Page 8 of Bad Blood Alpha

And what did they want with his mystery woman?

They found a door that led to an access stairway. They took the steps three at a time, grabbing the rail on the turns and vaulting past the landings. A couple of floors down, they burst out of the stairwell into a long hallway with old-style office doors on either side, scarred wood with pebbled glass panels in them.

At the end of the hall was a sash window, leading out to a fire escape. Flynn flipped the lock and shoved it open. His companion threw one leg over the sill, ducking out onto the metal platform. Flynn followed, squeezing himself through the opening. She was already sliding down the ladder to the next level, her legs clamped on either side of it, not bothering with the rungs.

Flynn followed, his injured arm protesting. The rough metal burned his hands, leaving flakes of paint and rust painfully buried in his palms. Faintly, in the distance, Flynn could hear sirens—and, closer, a chilling howl.

Someone had called the cops. And the hellhounds were still on their trail.

Now that they were on the ground, the woman seemed to know where she was going. He followed her through back alleys and over chain-link fences, always just far enough behind that he wondered what the fuck he was still doing here.

His blood was pounding through his veins, adrenalin dumping into his system, dulling the pain of his injuries. Her scent, that tantalizing scent, was just out of reach. He knew he should turn aside, let her go. She could be leading him into a trap.

But he kept following.

She led him into one last smelly, garbage-filled alley, through a pair of slanted metal doors set at ground level, and into a basement crowded with discarded junk. They threaded their way through it, their breathing the only sound in the sudden quiet.

Finally, they came to a freight elevator with dented metal doors. She punched in a code, and the indicator lit up. He could hear the ancient mechanism creaking.

“Hold up,” Flynn said. He didn’t even know where they were going.

“Almost there,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Not scared, are you?”

Not scared. Fucking stupid was what he was. Stupid, and pumped on danger, and following the hottest woman he’d ever met into god knew what kind of trouble. He fucking deserved to die in an ambush.

The elevator doors opened. The car was empty. No ambush.

Time to make his own. The doors shut and Flynn pounced, backing her up against the wall and flipping the emergency switch that stopped the elevator.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What did you do with Fletcher? And why the fuck are we dodging hellhounds?”

She made a quick movement with her right hand, and he felt the point of a blade somewhere around his kidney.

“Kira, Fletcher who, and I wasn’t staying to find out,” she said. “And if you don’t let me go right fucking now, you’re going to be missing some vital organs very very soon.”

He twisted his arm to grab her wrist, and hissed at the shooting pain that lanced through his injured shoulder. It didn’t stop him from disarming her, though.

He backed up, holding her knife. Nice weight. He wondered if it was custom. “You don’t know Fletcher?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Did you notice that you’re bleeding? A lot. I’m pretty sure they shot you.”

“It’ll heal,” Flynn said.

“If the bullet’s still inside when it does, it’s going to fuck up that shoulder.”

“Thanks, Doctor. I’ll have it looked at.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You really don’t know Fletcher?”

“I really don’t. Now are we going to stay in this elevator all night, or are you going to come up to my room and let me take that bullet out?”

Flynn flicked his gaze over her one more time—gorgeous and lethal and badass. This still might be an ambush, and he was still stupid. But hell, he wanted her like no one else he’d ever met. If this was how he was going to go out—what a way to go.

He hit the emergency switch, and the elevator started rising.