by Sierra Dean
Dedication
To the amazing community of writers and readers I feel blessed to spend time with every day (even if it is only online).
To Jenn Bennett, Carolyn Crane, Jaye Wells, Ann Aguirre, Ilona Andrews, Bree & Donna of Moira Rogers, Alisha Rai (who writes the most sensational sex scenes), Jodi Redford, Vivian Arend, Karina Cooper, Cassi Carver, Jess Haines and Thea Harrison. You are all exceptional, and you all distract me when I should be working. That said, I wouldn’t trade a second of it. Thank you for inspiring me with your excellence, your humor, and the staggering amount of talent you all have.
To Julie, Natasha, Pam, Colette, Chelsea, Tori, Sophia, Mandie, Nicole and Marcela. You ladies are amazing, and I hope you understand how much you’re appreciated. Truly, the online book world wouldn’t function without reviewers. But more than that, thank you for your devotion (sometimes frightening) to my books. I adore you all.
Last, but never ever least: To Sasha Knight. Because, quite frankly, none of these books would exist without you. You are the greatest editor a girl could hope for. Even if I bribed you a little by sending photos of Adam Levine along with the submission. But more than an editor, I am so privileged to consider you a friend. For everything you do to help make me better…thank you.
Chapter One
Some days being a bounty hunter stunk.
The vampire snarled in Shane’s face, her breath rank with the copper tang of old blood and her spit wetting his cheek as she bared her fangs like a wild dog. Her lips were caked with red, as though she were a child who hadn’t quite mastered keeping her mother’s lipstick inside the lines.
Lady vamps had been the worst for Shane when he first started his job for the vampire council. He wasn’t exactly an old-school-chivalry kind of guy, but still…something hadn’t sat right about punching a chick in the face. Or blowing her head off with a .44 Magnum.
Until one had bitten a hole in his arm when he’d had a moment’s hesitation.
That’s how he’d learned not to hesitate.
Balling his fist so tight the skin pulled taut and white over his knuckles, Shane Hewitt drove an uppercut punch into the vampire’s cheek and smiled when her jaws snapped together with a loud clack. His hand burned with protest, the bones grinding against each other as he shook off the punch. Hitting a vampire felt a lot like throwing your fist into a brick wall. Only a brick wall couldn’t rip your throat out.
Expect the second attack, he warned himself. He didn’t want to think he needed the training he’d been receiving from the council’s sole female Tribunal leader, but Secret had kept herself alive for a hell of a long time when she’d been in his shoes. Maybe it wasn’t just because she was a freaky half-vampire. There might actually be some skill behind her bluster.
When the lady vamp lunged at him for a second time, he had to admit Secret was right about the advice she’d given him on the attack habits of the undead. She would know. She was one of them after all.
He dodged the vampire’s attack and landed a kick in the center of her back with one of his heavy motorcycle boots. With the fight odds shifting in his direction, he was thankful for being given the upper hand. Who cared where the wisdom came from, so long as it was right? The vamp bounced off the narrow alley’s brick wall and stumbled to the ground.
The first lesson he’d learned doing this job—don’t wait for a second chance, because vampires rarely give them. He stepped on her spine, hard enough he heard her vertebrae groan under his much heavier weight, and pointed his loaded Magnum at the back of her head.
“By decree of the Tribunal, I find you guilty of being a rogue. You are hereby sentenced to death by execution.” Blam. She didn’t have time to struggle or argue. Vampire justice was quick and lethal, just like the monsters themselves.
Shane whipped out the ancient LG cellphone he’d been given by the council. If it had been up to him, he’d be old school all the way and not carry a phone at all. But the council insisted his warden had to be able to reach him. He typed a quick message to Bellamy, his warden, and cursed the tiny keys on the cell for making him spell like a third grader with dyslexia.
Once the message was sent, the dead vamp stopped being his problem. He didn’t want to know what they did with the bodies, whether they destroyed them or if they monitored the site until the sun came up and did the dirty work for them. He was better off being ignorant about that.
