For all her bravado, she was out of her league. If she had been capable of physical reactions to stress, her heart would be hammering and she’d be short of breath. No doubt about it, she was going to be suffering when this confrontation was over, if she was still alive. A religious person might pray for Alec to get here soon, but that wasn’t an option for Eve. The Almighty did exactly what he wanted and nothing more. The purpose of prayer was to make the supplicant feel like he was doing something. It made Eve feel like she was wasting her breath.
“Where’s Cain?” the dragon growled, approaching her with his hulking, lumbering stride. “I smell his stench on you.”
“He’s watching the game, which is what you should be doing.” Eve couldn’t risk telling him that Alec was coming. He might just kill her quickly and bail. In his mortal guise, with no odor to betray him, he could slip right past Alec. But if the dragon thought he had time, he might toy with her. Infernals liked to play.
“I need a snack.” His voice was so guttural she could hardly understand him. “You’ll do.”
“Have you tried the nachos?” she suggested, her hands fisting. Deep inside her, power coiled. Hunger and aggression, too. It was base and animalistic, not at all the elegant sort of violence she might have expected God to employ in the destruction of his enemies. The surge was brutal . . . and addicting. “The chips are kind of stale and the cheese is from a can, but it’s a lot less dangerous to your health.”
He snorted, which shot a burst of fire out of his muzzle. “I’ve heard about you. You’re no threat to me.”
“Really?” She tilted her head, frowning in mock confusion. Demons used sarcasm, evasion, and lies to their advantage. Eve did, too. “When’s the last time you got an update on me? Does Hell have a newsletter? A chat room? Otherwise, you’re probably behind the times.”
“You’re cocky. And stupid. You think that sting in Upland made you a hero? Hell’s branches are like the Hydra, bitch. Cut off one head, we grow back two.”
An icy lump settled in Eve’s gut. “More to sever,” she managed, albeit with a slight tremor.
The dragon held up his hands. As thick, sharp claws grew out of the tips of his fingers, he leered and drool ran from his gaping maw. “You’re a baby. Should make you juicy and tender.”
“A baby?” she scoffed, fighting the urge to step back. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through these last six weeks? I have some serious workplace rage.”
Eve widened her stance, raised her fists, and took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. “Ready to see for yourself?”
The dragon’s chest expanded on an inhale and he altered, his body assuming its natural reptilian appearance. He loomed above her, his head bent on a long graceful neck to accommodate the ceiling. He was a beautiful creature, with iridescent scales and lithe lines. Problem was, that stunning hide was like cement. Any attempt to kick or hit it would only lead to pain. For her, not him.
Their hide has very little vulnerability, Raguel had taught in Dragon 101. Points of weakness are the webbing between their toes, the joint connecting the forelimbs to the torso, their eyes, and their rectum. The first will not cause mortal wounds, the second and third require proximity that can get you killed, and the fourth . . . well, as the kids say, you do not want to go there.
Holding out her hand, Eve requested a blade. A sword appeared, hovering in midair, ablaze but for the hilt. Fire. Fire in Hell, fire in Heaven, fire blasting from the dragon’s nostrils forcing her to leap backward to avoid being singed.
Pyromaniacs, the lot of ’em.
If she had a choice, she’d prefer her revolver. But she couldn’t carry all the time and the Almighty preferred the flame-covered sword. Never let it be said that God didn’t have a flair for the dramatic. He knew his strengths, and a bit of flashy intimidation was one of them.
The dragon laughed or chortled or choked . . . whatever. He wasn’t impressed. The sound of his amusement gave Eve the willies and she rolled her wrist, using the substantial weight of the blade to limber up. She’d started out being the sorriest swordsman in her class. Now she was passably proficient, getting better every day.
“You missed me,” she taunted grimly, wincing when her flip-flops clung to the sticky floor. Stupid footwear choice.
One of the many things she’d learned since getting saddled with this job was that presenting a formidable appearance went a long way toward hiding her deficiencies. Her enemies could smell her fear and they thrived on it. Throwing them for a loop with a little cockiness was sometimes the only way to gain any sort of advantage.
