that changed and it was awful to see. Pure awful.
She continued to smile even as she lisped out, “I don’t want you to try, little warrior. I want you to do it.”
Then, as her teeth shifted back to normal, she came back and sat down. “You’ll find him, Colbana. And you’ll return him to us, unharmed. Or I’m going to come after you and rip out your heart. I’ll feast on it after I bury my nephew.” She said it in the exact same tone she’d asked me if I’d like sugar, and she said it while reaching for her damned tea cup.
Part of me wanted to point out that her terms weren’t entirely fair, but I was outmatched here. Outmatched, outclassed in every way and if she came for me here, on her terms, on her turf, I’d die. From a distance, it would be different and if she wasn’t expecting it, it would be different.
But right now, if I pissed her off, I was dead. I rather liked not being dead. So I held my tongue and stared at her for a long moment. Then, without looking at the man next to me, I folded my hand around the sword on my lap and rose.
No wonder the damn thing had come to me.
I was in a room with a crazy bitch and a man who’d all but led me to slaughter.
Chapter Three
I’d barely made it out of the lair when Damon grabbed me and shoved me against a brick wall. We were alone in the corridor. Wonderful. No witnesses to see him try to kill me.
“Are you trying to get us both killed?” he demanded, his voice not much more than a growl. The rage I saw in his eyes practically burned my skin.
This close, my blade wasn’t going to do me much good.
I banished her, although it felt like I was cutting off my arm. Once I had my hands free, I smiled at him. As he snarled, I reached for the dagger I had stashed inside my jacket before we left. I only had about fifty places to hide them. He would have been hard-pressed to find them without searching me.
This was the only one I’d carried on me. It wasn’t silver and it wasn’t very big. It wouldn’t hurt him much, but if I got away from him, I could call my sword and that one could do some damage.
Assuming I could move fast enough—my head was ringing, damn it. Hell, I might be better off doing one of my other tricks. Not that I had many that worked for fighting, but there was one…
“Sure,” I said. “I woke up today just hoping some idiot shifter would appear in my office and drag me off to face his Alpha without warning me that I’d either successfully do the job she was shoving on me or she was going to declare open season on my ass. That just sounded like loads of fun, you dolt.”
Then, I shoved the blade into his side at an upward angle, twisting it as I went.
It stunned him enough that I managed to get away.
Once I had a few feet between us, I held my breath and just…faded out. My ability go invisible is just a part of me. It’s not witchcraft, although it’s probably pretty close. It’s an ability the aneira alone possess, and I had enough of the blood that even I could do it. Once you tap into that ability, it’s as natural as breathing. And it’s very useful. Even a predator has a hard time finding what he can’t see…at first.
He stumbled, caught off guard and as he did, I back-flipped away. There was a little noise and he could track that, but the second I was far enough away, I stopped with the fancy moves and just walked.
That, I could do quietly, moving into a busier area of the lair, hoping I could get far enough away from him that I’d be harder to track by scent. It worked. For a minute. I ducked through a door and found myself outside in a courtyard, surrounded by people coming and going into the lair.
It didn’t last for long. I saw it when he caught my scent and I ducked behind an arbor away from others, out of sight. As he came at me, I called my blade and it was in my hand just as he reached the area I’d picked to make my stand. I dropped