Shane rolled the body under a stack of old boxes and kicked some garbage over the blood smeared on the concrete. Now tired and sweaty, he checked the safety on his holstered Magnum for the third time before he left the alley. He’d been shot in the arm a month earlier, and the memory of it still made his clavicle sting. He didn’t have any desire to repeat the experience at his own hand.
The alley was between an abandoned townhouse and an old brick church, so when Shane staggered out onto the sidewalk of West 124th Street, there was no one around to notice him wiping the sweat and blood off his face. Harlem was a great place to kill the undead. No one glanced twice at a rough-looking guy in leather, and people rarely called the police over the sound of a single gunshot.
Running a hand through his damp black hair, Shane fought the urge to light a cigarette. Not only did he not have one on him, he’d quit almost six years earlier.
But when the urge struck it struck hard.
He pulled an orange sucker out of the pocket of his motorcycle jacket and shucked off the plastic wrapper before popping the super-sweet candy into his mouth. Shane had no doubt he looked like a knob, but the suckers helped keep his mind off smoking. Only the orange ones though, for some bizarre reason. He’d tried every flavor under the sun, but orange was the only thing to successfully distract him from the craving for Marlboro.
The crinkling of the plastic wrapper was loud enough in the otherwise silent evening Shane didn’t immediately notice the new sound, and when he did he didn’t think much about it right away. Clacking heels on pavement wasn’t an unusual noise to hear on the New York streets, even on a late night in Harlem.
Hearing them running, however, was a little disconcerting. And hearing them running in his direction was enough to bring Shane’s attention around to the sidewalk behind him.
“Oof,” he exclaimed when a small woman collided with him.
“Move,” she shouted in response.
It wasn’t like New Yorkers were in the habit of apologizing for causing bodily harm, but it was still an unusually rude way to greet someone you’d just smacked into.
“Well, hey now, I think—”
“No.” She grabbed hold of his jacket’s sleeve and pulled him behind her as she started running again. “I don’t mean get out of my way. I mean move your goddamn ass.”
Shane—no stranger to bossy women telling him what to do—thought, What’s the worst that could happen?
Chapter Two
If Shane kept a list of the worst mistakes he’d made in his life, the top three would be: getting married, letting his ex-wife keep the dog and every time he was foolish enough to ask himself the question What’s the worst that could happen?
For a man who had once killed a vampire in front of a double-decker bus full of tourists, and who had been shot by a werewolf at a celebrity-filled wedding ceremony, the answer should be pretty plain—the worst that could happen was always just around the corner.
But when a petite woman with hair the color and shine of a newly minted penny took him by the arm and told him to run, the worst-case scenario didn’t seem like it could be all that bad.
“Uh, so, not to sound like I’m questioning your judgment or anything, but what exactly are we running from?”
She didn’t look back, her hair bounced in its ponytail and her pace never sl
owed. “We’re running for our lives.”
“But if that’s the case, we’re obviously running from something.”
The woman yanked him to the side, pulling him into a space far too narrow to be considered a back lane. She shoved him hard against the wall and was able to do so not because of any superhuman strength, but because she’d taken him by surprise.
Well, that, and she was admittedly a fair bit stronger than her wee frame let on.
Shane got a good look at her for the first time. She was slight of build, from what he could tell, though she was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and jeans with a black coat that hid her waist and chest. Her skin wasn’t the pearl-colored pale he was used to seeing around the vampire headquarters. She had an almost golden glow, and a smattering of freckles decorated her nose and cheeks. Green eyes the hue of fresh-cut spring grass were a perfect complement to her copper hair.
“Is someone trying to hurt you?” Shane asked. A pretty girl like her would be an easy target this late at night this far north in the city. But thugs didn’t scare Shane, and if he could smack someone around and be this lady’s knight in shining armor…?
