by Anna Lowe
“Or should I say, get your dirty hooves off me. Off!” the woman snapped.
Another guard appeared, pulling someone along by the arm.
“I can walk, you know.”
The thinner arm the guard was holding wrenched itself free, and the woman stepped into view, holding her head high.
She moved with a regal step, like a queen. Not in the snobby, new-money way Elvira did, but with an understated, old-world kind of class that came naturally. Her auburn hair shone reddish-black, and even the fluorescent lights couldn’t flatten that rich color out. Her lips were full and wide, her cheeks flushed.
Mate! His inner bear jumped up and down in glee. Mate!
Karen. God, it really was her. The woman he’d met two weeks ago—
One week, five days, and eleven hours, his bear corrected absently.
—the woman he’d lost his heart to on their very first night together. Their only night together, because everything afterward had gone wrong. Schiller had sent him to supervise an unscheduled delivery of new chips, and when he returned, he discovered Karen had been taken captive by the vampires. He’d spent a week tearing his hair out trying to figure out some way to free her without blowing his cover and sabotaging any hope he had of getting the money his clan needed. But then her sister had come along and sprung her first, and he figured that was fate’s way of assuring him Karen wasn’t his destined mate.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“I said, let me go!” Karen jerked away from the guard and turned his way.
God, she was beautiful when she was mad. Almost the same kind of beautiful as when she was aroused. He knew. He’d seen her. Held her. Touched her until she came in a shattering high that had him flying out of control too, making him imagine all kinds of impossible things. Like falling in love with a stranger at first sight. Like knowing his life would never be the same. Like wondering if she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. As in, forever.
The second she saw him, her eyes narrowed, and she stopped dead in her tracks.
“You.”
Not a greeting. An accusation that came with a couple of crackling sparks that flickered around her nose and mouth.
Yep, his feisty she-dragon was angry, all right.
He nearly slipped up and said her name. Very nearly strode over and punched the guard the hell away from her, too, but he caught himself just in time. He couldn’t let on that he knew Karen. Not here, in the den of the enemy. He was her only chance, and if he became a suspect, that chance was gone.
Shit. If he became a suspect, his chance at seeing his plan through was fried, too. He’d fail his entire clan for the sake of a stranger.
Not a stranger! his bear bellowed. My mate!
He clenched his fists, grappling with the beast for control. He had to act with his brain, not with his heart.
But damn, was his heart ready for a fight.
Her best chance comes from us keeping cool, he told his inner bear. In fact, her only chance comes from us keeping cool.
The bear huffed in frustration but slowly backed down.
Tanner tried telegraphing with his eyes and shouting into her mind — Karen! Please, just play along! — but all she gave him was that slitty-eyed death stare.
“I can’t believe you work for the vampires and their Keystone Cops.”
He cut her off quickly, barking at the guard. “Where was she?”
“In the boss’ apartment, with this.” The boar shifter held up something that reflected blue-black in the light.
His breath caught in his throat, and three words slipped out. “The Blood Diamond.”
Igor Schiller had recently acquired the diamond, and Elvira had been parading the thing around all week wedged between her meaty tits. It was still the talk of the town — seventy carats, some said, and worth a fortune. Its mysterious origins only served to heighten the hype — an Indian pasha’s diamond, or the dowry of an African princess, others said. The story circulating around the shifter world, though, said its unique coloring came from the blood of a dragon.
He looked from the diamond to Karen, whose eyes shone in exactly the same hue.
“That’s mine.” Karen grabbed for it, but the guard swung it away.
“It belongs to the big boss, lady,” the man said.
“Your boss?” she snickered. “Freddy Fucking Fangs?” Then she shook her head. “That diamond belongs to my family.”
Her voice wavered a little, and Tanner’s heart pinched. Whatever her connection to the jewel, it was a personal one, because Karen never wavered. Karen was tough and brash and ballsy, and she rarely showed her soft side. Not when anyone was looking, anyway.
His bear swelled with pride, watching her stare down a bison shifter twice her size. None of the women at home had that spunk, that defiant spark. Was he really going to settle down with someone nice and plain and boring?
No way, his bear declared.
Three more guards rushed up, which meant he had no chance to attempt what instinct demanded — namely, grabbing Karen and the diamond and hightailing it the hell out of the place.
“That diamond belongs to my family,” she repeated, stomping and nailing the guard’s foot in the process.
The guard jumped away with a muffled howl as Karen whipped the diamond out of his hand.
“Mine!” she yelled, defiance outshining the desperation in her eyes.
One little dragon shifter up against all those guards, and she was holding her ground.
Of course, she is, his bear hummed.
She backed up a step, then another, ready to wheel and flee. But she backed right into the next guard, who caught her wrists. She wriggled and hissed like a banshee, to little effect.
Without thinking, Tanner shoved the guard away. No one was manhandling Karen that way. He growled and stared the guard down with murderous eyes.
No one touches my mate! his bear roared inside. No one!
The guard stumbled backward, holding his hands up.
Tanner gritted his teeth. A good thing those assholes couldn’t read his mind, because hell, this was no time to give himself away.
