Flame Unleashed (Hell to Pay) Read Free

wince, he drew her up in front of him. The small hole in his coat spoke to the gunshot wound beneath. The injury probably hurt like hell but would be well on its way to healing.
    Standing in front of him now, her gaze rested right on his shadowed mouth, where she could make out a smirk of sensual lips. For a split second, she wondered what those lips would feel like on hers. Would they be warm and sensual or demanding and hard? Would they stay turned up at the corners?
    Was he actually smiling like this ridiculous situation was some joke? She withdrew her hand from his heated grip and clamped down on her girlish thoughts. One hundred and fifty years old, and all of a sudden she felt flirty? Incredible ... and incredibly inappropriate.
     “Why the hell did you do that?” She gestured toward the hemorrhaging biker.
    Although the Indebted’s face was mostly hidden in shadow, his one visible eye widened and he reared back. Dark hair curled beneath his fedora—were those strands as soft as they appeared? He rubbed the hair on his chin, less than a full beard but more than stubble. The scratchy sound sent a quiver of desire into her belly. While the knife pulsed with sick hunger on her leg, she itched with longing to touch the rough hair on the man’s jaw.
    “I don’t understand. That man would have killed you,” he said.
    “I can take care of myself, thanks.” She needed to feed the blade. Soon.
    Voices drifted down the street, getting louder by the second. Damn it.
    “
Pardonnez
?” His jaw dropped open, and the dark gaze bored into her. No,
through
her. She shivered.
    “You ruined my evening.” Probably not the most typical human response. After all, she’d just witnessed him murder a man. Sadly, though, she had become pretty blasé about the job requirements. Dead was dead.
    Shaking with the effort to restrain the drive to kill, she clenched her hands into fists. The knife wanted her to wrap her fingers around the hilt and plunge the blade into a chest. Her hunger had risen to such a level, it would feed on anyone, including innocents and even her own kind. But this errant knight in proverbial shining armor shouldn’t suffer because of her inability to focus.
    She curbed her killing desires, just like she regulated other aspects of her life. Well, the areas she
could
control, that is.
    With her efforts, the knife lust slowly ebbed. Sad emptiness took its place.
    “You’re ... unhappy that I saved you?” He grimaced, revealing square, even teeth.
    “You wouldn’t understand.”
    “Try me.”
    His mellow voice soothed her raw nerves like aloe on a wound. When he stepped forward, she jerked backward. Time to get away from this guy and from this scene, fast.
    Shouts drifted into the courtyard. Citizens would be here in a matter of seconds.
    “Sir, thank you for your help, however misguided. I need to be on my way.”
    “Thank you? That’s it?” He gestured at Decker’s body, motionless and silent in the cool night.
    At the wry undertone, she pressed her lips together. Was he making fun of her?
    Anger bubbled up. What did it say about her own humanity that the corpse at her feet disappointed her? Pissed her off. Not because he was dead, but because she hadn’t been the one to kill him.
    Here she stood in her ridiculous wig and urban fantasy getup, using sex to draw in her prey, like a warped black widow. For what?
    Somewhere deep down, she wasn’t this seductress, despite her fabulous disguise. All the air and energy left her in a rush. All bravado, no substance. She was a fraud, living in a shell of an existence.
    Damn, how she wanted Decker’s criminal blood inside of her knife. What if she just swirled the knife in the pool of cold blood? Maybe that would work.
    No, it wouldn’t. Had to be blood from the heart; the knife had to be in the chest. Damn it.
    “Thank you. Goodnight, sir,” she said in her firmest tone.
    He stepped close enough that she saw his closely trimmed facial hair framing