Visions of knocking bedposts danced in his mind’s eye.
He sure wouldn’t mind seeing what she was hiding under her coat.
“Someone is always trying to hurt me,” the girl said, shaking her head like Shane must have been daft to ask her something so silly.
“Bad boyfriend problems?”
She released him and edged to the mouth of the passage. “You could say that.”
“You need me to send someone a message?” A broad grin spread over Shane’s mouth, and he raised his eyebrows hopefully. The lady vampire had rattled his cage, and beating up a pathetic human male who liked to treat a girl like a punching bag? Well, it would make Shane feel a little manlier.
“Look, I didn’t drag you along for your help.”
“Why did you drag me along, then?”
“Because I might have felt a tiny bit guilty if you got between me and that.”
Shane came up behind her, placing a hand on her lower back so he could lean past her and get a look out into the street. When he did, his bravado fell below normal levels and his cockiness meter dropped to zero.
In the middle of the empty Harlem block stood a creature that was at least nine feet tall, though its slumped shoulders and hunched back meant it might have been much taller if it worked on its posture. The thing’s head was much too small for the substantial girth of its body, making it appear as though someone had stuck a cranberry onto a watermelon and rolled it down the block.
Gray, mottled skin covered the monstrous body, and the creature’s arms were so long it was close to dragging its knuckles on the ground. Tiny black eyes seemed to be scanning the street, and the thing kept grinding its teeth together, the massive lower jaw jutting out much farther, creating an underbite of epic proportions.
It barked. Or at least that was the closest earthly thing Shane could imagine its guttural language to sound like.
He tucked himself back into the passageway and reminded himself most ladies didn’t find it sexy when knights in shining armor pissed themselves.
“So…uh…what is that?”
“A troll,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“You don’t say.”
The girl sighed. “Okay, I know this must be hard for you to digest. Weird stuff exists. The monsters you thought were only in fiction are—”
“Look, lady, you don’t need to give me the whole ‘The monsters under your bed are real’ speech. I hunt vampires for a living.”
For the first time since she’d grabbed him she appeared mildly impressed.
“But trolls are a bit out of my league,” Shane confessed.
“They’re just really, really, really stupid fae.”
“I feel better already.” He peeked over her again to take another look at the troll. It was breathing heavily, nostrils flaring with each inhale and a rattling grunting noise coming out with each exhale. It was sniffing for something. Or someone.
“Is it hunting you?”
“Sort of.” She dipped under his braced arm and peered at the monster.
“How good is its sense of smell?”
The troll grunted and turned in their direction. It barked loudly. “Not as good as its sense of hearing,” she said with a sigh. “Are you armed?”
Shane pulled out the Magnum. The girl rolled her eyes. Somewhere Clint Eastwood shed a tear.
She shrugged off her jacket and gave him an unrestricted eyeful of what she’d been hiding under the trench. Sure, he could finally see her cleavage—very nice, by the way—and her tiny waist was visible, but his eyes were all for her other goodies. Two black bands crisscrossed her chest and were covered in tiny silver-looking knives. Shane knew enough about the fae to be aware silver was useless against them, so the blades were likely made of an iron alloy.
“Who are you?” Shane asked, clicking off the gun’s safety.
“Shiv-awn,” she replied.
“Shiv-awn? Were your parents really into prison movies?”
Shane had never seen someone glare at him with disdain quite as beguilingly as she did. “Siobhan. S-I-O-B-H-A-N. It’s Irish.” She then rolled her eyes as if unable to believe she’d been forced into a spelling lesson.
“Okay, Siobhan. So you’re planning to take down a troll with all those itty-bitty knives?”
Siobhan’s eyes lit up, and she didn’t seem annoyed or frazzled anymore. She reached to her back and drew out a two-foot-long black baton with a slight curve to it. Shane was about to make a snide comment about having a more impressive nightstick he could offer, when she squeezed the baton.
