Page 324 of Vicious Temptation

She lands first, and I barely get one punch in before she bucks me off.

Jesus, she’s a fucking beast.

Rolling onto my back, I kick at her as she comes for me again, driving my foot into her stomach. She stumbles, but instead of buying me time, it only seems to piss her off.

She grabs my ankle and yanks, dragging me across the pavement before she drops on top of me.

I drive my fist into her ribs once, then again, but she absorbs both hits and pins me with a forearm across my chest. Her other hand disappears beneath her shirt, and metal flashes in the Texas sun as she pulls out a gun and presses the barrel to my forehead.

Well, shit.

Her finger tightens on the trigger, but all I hear is a useless click. She glances at the stalled weapon, then immediately tries the trigger again.

“REMI!” Thiago’s voice booms from across the market, and the woman’s head snaps toward him. Whatever she sees has her throwing herself sideways.

A gunshot cracks through the market, the bullet striking the pavement where her head had been a split second earlier. She keeps her attention on Thiago, and it’s the opening I need. I reach for the knife and swing.

Again, this bitch is faster, jerking away before the blade can reach her throat, but not fast enough to avoid it completely. The edge slices across her face, and a sharp hiss tears from between her teeth as blood pours from the cut, splashing across me. She recoils, and I shove her off, scrambling to my feet with the blade still clenched in my hand. I start to lunge for her again, but blood runs into my eyes and blurs everything. I wipe at my face with the back of my wrist.

When I can see again, she’s gone.

Spinning toward the crowd, I search through the bodies moving in every direction, but there’s no sign of the red hair or the scorpion.

She just disappeared as if she was never fucking here.

THE END

Extended Epilogue

Odette Drakos

Gilded Sin

The Severed Heirloom

Book Three

Nocturne Dominus - Princeps Caeli

The man sitting across from me keeps checking the gun beneath his jacket as if it’s going to save him.

It won’t.

Men like him are all the same, wearing power and invincibility like armor. That arrogance is what makes them careless. They spend so much time looking over their shoulders that they fail to recognize the real threat even when she’s directly in front of them.

My black wig brushes my shoulders when I tilt my head, studying him over the rim of my wineglass.

“How about we go back to my hotel room?” he says, leaning against the booth, a cigar pinched between the corner of his mouth.

“What’s the rush, Mr. Bianchi? We just got here. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

His gaze travels over me again, lingering where the neckline of my dress dips low across my chest. He thinks I’m exactly what I told him I am. A woman looking to make money, someone pretty enough to be invited to his table and disposable enough that no one will ask questions when she leaves it.

He makes this all so easy.

“I like you. And I think you and I will have a great time.” He takes a slow draw from his cigar, smoke curling into the air beneath the lamp. “But I will say, you’re different. Almost a little too calm.”

There are those pesky survival instincts, finally starting to stir.