With a shudder, the vamp groans.
Gray Moustache snatches the bullhorn away. “Are you insane? You just undid the last hour of progress we made with this maniac.”
“He’s a crackhead, is all. Out of his mind on a bad trip. You saw how he reacted to the mention of sunshine? Asshole thinks he’s a nightwalker.”
“A what, now?”
I lower my voice. “A vampire. Look, you can’t make this shit up. You got officers that were attacked?”
“Two.”
“With what? A gun? A knife?”
“No, he…” A light dawns in his eyes. “He tried to bite them.”
“See? He’s a loony. I’ve dealt with these guys, and I’m telling you, he does not respond to kid gloves. The only way to get through to him is with fierce aggression. Total dominance, got it?”
He still seems unsure. “Who’s Nick Gorgeous?”
“Not a who. A what. Nick Gorgeous is code for this guy’s particular cocktail of drugs. Nasty shit, too. Straight-up hairy-ass gutter ball, take you to the moon and back. Know what I’m saying?”
Clearly not. He closes his mouth, at a loss for words. Mission accomplished.
Striding across the street, I summon every ounce of alpha dominance I can muster, which isn’t much, but I sure as hell know how to fake it from all those years running with the Cody boys. Shocked whispers follow me from the ranks of cops. The vamp tenses. He jerks the woman’s head back, exposing her neck to his bared fangs. Her mouth gapes open, but no sound comes out. Sheer terror has taken her voice away.
“Do it, already,” I bluff. “How on earth are you holding back? By now the fever must be burning a whole in your black, undead heart.”
“You’re FUA,” he hisses.
“I’m every damn letter of the alphabet. That’s why Nick sent me, and not an army.”
“His army is busy cleaning up the mess they made of my clan.” He makes an anguished whining sound, like an injured puppy. “My master.”
Here we go. Suck it, Gorgeous, I can get my own damn answers. “Henry Stadther?”
His face crumbles. I’m close enough now to see that he’s definitely Henry’s type. A strong but sensible look. Well-dressed. An accountant, or business strategist, something soft like that. “Henry only wanted to help. To offer her protection. He had already formed a connection with her. How could she embrace all those other men, but reject one so much their superior?”
“Ah. So that’s what happened. Nora Jacobs.”
His lips pull tight with a sneer. “We should have torn her apart the first time he brought her home, but the damage was already done. She had bewitched him. She…” He squeezes his eyes shut, as though fending off a pounding headache. “Do you have any idea how it feels? To be connected to somebody, your guardian and king, your very life force, your everything…and then to have that connection severed? To have your life taken, only you’re not dead?”
His words strike me right between the eyes. My mind flashes to a beautiful naked man asleep in a bed that was his, but is now ours. Needing to stay aggressive, I shove that thought away. “Sounds exactly like how it must have felt when Henry first turned you. I bet you weren’t so fond of him then.”
“That was two hundred years ago. Two centuries. The twenty years I lived before that is but a blink.”
“Give me a break. It’s not even Henry you’re missing; it’s the sire bond you crave. The second you lay eyes on another master, you’ll be like, ‘Henry who?’ You guys are as loyal as a knife in the back.”
Proving my point, his eyes glitter with desire. “Is there another master?”
“There’s always another master, but look, the last thing you want to hear after a nasty breakup is that there’s plenty of fish in the sea, so let’s get back to the part where you tell me if you do or do not want your body attached to your head when I take it into the Agency. And stop hiding behind that meat shield. You know full well I’m authorized to disregard collateral damage. In fact, now that she heard all this, it’s better if she dies.” Turning to the police, I motion for them to move in. A handful of SWAT men creep toward us with rifles raised, fingers on triggers.
The vamp steps back. The woman whimpers.
“Last chance,” I say. “What’ll it be? The firing squad, or…this?” Extending my open palm, I show him the thin metal cylinder I’ve been holding. He’ll know what it is. All FUA agents carry them. The bloodsucker snarls, but not at the cylinder. He’s looking at my fingertips. With all my senses on high alert, my claws have extended.
“A shifter.” Peering at my face, his eyes light up. “A fox shifter. I know you.”
Shit, and a sigh. This can’t be good. I roll with my final bluff. “The firing squad, then? Firing squad it is. Won’t kill you, but it’ll hurt like hell.”
He flashes eyeteeth in a sinister grin. “I don’t think so. You’re Shayne Davies.” He spits out the next words with utter contempt. “The traitor. Everybody knows you side with the filthy human scourge over your own kind. And you lecture me about loyalty?” To my horror, his hand moves, swift as a bullet, to the woman’s neck. His fingernails dig into her throat, drawing blood. She flails, making desperate cries, half scream, half gurgle.
I jump back, raising my hands. “Okay, okay, you win. Stop!”
“To them!” he bellows.
I turn to the SWAT team. “Back! Go back, dammit. Stand down. Shit!” As the men backpedal, a frustrated murmur ripples through the crowd. The high-ranking moustache throws the bullhorn down and kicks it.
“Such a foolish weakness, Agent Davies.” Dragging the woman toward the dark alley, the vamp licks the blood off her neck. He shudders with ecstasy. “To love a human is to love a dandelion in a hurricane.”
His words stoke the fire of anxiety in my chest. I stamp at the flames, forcing them back, snuffing them out. I’m strong enough, I’m fast enough. And I’ll prove it. “I need to get back to the Agency,” I hiss through clenched teeth, my face red with both embarrassment and fury. “And you’re my key.”
We stare each other down for an electric moment, before he snatches the woman off her feet and rushes for the alley. I hurry back to the moustache. “Your sniper. Where?”
“Last door down, third floor overlooking the alley.”
Taking off like a shot, I sprint down the front of the apartment building, passing porch after porch until I reach the final door, bash through that, jump stairs three at a time, crash through the door of a back apartment, and lean over the railing of a balcony overlooking the alley. A SWAT sniper looks through his scope, tracing the movement of the vampire’s dark shape below.
I state the obvious. “You won’t get a clear shot.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. They’re still too far, she’s still too close to him, and they’re moving.”
“You’re going to have to take it anyway.”
“The hell I am.”
“Dammit, if he goes for her neck, you pull that trigger.”
“That’s an impossible shot.”