He cleared his throat, wrestling for self-control as Karen stared at him with big, round eyes. Her gaze was softer, as if she felt it, too — this warm-bath feeling that seemed to wash over him whenever he came close to her. A feeling of peace and rightness, just like he got when snoozing in the springtime sun back home, when the world around him was all warmth and freshness and promise.
God, she was so close. Her minty breath warmed his neck. Her green eyes locked on his. Her hands felt so small in his and yet they fit together just right. The way she would fit tucked up against his chest.
But a dozen questioning eyes burned into his back, and he had to pull away. Everything hung in the balance. His duty to his clan. Karen’s safety. The success of the plan he’d been working on for months.
“The boss will want her untouched,” he said, trying to cover up his too-gentle hold on her arms.
And just like that, the brilliant green eyes that had gazed at him with hope and wonder slipped right over to fury again.
The guards snickered, and his heart plummeted through his shoes. He’d just implied that he’d hand Karen over to Schiller like a prize, and the possibilities made his gut lurch. Like Schiller, sucking Karen’s blood. Schiller, touching Karen’s body. Schiller—
He dragged his thoughts away from those horrors and locked eyes with Karen, trying to make her understand.
I will never let him harm you. I will never let anything happen to you.
But the eyes that gazed back were stony. Cold. Loathing. And shit, could he really blame her?
It broke his heart, but he had to keep up the charade. He was the security chief here; she was the intruder. He’d have to find a way to help her escape later. Maybe on the way to the holding rooms. Maybe later that night. Maybe…
Another guard stepped up and motioned to Karen. “Hand over the diamond, lady.”
The guards around him stiffened and gulped, and Tanner didn’t have to look to know who it was. Only vampires moved with a powerful silence that knifed every other sound out of existence. Only vampires turned the air in a room cold. And only one vampire had that ice-edged voice that made the blood shiver in his veins.
Igor Schiller, owner of the Scarlet Palace, stepped right up to Karen and looked at her with his cobra eyes.
“That, my dear, can be arranged.”
Chapter Four
Karen found herself rooted to the spot for a moment, like everyone else in the room. Then she summoned every ounce of dragon willpower she had and held her chin high. Let Schiller stare. Let Schiller threaten. She wasn’t scared of him.
But hell, her unsteady knees sure were.
Igor Schiller stood scowling with his arms crossed over his chest. Apart from his pale, alabaster skin, he looked like an Armani model with his black, slicked-back hair and perfectly tailored suit. His eyes were dark, cold, and piercing.
She forced herself to stare right back. “You’re recycling old lines, Igor. Kind of takes the punch out of them, don’t you think?”
Everything around her seemed to have been put on pause, with everyone frozen in place. The guards, the whirring noise of the air conditioner, the electric hum behind the walls — all of it died away. Even Tanner — big, burly Tanner, who only ever regarded the world with calm, quiet eyes — seemed stuck between the thump of one heartbeat and the next. It was just her and Schiller, staring each other down.
His gaze burned into her, and she could feel the blood in her veins lurch forward, as if the vampire were summoning it closer. Her body wanted to lean closer, too, in some sick answer to his unspoken command. To step closer, tilt her head to one side, and let him bite—
She ground her teeth together, turned up the voltage on her killer stare, and watched Schiller’s eyes register surprise.
That’s right, asshole. You’re not the only one with power here, she wanted to say. But for once in her life, she kept her mouth shut. Schiller had all the power, while all she had was determination. An uneven match, but damn it, she’d go down fighting.
“And you are as trying as ever, my dear,” Schiller sighed in that aristocratic Eastern European accent of his. He tapped his long, perfectly manicured fingernails on the glass surface of the chest-high cocktail table beside him. Slowly, thoughtfully.
“Dragons don’t try,” she retorted, echoing one of her grandfather’s favorite lines. “We succeed.”
“And this is your definition of success?” Schiller pointed to the posse of security guards cutting off every avenue of escape.
Okay, so her diamond heist hadn’t gone exactly to plan. She’d figure something out…eventually.
“The night is young.” She shrugged.
“That it is, my dear,” Schiller said, eyeing her neck.
A low, gritty sound came from her left, and though she didn’t dare look away from Schiller, she could sense Tanner bristling at her side. Barely holding back an open growl — and barely holding back his inner beast, judging by the feral scent wafting off his wide shoulders.
Tanner. Part of her had melted the second she’d spotted him. And damn it, most of her had melted when he’d touched her, because some kind of crazy heat shield started up whenever he came close, cocooning the two of them from the outside world. His deep brown eyes promised her everything, even if his face gave away nothing. The man was a mystery. An enigma. A riddle she had never been able to puzzle out.
But damn, she sure would like to keep trying.
Her dragon hummed deep inside. Like for the next century or two.
Did bears even live that long? She had no idea. It was rather a moot point, given the vampires looming all around them. And anyway, Tanner was a jerk, right? He hadn’t shown up to their second date, for starters. And worse, it seemed that Tanner worked for Schiller. What kind of self-respecting shifter did that?
But there was something hidden deep in his eyes that said, Wait. Please. Wait until I can explain.
