Blood Hunt

by Butcher, Shannon K.

  “You know about that?” he asked.

  “I know that your father raped your mother and the Solarc banished you and cursed you to live in eternal darkness because of it. That’s why a Warden comes every time sunlight touches your skin. It’s the Solarc’s way of punishing you.”

  “It wasn’t just my father. It was the fathers of all Sanguinar—powerful human men who invaded Athanasia, abducted women, and raped them. It was a premeditated act—one for which my grandfather the Solarc never forgave them.”

  “He should have punished them, not you.”

  “What better way to punish a father than to harm his child?” said Logan.

  “And you’re still suffering for that mistake. Hundreds of years later.”

  Not anymore. He wasn’t going to let the sins of his father ruin even one more day of his life. He had Hope now, and that was all the sunshine he’d ever need.

  “How did you get here?” he asked.

  “The Tyler building. There’s a Sentinel Stone in the basement. I was sent through that, alone.”

  A Sentinel Stone left unattended? That could not stand. “We must go there and retrieve it, bring it to Dabyr where it can be guarded.”

  “We will. Later. It’s been there a long time. It can wait there a while longer.”

  “Are there more like you?” asked Logan.

  “Maybe. If there are, they won’t know who they are. Their memories would have been stripped away to protect them from attack, the way mine were.”

  “So you did allow your memories to be taken?”

  “Yes. It was the only way to come here and fulfill my duty.”

  “And what duty is that?”

  “The same as yours,” she said. “Fighting the Synestryn. Protecting the humans.”

  For the first time in a long time, Logan did not feel nearly so alone. He had Hope, which was more than he deserved.

  He had to find a way to give his brothers the same gift she’d given him—the hope that his life would not always be one of pain and hunger. Surely, if there were others like her, there had to be some way to locate them.

  “Is there any way we can identify these people?” he asked.

  Hope shrugged. “I see auras—colors surrounding people that tell me about them. Maybe others like me see them, too.”

  That explained the halos of color he’d seen while in her mind. “I don’t know how that’s going to help us find them.”

  “I don’t, either. But I remember growing up with others like me—all different ages.”

  “Maybe the Sentinel Stone in the Tyler building holds the key. We should go and investigate.”

  “We will. Tomorrow. Tonight, there’s something I need to say.”

  “What?”

  “I love you, Logan.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed him, her lips soft and warm against his.

  All thought of duty or responsibility fled, leaving Hope and her love for him burning bright at the center of his world. She was his refuge, his heart, and for as long as he held her in his arms, his life would be complete and perfect.

  Read on for a sneak preview of

  Shannon K. Butcher’s next novel,

  RAZOR’S EDGE

  Coming from Signet Eclipse in November 2011

  Catching a thief was easy. Catching a thief in the act was more of a challenge—one that made Roxanne Haught’s skin sizzle with eager anticipation.

  The lavish retirement party was her idea, despite the fact that she’d never met the guest of honor. It was the perfect trap, complete with juicy bait her target would be unable to resist.

  She mingled among the well-dressed partygoers, smiling and making small talk as she passed from one cluster of people to the next, waiting for the right time to strike.

  Her client, Mr. Chord, had graciously opened his home for his friend’s party—something the middle-aged reclusive genius had never done before. Because of that, dozens of people had come here tonight, curious to get a peek into the executive’s estate.

  Roxanne cared little about the details of the handcarved woodwork or the intricacies of the mosaic tile floor inlaid with semiprecious stones that seemed to delight many of the people here. She’d seen it all before. She was more interested in the number of exits on each floor and the location of the information she’d been hired to guard.

  The stage was set. The party was in full swing. Mr. Chord had made sure that his newest employee, Mary Smith, knew that the plans for Chord Industries’ latest invention were being kept safe on his hard drive at home, away from any possible thieves at the office. That machine had no Internet or network connection, making hacking it from a remote location impossible. No copies were being stored elsewhere, not since the last fiasco. If someone wanted that information, the only way to get it was by breaking into his home office.

