Born of Shadows Read Free

down all brain activity and, if he was really pissed, melt it and leave his vic a vegetable, sucking his thumb on the floor.
    Luckily, Nero was one of Caillen’s few friends and no matter what they might have paid him, Nero wouldn’t bring him in.
    He hoped.
    Every life has a price…
    And he knew that better than most.
    Caillen felt the fissure of power as the Trisani stepped out of a transport and eyed the crowd, reading them as he sought Caillen’s position.
    Yeah it wasn’t Nero… He’d never seen this tracker before.
    Shit.
    Caillen slowed as he saw the dark blond man with sharp features dressed all in black. Curling his lip as he locked gazes with Caillen, the tracker sent a plasma blast at him that barely missed his head. It ignited then exploded the transport behind him.
    Hope no one was in that. Otherwise they were having a worse day than he was.
    Caillen pulled out another blaster and opened both up all over the tracker. But the bastard threw up a force field to block it.
    “I hate the Trisani.” No wonder most of them had been hunted down to a small handful. At the moment, he’d like to add one more to their extinction list.
    But that was all right—he still had tricks up his sleeves. Literally. He holstered his right blaster and jerked a light bomb off the chain. He lobbed it at the Trisani and then followed it with a pulse grenade.
    The light temporarily blinded the Trisani and the pulse exploded against the force field. Even though it didn’t break through it, it was enough to send the Trisani reeling backward.
    Yeah, don’t screw with someone whose closest friend was an explosives engineer renowned for making the best toys in the universe. Darling lived and breathed for one purpose only. Making shit blow up.
    Before the Trisani could recover, Caillen ducked into the next alley.
    Which was crawling with Enforcers.
    Damn. Damn.
    Double damn.
    Grinding his teeth in frustration, he turned to head back to the street.
    He couldn’t. They’d closed in on him and the air transport was directly above with snipers taking positions on the building’s roof.
    “Surrender!”
    Ah now this was just galling.
    “Lay down your weapons!”
    That was easier said than done. He was covered in them. Took him two hours to get all this gear on…
    Only thing that could induce him to take it off fast was a hot naked woman in his bed, clawing at his back. Definitely not one of those here and he had no interest in being defenseless with this much artillery pointed at him.
    A warning blast shot over his head.
    “The next one will be right between your eyes.” Targeting lasers let him know exactly what they were aiming for. Honestly it wasn’t the one at his forehead that gave him pause as much as the one at his crotch.
    “Put your hands behind your head!”
    Caillen frowned. “If I put my hands behind my head, I can’t drop my weapons, people. Someone needs to make up their mind here. What do you want me to do and in what order?”
    “Drop the weapon in your hand, then put your hands behind your head!”
    He did as instructed.
    They moved in closer.
    Yeah, come to Papa, baby. Closer… closer…
    Don’t be shy.
    When one of them went to cuff him, Caillen grabbed him and used him as a shield. Three sniper rounds went into the man’s chest. Caillen flung the body at the Enforcer coming in at his back. Twisting, he grabbed another man, disarmed him and knocked him flying. His morals on killing drones out the window under this assault, Caillen used his spring loader to pop his fighting knife into his palm and took out five more before the Trisani grabbed him by the neck without touching him and paralyzed him where he stood.
    The Trisani tsked at him. “I almost hate to hand someone with your skills over to the drones.”
    “Fuck you.”
    The Trisani laughed. “Sorry. In this the only one getting screwed is you.”
    Caillen locked gazes with the Trisani. The moment he did, he felt the surge of power that Nero had