As if she had time to wait. As if she wanted to hear a bear out. If he worked for Schiller, he would have known she had been a captive in the casino for ten miserable days. And had the bear so much as shown his face in that entire time? No. That tough-on-the-outside, sweet-on-the-inside bear charm had all been a show. He didn’t love her. He didn’t care. She couldn’t trust him.
But— her dragon protested.
No buts. She had better things to think about than that stupid bear.
She ripped free of Tanner’s grip and turned on every watt of defiance in her bones.
“Igor.” She made sure to pronounce his name the way he hated. Ee-gor, not the Eastern European version with the emphasis on the end.
She allowed herself one moment to enjoy the flicker of annoyance in the vampire’s eyes.
“I see you have returned for another visit,” he said in that stiff, Count Dracula accent of his.
She snorted and shook her head. “Just passing through. Transylvania just doesn’t do it for me.” She waved a hand in the stuffy air.
“Such a pity I cannot let you go without showing you some more of our fine hospitality.”
Just what she dreaded most.
“Of course, you can.”
“Of course, I cannot.”
“You must be so busy,” she tried. “Sucking blood, rigging poker tables, filing your nails. I’d hate to take up your valuable time.”
“So you’ll just take one object and be on your way?” His eyes flickered to the diamond clutched in her fist.
Well, that had been the idea. And damn it, it had all been going so well. She’d started the fire in the corridor below, then darted upstairs when the guards ran off to investigate. She’d disabled the alarms with an old trick her auntie May had taught her a long time ago. The diamond was right where she figured it would be, on Elvira’s antique dressing table, and all she had to do was head to the roof and soar to freedom.
Okay, okay, glide to freedom, but that would have worked, too.
She hadn’t been counting on the goddamn spider web spell Schiller’s third-rate witches cast over the place, and that had been her undoing. She’d tripped one of the invisible threads and set off an alarm. Seconds later, she was surrounded by guards.
Guards — and Tanner. What the hell was up with that bear?
“I’d really hate to hold you up,” she said to Schiller, faking nonchalance. A tough act, because half her nerves fluttered with fear, and the other half fluttered with desire — the first, aimed at Schiller, and the second, melting for Tanner.
“My diamond!” a shrill voice sliced through the tension in the narrow space.
Karen rolled her eyes. Tanner winced. Even Schiller flashed a pained look before turning to the woman trotting up on high heels.
“It’s my diamond,” Karen snapped, holding it away from Elvira.
“Mine,” the vampiress snapped, curling back thick lips to show her fangs. It was startling, the contrast of that ivory against the black line of her lipstick.
Karen snarled right back. Elvira was a conniving leech of a woman who wasn’t good at anything but sucking blood — and possibly Igor’s dick. An image Karen really, really didn’t need right now.
“You could use a new interior decorator for this place,” she sniffed at Elvira. “Black and red is so passé.”
“You really could use some manners.” Elvira left out the bitch at the end, but Karen could see it on her lips.
“And you really need to get your Transylvanian accent down,” she shot back. “I can hear Brooklyn come through, loud and clear.”
Elvira threw a hand over her mouth, looking horrified, and Karen knew she’d hit the nail on the coffin. Wait, wrong expression. Shit, these vampires were getting her all mixed up.
“Kill her,” Elvira screeched at Igor. “Drain her of eve
ry last drop of dragon blood.”
“Hey!” Karen snapped as a guard pried the diamond out of her hand.
The bison handed the stone to Elvira, who pinned Karen with a haughty gaze as Schiller strung the diamond around the creamy white flesh of her neck.
My diamond, bitch, Elvira’s eyes said. She held the diamond up, kissed it, and tucked it between her fleshy breasts.
Disgusting, Karen’s inner dragon snarled, letting half an inch of her dragon fangs slide out of her gums. No way was she giving up on the diamond. No way was she letting Elvira have the last word.
“Kill her,” Elvira ordered. “Drain her dragon blood.”
“Sure,” Karen said, holding her wrist under Elvira’s nose. “Go for it.”
Elvira recoiled, and Karen all but crowed in triumph. Her blood was her ace, and she knew it. Vampire legend held that dragon blood was the richest of all — so rich, it could only be consumed by the most powerful vampires.
“All that mercury, coursing through my veins,” she snickered, and all the vampires fell back a step.
Schiller’s eyes shone in anger and greed. Oh, he wanted her blood, all right. But even he wasn’t powerful enough to dare a sip.
She stared the vampire down for another long minute then pulled her hand back. Maybe it was smarter not to dare a hungry vampire. Especially one who ran a casino and might be able to sense a bluff. So far, nobody had called her on it, but if anyone found out she was only half dragon…
Then the dangerous game she was playing would be up. Permanently.
Chapter Five
“Take her away.”
Tanner let out a long, slow breath as Schiller gestured to the guards. Christ, he’d never stopped breathing for that long before. An eternity had stretched from the moment Karen stuck out her wrist in open defiance to the moment Igor snapped his fingers, and Tanner had nearly jumped forward and throttled Karen in the intervening time. Was she crazy, provoking a vampire like that?