Steal the Night (Thieves)

by Lexi Blake

  Ronald’s very cultured eyebrow went up in surprise. “Well, we heard that rumor but I discounted it. I assumed Donovan and Quinn were strictly business partners. I thought Quinn ran the businesses, legal and otherwise, and Donovan scared the living shit out of anyone who dared to take a look at Quinn’s territory.”

  “You thought Danny was Dev’s muscle?” I asked, shocked at the thought.

  Dev couldn’t stop his short laugh. “Seriously, Ronald whatever-your-name-is, if you wish to keep your head on your neck, don’t ever let Daniel read that file. The Council may use my partner as a mindless killing machine. He is anything but. And if you think a few hours will prepare you for him, then you’ve never dealt with a vampire king.”

  Ronald’s very British arrogance faltered. He paled a bit. “He isn’t a king. That’s a rumor the two of you put out to enhance your reputations. Donovan is a common criminal. He ran small-time jobs with a two-bit crew until he met you. He may be a death machine, and that in and of itself is something that concerns us, but he’s nothing more. If he really was a king, he wouldn’t be the Council’s executioner. He would have killed the Council and taken over the way the last king did.”

  “Of course, because they’re all the same aren’t they?” I replied, hating the prejudice. “Wolves are all the same. Vampires are just blood suckers. Companions are victims. Mostly I agree with you on the last point, but the rest is just ignorance. It makes me wonder why you don’t just kill us all and make this a human plane.”

  Now the soldier on my side sneered at Dev and me, the hatred plain in his eyes. “Many of us would like that,” he said in a thick Russian accent. “We find the Order’s dictates confining.”

  “Yuri, we’re not hunters,” Ronald replied in a voice that told me it wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument. “These creatures were born on this plane. They have as much right as humans to be here. We merely attempt to keep the demonic influence in check.”

  The burly Russian ignored his commanding officer. I didn’t like the look in Yuri’s eyes as he regarded my husband. “He isn’t keeping the balance. The werewolves were dying out as they should have. Did you think we wouldn’t hear about what you’ve been doing, sidhe? You and your human whore? Do you know that your blasphemous ritual caused fifty new wolves to be born?”

  “Fifty-four, I believe. Really, it was a good night for me,” Dev replied with a humorless smile. He leaned forward and spoke directly to the Russian. “And when we’re alone, Yuri, and I assure you I’ll find a way to get you alone, we’re going to have a discussion about calling my wife names. Have you seen the pictures of what happened to those poor Nagas? That was just money, my friend. While I take my wealth seriously, it doesn’t begin to compare to the way I feel about my wife.”

  But Yuri was just getting warmed up. He moved to the other side of the limo so he could look Dev in the eyes. “You’re not from this plane, sidhe. Yet you come here and act like our world is your personal playground. You think you can do whatever you like and never have to deal with the consequences.”

  “Yuri!” Ronald barked at the soldier.

  “Calm down, mate,” the Aussie said, looking like this was a situation that could get fucked up really quickly. “I know this guy. I’ve studied him for the last two years. He ain’t dangerous unless you push him. He’s just a bloke trying to make his way. His father was born on this plane. His father was human, for god’s sake, so he has some rights. And there ain’t no reason to talk to the woman like that.”

  Yuri wasn’t listening to reason. “He makes his way in the world by performing fertility rituals on creatures who should be allowed to die out. You should have stayed in Faeryland, sidhe.”

  Yuri pulled his gun and aimed it straight at Dev’s head as all hell broke loose in the limo.

  I did the only thing I could. I put myself between the bullet and my husband.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I fell forward into Dev’s lap as the bullet tunneled into my shoulder. I felt that horrible burn and then the agony of the metal lodging itself in my left shoulder blade. I would have screamed, but I was too busy watching Dev pull the SIG Sauer from its hiding place and without a second’s remorse, aiming and firing, the report loud in the confines of the limo.

