I shifted my weight onto my back foot. “The what?”
“Lone Wolves.” He turned to show me the back of his raggedy jacket. Sure enough, a snarling wolf face stared back at me from the leather.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Isn’t it supposed to be ‘Lone Wolf,’ as in, you know, one? If there’s more than one, then it kind of defeats the purpose of being ‘lone,’ doesn’t it?”
The leader squinted hard, as if trying to follow my logic and getting lost. “Shut up, bitch. Hold her, boys.”
Rough hands grabbed me from behind. I allowed them to do so. “Do you know who you’re messing with?” I said calmly.
“Oh, this should be good,” the leader said.
“My name is Sabina Kane.” I said this a tad more dramatically than I’d intended.
The leader blinked. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
I opened my mouth to tell him—what? That I used to be an assassin on the Dominae’s payroll? That I was, in fact, the granddaughter of the Alpha Dominae? What good would it do me now? Even if that information meant something to the weres, it wouldn’t do me any favors. Hell, it might even convince them to turn me over to the Dominae. They’d probably put a hefty price on my head by now.
“No, I guess it shouldn’t,” I said instead. The reminder that my old life was gone hit me hard in the gut. Looked like I was the lone wolf now. But if these ass**les thought I was going to lower my neck in submission, they had a nasty surprise coming.
“Enough talk. We’re gonna show you what we do to poachers.” He nodded at the guys behind me, and their arms tightened on mine. The leader bared his teeth, which were sorely in need of a good brushing. He pulled back a fist while his buddy held me still.
This type of macho group always assumed a female would automatically submit under their awesome testosterone-drenched antics. Not this chick. I might not have had any silver on me to kill them with—if that even killed them—but I sure as hell had the ability to inflict some major pain.
I delivered a swift jab of my knee to his soft man bits. He yelped and fell down into the fetal position with his hands covering his groin. His friends seemed unnerved to see their leader whimpering on the ground. I took advantage of the distraction to free myself from the two holding my arms. Easy work given their haste to cover their own testicles.
I grabbed the knife from my coat and slashed the arm of the one to my right. He snarled and punched me in the gut. I spun and delivered an elbow to his nose. The cartilage gave with a satisfying crunch. Two down, two to go.
But those two were already running away. I took off after them. I couldn’t risk word getting out to the Dominae that I was in New York. But I didn’t know Central Park nearly as well as they did. They disappeared like rabbits into the brush. And when I got back to where I’d left the injured weres, they were gone, too. Frustrated and still hungry, I made my way back toward the park entrance.
6
I’d almost made it to my room. But just before I opened my door, Maisie’s burst open as if she’d been waiting for my return. “Sabina! You’re back.”
She looked so eager standing there, like she was genuinely happy to see me. Unfortunately, after the night I’d had, I just wanted a shower and to sleep like the dead. Maybe I’d wake up and find out all this was just a dream. A really, really shitty dream.
But I couldn’t very well just walk into my room and slam the door in Maisie’s face. I turned around to face her. “Hey, Maisie.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, my gods, what happened to you?”
Judging from the hot spots of pain the weres had left on my face, I probably looked pretty rough. I opened my mouth to explain, but her eyes moved south and then widened. “Is that a bullet wound?”
My hand went to the splash of red on my tank top. “It looks worse than it is. The hole already closed.” I pulled down the neck of the tank to show her the healed skin. She went pale at the amount of blood covering my skin and clothes. But she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward her room.
“I want you to sit down and tell me everything while I clean you up.” She pushed me down into a chair and disappeared into the attached bathroom.
Sitting was a relief, but I didn’t feel comfortable with her nursing my wounds. Especially since they’d heal on their own in no time. “Maisie, I’m fine. Really.”
She reappeared from the bathroom carrying a washcloth and a couple of small brown bottles. “Nonsense. Now, tell me what happened.”
She began dabbing the washcloth on my face. I sighed. I was too tired to argue with her, and if playing nursemaid made her feel better, then who was I to argue? “I just had a run-in with an unwilling blood donor is all. You know how it is.”
She paused with the now-pink washcloth in midair. “You what?”
“I tried to feed from a guy and he shot me.”
She lowered the washcloth. “Where did this happen?”
“In the park.”
She closed her eyes. “Hekate help us.”
I frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She sighed deep and long. “Please tell me no one saw you feeding.”
I looked down. “Um, well, that’s the other thing. I kind of had a fight with some werewolves.”
She dropped the rag and fell onto the edge of the bed. “This is bad.”
“Don’t worry, they only got in a couple of sucker punches. I managed to kick most of their asses before they ran off.”
She lowered her head into her hands and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. Finally, she lifted her head and stood. “This is my fault.”
“What, why?”
“I should have warned you. Maybe you’re used to being able to feed anywhere and anytime you want, but things are different here. If The Shade finds out you poached on his lands without paying the blood tax, he’ll be pissed. Plus, the weres are his allies, so they’re well within their rights to demand compensation for injuring their people in their own territory.”
“Oops,” I said.
Maisie tilted her head. “Although if you didn’t feed from humans, none of this would have happened.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why you find it necessary to attack innocent humans is beyond me.”
“Gee, Maisie, do you think maybe it’s because I’m a vampire?”
She glared at me. “Half-vampire.”