  He was being extra careful this time. Too bad for Mary Smith that her boss suspected her of the theft and had hired Roxanne to catch her in the act.

  The Kevlar stitched into the bodice of Roxanne’s beaded evening gown gave her little comfort. Mary looked more like the kind of woman who would prefer knives—up close, personal, and silent.

  She was a small, innocent-looking woman. She had delicate, softly rounded features, like a porcelain doll. Her bright, cherry red hair was styled in an old-fashioned manner that reminded Roxanne of glamorous actresses from the forties. Her dress matched her flamboyant hair color and skimmed the kinds of curves that made men forget their own names. If it weren’t for the fact that her boss was a freaking genius, Mary probably would have continued to get away with stealing his intellectual property.

  But Mr. Chord was a genius, and after a bit of surveillance, Roxanne was sure he was right. Mary Smith was a thief.

  Roxanne stood on the grand staircase that led to the second floor, where several people mingled. She watched Mary laugh at something Mr. Chord said, placing her delicate hand on his chest while she batted her fake eyelashes. The redhead stared up at him in rapt attention, hanging on his every word. Her hands were quick, but Roxanne was watching carefully, expecting the woman to make a move.

  Mary didn’t disappoint. With a quick, graceful motion, she swiped Mr. Chord’s key card from his breast pocket, palming it until it was safely in her red beaded evening bag.

  Busted, but not good enough yet. Mary had to be caught stealing the information or no one would believe Little Miss Innocent was guilty of anything more than stunning good looks.

  Mary excused herself, heading toward the staircase. Roxanne turned to the nearest group of people and chatted with them as the other woman passed behind her, moving up the stairs and to the right, toward Mr. Chord’s office.

  Roxanne caught Mr. Chord’s gaze and gave him a slight nod. Tonight, she was going to plug her client’s information leak once and for all.

  A smile stretched Roxanne’s lips as she waited until the last flash of red dress was gone before following Mary down the hallway. The floor plan to Mr. Chord’s home was firmly in her mind. There was only one reason Mary would be headed down this hall: to reach Mr. Chord’s office.

  Roxanne waited a few brief seconds outside the solid wood door, giving Mary time to power up the PC and begin her illegal hacking.

  The high-tech keypad controlling the office door indicated the door was securely locked. Roxanne used her key to open it. By the time she swung the door open, Mary was already standing, her eyes wide with innocence.

  “What are you doing in here?” asked Roxanne.

  “Mr. Chord asked me to look over some of his papers.” She held up a key card. “See? He gave me his key.”

  “Liar,” said Roxanne, her grin widening. “But then everything from your dyed hair to your name to that résumé you used to get hired is a lie.”

  Mary did a good job of sputtering in indignation and picked up her cell phone from the desk. “How dare you? I’m calling Mr. Chord right now to have security escort you out.”

  “Go ahead,” said Roxanne, shrugging. Mar
y was caught, and if the sweat beading along her hairline was any indication, she knew it. The only way out was through the door behind Roxanne or out the window, which was easily twenty feet down, thanks to the high ceilings on Mr. Chord’s first floor. It was too high up to jump out the window, and there was no place in that outfit for her to hide rappelling gear.

  Mary Smith was well and truly caught.

  “I’ve been made,” said Mary into the cell phone. “Heads up. Window.”

  Roxanne’s confusion lasted for a millisecond, but even that was too long. Mary had a partner—something Roxanne had failed to uncover.

  Roxanne lunged across the room to stop the woman, but before she could cross the space, Mary hurled a stapler through the window, jerked a USB drive out of the PC, and tossed it through the broken glass. Roxanne slammed into Mary, pinning her to the window frame. Outside, she saw a man below pick up the drive and sprint across Mr. Chord’s manicured lawn.

  Sure, the data on the drive was fake, but that wasn’t the point. Roxanne had been charged with catching a thief, and she’d failed to realize there were two of them.

  Fury boiled up inside her as she grabbed the dainty woman’s arm to spin her around and tie her wrists with the flex cuffs she’d brought with her. Mary had other ideas.

