“Didn’t realize you were a masochist.” Mia exchanged her crystal for a bigger one. The bigger the crystal, the hotter the burn. Working off her stress? Looking at her, that seemed implausible. Even with her obviously violent nature, she resembled a ballerina, not a trained assassin. Black hair, blue eyes. A face more delicate than Ava’s.
Despite that face, Mia had earned the respect and yeah, fear of her peers. When she spoke, they listened. They trusted her to lead them properly, intelligently. They saw her strength, saw the spirit of the alpha that lurked at her core. Ava wanted that for herself. Craved it like a drug.
“There are probably a lot of things you don’t know about my girl Ava,” Noelle said to their boss. She’d never been one to back down from anyone. “Like, she enjoys long walks on the beach, cuddling in front of a fireplace, and a new favorite, being written on with butterscotch-flavored lipgloss.”
Mia’s lips curved slightly, the echoes of winter in her eyes almost melting to summer. “That’s inside info that will come in handy, I’m sure. But to be honest, I didn’t command you here so you could listen to me bitch. You did better than any of my other agents, engaging the vampire rather than trying to sneak up on him. You made contact. You weren’t drained. You kept your fingers. Three points for you.”
Wait. Praise? From the iceberg known as Mia Snow? Amazing. But … “Contact or not, we failed,” Ava said. She wouldn’t dress that fact in bows and lace. One, two, three, she nailed pretend McKell in quick succession. Heart, groin again, and inner thigh. Where it might be nice to kiss him. Argh. Kiss him? Idiot!
“Believe me, I know you failed,” Mia replied. Four bright golden beams shot from her gun. All hit the same shoulder, deepening what would have been an injury, not a death sentence. “But it could have been worse.”
“I’m not sure how.” McKell had destroyed their ride and stolen their clothes, so she and Noelle had had to walk to the nearest convenience store, commandeer T-shirts and bandanas—all that had been available—and hitch home. The male driver had leered at their legs the entire way.
Funny thing, though. She’d felt utterly safe. And not just because she knew how to protect herself with a skill and precision, and hell, a determination, not many regular citizens realized. She’d felt something with her, a presence, a dark storm, scaring away the bad, yet never turning on her.
The vampire? Surely not. He’d had his fun, and he’d slipped away in the night.
Mia fired off another shot. “Like I said, you weren’t drained and sent back to me useless.”
Fine. A kind-of success. But kind-of wasn’t good enough for Ava. Especially since she had a feeling McKell had failed to drink their blood because they were women, and he had a weakness—otherwise known as a conscience—rather than their superior agenting skills.
“Plus,” Mia continued, and it was apparent she was trying not to laugh. “We now know McKell can do more than simply stop time. He can stop people. And strip them. And write on them.”
Noelle snickered.
Ava flipped off both women.
Mia shrugged, probably used to such a reaction. “Now you’re better equipped to deal with him.”
Better equipped to—Wait. What? “So you’re giving us another chance?”
“Definitely.”
“I never doubted you would,” Noelle said, which was funny, since she had whined about the “injustice of being fired for one strike-out” the entire drive here.
“Good. Now listen closely.” Mia slapped her gun on the counter, then pinned them both with a hard glare. “I need a blood sample from him, and I don’t care how you get it. I have questions for him, too, but those can wait. Blood’s the most important thing right now. We found another Schön victim.”
“Dead?” Ava asked. She knew the Schön disease worked quickly, turning the infected men and women into cannibals while the virus itself ate through their bodies. But there hadn’t been a new case in weeks. And before that, Bride McKells had used her blood to heal the infected. So they had a cure. Right?
Just the name, Bride McKells, irritated Ava. Bride had married Devyn, king of the Targons, but had once been engaged to Ava’s McKell.
Wait. Hold everything. McKell wasn’t Ava’s. Would never be Ava’s. Her hands fisted. He was a case, nothing more. And she wasn’t jealous that the vampire had pined for the female for decades, waiting for her to return to their underground world and live happily-ever-after.
There was more to the story, there had to be—because really, what kind of woman picked cocky Devyn Targon over brooding Victor McKell?—but that was all Ava had found in the vampire’s file. Had he loved Bride? If so, did he love her still?
Ava’s nails sliced into skin. Doesn’t matter. Relax. He was nothing. Not to her.
Mia nodded, cropped black hair dancing over her shoulders. “One vic means there will be other vics. That’s the way it works. And yeah, Bride Targon’s blood heals the infected, we think, but we’ve basically tapped her dry, and Devyn’s … complaining. We want to test McKell now.”
As fierce and lethal as Devyn was, Ava would bet that “complaining” involved knives.
“Tell me I can count on you,” Mia finished. A demand.
“You’d be stupid not to,” Noelle said. A boast.
“Very true,” Ava agreed. How she’d get that sample, she didn’t yet know. She’d find a way, though. She always did.
Smile returning, Mia patted Ava’s ass. “Good. So go get your man, tiger.”
* * *
McKell’s heartbeat sped up the moment Ava stepped past the line of trees and into his camp, stopping in front of the campfire exactly as she had the night before.
She had returned. He hadn’t had to chase her down.
The other girl, Noelle, eased up beside her, but his gaze remained on Ava. She wore a skin-tight black shirt and equally tight black pants. Her curls had been tamed, forced into some kind of twist at the base of her beautiful neck.
He wanted to strip her again, find out if she’d washed his claiming away. He wanted to set those curls free, find out if fisting them would give him as much satisfaction as he suspected. But most of all, he wanted to sink his fangs into her vein and taste her blood. Would it taste as sweet as her lipgloss?
He’d long since given up trying to fight the desires.
Last night, he had ensured she returned home safely, following in the shadows, even when she rode in some stranger’s car. The stranger in question was alive now only because he’d kept his hands to himself. By the time McKell returned to this forest, distance between him and Ava, his needs had been stronger than ever, and he’d realized he had already lost the battle.