But when an ambush goes wrong and Ace is left hurt, who will protect him?
Brothers to the last breath.
Ghost is the last of her Berserker Clan. The one left behind to remember the enemy, and Major General Newman Slater of the US Marines is the enemy she’s never forgotten.
Newman Slater bought his General stars through blood, sweat, and tears…but it wasn't his blood, and they weren't his tears.
Ghost is the only one alive who knows the truth of Slater's dirty, bloody secrets. When a chance encounter brings Ghost into his sights she knows there’s nowhere she can hide.
Slater is coming for her again. Only now she’s not alone—she has a wounded Marine by her side…one she rescued, one she’s kept safe…one she’ll die to protect.
Brothers to the last bullet.
When it comes to that final bullet… Ace cannot miss…
1
Ace
The fetid smell crawled inside me—through my nose, along my veins—to well like acid in my gut.
I slowed my breaths and dragged dust-choked air through my lips as Alpha turned away.
But I couldn’t. Not from the blackened plasterboard walls, or from the six-month-old decomposed body curled in the corner.
“Jesus.” Alpha’s tanned skin turned ashen. He glanced back to the corner of the room and then wrenched his gaze to me. “What does that? What the fuck does something like that?”
The light bounced around the darkened room. I had no answer.
There was no entrance wound.
No blood splatter.
No mark of death that I could see—and I’d seen plenty.
Hours. That was all it’d taken. I took a step and moved around Marcus to kneel at her feet.
The last known contact with the target had been at oh five hundred hours this morning.
I lifted my hand and touched her cheek. The skin sagged under my fingers, her jaw crumbled, bone now turned to dust. Ten goddamn hours to do something like this…
“Eva,” Lucas murmured behind me. “Did you know she was here?”
There was a second before the Vampire Princess answered.
Long enough for a lie…or a bullet.
“No, why?” There was a shake to the words, one that pulled me to my feet and made me find her in the dark.
The Guardian never took his eyes from hers. “I had a feeling you might.”
She turned her head and those milky, soulless eyes met mine.
I could kill you. Faster than you could aim that gun.
Her warning rang loud and clear…it’d been just a whisper—one that stole the steel in my spine.
One that made a sniper shake.
And she could…I had no doubt about that, as brutally damaged as she had been, she could do that and so much more.
I’d watched her stumble toward the Guardian’s home not less than two hours ago.
And I’d watched her fall.
My red laser had danced across her chest as she crumpled and hit the ground. My steps cautious. I’d seen what immortals like her could do. But there’d been something about her. A vulnerability that made me kneel as she gasped and shuddered. She was hurting, lost…and desperate.
The skin on one arm had been opened, right down to the pale shine of bone with one savage gash. Her black dress had been ripped, torn by burns across her waist.
Not a wolf…
The thought filled me, and that cold, empty feeling in my gut grew.
There’d been no bite marks…no claw marks of any kind, other than the scrape of fingernails across her left cheek.
I’d seen marks like that before. On a man’s face—one who’d been on the losing side of a lover’s quarrel. Women fought like that…marking, scarring; anything to unleash their rage, or to protect themselves…
I stared now at the blackened walls that burned a single line upward and along the ceiling above—like a laser. What kind of fire would burn like that? I dragged in the filthy air—a current that left no scent—a current that never touched the ground. I looked to the body, to the curled blackened fingers and swallowed a shudder…a current that seemed to start at her fingers.
Like a bolt of lightning.
Power—dark mage.
The hairs on my arms stood on end as outside the faint sound of sirens caught the wind.
“We’ve gotta get out of here.” Marcus snarled, took one look at what was left of the Huntress, and scanned the rest of us. “Head back to the house. We’ve things we need to discuss.”
They all moved except for Lucas. He watched Eva as she merged with the others and headed for the front door, and there was real fear…real gut tightening, ball shriveling, kiss-your-ass-goodbye fear. And amongst the flare of his nostrils, and the part of his lips—I saw something else.
A desperation…a need.
One that wasn’t driven by panic.
One that was driven by desire
Jesus. The poor bastard was falling in love with her.
Heavy steps echoed as Lucas followed the others. I grabbed my phone and lingered in the room alone. They say a healthy dose of fear could be good for a relationship. Makes a man respect his better half, and not take her for granted.
But Eva was something else. With her, fear didn’t just whisper—fear fucking screamed.
I knew fear. I walked her streets, and shot her cocaine. I knew her in every foster home I’d been in. Knew her by the way she punched, the way she kicked…the way she burned my skin, and yanked my hair. I knew her by the marks she left…all over my body and my soul.
But I was always better at creating fear, and that was where I excelled.
I closed my eyes. I could still see him…the first one. Sixteen fucking years old, peddling his shit on the wrong damn street. Sweat dripped down my back as he begged, with tiny bags of rocks scattered at his feet. I was one month clean…one fucking month done with all that shit when he turned up.
Nineteen pounds of pressure.
Nineteen fucking pounds.
That was all I needed.
And still my finger never wavered on the trigger.
I’d never felt fear until that day, not for the kid—but for myself. There was no flinch, and no end to the cold, controlled rage. There was nothing but cold steel in my hand and a target in my sights, and that filled me with goddamn terror.
I enlisted that day. Signed where Sergeant told me to sign, packed my bag, and never went back to that pay-by-the-hour Hell Motel.
I could die on those piss-filled, bloodstained streets, or die fighting for something real—my country—my brothers.
Fear. I was good at it. I was so damn good I’d been looking down a sight of a sniper’s rifle ever since—but I was never this good… Wide opaque eyes filled my head as the phone flashed, the Huntress’s mouth open in a perpetual scream.
I hit the camera button, once, twice, and three times before I strode from the room. The sound of an engine roared to life as I hit the stairs and found the pavement. Gunny’s black Jeep made a U-turn, and another followed. But Alpha waited with one of the Guardian’s rides, the Ford Ranger idling with the back door open—like an invitation to Hell.