  She lashed out, slamming her pointy elbow into Roxanne’s stomach. Pain flew out from that spot, driving the air from her lungs. Mary shoved away from Roxanne, but moved only two feet before Roxanne snagged her arm and jerked her to a halt.

  “You’re not getting away,” Roxanne snarled.

  Mary’s hand snapped out, striking Roxanne’s forearm hard enough to break her grip, likely leaving a bruise. She reached beneath her short skirt and pulled out a slim knife. “Like hell I’m not.”

  Sometimes it sucked being right.

  Roxanne hated knives. She really did. She would have much rather been at the receiving end of a nice fat shotgun. There was something inherently wicked about knives, something far more sinister than the effective simplicity of a revolver, or the efficiency of a semiautomatic pistol. Guns were designed to kill; knives were designed to hurt. It took a long time to die from stab wounds unless you were lucky enough to have an artery severed. And while Roxanne had been trained to deal with the threat, facing a shiny blade still had the power to make her break out in a nervous sweat.

  Mary stabbed toward her, slicing at Roxanne’s arm. The blade didn’t cut her, but she was sure some of the hair on her forearm had been shaved clean. Good thing she’d brought a gun to a knife fight. It was in her evening bag, which she’d dropped on the floor by the door when Mary had shattered the window. All Roxanne had to do was get to it and the fight would be over. One way or another.

  Mary kept swiping, holding Roxanne at bay as she backed up to make her exit. Roxanne made sure not to glance at her beaded bag, not wanting to give away the fact that it was important to her. A woman cruel enough to carry a blade as her weapon of choice would not hesitate to use anything against her she could find.

  “I’m leaving. Keep quiet and I won’t hurt anyone on my way out,” said Mary. The wicked gleam in her dark eyes didn’t instill confidence in her words.

  “Bullshit. We both know that’s a lie.”

  A slow, amused smile spread across Mary’s mouth as she backed up a bit more. Roxanne followed her. As she passed the desk, she picked up a heavy crystal paperweight and flung it at Mary’s head.

  The woman dodged it, and Roxanne took the opening. She charged forward, gripping Mary’s wrist and shoving it high to keep the knife away from her. She used her momentum to slam the woman into the hardwood door. Mary’s head hit hard. She blinked several times as if dazed.

  Roxanne didn’t wait to see if it was an act. She smashed the knife hand against the wood over and over until the gleaming metal fell to the floor.

  Mary screamed in outrage and head-butted Roxanne right in the nose.

  Pain flashed red behind her eyes and made them water like crazy.

  Roxanne grabbed the front of the woman’s dress and flung her to the floor, face-first. Mary’s skin squeaked against the gleaming hardwood floor. Roxanne crashed down on top of her, driving her knee into Mary’s back hard enough to make her cry out in pain. Something along Mary’s back popped, but Roxanne didn’t care what it was. She wrenched Mary’s hands behind her and pinned them there while she fished another set of flex cuffs from her evening bag.

  Mary was secured, moaning, and no longer fighting.

  Time to go after the other thief.

  Roxanne picked up the knife so Mary couldn’t use it to free herself, and dropped it into her purse. She took out her cell and dialed Mr. Chord as she raced out of the office and down to the exit nearest to where Mary’s partner had been. “Mary is in your office. She might need an ambulance.”

  “What the hell did you do to her?”

  “Not as much as I would have liked. She had a partner. I’m going after him.”

  Roxanne didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. She raced across the lawn, but the second thief was nowhere to be seen. Behind a screen of manicured bushes, several bars had been recently cut away from one section of the iron fence surrounding Mr. Chord’s property, and on the other side of that, there were dark tire marks on the street.

  Roxanne had failed to catch him, which meant it was only a matter of time before a new Mary showed up to finish what the last one couldn’t.

  Mr. Chord was not going to be pleased.

  “Mr. Chord is pissed,” said Roxanne’s boss, Bella Bayne, the next morning.

