldn’t have been glued to my cleavage.
“All right. Bartender…”
“Let me guess.” The loud voice came from across the bar. An
unfamiliar face grinned at me. “A gin and tonic, right, Reaper?”
Shit.
Nick froze. Then he did what I was afraid he’d do—he ran.
“Code Red!” I barked, vaulting after the fleeing figure. Heavily
armed men in black clothes sprinted into the bar, shoving the patrons
aside.
Nick threw people at me as I went after him. Screaming, flailing
bodies hit me, making my attempts to catch them and fling a silver knife
through Nick’s heart even more difficult. One of my blades landed in
Nick’s chest, but too far center to have hit his heart. Still, I couldn’t just
let those people splatter to the floor like so much garbage. Nick might
think of people that way. I didn’t.
My team fanned out, guarding all the exits and attempting to herd
the remaining patrons out of the way.
9
Nick reached the far end of the bar and glanced around frantically.
There was me, advancing with my silver knives, and my men with their
Desert Eagle handguns pointed at him.
“You’re surrounded,” I stated the obvious. “Don’t make me angry,
you won’t think I’m pretty anymore when I’m angry. Drop the girls.”
He had two of them in his grip, one hand on each vulnerable throat.
Seeing the terror in those girls’ eyes made anger flare through me. Only
cowards hid behind hostages. Or murderers, like Nick.
“I leave, they live, Reaper,” Nick hissed, no romance in his tone any
longer. “I should have known. Your skin’s too perfect to be human, even
if your heart beats and your eyes aren’t gray.”
“Colored contacts. Modern science’s a bitch.”
Nick’s icy blue eyes bled to glowing vampire green and his fangs
slid out.
“It was an accident,” he yelled. “I didn’t mean to kill her, I just took
too much.”
An accident? Oh, he had to be kidding me. “Her heartbeat slowing
down would have warned you,” I replied. “Don’t try that accident crap on
me, I live with a vampire, and he hasn’t had an ‘oops’ moment once.”
If possible, Nick looked even more ashen. “And if you’re here…”
“That’s right, mate.”
The accent was English, and the tone was lethal. Invisible waves of
power rolled over my back as my men parted to let Bones, the vampire I
most trusted—and loved—through.
Nick’s gaze didn’t shift, which I’d been hoping for. No, his eyes
didn’t leave me as he suddenly yanked my blade from himself and then
stabbed one of the girls in the chest.
I gasped, catching her instinctively when Nick threw her at me.
“Help her!” I yelled to Bones, who’d lunged at Nick instead. With
that wound, unless Bones healed her, she had only seconds to live.
10
I had time to hear Bones mutter a curse before he spun around,
abandoning his pursuit of Nick to drop to his knees beside the girl. I
vaulted after Nick, doing some cursing myself. Gunshots went off, but
only a few. With the rest of the bar patrons still scrambling for the doors,
plus Nick holding the other girl like a shield, my team couldn’t just open
fire. Nick knew that, and so did I.
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