Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,108

her or nearby at all times. Instead, he’d made sure she knew the basics and then asked her to consider at least carrying it when she was called to revive someone.

However.

Back in the transport portal, something fortuitous had happened. When she and Ares were alone in the tunnel and Cain had shown up to give them their thought pearls – that’s what Anna was calling the matte black pearl-sized spheres Cain had handed out – he’d done something else too. There had been a few minutes when Ares had turned his back on her and Cain. During that time, Cain lifted the back of his shirt, drew a gun from its holster at the small of his back, and pulled Annaleia close so he could slip the gun into the inside pocket of her leather jacket.

She’d stared up at him with wide eyes, completely taken aback.

But then the clan leader had spoken in her mind, and for some reason it didn’t surprise the hell out of her to hear him there. Just in case, he told her, his mental voice reassuring. For Ares’ sake, keep it and be prepared to use it. And don’t worry; I’ll make sure he doesn’t find it on you before you need it.

And he’d been right. Even when Ares had pulled her to him and she’d kissed him before she’d stepped out of the portal, he hadn’t noticed the gun in the jacket. There was no bulge, no extra weight. It was magic, of course. Cain’s magic.

The moment she remembered she had it, Annaleia shoved her hand into her pocket and spun toward the open door leading to the concrete room, lifting her gun to level it on the woman she’d punched.

The woman hadn’t done much since Anna had hit her. And in fact, she wasn’t bleeding at all, nor did she even appear to be injured. She had dropped all pretenses however, and no longer appeared to be the lovely golden-haired, golden-eyed Lily Kane. Rather, she had hair so dark it took on a hue much like blue-black hair, but emerald green. Her eyes matched, equally emerald. The effect should have been beautiful, all that stark color and darkness, but there was a contrasting lack of color in her skin that went beyond the pale. Pun intended.

She looked like death.

The woman simply stood beside the wooden chair, crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Give it up, Faith.” Her voice was a mix of fake calm and dripping acid. “You know you can’t cast any magic in here, and you’re thousands of miles from help.” As Annaleia tried to think of what the hell she wanted the woman to do, the woman stalked slowly toward her like a snake with legs. Anna’s hands flexed and unflexed around the gun as she watched her captor come, her movements sliding from step to step, slow, calculative, and slithery.

“Get on the ground face down,” Anna told her. She knew she didn’t exactly sound convincing. But she hoped the gun would make up for it.

The woman stopped and shrugged, like it was all a good game and Anna would get tired of aiming down the sights eventually. She gave Anna a smile that literally showed all of her teeth. “Besides,” she continued, ignoring Anna’s command. “Vic has placed something like twenty wards on this place, so not only are you not going anywhere, no one else is coming here. Well, no one you’ll be happy to see anyway. You can try to subdue me all you want, but it won’t get you anywhere.” She stopped and looked up as if sniffing the air. “And your new owner is on his way.”

Annaleia was so focused on the woman’s words, she didn’t hear the movement behind her until thick arms wrapped around her to take hold of her wrists and twist. It would have forced her to release the gun if she hadn’t trained for just such a move and recovered from her surprise fast enough to use that training.

She dropped her weight down and leaned forward as far as she could. In response, her captor had no choice but to move just a little bit forward over her bowed body. Instantly she rose back up, slamming the back of her skull into his face.

But while she’d been doing this, her attacker’s companion – surprise attacker number two – had moved around her. At the same time that her skull broke her captor’s nose, her ribs took a hard