Death Wish (26 page)

“You really have no idea who she is, do you?” Shaz’s voice was loud in the unusual quiet.

The band had stopped, and my remaining staff was ushering patrons out the door. Shawn hung back, well away from the scene taking place near the bar. Making a peace sign, he subtly let me know he was ready if I needed him. Despite the trouble I’d had with vampires, Arys included, they made great allies.

“It’s ok, Shaz.” I announced our presence. “Everything’s cool.”

Kale swept past me to walk a slow circle around Juliet and the remaining agent. He looked amazingly well put together for a man who’d been naked just a minute ago. Leather duster over a dark shirt and pants with his hair in disarray, he looked exactly the way he must have felt, like he’d just banged and bled a few humans.

Juliet turned slowly as he made his way around her. She stood ready to defend herself, unwilling to pull her gaze from the vampire looking her over like she was a tasty new treat.

Kale’s honey-sweet power was running high and heady. I couldn’t let that distract me; I wasn’t able to hold my shields in place and use my power.

“So you’ve come to police the supernatural for the human government.” Bemusement shone in Kale’s mismatched eyes. “I’m surprised that for an O’Brien, you’re such a fool.”

My jaw dropped in surprise. So did Juliet’s. Her eyes narrowed.

Drawing a stake from inside her jacket, she faced off with Kale. “You murdered a government agent.”

“Come now,” Kale admonished. “We both know this is just a play the FPA is making to introduce themselves to Alexa with a bang. They fear her. And rightfully so.”

“This is about justice for a dead woman,” Juliet’s snarl was low and deadly. Her wolf paced behind her eyes.

Agent Asshole pulled his gun, aiming it at Kale’s chest. “Where the hell is Kellum?”

“Agent Easy?” I quipped, jerking a thumb toward the back hall. “I put him to sleep. He’ll be fine. Might have a bit of a concussion though.”

A vein pulsed in the agent’s forehead, and his finger tightened on the trigger. I let the energy flow down my arm to pool in my hand. If he shot Kale, I’d make that agent wish he’d never been born a thousand times over before I killed him.

Someone must have sounded the alarm because several dark clad agents came in both the front and back doors, surrounding us on all sides. They were all human except for Juliet. Interesting. I was willing to bet the FPA saved their big guns and used the humans as disposable soldiers.

Juliet looked from Kale to me, deciding which of us was a bigger threat. Right then, it was Kale. He was eyeing her with a predator’s stare, likely imagining if she’d taste as good as I did. A shiver crept up my spine at the thought.

“We can do this peacefully.” Juliet’s tone was strong and fierce, but I could sense her unease. “Come willingly, and we can avoid a lot of trouble.”

“You overstep your bounds, wolf. Humans have no place in the affairs of monsters. Your choice to represent them will come back to haunt you,” Kale promised.

With a shrug and a smirk, Kale lashed out with a kick that Agent Asshole never saw coming. It caught him in the temple, and he dropped to his knees. Kale grabbed the agent’s arm and twisted. The snap was audible. The agent’s gun dropped to the floor with a clatter.

Everyone moved at once. Three agents swarmed Kale, including Juliet. He turned to take on those with guns first, leaving his back exposed. Juliet saw her brief opportunity and went for it.

I caught her wrist in a bone-crushing grasp. Using the momentum from my swift action, I followed through with a shove that sent her sprawling. But, Juliet was no easy opponent. Both highly trained for her position and having the natural abilities of the wolf, she was on her feet instantly, ready to take me on.

“Don’t do this, Lexi,” she pleaded. Despite the emotion in her voice, the wolf in her eyes was a stranger, and it wanted a fight.

We were the only two moving in slow motion. As we stared into one another, our companions were locked in combat. A blur of white-blonde was all I could see of Shaz as he took down an agent waving a gun. A shot was fired, hitting the lights over the dance floor. A shower of sparks cascaded down around us.

Kale was throwing off FPA agents like they were children. Using both physical strength and metaphysical power, he had little problem fending them off. For now. Eventually, someone was going to get hurt.

