We had practiced this move hundreds of times, and I knew his hands would already be at her throat, but her braids tangled around them. Leo sucked in a breath, his fangs extending with a soft snap. They brushed the side of her neck, his killing bite coming down.
But she rammed back her head and connected, her skull hitting something softer. I heard his oof of expelled breath, followed by a faint sound of movement as of cloth on cloth. And I smelled the scent of burning flesh, remembering only then the cross in her hand. Silver. Glowing.
Leo howled and his weight fell away. The woman rolled, pulling me with her in a move that was both balletic and vicious, until we lay on the floor, her gun at my neck, my body on top of, and protecting, her. The reek of my sweat and hers and vamp pheromones bathed the air. She smelled of blood and exhaust and sex and—
“I’ll shoot your blood-servant if you move again,” she said to Leo, her voice low and cold. My master paused and went quiet, that undead shift from combat to utter stillness that had once been so startling and was now so telling. He believed her, and after centuries of human and nonhuman responses, he would know if she was speaking the truth. “If you listen, I’ll let him live,” she bargained.
Leo’s stillness went deeper. Without giving myself away, I tried to gather myself, but her clawed hand dug into my windpipe. The woman shoved the muzzle hard under my ear, and I realized that if she had wanted us dead, we’d already be dead.
I should have beaten her, no matter the surprise, and I swore hard, under my breath. I’d gotten lazy sparring with humans and other blood-servants. I needed to fight for real, and fight Mithrans, not slower beings.
“If you resist,” she said to me, “I’ll rip out your throat, then behead your master. Pick and choose.” A shocked silence filled the foyer. Slowly I went limp. “Wise move,” she said.
“Leonard Pellissier, I’m Katie’s out-of-town talent,” she said, in an indefinable Southern accent. “I’m the tracker and hired gun the council contracted to take out the rogue. I don’t want to kill either of you, but I will if I have to. The blood you smell was not spilled by me. I am not your enemy. Back. Off.”
Leo backed, making a deliberate boot scuff so I would know. She tightened her grip on my throat, and I was having trouble getting a breath. “You gonna play nice?” she asked me.
I tried to swallow under the pressure of her hand, and when I spoke, the sound came out in a whistle from the pressure on my windpipe. “Yes.” She sniffed at my ear, an action that was quite suddenly, unexpectedly erotic. Her scent filled my nose, smelling of sex and need and desire. I felt her breasts against my body, and I hardened. She released her hold. Damn woman. Laughter, a reaction neither of lust nor of combat, rolled up in my chest, and I forced it back. The woman I now knew was Jane Yellowrock had terrible timing.
I rolled to my feet and she followed me upright, her movements as sleek and as fast as a primo, keeping me between Leo and her own body, another clue that she wasn’t after my master. I glanced at Leo and he tilted his head a fraction, telling me to stand down. There was humor in his eyes, letting me know he had detected my scent change and my interest in our attacker. I reached around and shut the outer door. When I moved to face her, I positioned myself in front of and slightly to the side of Leo. Oddly, weirdly, she switched the safety on the gun.
We were sodding lucky it hadn’t gone off while we rolled around on the floor. It was stupid to wrestle while holding a gun, even while facing down a vampire and his security. Not that I could see a better way. If she hadn’t done what she had, I’d have killed her and asked questions later. That was my job.
“You don’t smell human,” Leo said, his voice dropping into the smooth, honeyed, seductive tones he used when he spotted something or someone he wanted.
Irrationally, foolishly, I wanted to tell him to back off. The woman was mine. Which was stupid in every way I might care to think. I squelched the moment of possessiveness that had taken me.
“What are you?” Leo asked. And only then did I realize that I had no idea what the woman was, only that she wasn’t human. No. Not human at all.
“Stop that,” she said. “It doesn’t work on me.”
“She growled, boss,” I said. “When she took me down.”
“I heard her. What are you?”
“None of your business,” she said.
“Whose blood do I smell?” Leo asked.
“Katie . . .” The woman stopped, as if not knowing what to say. The silence stretched, and Leo’s humor improved—something I could feel through the blood-servant bond.