Kiss of Death (Supernatural Security Force Book 1)

by Heather Hildenbrand

His stale breath washed over me, nearly gagging me all over again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kristoff’s muscle edging closer. Kristoff and the man shared a glance, and I knew muscles-for-brains was just waiting on the signal before he grabbed me and started in on round two.

  I kept my expression carefully neutral, but inside, my heart thudded heavily against my chest. Fucking A. I was burned, and there wasn’t a damn thing base could or would do about it. They’d made that fact crystal clear. Either I found a way out on my own or Kristoff would drag me home to do whatever he wanted when the protective magic was gone.

  “Tell you what,” I said, meeting Kristoff’s gaze with the steeliest stare I could muster. “You tell shit-for-brains over there to take a walk,” I nodded my head at Kristoff’s guard dog then softened my voice, “and I’m sure you and I can come to an understanding.”

  Kristoff huffed, not even a scrap of hesitation in him before he smirked and said, “Haven’t you heard? This is a party. And three’s a crowd.”

  He shoved his knee into my stomach, and I doubled over, groaning.

  Thick hands grabbed me from behind, yanking me into the unlit passageway at my back. Within seconds, the darkness had swallowed us up. I screamed, knowing it was the only chance I had left. The sound of my voice echoed, bouncing off the concrete walls surrounding me as if even it couldn’t reach beyond the dark passageway.

  “Scream all you like,” Kristoff said. “Plenty of other guests here tonight are doing the same for their own reasons. Yours won’t have much effect.”

  A hand gripped my hair, yanking hard, and I stumbled backward, dragged farther into the blackness of the passageway. Desperation clawed at me. I twisted and swung out, my fist connecting with a meaty arm, but it wasn’t enough to break the hold. I swung out a second time. This time, when my knuckles met his skin, pain ricocheted up my arm as my hand met with a hard surface. It felt more like stone than skin. What the hell was this freak?

  Gargoyle, maybe?

  Whatever he was, my fists weren’t making a dent.

  A second later, we rounded a narrow doorway, and I yelped as the hand let me go with enough force to fling me against the wall of a small, dark room. Whatever light had reached us from the main hall was gone now.

  Pitch darkness closed in around me, and I blinked, sucking in gulps of air that tasted way too stale for this room to be anything but forgotten.

  My fae senses kicked in, my sight sharpening almost instantly.

  Two shadows loomed in front of me, but neither one seemed put off by the darkness. I could only assume they both had the same night vision I did. Between that and Mr. Stone-for-Skin, I was going to have to up my game if I wanted to get out of this in one piece.

  We were about to test just how strong all this spell work really was.

  For a split second, I was tempted to go with a carbon copy of rocks-for-brains, give him a taste of his own medicine, but it would have taken too long. I needed strength now. And there was only one creature I could conjure without concentration.

  My face changed first.

  The familiar stretching and popping filled the air as my facial features warped. My nose elongated, bones cracking as a giant beak formed. Then my ears vanished underneath a thick layer of feathers and down. The feathers spread from the top of my head down to my chest, covering every inch of skin in its wake.

  My arms turned to wings, stretching and widening—and threatening to topple me if I didn’t hold them correctly.

  “No,” Kristoff growled, lunging for me. “She’s changing. Stop her.”

  I swayed hard to the right. Thanks to my wing position and my half-shifted body, Kristoff’s lackey was on me before I could evade him. A meaty hand wrapped around my throat. My beast squawked and squealed at the pressure, clawing harder to find a release.

  Kristoff loomed in front of me, his fingers fumbling with a small vial he’d produced from who knew where. I’d checked his pockets earlier and hadn’t felt anything like that inside them. Before I could speculate what he’d smuggled in here, he was uncapping it and emptying the contents into my half-open beak.

  I writhed away from him, but there was nowhere to go, not with the vise grip around my throat holding me in place. Too late, I remembered the silly “weapon” Rodrigo had stowed inside my purse—and the fact that I’d left my purse on that couch inside the ballroom.

