"No, stay." She held up a hand, gestured with a nod toward the arriving women. "God knows these fools can't be trusted without adult supervision."
The taunt got the anticipated rise out of Eli, Bal, and the others, but Nathan's gaze remained solemn. When his broad mouth went flat in disapproval, she reached out and cupped his jaw in her palm. She felt him tense at the contact and suddenly wished she could take back the tender gesture. Nathan may have spent more than half of his thirty-three years of life with the Order, but the scars of his dark childhood might never be buried. Touch and tenderness always put the former assassin on edge, made him twitch like no amount of bloodshed and battle ever did.
"Have some fun, Nathan. You earned it too, you know." Mira started walking away from the table. "Ten minutes," she called over her shoulder. "Somebody be nice and have a drink waiting for me when I get back."
She was fine until she reached the exit. Then the weight she'd been holding off all night settled on her chest and brought hot tears like needles in the backs of her eyes.
"Shit. Kellan . . ." She let his name escape her lips on a rasped breath as she leaned against the brick exterior wall several yards away from Asylum's crowded entrance. God, she hated how much it hurt to think of him. Hated that she hadn't been able to find her way free of the hold his memory still had on her. No, his death had killed something in her too. It had broken her somewhere deep inside, in a place no one but he had reached, before or since.
Mira hung her head, not bothering to sweep aside the loose blond tendrils that had escaped her braid and now swung into her face like a veil. She cursed under her breath, struggled to pull herself together. Her fingers were trembling as she wiped the moisture from her cheeks. She blew out a frustrated sigh. "Damn it. Get a grip, warrior."
The angry self-rebuke worked well enough for her to lift her head and square her shoulders. But it was the high-pitched, human chortle from within the nearby throng that really snapped her out of her sulk. Mira would know that barnyard hoot anywhere. Just the sound of it made her veins go hot with contempt.
She spied the young man's head - his ridiculous red mohawk - bobbing along in a group of petty thieves and troublemakers now walking past the crowd that waited to get into Asylum. That upright comb of bright scarlet hair, along with his distinctive laugh, had helped earn the delinquent his street name of Rooster.
Son of a bitch.
She hadn't seen the bastard in years. Her blood boiled to spot him now. A known rebel sympathizer, strutting around with his repeat-offender friends when he should be rotting in a prison somewhere. Better yet, dead from choking on the business end of her blades.
When the top of his red mohawk turned the corner up the block with his four pals, Mira hissed a curse. Not her concern what Rooster was up to. Not her damn jurisdiction, even if it turned out he was up to his usual no good.
Still . . .
Impulse propelled her into motion, even against her better judgment. Rooster was an occasional supplier to human militant groups and rebel factions. And that occasional alliance made him Mira's permanent enemy. She fell in behind him and his friends at a covert distance, her lug-soled boots silent as they devoured the pavement in stealth pursuit.
The men shuffled up the block and entered an alleyway door of another place, one that had long ago been a popular dance club in the North End. The former neo-Gothic church was far from holy now, and far less reputable than it had been even a decade ago. Graffiti and old shelling scars from the wars all but obscured the fading "La Notte" sign painted on the side of the old redbrick building. No longer pulsing with silky trance and synth music, the current proprietor favored hardcore industrial bands with screaming vocals in the street-level club.
All the better to drown out the raucous shouting and blood-thirsty cheers of the customers taking part in the establishment's underground arena.
It was to that part of the club that Rooster and his pals now descended. Mira followed. The stench of smoke and spilled liquor hung like fog in the air. The crowd was thick at the bottom of the steep stairwell, thicker still in the space between the entrance and the large, caged-in, steel-reinforced fighting arena at the center of the room.
Inside the cage, two huge Breed males circled each other in bloody combat. Outside, gathered around the perimeter and standing a dozen rows deep, the crowd of human spectators cheered and hollered, bets placed on their favorite. This match had been going on for some time, based on the amount of blood in the ring and the fevered pitch of the crowd outside of it. Mira had seen the outlawed games before and hardly flinched at the sight of the two powerful vampires wearing only gladiator-style leather shorts and U-shape steel torcs around their necks. Titanium spikes rode the knuckles of their fingerless leather gloves, making each blow a savage shredding of flesh and muscle.
Rooster and his friends paused to watch one of the fighters take a hard strike to the sternum. His hooting laughter shot up through the crowd as the combatant crashed backward into the bars. The downed vampire was already in bad shape, pitted against an undefeated fighter who never failed to bring in the big crowds and heavy purses. Now, spitting blood, heaving under the force of this last blow, the losing male scrabbled to reach the mercy button inside the cage. Rooster and the rest of the spectators hissed and booed as the call for mercy temporarily halted the match and delivered a punishing jolt of electricity to the wounded combatant's dark-haired opponent. Unfazed, the immense Breed fighter took the hit as if it were no more than a bee sting, fangs bared in a cold smile that promised yet another win for his record.