Marked: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 2) Read Free Page B

compatriot out before it exploded. How nice for him because plumes of dark smoke were already rising off of it and where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The others, unfortunately, were still coming toward me, albeit cautiously. Whatever. As long as they weren’t shooting, I was good.
    I whirled to face them, wobbling like a punch-drunk boxer. I was pretty sure I didn’t have enough hellfire left in me to light a cigarette, but with any luck, they didn’t know that. I took a menacing step toward them that was really more of a drunken sway and held my right hand out to them, palm up. Then I slowly curled my fingers toward me like a bad ass.
    “Come get some,” I tried to say, but wound up coughing so violently I was pretty sure my words were lost as blood sprayed from my lips. They lined up their weapons on me. Damn.
    “Don’t try anything stupid, Mac,” said a familiar sounding voice I couldn’t quite place. It came from the closest of the black-suited nut jobs. This one was a little different in that he was wearing expensive tactical gear over his suit and tie. He gestured at me with his MP5. “I’m not sure what’s going on with you, but out of professional courtesy, I promise not to let them pump you full of lead if you come quietly.”
    I was about to flip him the bird when a burgundy Corvette flew past the demolished Humvee like a bat out of Hell and skidded to a stop between me and the guys with the guns. The passenger door flew open, and Ricky sat there behind the wheel, wearing wraparound shades and a predatory smile. She leaned toward me and held her hand out to me.
    “Come with me if you want to live,” she said in her best Arnold impersonation. It was surprisingly good, and I would have laughed if I had non-bruised ribs. Instead, I shot her a good-natured wince. Ricky was the werewolf Alpha I’d encountered while trying to rescue Sera and her son from Vassago, and even though she’d had me dead to rights, she’d let me go. I already felt like I owed her one, so even though I was happy to see her, I was sort of annoyed it involved her saving me yet again.
    “Ricky?” I asked flummoxed. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one confused by her sudden appearance because no one had shot at us yet. “What are you doing here?”
    “Saving you, obviously.” She raised one perfect eyebrow into the air and grinned so her braces caught the light and glinted. Which was also when the Humvee exploded into a fireball of death and debris. The shockwave sent me sprawling toward the Corvette. Her hand shot out of the opening viper quick and seized me by the collar of my trench coat.
    Thanks to her werewolf strength, she hauled me inside like I weighed about as much as a swimsuit model after purge week while simultaneously flooring the Corvette. My feet were taken out from under me as the street roared by, but before I could let out so much as a single girly scream, she deposited me lightly in the seat next to her. She made a sharp turn as gunfire erupted from behind us, and the passenger door next to me swung closed.
    I ducked instinctively as bullets pinged off our vehicle, which was when I realized they were bouncing off the windows instead of going through them. Ricky caught my expression, and it must have been strange because she shrugged.
    “Yeah, it’s bulletproof. Just because I can heal from gunshot wounds doesn’t mean I like getting shot full of holes.” She glanced back at the road, and her hands were a literal blur of motion as she worked the clutch and the wheel with her superhuman reflexes. It made me wonder how many of her kind were professional racecar drivers. Probably all the good ones. Well, that wasn’t fair at all.
    “Good to know,” I said, trying to catch my breath while adrenaline surged through my veins. “But why did you come to save me?”
    “Remember when I was slicing you open, and you told me a story?” She didn’t look at me, but I saw her tongue snake out and rake over her