  Terry was screaming now for Dev to stand down. Ronald suddenly had a pistol in his hand. I was sure both men were aiming for Dev’s head. I shook as I managed to force myself back into my seat. The first thing to catch my eye was the corpse of the man who had shot me. I saw the neat little hole in the Russian’s forehead and the gray matter on the back of his seat. He died a fanatic’s death, and I sincerely hoped it brought him some form of peace. Dev had his gun aimed at Ronald’s head while both the Brit and the Aussie had their semiautomatics ready to splash Dev’s brains all over the car. I was just thinking about the fact that we were lucky Dev hadn’t hit the driver, too.

  “Dev, I’m fine,” I said calmly, trying not to let him know just how fucking much that hurt. I could feel the wound already closing and I grimaced at the thought that Dev was going to have to cut the bullet out. My left arm hung limply at my side because any sort of movement brought a fresh round of mortifying pain.

  Ronald touched his ear piece. “Keep driving. We need to get to HQ as soon as possible. We’ll try to keep the gunfire to a minimum.”

  “We should try to keep the gunfire to none.” Besides being painful, it was also really loud.

  “He shot you.” Dev’s jaw clenched in righteous anger as he stared at Ronald.

  “He was trying to kill you, baby,” I pointed out reasonably.

  “I take offense to that, too.”

  “Look here, Quinn,” Terry started. He took a deep breath and I could see he really wanted to bring down the adrenaline level. He looked to his boss. “You mind if I take this?”

  Ronald’s voice was tense as he stared between me and Dev. “You’re the expert. Be careful though. If we have to take him out, make it a head shot only. The female is obviously on vampire blood. We have to assume that Quinn is as well.”

  “Well I, for one, am damned happy the girl is on the juice,” the Aussie said with a half smile. “I’m going to put my gun down now, Quinn.” The soldier settled the gun back in his holster and showed us his hands. I wasn’t satisfied. Only half the threat was gone. “I got assigned to this mission because Ronald is right. I’m the group’s expert on you. I’ve studied you ever since you came on the Order’s radar four years ago when you opened your third club. I don’t have any problems with you, mate. My plan was to meet you at the airport myself, take you to the nearest pub, and ask what you want with that bastard Merlin.”

  “That plan would probably have worked better than shooting my employees and trying to kill my wife,” Dev acknowledged. I noticed his previously pristine white dress shirt had a fine spray of blood on it. It was my blood.

  “They didn’t listen to me, mate. They thought you were too dangerous to handle casually. You and Donovan are considered to be two of the most dangerous men on this plane. We have to be careful. Yuri obviously had another agenda. He wasn’t following orders. You were well within your rights to blow his arse away.”

  “Thank you for giving me the right to defend my own wife,” Dev sneered. “Look, I don’t give a shit what you want. You lost me when your boy there forced my goddess to take a bullet meant for me. Here are your options, Terry. I can shoot your boss and then you, your boss can shoot me, take my wife into custody and wait for our vampire to kill you, or you can let us out, let our wolves go, and we walk away.”

  “We can’t allow that to happen, Mr. Quinn.” Ronald’s hand started to shake just a bit. I would bet it had been a while since he’d been in the field. “It’s too important to keep the very destructive force that Merlin represents under control.”

  “The only destructive force I’ve seen here is Yuri over there.” Dev’s hand was steady. Unlike Ronald, he was always in the field. Dev never had the option of letting hi
s guard down.

  “I didn’t want to bring him along,” Ronald said quickly. “Jacob insisted. Our oracle plays a deep game at times. For some reason he wanted this to happen. Terry is correct in that there will be no reprisals for Yuri’s death. He brought that on himself. Our only problem with you is your plan to awaken the wizard.”

  “We don’t have a choice.” Pain flared every time my arm moved. I couldn’t actually move it myself. It didn’t work in any way except to hurt like fucking hell.

  “Zoey, they don’t need to know a damn thing, sweetheart,” Dev said. “Let me handle this. I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Yes.” I agreed that he probably would. “But how much of a body count are we going to have when you’re done, baby? I’m going to start listening to Daniel. You have some anger issues, Devinshea. We need to work through them.”