  Dammit.

  So much for smuggling things in under the radar.

  The mystery liquid, warm and thick, coated my eagle tongue. Within seconds, my inner beast stalled and then receded altogether. My human form reappeared, my bones aching at the half-shift they’d been forced back from.

  “What the hell…?” I managed in a choked voice.

  “What’s the matter? Not feeling like yourself?” Kristoff asked and then laughed at his own joke.

  “What did you give me?” I demanded.

  “Just a little something to keep you out here and whatever’s inside you in there,” he said, an edge to his words.

  I strained, searching through my mind for some sign of my inner creature, but it was just gone. Desperate, I tried shifting into my mother instead. Her fae body was the second easiest form I could take.

  But that one didn’t work either.

  Staring hard at the man holding me in his clenched hand, I gathered my strength and used everything I had left on one last attempt. It had always been easier to mimic a subject when I had them in my sights.

  I felt my skin ripple and my flesh stretch as my face changed. The goon holding me blanched, and I knew my features had morphed enough for him to see my goal.

  “Boss, she’s…me.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” came Kristoff’s reply.

  The grip around my throat loosened slightly. “But how?”

  “She’s a shapeshifter, you idiot. She can look like anything she wants,” Kristoff said.

  I couldn’t, actually. Not anything. But there was no point in telling either of them that.

  Glaring at my doppelgänger, I gritted my teeth and willed the change to completely take me over. If I had to look like this guy in order to beat them, so be it. Although, if Rigo asked, I was going to maintain I’d beaten them with my disguise intact and let that be the end of it.

  But just as quickly as the change had come, it vanished again. This time, it left behind a strange burning in my stomach. And underneath that, an emptiness. I knew without even trying to draw on it, there was nothing left.

  No magic.

  No ability to shift.

  Nothing.

  “What the hell did you give me?” I demanded again.

  “A cocktail,” Kristoff replied vaguely.

  Fear lanced through me, but I shoved it away. Panic would only cripple me now. I had to think straight for as long as that drink would let me.

  “Poison?” I asked.

  “Just something to level the playing field,” Kristoff said smugly.

  I glared at him. “Hardly level when you still have the power to change and I don’t.”

  “I have no intention of changing. Not when this form is capable of having so much more fun with you.” Even as he said it, his eyes rippled again with the flash of flames I’d seen earlier. “Women,” he snorted to his friend. “Always wanting a man to change for her.”

  The goon frowned at me, but it wasn’t much more than a murky line where his mouth had drawn down. With my fae sight gone, I could barely make out his face in the dark room. That scared me more than these two assholes. The Tiff’s magic-stripping aside, not once in my whole life had my extra senses failed me. But they were failing me now. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t call up a single remnant of my beast or my fae traits.

  Thanks to that drink Kristoff had forced on me, my eyesight had dimmed, my strength had dwindled. All my power was gone. It was the liquid equivalent of the Tiff’s magic-stripping wards.

  Kristoff watched me, his lips twisted weirdly in cruel enjoyment. “How does it feel to
be robbed of something so important to you?”

  “Kiss my ass,” I snarled at him, straining against the hand that held me by the throat.

  “What a delicious invitation,” Kristoff whispered. He turned to his minion and snapped, “Hold her still no matter what.”

  Kristoff’s hands landed on my chest, fingers exploring the seam where fabric met skin. His fingers pawed at my breasts, and I had to swallow the bile that rose in my throat. With a disgusting smirk, Kristoff reached into my dress and drew out the tiny chip I’d stashed earlier.

  “Bingo.” He held it up then slid it into the pocket of his pants.

  “Fuck you,” I muttered.

  Kristoff’s palm shot out, landing with a hard crack across my cheek.

  I gritted my teeth as pain radiated up to my temple.

  “Boss,” warned the brute. “We can’t leave evidence. You know what happens to party guests who break the rules.”

  Kristoff grunted. “Calm down, Feldspar. We aren’t going to kill her,” he said as if that made all of this okay.