It extended outward from both ends, following the curve of the shaft until Siobhan held a lightweight black bow in her hand. She unstrung a small loop of wire from her belt and stepped on the lower curve of the bow, stringing the wire onto a ridge before she pulled down on the top of the bow and connected the wire to an identical ridge there.
“Damn, girl.” He gave an appreciative whistle. “You some kind of modern Robin Hood or something?”
She removed one of the small blades from her belt and squeezed it as she had the baton. The blade transformed into a full-sized arrow, complete with silver feathers on the end. Shane had been willing to write off the bow as an impressive mechanical weapon, but there was no way an entire arrow could have fit into that tiny blade.
“Magic?”
“Yup.”
“Expensive?”
“Yup.”
“You don’t say much, do you?”
“Not a lot of conversation to be made with trolls.”
There was nothing about that point Shane could argue with, primarily because he didn’t have any experience with trolls, and also because Siobhan didn’t seem as though she was the kind of woman who liked to be argued with.
“Any pro tips on how to kill one of these things?”
“The brain is almost nonexistent, so don’t focus there.” She was lining up the arrow and readying her bow as best she could in the narrow pass. “If you’re a good enough shot to take out the eye, then do that. Otherwise, it’s like any other living thing, magic or not. Shoot it in the heart and you’ll kill it eventually.”
“Eventually?”
Siobhan pushed past him. “Buddy, it’s a ten-foot-tall, seven-hundred-and-fifty-pound monster that’s been around for two centuries. Do you think you’re going to take it down in one shot?”
As she bounded out of the alley and into the street, he stared dumbfounded for a moment before running out after her shouting, “My name is Shane.”
Chapter Three
What kind of idiot introduced himself while running into the heat of battle?
Siobhan could hear Shane’s name shouted across the still evening air as she bolted towards the troll with both hands clamped on her weapon. She needed backup. She needed high ground. The last thing she needed was a man’s n
ame.
Her low-heeled boots clamored against the pavement as she ran, and the troll growled at the sound. They might have had tiny ears, but trolls hated noise. It always made her laugh when she heard fairy tales about trolls living under bridges. There was simply no way. The thrum of traffic and the echoes of the noises above would prove too much for any normal troll in about five minutes. They also avoided water like the plague.
Way to miss the mark completely, Grimm Brothers.
She skidded to a stop a good twenty feet from the troll and anchored her foot on the tire of a nearby car, hoisting herself up onto the vehicle’s roof. It wasn’t much of an advantage, still putting her head below the troll’s shoulder level, but it was preferable to being on the ground.
“Glerfendgle,” Siobhan shouted, and she didn’t need to turn back to know Shane was staring at her like she was a nutcase. She got that look a lot.
The troll grunted in response to its name and stopped advancing.
“You are outside your territory,” she added.
The troll shrugged one knobby shoulder and trundled a few steps closer. Shane, who was standing near the car she was on, whispered loudly, “I don’t think he cares.”
“No, they never do.”
She raised her bow. The weight of the weapon felt comfortable in her hands, like she was lifting her fingers to wave instead of leveling an arrow to kill something. “Your trespass will not be tolerated in the realm of the Claughdid, Glerfendgle.”
This time the troll’s words sounded remarkably close to fuck you, or as close as the troll language would allow.
“Does that ever…you know…work?” Shane asked, and Siobhan heard him chamber a bullet.
“I like to give them the opportunity to be the first troll with half a brain.” Since this troll would not prove to break new ground for his kind, Siobhan strung an arrow onto the taut wire and plucked the string back near her ear. “Last chance,” she hollered to the advancing troll.
Glerfendgle had lost interest in her and Shane and was now trying to lift a small red Chevette off the street to peer underneath it. Siobhan grumbled an old Gaelic curse and rotated her neck, hearing the bones of her spine creak and groan. One of these days she’d make it through a week without having to protect a supernatural gateway from mythological monsters.