I hadn’t. Someone was in the room. I could feel them. I could almost smell them.
I tilted my head, searching for the telltale buzz that would indicate Nephilim, and got nothing. That should be a good indication of a human; however, the Nephilim had found ways in the past to cloak their nature.
Still, be they human or be they demon, the lack of light and the sneaking around rather than knocking on the door gave me a pretty good clue that they weren’t here to help.
For the first time since I’d received it, my knife was not under my pillow. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to take a knife to bed with a baby. Go figure.
My gun was on the nightstand, but instead of reaching for it, I snatched the kitten blanket off the floor, then lifted the bedspread, tossed the blanket over Faith, and yanked the spread back down to muffle the flash as she changed. An instant later, someone shone a light into my eyes, nearly blinding me.
Luther snarled and went for his weapon. One of the dark shadows punched him. His nose snapped like uncooked spaghetti.
As I came off the bed, something looped around my neck and wrenched me back down. I fell so hard I bounced several inches off the mattress. My neck burned as if the rope had been dipped in acid. Before I could try to pull it off, my wrists were captured, as were my ankles. Wherever the bindings touched, agony erupted.
These intruders knew more about me than I liked. They’d come prepared with golden chains to bind a dhampir.
Luther’s lion rumbled just below the surface. I glanced in his direction, hissing when the movement rubbed the chain where I was already raw. The boy lay so still I would have feared him unconscious if he hadn’t been growling. He had to be bound as well.
“Shift,” I ordered.
“Can’t.” The word came out choked, full of pain. Whatever they’d done, it had not only incapacitated Luther but kept him from changing.
I counted four shadows. Big and hulking. Maybe men, maybe not.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” I said. Although not right now. Right now I was going to lie here and ache.
Someone laughed. A man. “All we want is the kid, and then we’ll leave y’all alone.”
Smooth and southern, nearly genteel, the voice was at odds with the size of the shadow and the behavior of its owner.
I took a deep breath, trying to catch a whiff of lion. The shifters who’d killed Luther’s parents were still searching for him. He’d killed a few, but I was sure there were more, and I figured these were them. How else would they know the secret that would keep this boy from sprouting claws?
“You should have thought of that before you broke his nose,” I said.
“Not him. Her.”
“Her, who?” I asked.
Another shadow backhanded me. My teeth sliced my lip, and I tasted blood. My stomach rumbled. My collar might contain the demon, but it still crouched inside me, and blood called to it like a siren on the deep blue sea.
I wished I knew enough magic to take off my collar without benefit of hands. There wouldn’t be anything left of these guys but toenails. Unfortunately, once my demon was loose there wouldn’t be much left of Faith or Luther, either.
“We came for the baby.”
“Do I look like someone who’d drag a baby around?”
“Then what’s that?” He jabbed a gun at the lump on the bed. A third shadow grabbed the comforter and yanked it from the mattress. The lump beneath the kitty-cat blanket wiggled. The sound of a gun being cocked echoed in the sudden heavy silence of the room.
“Are you insane?” I must have surprised whoever was holding my leash because I managed to throw myself over the lump just as the gun went off.
Agony stabbed my shoulder. I had no time to dwell on the pain since the chain around my neck tightened, effectively cutting off my air, scalding my skin, and dragging me off the bed.
I twisted and kicked and wound up slamming face-first into the carpet. My nose went crunch, too, and blood flowed like rain.
The room went silent. My shoulder stung, but whatever had been in the gun had not been gold, so the pain was bearable. I scrambled to my knees—not easy when bound hand, foot, and neck—and discovered that when they’d dragged me off the mattress, I’d dragged the blanket off the baby. Now everyone could see that she wasn’t a baby at all.
The adorable black kitten yawned, blinked into the bright light, then began to wash a paw with her pretty pink tongue.
“It’s a . . . cat. Where’s the baby?”
“I don’t know who gives you your info, pal, but that”—I lifted my chin toward the kitten, and a few droplets of blood arced through the air—“is the closest thing to a baby I’ve seen in years.”