The dragon took a step toward her, his talons gouging into the tile, his weight vibrating the ground beneath them. The barrage of flames had made the room hot, but she didn’t sweat. She couldn’t; her body was a temple now.
Swinging at her with one short forelimb, the beast roared with terrible intent. He countered her evasive leap with a lash of his tail, which boasted a hard weighty scale on the tip that was used like a mace. It sank deep into the spot she’d occupied before she stumbled out of the way with a yelp. He yanked the appendage free in a shower of ceramic dust.
As she ran past him, he pivoted, his swinging tail ripping several sinks out of the wall. Eve darted around his side and managed to dislodge one of his scales with a hurried thrust of her blade.
He’d demolished the bathroom, she gave him a paper cut.
“Stupid cunt!” the beast bellowed, seemingly oblivious to the water spraying madly from the broken pipes. The depth of hatred and malevolence in the reptilian eyes added to the growing layer of hardness on her soul that was slowly changing her. Permanently.
Eve’s fury rose to mask her terror. Infernals such as this guy were for much more advanced Marks. If he hadn’t masked his scent and details, she wouldn’t be fighting him.
She was in deep shit. And damn it, she was sick of being soaked all the time. Every Infernal she came across doused her with water.
“Reed.” Her voice was not her own. Lower and deeper, it was the language of Marks. Known as a “herald,” the tone was instinctive and indecipherable to Infernals. “Hurry up. I’m in trouble.”
The sensation of a hot summer breeze moved over her—Reed’s reply.
Lifting her free arm for balance, Eve began to feint and parry, her torso canted to the side to present a smaller target. She ducked behind her sword when another burst of flame spewed from his nostrils. The back of her hand was charred by the heat and she screamed. The damage would heal in moments, but that didn’t prevent the initial agony.
Eve fell back, tripping over broken tiles and sobbing as a sharp piece penetrated the sole of her sandal and dug deep into her heel. Viscous warmth and the resulting slipperiness of her sole betrayed her blood loss. The dragon roared with triumph at the smell of her wounds and snapped at her with his razor-sharp teeth.
She wasn’t going to die in a men’s bathroom. No way.
“How the mighty have fallen,” Alec drawled.
Eve gasped with relief at the sound of his voice. She ducked the beast’s lashing tail, then rushed to peer around his body.
Alec lounged against the tiled threshold of the bathroom with both arms crossed. He looked relaxed and slightly bored, but there was a terrible darkness in his eyes when he hazarded a glance at her. She was his only weakness, a vulnerability he struggled to hide.
“Cain,” the dragon rumbled, his posture wary.
“Damon? You used to be The Man. A courtier in the court of Asmodeus.” Alec made a chastising noise with his tongue. “Now the best you can do is terrorize rookie Marks?”
“Hey,” Eve protested. “Compared to the bathroom, I’m doing all right.”
The fact that her opponent had his back to her and didn’t seem to think that was a danger chafed. What the hell did she have to do to get some respect?
Frustration wiped out her fear and left only angry determination behind. Eve moved to the dragon’s left side and leaped the full height of the room, putting the weight of her body behind the downward slash of her blade. She attacked the slender fold where his tiny forelimb attached to his torso and it severed cleanly, the limb splashing onto the floor with a thud. Crimson blood spurted from the newly made hole and mixed with the water spewing from the distorted pipes.
The dragon howled and spun around, knocking Eve to her back. She skidded several feet in the gore-stained lake that covered the decimated tile. He retaliated with a burst of flame. The inferno engulfed her, melting hair and skin from the top of her head down to her feet, boiling her in the flood that washed over and around her. The agony was such that she couldn’t voice a sound and when the flames ceased abruptly, she hoped for the relief of death.
But she wasn’t going alone.
Fueled by adrenaline and the animosity of a woman completely fed up with her life, Eve vaulted to her feet. She slammed into the beast’s neck and belly where she clung to the tips of his scales with one-handed desperation. The impact to her raw, burnt flesh was devastating and she cried out, nearly dropping her sword.
Alec was there before her, one arm banded around the dragon’s neck while the other hand gouged at the eyes. The beast flayed and screeched, whipping its neck to and fro in a vain effort to free himself of his attackers.
