up and buried a blade in the Rogue's neck. The diseased vampire dropped, lifeless, its corpse sizzling from the titanium that poisoned its corrupt bloodstream.
Tegan whirled around, his breath sawing out from between his lips, clouding in the chill air. Goddamn it, woman--go! he roared, just as the remaining Rogue vaulted into a further attack on him.
Elise jolted into movement.
She sped out of the alleyway and onto another street, running as fast as her legs would carry her. The small apartment she rented wasn't far, just a few long blocks from the train station, but it seemed like miles. She was exhausted from her own ordeal that day, shaking from the violence she'd just witnessed in the alley.
She was worried for Tegan too, even though she was certain he didn't need her concern. He was a member of the Order, probably the most lethal of them all, if his reputation was anything to go by. He was a killing machine according to all who knew his name. Seeing him here in action for herself, Elise didn't doubt it for a second.
And now that she'd been discovered alone in the city, she could only hope that the warrior would take no interest in what she was doing. She couldn't allow herself to be pushed back into the Darkhavens, not even by a male as fearsome as Tegan.
Elise ran the last block to her apartment and raced up the concrete steps. The main door used to be keyed access, but someone broke the lock five weeks ago and the building super hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet. Elise pushed the door open and dashed down the first floor hallway to her unit. She unlocked the dead bolt and slipped inside, immediately flipping on all the lights.
The stereo and television went on next-- tuned to nothing in particular, but both playing loudly. Elise pulled off the MP3 player and set it down on the chipped yellow kitchen counter, along with the dead Minion's cell phone. She ditched her ruined parka on the floor next to her treadmill, her stomach turning as the bare bulb hanging from the combination dining-living room ceiling washed over the dark red stains from the Minion's blood. It was on her hands too; her fingers were sticky with gore.
And her head was still pounding, the usual vicious migraine that came in the wake of any prolonged period of using her skill. It wasn't as bad right now as it would be soon. She still had time to clean up and try to get herself to bed before the worst of it hit her.
Elise dragged herself into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Her fingers were trembling as she unfastened the leather knife sheath from her thigh and placed it on the sink. The sheath was empty. She'd lost the titanium blade in the snow when the Rogue kicked it out of her grasp. She had others to replace it. A lot of the money she'd left the Darkhavens with had gone into weapons and training equipment--things she had never wanted to know anything about but now considered necessities.
Lord, how drastically her life had changed in just four months.
She could never go back to what she was. In her heart, she knew there could be no going back now. The person she had been all the time she'd lived under the protection of the Breed was gone now--dead, like her beloved mate and her son. The pain of those losses had been a furnace that devoured her old life, reduced it to cinder. She was what was left--the phoenix that rose out of the ash.
Elise glanced up into the fogging mirror and met her own haunted gaze in the glass. Blood smeared her cheek and chin, grime smudged her brow, all of it like warpaint. There was a feral glint in the weary eyes staring back at her.
God, she was tired...so tired. But so long as she could stand, she could fight. So long as her heart still ached for vengeance, she would use the psychic gift that had for so long been her greatest weakness. She would endure any hardship, face any risk. She would sell her everlasting soul if she must. Whatever it took to have justice.
Chapter Three
Tegan wiped his bloodied blade on the dead Rogue's jacket and idly observed the swift disintegration of the last body in the alley. The postmortem cleanup was courtesy of Tegan's titanium weapons, a metal that acted as poisonous acid