  Terry suddenly knew who to talk to. “Mrs. Quinn, please, we fucked this up. Let us take you to a nice pub, just me and Ronald here, and we’ll talk this out.”

  Ronald sighed. “I can’t risk it, Terry.” He pulled out a small walkie-talkie and pressed a button. “We’re going to need backup. We have one down and an injured female.”

  Terry groaned his displeasure. “They never listen to me. Any minute now we’re going to be surrounded. Please lower your weapon, and I’ll do what I can to take care of your wife. I promise. I’ll take her straight to the medics and we’ll get that bullet out of her. Ronald can question you but we’ll keep her out of it, okay, mate? You got my word on that.”

  “And mine, Mr. Quinn,” Ronald affirmed. “We’ll treat Mrs. Quinn as a guest.”

  “I don’t think we’ll need to do that,” Dev said with a smile. “Zoey, my lover, do you see that Jeep anywhere?”

  I glanced out the back window and sure enough, the Jeep that had taken our wolves away was speeding up the road behind us. “Yes. Are they bringing our guards back to us?”

  Ronald immediately got on his little radio. “Peters, you have been given a direct order. Take those werewolves to the holding pens.”

  Dev had a shit-eating grin on his face. “I don’t think Peters is driving that particular car anymore, Ronnie boy.”

  Cringing from the pain, I forced myself to look back again. I saw Zack had gotten rid of his glamour and was driving the Jeep full tilt. Lee, also back to being himself, was standing on the passenger seat, his whole torso hanging out of the car. He had a purloined rifle in his hand.

  “Blimey,” Terry said, his mouth hanging open.

  “Not all wolves are alike,” Dev explained. “I knew I only had to keep you talking for roughly nine minutes and thirty-four seconds. That’s how long it takes Lee to metabolize a standard dose of ketamine. You see, lover, our experiments have been helpful.”

  “Lee let you experiment on him?” I asked, shocked because Lee always thought the boys were idiots when they played around like that.

  Our limo driver had apparently figured out he was being followed because now he picked up the pace. He was a sad underdog compared to the lighter, faster Jeep.

  “Sometimes science is best served when you take the subject by surprise,” Dev admitted. “He was pissed when he woke up, though. Zack has been letting me shoot him for several months to up his tolerance. He’s only a little behind his brother now.”

  “This won’t work, Quinn,” Ronald snarled, getting really pissed off that his plans were going awry. “I already called in for backup, and all your little ploy will do is cause us to kill those wolves this time around.”

  The limo swerved almost the same time I heard the gunfire. Lee had blown out one of the tires and Ronald lost his hold on the pistol he had been aiming at Dev. My faery took immediate advantage. He shot Ronald in the shoulder and then, for good measure, brought the SIG Sauer down on his head. The Brit slumped to the side and fell into the dead Russian’s lap. Dev immediately turned and focused on the last man left standing. Terry held his hands up, proving he wanted to stay alive.

  “Now that your boss is taking a nap, we can talk,” Dev said darkly. “Don’t think I’ve gone soft because I didn’t kill him. If we were alone, he’d be as dead as Yuri over there and you would be next.”

  “Dev!” I said forbiddingly because there wasn’t any reason to kill now. We had the upper hand.

  Dev ignored me, focusing his will on the soldier. “The two of you are alive because she can yell really loud and she holds a mean grudge. She might cut me off and I’ve already gone without for days. I’m a Green Man. I need sex to survive. I’m in a shitty mood, Terry. You’re alive because I’m horny and she really will insist I go into therapy for my so-called ‘anger issues.’ I don’t like therapy.”

  “Hey, mate, I think your anger is entirely reasonable,” Terry said quickly. “Women don’t understand that sometimes nothing works like a fist fight. I appreciate your restraint. Now, how about I call up to the driver and we find that pub?”

  Just for a minute, I thought Dev might give in to the Aussie’s reasonable attitude, mostly because I suspected he could use a beer. It might have worked had the limo not swerved out of control as it was hit forcefully in the side. I groaned as my shoulder hit the door. Dev flew straight into me as the car started to roll. My world went upside down, and I felt the SIG Sauer hit me straight in the forehead when Dev lost his hold on the gun. The big car seemed to roll forever, but it was really only twice before we ended up with me pinned down by Dev’s big body. I was up against the ceiling when I heard a mighty groan and then the car was righted. I managed to stay conscious as the door next to me was ripped off its hinges.

