The thoroughfare was just as busy as the square, filled with demons grouped together in front of the one and two-storey grey stone buildings. Hordes of them had gathered around the tavern to the north of the district, a pale cream stone affair that was a contrast to all the dark grey. It was more elegant too, resembling something from the Victorian era.
“Hey,” she breathed as a big demon noticed her and his dusky horns curled a little, beginning to resemble those of a ram, and his crimson eyes brightened. She skimmed her hands down her burgundy corset to her hips, making sure she had the whole of his attention, and canted her head as she sidled up to him. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen a vampire and a phantom coming this way?”
He shook his head, and then growled and bared fangs when two other demons looked at her. She pegged one as from the Fifth Realm, and one as from the Second. Demons didn’t exactly like to share, but she needed information, and if a fight broke out, she would make a sharp exit.
“How about you, big guy?” She ran an assessing gaze over the demon from the Second Realm, taking a moment to appreciate all that muscle jammed into only a pair of tight black leathers, and how his black horns grew as he gave her a leisurely once-over in return. “You seen a vampire and a phantom?”
“Maybe,” he grunted and continued in stilted English, revealing he didn’t get out of Hell much, “What… information… worth?”
“More than you can afford, gorgeous.” She offered a sultry smile because that was all he was getting from her.
He hadn’t seen anything. None of them had. She debated questioning the others and then decided against it. She wasn’t going to find her mark again tonight. By now, he was either holed up in the vampire district to the north of the enormous cavern, or he had used one of the portal pathways and gone back to his stronghold in Hell.
Damn it.
She ogled the demon one last time, shutting out a stray thought that left her reeling—she liked her men a little leaner and a lot meaner.
The elf popped into her head.
She was about to banish him, but paused and frowned as she shrugged. Her mark was gone, but she could still come away from tonight with some valuable intel if she tailed the assassin. It might go some way towards making her feel better.
Mackenzie returned to the square and looked up to her right, at the rooftop. He was gone. She muttered another curse, one that felt like the millionth she had unleashed since noticing the elf.
That sizzle-spark rolled along her spine again and she jerked her head down.
Her gaze collided with pure amethyst across a sea of people, violet that held her fast as a thousand tingles tripped through her.
The elf frowned at her, his sensual lips turning downwards as a disapproving look settled on his handsome face. The black slashes of his eyebrows met hard and he pivoted, breaking the spell he had placed her under. She shook off the lingering effect and glared at his back as he eased through the crowd, heading towards the clock tower at the other end of the square.
Mackenzie gave him a few seconds to build a lead and then followed, keeping her senses trained on him so he couldn’t escape her.
Which of the elves was he? There was only one guild in Hell that employed his kind, and when she had been researching assassin organisations with the intent of forming one of her own, before she had joined a guild instead, two names had come up.
Fuery and Hartt.
Rumour didn’t need to paint an interesting picture of them. Fact had already done it. The two elves were practically famous and as far as she could tell, one was as bad as the other.
As dangerous and deadly as her mark.
Their mark.
Her client had obviously hired him too and she couldn’t really blame him for putting the contract out for tender at several guilds. Not when there was a ridiculously high chance the vampire would kill whoever was sent to take him down.
The elf hit the broad street that cut through the witches’ district. She locked up tight when he suddenly stopped and began to turn his head. She ducked behind a group of shifters, sure he was looking for her. Her heart shot into her throat and pounded there, adrenaline a sweet kick in her veins as she edged forwards and risked peering around the female shifter who was looking down at her as if she were insane.
He was gone. Damn him.
Mackenzie stood and tiptoed, peered over the heads of the crowd and tried to find him. The tightness in her chest evaporated as she spotted him heading along the side of the square and she hurried to catch up with him as he ducked into an alley.
Following an elf with a reputation as dark as the one attributed to the two assassins in his guild into an alley was probably suicide. That thought flickered through her mind, but she paid it no heed. She mounted the steps up onto the stone walkway and pressed her back to the building beside the alley.
Being prepared was worth the risk. She had never seen an assassin from his guild in the flesh, and she wanted to know what she was up against because she doubted her client was going to change his mind about having more than one assassin guild on this job for him.
The elf was her competition, and he was going down.
She needed to be the one to take out the mark. Claiming a trophy of this magnitude would establish her guild as one of the most prestigious in Hell. It would finally get her small band of assassins recognised and would lead to getting bigger and better contracts.
Her guild needed this.
Ever since she had taken over leadership of it a few decades ago, they had struggled to keep their heads above water, let alone establish themselves in the fiercely competitive world of contract killing. It was a miracle this client had approached them and offered this opportunity, and she wouldn’t mess up this chance they had been given.
She had to secure the kill for her guild.
She leaned left and peered into the alley, glared at the elf’s back as he strolled away from her.
Plus, she had a score to settle.
She had lost track of the number of clients who had dumped her guild halfway through a contract because an opening had come up at the one he worked for. Her scowl deepened, mostly because those electric shivers were back as she studied him, sending heat rolling through her.
Damn him.
But there was something arresting about him.
The fluid way he moved, a startling combination of grace and raw sexuality that shouldn’t be possible considering he wore a drab black knee-length tunic over his tight trousers, was drawing more than just her gaze to him. Every female in the alley looked him over after he had passed them and some had the courage to eye him up as he approached.
One even offered herself up to him.
He politely turned her down with a smile and a wave of his hand.
The subtle shift of his body caused the fine material of the tunic to pull taut over his biceps and across his broad shoulders, revealing toned muscles. Apparently, elves had incredible armour that was imbued with magic or something. The black scales resided in twin bracelets and could cover their owner in a handful of seconds if they issued a mental command. Those scales could transform into talons too, and only metal of the same type could cut through it.
She had never seen it in the flesh, but heat sizzled through her as she pictured what he would look like in only skin-tight black armour that revealed everything.
And she meant everything.
Several of the accounts she had read about elf armour, and some of the ones she had been told by women who had witnessed it, had been very clear about that. Every muscle on their body showed, and not just that, but you could tell the size of the package on offer too.