  Feldspar? That was unfortunate even for an asshole like him.

  “What if the proprietor comes?” Feldspar sounded less and less sure about their plan.

  “The proprietor doesn’t give a shit about us,” Kristoff shot back, but there was a hint of uncertainty that hadn’t been there before.

  Huh. So there was at least one person Kristoff was afraid of.

  “Hey, Kristoff,” I said, my voice low and throaty, and not just because my neck was being squeezed. “I think you’re on to something.”

  Kristoff leaned in—way too sure of himself to be cautious now. “What are you talking about, wench?”

  “I just wanted to say that you were right,” I said, wheezing through the words.

  “Right about what?” Now his hand was rubbing the length of my arm.

  “As long as you don’t kill, you haven’t broken the rules.” I brought my knee up as hard as I could into his groin.

  Kristoff screamed—a long, high-pitched keening sound that was more beast than man—and went down to one knee.

  The hand squeezing my throat released me. I sucked in a couple of unhindered gulps of air and then rounded on my opponent. Kristoff was bent over at the waist, one hand braced on the floor for balance as he continued to howl. Feldspar stood beside him looking torn about whether to try to help his boss somehow or pummel me.

  “Boss?” Feldspar asked uncertainly.

  I couldn’t help the satisfied smirk that ghosted my lips. “Did you get everything you wanted from me or shall I keep dishing it out?”

  Kristoff shot me a look, still hunched over. Then he turned to Feldspar. “Kill the bitch. We’ll worry about the rules later.”

  Feldspar straightened, his hands fisting the moment the order was given. He took a step toward me.

  I backed up and hit the wall.

  Feldspar closed in, and no matter how much I strained to call up my inner beast, no answer came. I was on my own here.

  “Angel balls,” I muttered just as Feldspar raised a stone-cold fist and swung.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In the split second it took me to duck away from Feldspar’s outstretched fist, someone screamed. It sounded like Kristoff. Except that I hadn’t touched him. Stepping out of my shoes, I slid silently along the wall to the far side of the room, hoping the inky darkness would provide enough cover to at least slow down my attacker. Maybe if I was quick, I could slip past him and out the door.

  Straight ahead, in the open doorway, something moved. A shadow or a silhouette—Feldspar blotted it out before I could be sure.

  I sucked in a gulp of air and kept weaving.

  On the floor, Kristoff writhed. I tried to figure out what had sent him into another fit of pain, but my own problems were much more urgent.

  I was forced backward again by Feldspar, both of us grunting with our efforts. He finally wised up to my defensive maneuvers, and instead of swinging sideways, he stepped forward, closing the distance between us until it was impossible for me to slip away again.

  He reached for me. Instead of landing another blow, he grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking until I was on my tiptoes before him.

  From behind him came a small noise.

  A piece of fabric? The shuffle of quiet feet?

  Feldspar must have heard it too because he hesitated, turning his head only slightly at the tiny sound.

  It was all I needed.

  Bending at the knees, I dropped straight down and thrust my hands out, feeling around on the dark floor. My hand closed over one of the shoes I’d abandoned earlier. I grabbed it and yanked it—and myself—back up to where Feldspar waited above me.

  His hands grabbed my arms.

  I brought the shoe up and then back down again as hard as I could. The tip of the heel sank into Feldspar’s eye.

  He let out a howl, stumbling away and pulling desperately on the shoe. It made a disgusting sound of wet suction as he wrenched it free. With a snarl, he chucked the shoe across the room and spun toward me. Blood and fluid oozed from his injury.

  I ducked out of his reach, intent on making it through the door, but Feldspar was faster. He grabbed me by the shoulders, shoving me backward.

  I hit the wall with a thud, sending a crack through my shoulder blades.

  The air whooshed out of my lungs, and Feldspar closed the distance between us. My shoulders sagged. Whatever he had planned, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop him. With my fae energy gone and no ability to shift, I was at his mercy.