  Lee’s shadow blocked out the sun. “You all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right, Lee,” I complained as he hauled me out of the wreckage. I screamed as he pulled me out. “I have a freaking bullet in my shoulder that someone’s going to have to cut out. Just as I get used to that horrible pain, some asshole hits the car I’m in and I took a gun to the head.” I pointed to my bruised forehead with my good hand. “And I touched a dead guy.”

  “Only one?” Lee asked, surprised.

  “I showed remarkable restraint,” Dev pointed out as he crawled out of the wreckage.

  “You always do, sir,” Zack said with a grin. Zack gave me a wink. “I’ll be more than happy to cut that bullet out for you, Zoey.”

  “Don’t you even think about it, Zack Owens,” I shot back as Dev was reaching back into the car. There was no way I was letting Zachary anywhere near me with a knife. He would enjoy his work far too much.

  “And Zoey, that’s one more in my column,” Zack pointed out as he slid back into the driver’s seat of the Jeep.

  He was talking about the fact that he’d saved my ass on several occasions but I hadn’t managed to return the favor. Zack liked to point it out at every given opportunity.

  “One of these days,” I grumbled to myself as Lee helped me into the Jeep. Except for some weapons, the Jeep was empty. “Where’s Neil?”

  “I stashed him after we took care of the soldiers,” Zack explained. “He’ll be out for hours. I’ll go back and get him when we’re safe.”

  “But what if those soldiers wake up first?” They might take out their anger on Neil.

  “Uh, Zoey…” Zack began.

  “They’ll sleep for a while, Zoey,” Lee interrupted, giving Zack a pointed look. “Neil is way stronger. He’ll wake up first. Trust me. We would never leave him in danger.”

  I guessed it made sense. Even without Daniel’s blood, Neil was still a wolf.

  Dev pulled an unconscious Terry out of the wreckage. He patted the Aussie down and got rid of his weapons. He would never make the same mistake the soldiers had with us.

  “Hostage?” Lee picked up the heavy soldier with absolutely no trouble. He tossed him in the back of the Jeep.

  “I have a few questions,” Dev admitted. “And I’m sure Daniel would like to have a word with him.”

  “Hey, guys, we have incoming.” Zack pointed to a place behind u
s.

  I heard the heavy thud of a helicopter and several cars rushing toward us.

  Dev hopped into the front seat of the Jeep and hit the side twice to let Zack know he could take off. Dev reached a hand out to Lee. “Give me the rifle.”

  “And I’m supposed to?” Lee asked, gamely passing the rifle to Dev.

  “Take any bullet that comes her way.” Dev stood up and started to fire at the helicopter.

  Unfortunately, it fired back and I found myself thoroughly covered by Lee. I tried not to complain about the pain in my shoulder. It wouldn’t do me any good. Dev would try his damnedest to make me comfortable even in a situation like this. Lee would tell me to suck it up and take the best defensive position he could find. It was probably why Dev had given the assignment to Lee. My faery was a man who was willing to admit his flaws. Lee wouldn’t give a damn about my comfort. He only cared that I was alive at the end of the road.

  Zack swerved mightily and we were lucky we were on a deserted road. From my vantage it looked like we were still in the country, but we were headed toward some sort of civilization. In the distance, I could vaguely see buildings, but for now we had very little cover and the only thing keeping us from getting hit was Zack’s crazy-ass driving.

  Though Lee covered my body, I could see that Dev stood up in the passenger seat and he was facing backward. He must have been a huge target, and it terrified me. I hunched down and prayed to whoever listened to such things that Zack continued to dodge those bullets meant for Dev.

  Dev fired again and then there was the terrible sound of metal screeching. It filled the air and sounded like an enormous monster roaring its rage to the world. There was the sound of rushing air and then a loud crash. Heat splashed against my skin.