He’d be hard-pressed not to when most of my mouth-first offenses of late involved him in some way. “What are you doing here, Gautier? Haven’t you got bad guys to kill?”
“I have.”
“Then why aren’t you outside hunting, like the good little psycho you are?”
His sharklike smile sent a chill running up my spine, and in that moment I realized he was on the hunt.
For me.
Fuck.
Which didn’t really fully encompass the shitload of trouble I’d landed in, but right then, it was the only word I could think of. And it was running over and over and over in my mind.Along with the thought that I’d been set up. That this was what Jack had intended all the time when he’d arranged this training session.
Rhoan wouldn’t have known. He would never have agreed to this. Never.
“So, you’re here to put me through my paces, huh?”
His amusement rippled around me, as slimy as pond scum. “You catch on quick.”
Not quick enough, apparently. I should have known Jack was up to something. He’d been too jovial all day—a sure sign the shit was about to hit the fan where I was concerned.
But why would he put me up against Gautier so soon? Hell, I’d only been training a couple of months. Most would-be guardians had at least a year before they had the pleasure of Gautier pulping them.
Maybe something had happened. Something that had forced a revamp of the timetable.
Despite the situation, excitement trembled through me. I wanted this ended. Wanted to get back to a normal life—though given six months had now passed since I’d first been injected with the experimental fertility drug, normalcy might be a thing of the past. If that drug was changing the very essence of what I was—as it had other half-breeds—then those changes would soon start appearing.
Gautier began to stroll leisurely in my direction. I continued to twirl the towel, and watched him through slightly narrowed eyes. I was never going to beat him, and we both knew it, but I sure as hell was going to go down fighting.
He stopped halfway down the arena. “You ready?”
I raised an eyebrow, feigning a confidence I didn’t feel. Which was pretty pointless, because he was a vampire, and would know how accelerated my heart rate was. Would know it was fear, rather than excitement.
But fear and I were old companions. It hadn’t stopped me before, and it wouldn’t stop me now.
“Do you give all your targets a warning?”
“Yes.”
The complete and utter stillness about him reminded me of a snake about to strike. And it made me afraid, as no real snake ever had.
“And why would you do that?”
“Because tasting my prey’s fear as I hunt them down is almost as heady as tasting blood.” He paused to breathe deep. Rapture touched his flat eyes, and the chills running down my spine became a landslide. “I can taste your fear, Riley, and it is exquisite.”
“You’re sick. You know that, don’t you?”
“But I’m very, very good at what I do.”
The promise of death was in his eyes. And I knew that he and I would fight it out, for real and to the bitter end, sometime soon. Not here, not at the Directorate, but somewhere on his turf, on his terms.
Goose bumps ran across my skin, but I resisted the urge to rub my arms. Clairvoyance might be a latent skill coming to life, but it sure as hell was one I could do without.
Especially when it told me shit like that.
Gautier’s fingers flexed, just the once, then he was gone from sight. His steps were featherlight on the matting, little more than whispers of air. I wished I could say the same about his scent. It was thick with the reek of death, so vile that it snatched my breath and made it hard to concentrate.
And if I didn’t concentrate, this could go very, very badly.
Not that it wasn’t going to, anyway.
I blinked, switching to the infrared of my vampire sight, and watched the heat of him draw closer. And closer. At the last possible moment, I flicked the towel forward, snapping the end across his stone-cold features, then I ran like hell out of his way.
He didn’t give chase, simply stopped and raised a hand to his face. Though I’d been aiming for his eyes, the towel had actually snapped across his cheek, and hard enough to draw blood. It probably wasn’t the wisest thing I’d ever done, but damned if the sight of his blood didn’t cheer me up a little. I might get beaten senseless, but at least I’d managed to do the one thing no guardian had ever been able to do—draw blood from the great Gautier.
But then, few guardians would be insane enough to face Gautier armed with just a towel.
He ran a finger across the wound. Even from where I stood, I could see the blood sitting on his fingertip. His gaze met mine, and again I saw death.
For all of two seconds, I thought about running. Just getting the hell out of this arena and away from this psychopath. But if I did that, I’d be off the mission. And right now, I wanted that revenge more than I feared Gautier.