  Maybe it would have been better if he had been able to smuggle in a weapon. Or if the magic would just let him strangle me. Hours of this was going to feel like torture. Not to mention the level of grossness at having to stare at his leaking eye through the whole thing.

  But then the air changed again—another rustling of fabric. This time, with a distinctive shuffling of feet. Feldspar was grabbed from behind and thrown across the room like a weightless doll. He crashed into the far wall before slumping heavily to the floor. Dust and stone rained down around him.

  Feldspar groaned but didn’t try to get up.

  Kristoff climbed slowly to his feet, and I spotted the shadowy outline of another man behind him.

  “This is a private party,” Kristoff said through clenched teeth. “You weren’t invited.” Even without my heightened senses, I could smell the blood on him that hadn’t been there before. The stranger had hurt him—for me.

  “Seems like the lady isn’t looking to party with you,” said a voice I’d never heard before. His words were calm enough, but there was an edge to his voice that made me stay where I was. Even if he was here to help me for some reason, every inch of him seemed ready and able to kill, magic or not.

  Kristoff snorted. “She’s not a lady. She’s an agent. No, not even that. A recruit.” He spit the last word.

  Shock rippled through me hard enough to make me forget to be insulted. How did he know all of that?

  “Even so, she’s not here willingly. And you’re hurting her. You know the rules,” the stranger said.

  “Who the hell are you to tell me the rules?” Kristoff demanded. He took a step toward the stranger, hunching over as he moved.

  My muscles tensed because I knew what that stance meant. Kristoff was on the verge of shifting into his hound.

  In answer, I tried again to call up my own beast. Still nothing.

  Dammit.

  “Let’s just say I’m her guardian angel.” This time, there was a sardonic lilt to the words that made me even more curious about the identity of my rescuer.

  “She owed me a debt,” Kristoff said. “This is none of your business.”

  “The debt has been more than paid,” the stranger said. “Now, I’ll collect the overages—in blood.”

  Kristoff roared, his body curling into itself until he was forced onto all fours. By the time his palms landed on the floor, hair had sprouted up and down the length of his bod
y. Fingers changed into paws while a snout replaced his nose.

  Eyes, beady and black with irises full of hellfire, stared back at me.

  Then they swung to the stranger, and the hellhound growled low.

  The stranger looked up at me then over to where Feldspar was just climbing to his feet. An unspoken question passed between us, and I felt the first stirrings of my fae strength begin to return. Relief surged through me followed quickly by grim determination.

  “One for you, one for me?” I suggested.

  The stranger didn’t respond before Kristoff leaped at him, sending both of them tumbling into the hall.

  That settled that.

  Feldspar moved toward me, and I met him with a fist of my own. Stone scraped against stone as my half-shifted knuckles collided with his jaw, driving him backward.

  Feldspar straightened and stared at me in confusion. “What the…?”

  “Looks like your boss’s cocktail has worn off. In my hands at least. How does it feel to get punched by your own stony knuckles?”

  Feldspar roared and charged.

  We traded blows with me mostly dancing away from him until my shifting ability finally worked its way up to full strength again. When it finally did, I let it happen faster than my bones could keep up. The beast inside me roared and stone fists were replaced almost instantly by talons and claws. I dropped to all fours and drove my beak upward, using it to nip and stab at my opponent.

  At the sight of a monstrous griffin before him, Feldspar faltered, hesitating when it mattered. I planted my weight forward, using my talons to brace myself as I swung out with my back paw. My lion’s claw caught his torso just below his heart, and I ripped him open with a jagged slash. Blood pooled and poured from the wound and Feldspar toppled to his knees.

  His shoulders sagged as he stared down at the hole I’d left in him.

  For once, I was glad for the darkness. I didn’t want to see all the things leaking out of him just now.

  “You can’t…kill me,” he managed, blood leaking from his mouth as he spoke the words. “The magic prevents death at the ball.”

  I shifted back to my human form—complete with the red dress and blonde hair. “No, but I just made you wish you were dead.”