“I’m not going to be treated like a criminal by an agency that would use my own sister against me. Think about what you’re doing, Juliet.”

She flipped a long curl out of her face and clenched the stake tightly. “I’m doing my job.”

Talking it out like long lost family made whole again just wasn’t going to happen. I spared a glance at Kale, finding him overrun with agents. Where were they coming from? I let loose the blast of energy I’d been holding. It slammed into the agents, taking several of them down.

I nodded to Juliet. “Fair enough.”

For a split second, there was only us, my sister and me, and the memories of the night everything had changed for us. And, then time resumed its regular pace, shattering the dark cloud of nostalgia. We were never going to get that back. Those young girls we’d both been, they had died that night. We weren’t the same anymore. That was painfully clear when I blocked Juliet’s first hit.

She was a good fighter. Gone were her days of scratches and hair pulling. She knew how to throw her body around, how to take a hit and to throw one, but after so many years on the mean streets at night, so did I.

I knocked the stake from her hand with a kick. She used the opportunity to grab my ankle and twist. I went down hard on the floor, twisting along with her to avoid a broken ankle. Jerking my foot from her grasp, I threw a psi ball at her to gain the seconds needed to get to my feet. Another shot went off, and an agent dropped, holding his leg and screaming.

Juliet was ready for me with a fist that I narrowly dodged. We danced then, a back and forth game of hits and blocks, trying to catch the other off guard. She was spry and light on her feet. More than once, she caught me by surprise. I wasn’t above using metaphysical assistance to push her back and knock her feet out from under her.

I kept expecting her to come to her senses and call a stop to this madness. What drove her wasn’t simply a desire to do her job. It was having me in front of her after so long, and finally being able to unleash her anger over what Raoul did to us. She wanted me to pay for being his lover.

Seeing fangs on my sister was unnerving. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I wasn’t giving in either. Shots went off, and this time one of my vampires fell, injured but not dead. I couldn’t allow anything to happen to Kale or Shaz. I was going to be forced into admitting defeat.

Juliet rushed me again, and this time she had claws. No deal; I wasn’t willing to kill her, so this had to stop now. I rounded on her with a high kick. It hit her square in the forehead, and she went down. I got on top of her, pinning her with my weight and a push of power.

“Tell them to stop!” I demanded. “Now.”

She stared up at me with angry wolf eyes. I could feel her hesitance. With a hand on her throat, I gave her a shake. “Dammit, Juliet. Can’t you see that our people are going to die over a dead woman who was a goddamn traitor? Stop them.”

Rationale battled passionate, righteous fury behind Juliet’s dark eyes. “Enough!” She shouted, and like magic, every agent took a defensive stance but obeyed her command.

Shaz and the few vampires who had come to our aid dropped back, watching me for direction. Kale wiped blood from the corner of his lip. A dead agent lay at his feet. Well, that was really going to help our case, wasn’t it?

I groaned inwardly before standing up and pulling Juliet to her feet. “You want to watch me suffer. I get that. Really, I do. So you win. Let’s go.”

Juliet pulled away from me, her eyes downcast. “It’s not like that. I have a job to do.”

“Let me save you the family drama.” Kale stepped forward with a confident swagger. Every agent’s gun was trained on him, but he paid them no mind. “You don’t want Alexa. You want me. And, I’ll go with you right now without any further trouble if you leave her out of this.”

Agent Asshole practically threw himself at Juliet in protest. He clutched his broken arm to his chest. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow and his breath came fast. “Hell no. She was at the murder scene.”

Kale set his sights on the agent, and the power just oozed from him. “I acted alone. I killed Abigail Irving, and I loved every damn moment. You only want me.”

The heady allure of vampire power was so strong that I almost believed him. A human like Agent Asshole didn’t stand a chance under that kind of persuasion. He nodded, dumbfounded and silent. Juliet appeared uncertain. I wanted to protest what Kale was doing, but I couldn’t form the words.

“Just you?” Juliet repeated, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Taking in one of us would be better than neither. “You freely admit this?”