Gautier sucked the blood from his fingertip, then said, in a voice that was flat and yet oh so lethal, “For that, you will pay.”
“Oh, I’m so scared.” Which was nothing more than the truth. Anyone possessing the merest grain of sanity would not want to exchange places with me right now. Except maybe my brother.
I frowned at the thought. Rhoan would know what was happening—at the very least, he’d feel my fear. So why wasn’t he here, watching if not intervening?
Gautier gave me the sort of smile a cat might give an amusing mouse just before he ate it, then disappeared from sight again. I tracked him with infrared, waiting until he closed in, then threw the towel at his face even as I dropped, spun and lashed out with one foot, trying to bring him down. He avoided the towel and the kick, then his fist was arcing toward me. I dodged, felt the breeze of it scrape past my cheek, then dove forward, tackling him at knee height and bringing him down. As we both hit the matting, I landed a punch, kidney-high, before rolling to my feet and getting away. Close-in fighting with Gautier was something I was never going to win. I had to hit and run, hit and run, for as long as I could.
The bastard didn’t even have the courtesy to grunt at the force of my blow. He climbed to his feet, his movements leisurely, calm. But there was murder in his eyes.
I wiped the sweat from my eyes, then flexed my fingers, trying to remain relaxed. He wouldn’t kill me, not here. I had to believe that, if nothing else.
“Very good,” Gautier said, his slimy, too-confident tones sending more chills up my spine. “There are very few who have managed what you just did.”
I wondered if those few were still alive to speak about the experience. Knowing Gautier, probably not.
“I shall have to try a little harder, it seems,” he added.
Oh, fuck.
The thought had barely entered my head when he was coming at me, a whirlwind of power and speed and sheer, bloody force. I weaved and dodged and blocked as best I could, throwing punches and kicks. But I was never going to beat him, and we were both too aware of that point. He might not be faster, but he was stronger and far more experienced.Eventually, several blows got through my defense, leaving me winded, battered, more than a little bruised but somehow still upright. I kept blocking, kept fighting, then another blow came through, crashing against my chin, snapping my head back and sending me flying. Stars danced in front of my eyes, and the black peace of unconsciousness flirted with me. I shook my head, denying the call, and twisted in the air so that I landed catlike and on all fours. Saw, in a brief flash of awareness, my brother, his knuckles white with the force of his grip on the railing. Saw the four security guards holding him back. Saw Jack watching it all.
Then the air was screaming with the scent and force of Gautier’s follow-up leap. If he pinned me, that would be the end of it. I rolled away and slashed sideways with my heel. The blow connected low down, against his ankle, and flesh and bone gave way under the power of it. He grunted, fury flashing across his dead features, then he spun and grabbed my leg even as I tried to scramble away.
A scream ran up my throat as he pulled me toward him, but I managed to push it down enough that it came out only as a slight gasp of fear. I twisted around, ignored the slivers of pain that ran up my leg, and kicked out with my free foot.
He laughed. Laughed.
Never a wise move when it came to dealing with werewolves—even if the odds are on your side. You might as well wave a red rag at a raging bull.
The anger that swept through me momentarily bolstered my reserves of strength. I called to the wolf within, and the power of the change swept around me, through me, tingling through vein and muscle and bone, blurring my vision, blurring the pain, the fury. Limbs shortened, shifted, rearranged, until what was lying on the mat was wolf, not human. It wasn’t a move Gautier had expected, and just for an instant, he didn’t actually react. I ripped my leg free of his grip, then leapt to my feet, launching at him rather than away. Teeth slashed, tearing through the flesh of his arm as easily as scissors through paper.
His blood spurted into my mouth, a foulness worse than even his scent. I coughed, spat out his taste, his flesh. Then his fist was in my side, burrowing deep. Something snapped within, and everything went red as the force of the blow battered me away from him. I shifted shape as I flew through the air, and hit the mat hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Or maybe there wasn’t any to begin with, because my lungs burned and I couldn’t seem to get enough air no matter how much I gasped. All I could feel was pain and fear.