11 Poison Promise Read Free Page B

face.
    “Hey, hey, foxy lady,” he called out. “You lookin’ for some action? You lookin’ to score a little sumthin’ sumthin’?”
    I smiled back at him, showing almost as many teeth as the two vampires were. “Sumthin’ like that.”
    Behind Troy, Catalina kept shaking her head no-no-no . She opened her lips, but one of the vamps rattled the fence beside her, a clear sign for her to keep her mouth shut. But there was no need for her to waste any more of her breath on these fools, especially not to try to tell them who they were messing with. Besides, Troy wouldn’t have heeded any warning. He was completely focused on me, a potential customer, and I could almost see the dollar signs churning in his head as he calculated how much he could take me for.
    “Well, you are in the right spot, baby. Because I have got just the thing for you.”
    He held out one of the bags, and I took it from him. A single pill lay inside the plastic, its deep, dark red color making it look like a drop of congealed blood. I flipped the bag over and realized that a rune had been etched into the surface of the pill: a crown with a single flame arching up out of the center of it, the symbol for raw, destructive power.
    Still, despite the bloody color and the symbol, the pill looked more like a kids’ vitamin than a dangerous drug, but I knew all too well how deceiving looks could be. Most people didn’t think that I seemed anything like a dangerous assassin—until my knife was cutting into their guts.
    “What’s this?” I asked.
    Troy’s smirk widened. “It’s the latest, greatest thing onthe market, baby. It will rock your world. Nah, scratch that. It’ll just burn it down instead.”
    The two vamps snickered at his cheesy lines. Catalina rolled her eyes. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do too, but I decided to let things play out.
    I tucked the pill into my jeans pocket. Not because I had any intention of taking it but because Bria would no doubt be interested in it. Detective Bria Coolidge, one of Ashland’s few good cops, actually cared about things like trying to keep drugs off the streets. I tried to help her out whenever I could, despite my own life of killing and crime.
    “Now that you’ve seen the goods, let’s talk about payment, baby,” Troy crooned. “Normally, a hit like that is fifty a pop.”
    My eyebrows shot up in my face. “Fifty bucks for one pill? That must be quite a joyride.”
    “Oh, it is,” Troy said. “Believe me, it is. But if you don’t have that much cash on you, don’t sweat it. I’m sure we can work out some other form of payment.”
    His brown eyes tracked up and down my body, taking in my black boots and dark blue jeans and the tight green tank top I had on under my black leather jacket. Behind him, the two vampires did the same thing, licking their lips like I was a bottle of booze they were going to pass around. Oh, everybody was going to get a taste of Gin Blanco, all right, just not the kind they expected.
    I bared my teeth, all pretense of a sweet smile long gone. “You call me baby one more time, and you’ll be eating through a straw for the next six months.”
    Catalina sucked in a breath, but confusion filled Troy’sbeefy face. When he finally realized that I’d threatened him, his brown eyes narrowed to slits.
    “Those are big words coming from a little lady,” he snapped. “You should be more respectful. Think about who you’re talking to.”
    “Oh? And who would that be?”
    His chest puffed up with self-importance. “Troy Mannis, that’s who.”
    “Never heard of you.”
    He blinked, and his shoulders slouched. I couldn’t have deflated his ego any faster if it was a balloon I’d popped with a pin. But anger rose up to fill the empty space inside him. “Well, you should,” he said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “Because I run this campus, and if you’re looking to score here, then you have to go through me . You don’t have a choice. Nobody here