  Bella was the owner of the Edge—the growing private-security company in Dallas where Roxanne worked. They handled all kinds of needs, from threat assessment to protective details to U.S. troop support to ridding foreign countries of any number of pesky criminals. For the right price.

  Roxanne’s specialty was stealth security for corporate espionage cases. She made sure the bad guys didn’t know who she was until it was too late and she caught them with their hands in the cookie jar. At least that had been her specialty. Based on Bella’s scowl, she might have been demoted to cleaning the locker room toilets if she wasn’t simply fired.

  Roxanne really didn’t want to walk away from the job she’d come to love. She had to find a way to make things right.

  Bella stood to her full, impressive height. She was easily six feet tall in her combat boots, and every inch of her was sleek, sculpted muscle. Her stormy gray eyes narrowed in fury. “Where shall we start, Razor? With the fact that your client’s information was stolen? Or maybe with the part where the guy who stole it got away?”

  “The data was fake. I planted it. Whoever has it isn’t getting anything of value.”

  “And now they know that, too. Mr. Chord told me how hard it was to orchestrate that setup. Your chance to catch the thieves is gone, and he still has no idea who Mary works for or with.”

  Roxanne looked down and toyed with her wide cuff bracelet. “Were the police able to get her to talk?”

  “Not a word. Not even to a lawyer. And now whoever is doing this knows we’re onto them.”

  What was worse was the fact that the police were now involved—something Mr. Chord had wanted to avoid from the beginning, which was why he’d hired the Edge to deal with the problem. If word got out that his designs were being stolen, his company’s stock price could plummet. He might lose investors.

  Roxanne had no idea about the specifics of the devices that had been stolen from him. She didn’t need to know any secret information to do her job. But what she did know was that Chord Industries had contributed to several advances in the field of medicine. His machines helped people. Saved lives.

  Because of her, he was losing his ability to do good in the world, and that pissed Roxanne off more than her own failure.

  “I’m sorry, Bella. I should have realized Mary could have a partner.”

  “Yes. You should have. So the question is, Why didn’t you?”

  Roxanne con
sidered giving her boss some lame excuse. She could come up with a half dozen that might help her cover her ass, but she couldn’t do that to Bella. They were friends. Bella trusted her, and she wasn’t going to screw that up by lying.

  Roxanne took a deep breath and admitted what she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to. “I’ve been distracted.”

  Bella crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a dark eyebrow. “Distracted? Care to elaborate on that?”

  “My ex, Kurt—he’s been sending guys after me, having them follow me. I thought he’d stopped a few weeks ago, but I guess I was wrong. He’s not done with his games. A new man showed up yesterday, and I spent so much time losing him before I went in to do the job, I was rushed. I wasn’t completely focused.”

  Bella’s face darkened with rage and her voice became lethally calm. “What, exactly, are these guys doing to you?”

  “Nothing. They just watch me. Kurt was the jealous type, and even though we split three months ago, he apparently still hasn’t managed to accept the fact that we’re over.”

  “Give me Kurt’s address. I’ll go speak to him.”

  “No, Bella. You’d only make things worse if you confront him. I already did, and he denies everything. I know he’s lying, and I told him I’d have him brought in for stalking if it happened again. I thought I’d gotten through, but either way, this is my mess. I’ll be the one to clean it up.”

  Bella glanced at Roxanne’s arm, where the bruise from last night’s combat darkened her skin. “Did he hurt you, Razor?” she asked, her hands clenching to fists at her sides.

  “No. It was nothing like that. He’s not a bad guy; he just didn’t want to let go.”

  “I could make him.”

  Roxanne had seen Bella angry. She’d seen the woman take down three armed men by herself. And she’d heard stories about that building Bella destroyed in Mexico a few months ago. But Roxanne had never seen this kind of steely, quiet rage, so intense it vibrated through her entire body. She’d heard rumors that Bella had a dark past—one she never discussed with her employees—but seeing this kind of reaction made Roxanne wonder just what that past had been.