“I’ll freely do anything you want me to. As long as Alexa is left alone.” The seductive lilt he spoke with was like a hand sliding down my spine.

It seemed to have a similar effect on Juliet because she nodded and gestured to her men to grab him. I watched in shock and awe as Kale stood quietly, willingly allowing them to cuff him. The restraints they used hummed with magic, and that’s when my internal alarm went off.

“No,” I shouted. “You can’t take him. He hasn’t done anything. Irving was a fucking traitor.” I shoved an agent aside so I could get close to Kale. Placing both hands on his face, I stood on my tiptoes and whispered, “What are you doing?”

“You saved my ass. Now I’m saving yours.” Taking advantage of our close proximity, Kale pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was brief but intoxicating. He tasted like blood and honey, waking my hunger. Draped in his saccharine pull, I ached for him.

I wasn’t content to keep my mouth shut and let him take the fall for me. We had both taken Abigail’s blood. She had been our victim.

“Juliet, be reasonable. You’re a pawn to a political agenda. That’s not the Zelda Fitzgerald I heard you talk nonstop about.” It was desperate; appealing to the girl she’d once been was my last resort. We were both sporting some ugly cuts and bruises. Now that we’d scrapped it out the way siblings do, there was nothing else for us to do.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and she looked away, suddenly unable to meet my eyes. “I’m not Zelda Fitzgerald.”

“No, you’re Juliet O’Brien,” I mimicked our father’s tone. “So start acting like it.”

She did look at me then. With the stubborn fury that was neither werewolf nor woman but simply O’Brien, she waved a hand dismissively. “Get him out of here, boys.”

Agent Asshole jammed his gun into Kale’s back and gave him a shove. “You heard the woman, bloodsucker. Try anything, and I’ll bury a wooden bullet in your heart before you can blink.”

“You’re not taking him without taking me,” I protested, my voice rising in panic.

Kale let the agents push him along toward the door. He spared a parting glance at Shaz with the command, “Grab her.”

Shaz didn’t need to be told twice. He intercepted me before I could follow. I struggled against him, but he over-powered me. I could have fought him off with a slap of a psi ball, but I could never do that to him.

I watched helplessly as the FPA agents ushered Kale out of the building. Juliet lingered though she slowly edged toward the exit.

“I have never felt as betrayed by anyone as I do by you, right now.” I spat the words at her. “We’re family, Juliet. We were.”

With a shake of her head, Juliet had the nerve to look hurt. “Lexi, you can’t be trusted. You work with demons and share power with vampires. I just want to do what’s right.”

“You mean what the FPA tells you is right. They have you brainwashed.”

“I’m not sure that I’m the one who isn’t seeing things as they really are.”

That burned. I wanted to run after her, to tackle her like I had when I’d caught her reading my diary. Shaz’s arms tight around my waist prevented that.

“I’ll be coming for him, Juliet. I can find you and the FPA. I will. You tell them I’m coming.” My shouts grew absolutely venomous as I thrashed in Shaz’s grip. “That vampire is mine. I claim him, and I will answer for him. If the FPA touches one hair on his head, sending you in here tonight will be the greatest mistake they ever made.”

She gave a curt nod before disappearing through the exit without a look back. Only after she was long gone did Shaz let me go.

I spun around to face him, ready to cuss him out for restraining me. The crestfallen expression he wore stole my words. The patrons and staff that remained dispersed, leaving us alone in front of the bar.

“You lied to me, Lex,” Shaz accused. “You said it was over with him, but it’s not. I saw the way he kissed you. The way he looks at you. Hell, I just watched him take the fall for you.”

“It is over. I haven’t been screwing him. Not since the one and only time.” I could not believe he was doing this. It was ballsy and rude, not to mention uncharacteristic.

Shaz’s jade gaze dropped to my wrist. “You made a deal with a demon to save Kale. He just handed himself over to a bunch of lunatic humans to save you. It’s so not over with you two. You and I both know that love can exist just fine without sex. In fact, in some ways, it’s stronger.”