Sloane didn’t hear any of it. Flames engulfed his senses. His fury was the kind that could only be described asscorched earth,a feeling so all-consuming that it destroyed everything it touched.
Until someone touchedhim.
CHAPTER
TWO
A hand,small and gentle, settled on his chest. It pressed down just over that severed nerve like it belonged there.
Sloane blinked rapidly, the veil of fire clearing only enough to reveal that perfect face. She was alarmingly close. A sick feeling squirmed in his gut at the realization that she’d slipped under his arm and put herself chest to chest with him all without him even noticing.
She could’ve slit my throat,he realized.
Instead, she’d put both hands on him. Gently. Not even pushing. Sloane couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him like that. He couldn’t even imagine allowing it.
Stepping between an elf and his prey for any reason was brave. It was also so reckless it left him stunned. He stared at her like she wasn’t just a doe but a creature from another world, baffled by how easily she disregarded her own safety.
“…easy, okay? I think he got the message. Let’s just back up a bit.” Her voice bubbled up through the roiling flames, as cool and calming as fresh water.
His body moved without his permission again. Sloane took one large step back, releasing Cole with a shove toward the wall.The man slid to the ground with a gurgling sound, leaving a streak of red and a smattering of broken teeth on the brick.
Instead of staying put, Cece matched Sloane’s steps. Her gaze never left his face, hidden by the smokey black glass of his helmet’s visor, as she called out, “Cole, are you okay?”
“What thefuck!”He stumbled to his feet, one hand pawing at the wall and the other frantically smearing the blood that gushed from his smashed nose and bleeding gums. There were oozing black holes between the cracked teeth, which matched the scabbed vampire bites on his neck.“The fuck!I didn’t— didn’tdoanything!”
Sloane’s upper lip lifted, revealing razor-sharp fangs no one could see. The only thing that stopped him from lunging for Cole again was the fact that Cece put herself firmly between the men, like she knew that his instinct was to protect her at all costs.
“I think this… officer believes you were accosting me,” she explained. Gaze searching his visor, she hazarded, “You were protecting me, right? Or are you a friend of Roxanna’s?”
Sloane’s voice came out flat and modulated by the programming in his helmet when he said to Cece, “You required assistance.”
Her wide eyes flicked down, taking in his black, standard Patrol-issue kit and the gloves all elves wore. The long line of her throat bobbed with a hard swallow when she returned her attention to his visor. “You are a Patrol officer, right?”
No,he wanted to tell her.I’m worse.
Instead, he inclined his head. Fear was written in the tense lines around her eyes and mouth. For the first time in his life, the sight bothered him. He didn’t want to tell her that he was a member of Thaddeus’s hit squad, his team of pet assassins everyone feared.
He wanted her to be… something. Something softer.
She didn’t immediately relax, but she did let out a breath. “Cole, get out of here before he arrests you. We both know you can’t take another strike on your record.”
“Cece—”
Her head snapped in the bloodied man’s direction. “Glory give me strength, Cole! Shut the fuck up andgobefore I tell this guy to finish what he started. And if youeverfollow me or another server home again, I’m telling Roxanna. You think this was bad? Wait until your vampire hears you’ve been following other women!”
That seemed to light a fire under him that the beating to his face hadn’t. Cole wheezed as he scuttled away, his shoulders hunched and his t-shirt bloody. Sloane turned his head sharply to keep him in his sight until he left the alley altogether. Everything in him screamed to follow, to finish the job and get the kill he’d hunted all night for, but that pulsing severed nerve in his chest stopped him. It refused to let him move even an inch away from the woman who stared up at him with eyes as big and brown as a doe’s.
Flexing his claws, he demanded, “Why did you protect him? He attacked you.”
“And you smashed his face in so bad it actuallyflattened,”she replied, shockingly frank. “I think he learned his lesson.”
Doubtful.
Scum like Cole, who followed women down dark alleys and didn’t like the wordno,rarely learned anything besides how to not get caught. That was why Sloane did what he did. If Patrol and the laws that governed the Elvish Protectorate let monsters slip through the cracks, it was his job to pick up the slack.
He said none of this to Cece. Instead, he watched her intently through the glass of his visor, his claw-tipped fists curling and uncurling. The nerves in the tips of his fingers tingled with anurgent feeling he couldn’t place. “I’ll escort you to your home,” he informed her.
Her lips parted with surprise. It became difficult, suddenly, to look anywhere besides that tiny, glossy opening into the warm well of her mouth.
