Rob, in beast form, grappled with the Nosferatu, keeping his body between her and the vampire. The fool was defending her.
With a twist of speed, her werewolf pinned the ancient vampire under his clawed hands. Teeth bared, he snapped at his friend’s head.
Daedalus held off the attack. Barely. If Rob finished her task and killed the Nosferatu, he would never forgive her once he found out the truth. A lead ball of certainty sank in her gut.
Never.
“Rob, stop!” she shouted. “I’m the one who shot you.”
He stopped mid-bite, with Daedalus’s arm sandwiched between his sharp teeth. They stared at each other for a moment before the vampire nodded. Rob opened his mouth, and Daedalus slipped his arm out, then wrapped the werewolf in a bone-cracking hug.
“Dumbass, you hooked up with a slayer.” The vampire released Rob and rose from the ground.
The beast swung around with a sharp glare. It almost sliced her in half.
“You stepped in my line of sight. I was aiming at him.” She pointed at Daedalus, suddenly feeling like she was back in grade school.
Rob tilted his head, ears folded back as he stalked around her. A low growl emanated from his chest.
“You’re either very good at what you do or very stupid for taking a contract on my kind.” The Nosferatu examined his arm, bending it with ease.
“I’m not feeling very smart at the moment. I refused the initial contract.” She pulled out the phone from her pocket. Both males tensed as she moved. “Take it easy, boys. I’m not deadly with a BlackBerry. Look at the messages. They doubled the cash out.”
Daedalus pocketed the phone without reading it. “Grab her. My car is around the corner. We’ll finish this at home.”
Without any effort, Rob lifted her in his arms gently.
“For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry.” And she was. Even though he’d never believe her, she needed him to hear it. “I don’t think I would have been able to live with myself if you’d had died.” The emotional roller coaster of the last half hour made the truth easy to admit. She leaned her head on his shoulder, the soft fur a small comfort. Her strength disappeared and with it her desire to fight.
Rob lived.
What was wrong with her? She never made rash decisions where marks were concerned. What made her grab her crossbow without a plan? The money would have been nice, but if it were the driving force she’d have taken the contract in the first place.
It almost seemed like fate grabbed her by the ass and turned off her brain. The target so easily accessible and the shitload of payout dangling like a carrot. She’d fucked it all up though. No kill and worse, no Rob.
They approached a two door black sports car. Daedalus held open the passenger door. He folded the front seat down so Rob could squeeze into the backseat with her.
The drive didn’t take long with the vampire’s heavy foot on the accelerator. He parked close to Rob’s brownstone. “I’ll get you some clothes. We don’t need to cause trouble if one of the neighbors is watching, and I don’t need any more grief from Sugar.” Daedalus slammed the driver’s side door shut.
Rob melted back into his human form next to her, his glare never left hers as his eyes changed from bright amber to sharp green.
The transformation fascinated her. All these years in her profession, but until yesterday, she’d never been this close to a shifter as he changed.
“For fuck’s sake, Esther. A slayer?” The contempt in his expression hurt. “Is this why you’ve been after me? Using my friendship with Daedalus to get close enough to kill him?” The car shook as he punched the front seat.
She shrank back. The moonlight gleamed on his bare skin and waves of fury emanated from his body. “I didn’t know you were friends. I thought he was using you, like most of his race does.”
The dark glance he shot at her brooked no belief.
“When I approached you on the street, I’d hoped to follow you so I could find his lair but—but…” She swallowed with a mouth gone dry. “You kept surprising me. You never do what I expect. Like now, why am I still alive? You should have killed me by now. I’m all unbalanced around you, which is a terrible thing in my profession.”
He tapped at the fresh scar on his chest. “No shit.”
“I’ve got good aim.” She glanced out the window. “You should be careful dealing with vampires, Rob.”
“Not everything is what you think you see, Esther. You’re a human looking in from the outside and only gazing at the surface. There’s a whole ocean of stuff under the stories humans are told.”
She blinked. “Like how you could heal the way you did?”
“Yeah, well, that was a surprise for me too. It’s why my pack needs Daedalus. We’ve lost too much knowledge over the centuries.” He watched the Nosferatu return with a pile of clothes. “I won’t let you kill him.” He directed his stare at her, making his deadly intentions clear if she crossed that line.
Chapter 7
“I get the message.” Esther frowned at Robert.
He doubted she did. Chances were pretty good she’d take another crack at Daedalus if the opportunity arose. Then he’d have to kill her. Wouldn’t it be his luck his first kill would be a woman he liked.
The car door opened and she startled. Daedalus tossed some clothes at Robert then gripped the slayer’s arm, yanking her out.
Betrayal left a sour taste in Robert’s mouth. “Store her in my bathroom while I gather the others.” The order slipped from him. He noticed Daedalus do a double take, but he escorted Esther without question.
Nothing like being on the brink of death to give a male perspective. He’d been ready to tear the vampire’s throat out for Esther. The most shocking thing was that he’d almost accomplished it. Sometime in the last twenty-four hours Esther had become his. What the hell was he going to do about that? She’d used and abused him.
His beast writhed inside. It wanted to storm up to the second floor, break into the bathroom, and mark her…or spank her…or both. Taking a deep breath, he sat back and went through the calming exercises he used to control the beast. Thankfully, it also worked on the raging erection under the pile of clothes he held in his lap.
With a shake of his head, he dismissed both beast and Esther to the back of his mind. Tonight he needed to be the pack’s beta. One more day before his alpha got home. One. More. Day.
He got dressed in a pair of nylon workout pants and a green t-shirt that read Never Moon a Werewolf. Reflexively, he reached for his glasses, but they must have smashed on the sidewalk when he’d fallen from the roof.
He jogged over to the brownstone. No one would have guessed he’d had an arrow in his chest and internal injuries less than an hour ago. Eric needed to know about that shifting trick. It hurt like hell to heal that fast though, and it took a lot of energy. He needed food, a truck load of it, to build back his reserve.
As he opened the door he expected to hear his roommates arguing inside but silence greeted him.
Daedalus descended the stairs. “I wedged a chair under the doorknob. She’s not going anywhere.”
“I’ll go wake up the others if you get Sugar.” Some nights they stayed awake late and hung out with the Nosferatu, but it was a weeknight. Day jobs awaited Tyler, Katrina, and Sam. Only Eric and himself made their own work hours. They tended to be night owls anyway. Maybe that’s how this odd camaraderie with Daedalus developed from trainee to friend?
“Let them sleep. We’ll talk first, then you can decide what to do.”
He had to decide? Watching the vampire disappear into the kitchen, Robert did a little what-the-fucking before following. “So, what’s going on? Why is Esther trying to turn you into ashes?”