The scent of salt, ocean, and pine surrounded her.
No way. No way should he have been able to move so quickly when she’d had him contained on his knees. Shock made her hands tremble. She shoved herself up and kicked off the heels. Shit. She still held her gun in her hand but was acting like a rookie.
“Gentlemen?” Kell asked, his stance casual. “Can I help you?”
The guy with the blue arm glanced down at the corpse and hissed. “We came to help Chuck.” His face contorted and turned an ugly red. “You killed him.”
“No. The drug he took killed him.” Kellach’s stance widened. “How much of it did you take?”
Lex peered around the solid brick of the man toward the two guys. The light illuminated them from behind, so she couldn’t see their eyes. What was Kell seeing?
“Enough to be a god.” The first guy lifted his hand and threw what looked like a ball of fire at Kellach.
A massive fireball instantly crackled from Kellach, and he threw it toward the other ball. They smashed into each other with an unholy bellow of steam, fire, and energy. Kellach’s ball encircled the other ball and snuffed it out before disappearing.
What the holy fuck? The damn criminals did have some new weapon that threw fire. She hadn’t had a chance to frisk anybody to see what her assailants might be carrying.
Lex slid to the side to keep every man in sight while lifting her weapon. “Everyone get down on your knees.”
Kellach shook his head. “Not again. Just stay out of the way, darlin.”
Oh. He. Did. Not. She focused the gun on him.
The first guy raised his arm again, and fire slammed her way. She pivoted, turning and catching her foot in a pothole. As she started to go down, another ball flew toward her head.
“Enough.” Kellach jumped in front of her, his right shoulder slamming into her cheekbone.
Stars exploded behind her eyes, and she hit the ground.
He groaned, and the scent of burning flesh filled the rainy evening.
She blinked, her brain fuzzing and her body going numb. He’d saved her. Unconsciousness tried to claim her, and she fought against the darkness with her remaining strength.
Kellach straightened to his full height, and balls of what truly looked like green fire shot out, but with his back to her, she couldn’t see the weapon. The fire hit each of the men dead center. They both flew back about three yards and crashed to the ground.
Lex groaned as rain continued to beat down on her face. She couldn’t pass out. If she passed out, she’d be dead. Her hand trembled on the asphalt. Where was her gun?
Kellach turned and started toward her—a massive hunter in a darkened alley.
“No,” she whispered just as the darkness won. Drugs had nearly ruined her childhood, and now, the search to destroy the new drug on the street was going to end her. The last thought she had as she succumbed to oblivion was that she was about to be killed by a predator with the face of a fallen angel.
Chapter 2
Lex groaned and blinked, instantly awake. Silk sheets, pleasant lemon cleanser, pine scent surrounded her, and the sound of rumbling motorcycle pipes came from outside her widow. Holy shit. She sat up, reaching for the weapon at her thigh.
Nothing.
Her gaze slowly focused on the man sitting quietly in a chair at the end of the bed, twirling her Sig around one large finger. The scent of male overtook the lemon. Early dawn light peeked between half-drawn shades, illustrating the masculine features and darkened shadows on his face. “Looking for this?” He’d ditched the leather duster to reveal a black Metallica T-shirt, ragged jeans, and motorcycle boots. Even in a relaxed pose, the man looked like a wolf about to lunge . . . at his leisure.
A Titans of Fire motorcycle cut hung on a hook by the door.
Damn it, she was at Fire. She quickly took stock, relief coursing through her that the shiny blue dress remained on her—between the thousand thread count sheets.
He lifted one dark eyebrow set in a brutally angled face. “I wouldn’t have taken your clothing.” Those incredibly dark eyes somehow darkened further. “Unless you’d asked nicely, of course.”
That Irish brogue should be bottled and sold to lonely women everywhere. The guy had to be early thirties, with a wealth of experience in those glimmering eyes.
“Give me my gun,” she said evenly.
“Of course.” He tossed the weapon onto the bedspread next to her.
The ultra-posh, smooth, expensive bedspread. She glanced around the clean-to-the-point-of-sparse room, fully aware of her current location, and her heart sped up as adrenaline flooded her veins. “Somehow I imagined the personal rooms at Fire to be a bit more, ah, disgusting.” An undercover operative had reported back the previous year on the stinky and dirty bachelor haven used by the motorcycle club members.