sat back down on her haunches in front of me, hands dangling in the air. I thought about how easy it would be to reach down and break her wrists. Then I thought about how easy it would be for the fourteen Hunters to take the head off my shoulders before I even took one step off the chair. “An explanation? I think we should be asking for one.”
“Then ask for one.”
Her face hardened. “Who are you working for?”
“Elder Chang.”
The second slap was even harder than the last and darkness sparked at the corners of my vision.
“Liar.”
I shook my head, almost hearing loose bearings rolling in my mind. “You know, this is starting to get really old, Beth.”
She stood up to her full height, which admittedly wasn’t that much. It had always been something of a sore subject with her. We Hunters were not known for our subtlety.
“You think I like doing this?” The look in her eyes betrayed her. Something had happened while I was gone. Something...wrong. For Beth to inhibit such wanting for violence and bloodlust, even to members of the Fellowship...suddenly, I felt cold, colder than I had in a very long time. “You think I like beating up people I thought were my friends?”
I didn’t bother answering. She wouldn’t have liked my answer and I didn’t feel like getting slapped again by a woman who once punched a hole through a foot thick brick wall.
“We have heard the most disturbing rumors,” she said and even though I tried to maintain eye contact with her, she was having trouble meeting my gaze. Her gaze kept going all over the place as though she was high on something. “Something about you joining the other side. Heard you became an Ailward.” She tsked, somewhat more dramatically than was necessary. “Really, Ran. I thought you were better than all that. It’s such a shame to be proven wrong.”
My tongue probed what felt like a loose molar. Damn. “I was under orders by Elder Chang to eliminate Noir.”
A hand reared back. “You going to continue to lie?”
I stared at her, outwardly calm but inwardly already flinching. “Slap me again and see what happens.”
Not the smartest thing to say, but maybe there was some brain damage to blame for such impetuous words.
The hand wavered in the air and she smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. “Oh? Are you going to kill me, too?”
“Kill you too? I haven’t killed anyone.”
And vampires didn’t count.
She exchanged a look with someone standing next to me, a rather tall, spare man dressed in motorcycle leathers and enough piercings to make airport travel an impossibility. I didn’t know who he was, but that was not surprising. Most Hunters I knew via reputation, not exactly by appearance. “You killed Adrian.”
I closed my eyes. I would not let them see how badly the news had shook me.
Then again, I wasn’t terribly surprised. The Fellowship had a way of culling the older members, and Adrian had been old, by Fellowship standards. “The last time I saw him was a couple of days. He told me Elder Chang had rescinded his orders and I was to return to headquarters. He left and I never saw him again.”
And I would never see him again. I closed my eyes again before tears had time to form.
I wouldn’t cry. Death was my everyday companion. I had seen it happen to far too many people in my life. Another person dying was nothing new, nothing special.
The first flickers of doubt ran across her pale, almost elven features. “You are denying a great deal of things.”
“I had no reason to kill my handler,” I said and stopped talking before my voice could break. I had no intention of letting them see my emotions. That was no one’s business but my own. “How did he...die?”
Almost lost it for a minute there.
She regarded me carefully and then sat back down on her haunches again as if she could see the truth from a foot off the ground. “Garroted. There was a lot of blood.”
Bitch. She didn’t have to say the last sentence. Probably just to see my reaction, of which I had no intention of letting her see. “There usually is if a wire is used. Leather or fabric, not so much.”
“You really are a cold bitch, aren’t you?” she asked quietly, carefully. “How long have you worked with Adrian? Ten years? And yet, you sit there, cool as the fucking Queen of Sheba. Can’t you even fake