Suri nodded. “Zane and I are finished.”
The hair on the back of Zane’s neck rose from the tension now vibrating through the room. What were the two demons planning?
Nick eyed him. “How did the talks go?”
Zane strode toward the door. “Just peachy,” he muttered. Then he paused. An odd vibration shivered through him. He pivoted just in time to catch a view of a red laser beam sliding toward Suri’s neck. “Duck,” he bellowed, leaping across the room and pummeling Suri to the floor. The entire wall exploded over their heads.
Without missing a beat, Zane turned and jumped through the window, falling two stories to the muddy street. He landed on his feet, crouched, and let the demon in him free.
The night narrowed in scope to heartbeats and unfamiliar scents. He ran through the town, quicker than any vampire, faster than most shifters. A heartbeat echoed in the distance, and the smell of an unfamiliar oil coating a weapon flared his nostrils. Hisprey.
His boots made no sound as he scaled rocks, bending against the wind, single-minded in his focus. Sights and sounds exploded in a myriad of colors, in a million individual scents. As he reached the top of the nearest hill, he paused to listen. The guy was good. Only the tiniest sound wisped through the night as the other soldier jogged down the mountain, probably heading for transport.
Zane sniffed the air. Shifter. Wolf shifter. Interesting.
He ducked his head and forged on, dodging tree limbs and branches with an instinct he’d learned to accept. Sliding around a tree, he lunged for the would-be assassin and took him down. They skidded across mud, and Zane flipped him over, straddling the wolf. “Who are you?” Zane asked, sliding his knife from his boot.
The man’s eyes widened. “The Ghost,” he whispered.
“You’ve heard of me.” Zane pressed the razor-sharp blade against the wolf’s carotid artery, shoving any humanity he might have once had to hell. “Answer my question.”
The shifter blinked. “You’re, ah,real.” The stench of fear clogged the oxygen molecules around them.
“Yes.” He’d earned the nickname fighting across the globe because of his uncanny ability to reach an enemy, to kill, without warning. “Who are you working for?” Slowly, Zane sliced into rough skin. “I won’t ask again.”
The guy’s eyes widened. “The Baltic Consortium. It’s just a mission.”
Zane nodded. He’d figured the loosely organized shifter organization in the Baltics would make a move at some point. Suri had been laying siege to the Baltic States for the last century. The mines there were rich in minerals, and war took money. “You failed,” Zane said, shoving the knife in just as the wolf tried to shift.
A cacophony of boot steps pounded behind them.
Then Zane twisted the knife, slicing through cartilage, bone, and thick muscle. The wolf’s head rolled a foot away.
Zane wiped his blade off on the guy’s shirt and stood, turning to find Nick and two soldiers standing near.
The first soldier coughed. “Jesus. You cut off that guy’s head like it was made of butter.”
The other soldier nodded, his gaze wide on Zane. He appeared as if he’d like to cross himself but didn’t dare.
Nick raised an eyebrow, his gaze inscrutable. “Wolf shifter?”
“Yes. Baltic Consortium.” Zane slipped his knife back home, his gut rebelling at saving Suri’s life. But Suri most certainly had orders in place to have Zane’s mother killed if Suri died, so Suri couldn’t die. Yet.
Zane pushed past the men, ignoring it when the two demon soldiers stepped hastily out of his path. “Have them dispose of the body,” he told Nick. Without waiting for a response, he jogged down the hillside.
Even so, he didn’t miss the second soldier’s rough question, “What the hell is he?”
Zane exhaled. He was a demon, vampire, shifter mix . . . but that wasn’t all. Even he didn’t truly understand the beast deep inside him resulting from those dangerous unions. What was he?
A purebred killer. Plain and simple.
Zane shrugged off his reaction to the killing, to who he really was, and plastered on his soldier persona. Things were going south and fast. He reached the whorehouse and hurried up two flights of just repaired stairs to a room on the top floor with a spectacular view of the mountains. Dragging his cell phone from his pocket, he dialed his brother.
Sam came into view on the screen. “How did the peace talks go?”
Zane paused. A gash marred his younger brother’s forehead, and mottled bruises covered his face. Dirt and grime were embedded in the wound. “Holy hell. What happened to you?”
“Big fight in Iceland where a bunch of werewolves jumped in. Fucking hate werewolves,” Sam muttered. “Did you get anywhere in the negotiations?”
