Dee paced about twenty feet behind Onyx. No stragglers waited outside. No lovers looked for a quick screw.
Alone.
With the thick silence.
So not natural.
She rocked back on her heels and tried to ignore the fact that Chase lounged somewhere in that bar. He’d probably moved on to a more agreeable partner. One of those women who could laugh and smile and mean it, and not someone who couldn’t stop glancing over her shoulder because she knew there were monsters out there, waiting.
Be afraid of the dark. A lesson she’d learned when she’d been fifteen.
So very afraid.
The faintest pad of footsteps reached her ears. Dee didn’t tense, that would alert her prey. She exhaled, nice and slow and—
“You’re dead, Dee.”
A woman’s voice, soft and mellow.
Slowly, Dee turned toward her. Tall, thin, with a long mane of midnight black hair, the woman stood near the exit of the back parking lot. She was alone, unarmed, and smiling.
Dee kept the stake hidden. No way to tell yet if she was staring at a vamp, a demon, a human—or hell knew what. Come on, Jude, get your ass back here. But if the kymine hadn’t worn off, he wouldn’t be much help, either.
“Are you afraid?” the woman asked.
Dee decided she hated the bitch. “No. Are you?”
The woman glided closer. One of those annoying graceful moves that dancers seemed to make.
Dee marched toward her, more than ready to meet the chick head on.
“No one will mourn, Dee. No one will even miss you when you’re rotting in the ground.”
Ah, so she was little Miss Sunshine and Light. Dee grunted. “And what? You think you’re the one whose gonna take me out?” She shook her head. “Sorry, sister, it’s been tried more than a few times and the assholes who come for me are the ones who wind up in the graves.”
The woman’s lips tightened. Good. It was always better to get under their skin, to rattle them, to—
“You should have died with your family.”
Dee’s vision flashed red. Blood red. Like the blood that had stained her hands, covered her body, and pooled on the floor when she’d found them.
No.
“But it doesn’t matter.” The bitch’s chin lifted. “You’re dead now.”
So Sunshine had gotten under her skin. “I seem to be breathing just fine.” She didn’t hear any other sounds. That could mean it was just her and Sunshine, or it could mean others waited silently and patiently in the darkness, ready for the perfect moment to attack and kill.
Uh, Jude?
Sunshine had on jeans, strappy sandals, and some kind of light, lacy top. Her smile was broad and flashed lots of teeth.
No fangs, not yet. A vamp’s fangs grew right before they got ready to feed. Just like a vamp’s eye color changed to black when they hunted.
Or when they fucked.
One way to find out what she was dealing with here.
Dee lunged forward, the stake gripped tight in her hand. She struck out, grabbing Sunshine and tossing her ass to the ground. Then she went in for the kill.
The woman never even flinched.
That same vacant smile was on her lips when Dee brought the stake down over her heart. “Dead,” she whispered again.
No fangs. No black eyes. If the woman were a vamp, she’d be fighting for her life. She would have gone into hunting mode instinctively. Not just lay there like a lamb at a slaughter.
Dee froze. The tip of the stake pressed into the lace of Sunshine’s shirt. “Who the hell are you?”
Laughter. Low. In-freaking-sane.
Dee lifted the weapon. Staking a human was not part of her agenda for the night. She rose, never taking her eyes off the nutjob. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“No, you are.” The woman climbed slowly to her feet. “All alone. Poor little hunter. Will you beg at the end?”
What the—
“She’s not alone.” Hard, deep.
Not Jude.
Chase.
Sunshine’s lips parted.
“Get out of here,” Dee told her, fighting back the impulse to ram one fist into that thin little nose. “And stop screwing around in shit that you don’t understand.” The woman was obviously some kind of messenger. Most of the hunters at Night Watch had a standing policy of not hurting innocents. Well, Zane wasn’t part of that “most” group. But she didn’t like to hurt humans.
The Other knew the safest way to send their warnings to the hunters was to employ puppets. Humans who thought playing in the dark was fun.
When it was more like suicide.
Yeah, she didn’t normally hurt innocents. But this time, oh, talk about temptation.
“You don’t even have a week,” the woman said and when she tilted her head, Dee caught sight of the bruises on her neck.