As Eve plunged the length of her blade through the vulnerable flesh created by the missing forelimb, she felt massive talons tearing into her spine. Her body arched, forcing her weapon the final inch needed to penetrate the dragon’s heart.
The beast howled, then exploded in a burst of white-hot embers.
Eve crashed to the ground, paralyzed by her wounds. She lay blinking, gasping, surrounded by the requiem created by the shower from the pipes.
The vibration of footsteps pounding through water assailed her, then Alec was pulling her gingerly into his lap.
“Angel . . .” His hands shook as he tentatively touched her ruined skin. “Don’t you dare die on me. You hear me? I just got you back, damn you—”
“Alec.” She tried to open her eyes, but the effort required more energy than she possessed. Shivers wracked her abused frame and rattled her teeth. The faint chemical tang of tap water filled her nostrils, as did the scent of ashes, demon, and blood. Her blood.
She could finally smell and taste the sweetness of it.
“I’m here.” His voice broke. “I-I’m here.”
“The Alpha did this.”
“What?”
“The Alpha. He wanted . . . his son . . . he tried . . .”
“Shh. Don’t talk, angel.” A hot tear splashed onto her raw skin. Then another. “Save your strength.”
“We missed something in Upland,” she whispered, sinking into an encroaching blanket of darkness. The pain was fading, the fear receding. “Go back . . . We missed something . . .”
CHAPTER 2
Six weeks earlier . . .
Eve knew, the moment her eyes met his, that they were going to have a torrid, extremely brief affair. His shoulder brushed hers as he walked by. The scent of his skin lingered in her nostrils for a delicious moment and she shivered, her blood thrumming with anticipation. She didn’t know his name, she didn’t know him, but the compulsion to take the handsome stranger home with her was powerful and irresistible.
A tiny voice in her mind urged her to use caution, told her to slow down. Think twice. She wasn’t a “casual sex” woman, never had been. But one look, and lust had hit her like a freight train.
His face . . . God, his face looked so much like Alec Cain’s they could have been brothers. Smooth olive skin, night-black hair, and espresso-brown eyes. Sex incarnate. Though a decade had passed since the night Alec had ruined her for other men, Eve doubted he’d changed much. Men like Alec just got better with age.
The man who’d just passed her carried that same air of dangerous, tightly restrained power. That sense of being barely leashed. The urbane Armani suit that draped his tall, leanly muscled frame only emphasized that primitive quality she hungered for. The animal attraction was intense, quickening her pulse and knotting her stomach.
Her heels tapped a rhythmic staccato upon the golden-veined marble floor. Somewhere deep inside her, alarm bells were ringing. She felt almost as if she were fleeing, as if the sight and smell of a dominant male were something to fear. But parts of her were far from afraid.
The vast lobby of Gadara Tower was congested by business-minded pedestrians. The steady hum of numerous conversations and the industrious whirring of the glass tube elevator motors failed to hide her rapid breathing. Fifty floors above her, a massive skylight allowed natural illumination to flood the atrium. It was that drenching sunlight gleaming on thick, inky strands of hair that first drew her attention to her mystery man. The gentle heat from above combined with the lush vegetation in planters created a slight, sensual humidity.
All together, she was feeling turned on. Hot under the collar. One look at a seductive stranger had incited a dark, unfamiliar sexual urgency. It was riding her hard. Cracking the whip. From the moment she entered Gadara Tower she had felt odd, jittery, as if she drank too much coffee. Never prone to nerves, she didn’t feel like herself. She longed to go home and take a hot bath.
Eve’s hand flexed, adjusting her perspiration-slick grip on the handle of her leather portfolio. Within the zippered confines rested a dozen of her best drawings; the reason she was here. Raguel Gadara was expanding his real estate empire and she was one of a select few interior designers under consideration. She had poured her heart and soul into her presentation. She’d been certain she would leave the building with the job in the bag. Instead, she cooled her heels in his waiting room for twenty minutes before being informed that Mr. Gadara would have to reschedule. Eve understood the message—I have the power to select you or not.
Gadara was about to learn a hard lesson about Eve Hollis: she had the power to accept and she wouldn’t work with a man who played power games. He’d just power-played himself out of the best damn interior designer in the country.