Page 2 of Mortal Heart

The two skinny scumbags sitting at the other end of the bar put themselves on Ronan’s shit list when he walked past and caught a strong whiff of sulfur mixed in with their body odor. Human minions of some low-level demon, he figured. They hadn’t even bothered to shower off the telltale rotten-egg stench of their master. If there was anything he hated more than demon trash, it waslazydemon trash.

The men moved themselves higher on the list by loudly mocking his all-black attire and then catcalling every woman in the bar. So he went out to the Rusty Pelican’s gravel parking lot, figured out which two-tone shitbox was theirs, and strategically punctured its tires in such a way that they’d probably make it at least a couple of miles from the bar before they ended up stranded on the side of the road.

And since he was getting paid by the bartender Mireille’s daddy to make sure she got home safely, andnotto break the skulls of these two idiots, he would have let it go at four flat tires if he hadn’t discovered they had a terrified young woman locked in the trunk of their car.

Now he had a problem. A big, annoying problem that required very serious consideration and another shot of tequila, or three.

No, make thattwobig, annoying problems…and a tantalizing little mystery.

Problem one: René Richards had paid him a ridiculous amount of money to babysit his youngest daughter and make sure her abusive boyfriend came nowhere near her, plus a hefty bonus if Ronan delivered the boyfriend to René personally for what René referred to asdisposal.

Problem two: Thanks to his still-acute hearing, Ronan had overheard enough of the demon-minions’ conversation to figure out they planned to sell the young woman in the trunk to a contact they called Ace. That meant he’d stumbled upon not just a kidnapping but a trafficking ring. In his centuries as a bounty hunter, he’d learned to recognize the signs.

The only good trafficker was a dead trafficker, as far as he was concerned. Simply freeing the woman wouldn’t be enough; the whole ring had to be dismantled and its victims freed. At the moment his only leads were the minions and the girl in the trunk. If Mireille’s boyfriend showed up, Ronan would have to choose between his paying gig and following the minions to their contact.

Those problems made the tantalizing little mystery of the blonde woman in the corner booth feel relatively unimportant…and yet even the equally pleasant thoughts of René’s ten-grand bonus and stomping the skulls of the minions, Ace, Ace’s boss, Ace’s boss’s boss, and everyone else in the trafficking ring couldn’t make him ignore her.

In the Broken World, where thousands of species of supernatural beings roamed the land, air, and sea thanks to fractured boundaries between realms, he would have assumed the blonde was a Valkyrie on Earth hunting prey for pay or sport. This world had relatively few such beings, however, so she was likely human.

At any other time in his very long existence, that would have probably been the end of his interest. But he was human now too, more or less, and that meant he noticed how sweet her mouth looked as she sipped the same brand of tequila as the bottle in front of him. And he imagined how she’d feel beneath him—or on top of him—with her fingernails digging into his shoulders and her body writhing at his touch.

Maybe she wasn’t human after all. The way she made his skin tingle and blood rush could mean she was the daughter of an incubus or succubus. That would certainly explain his reaction.

She seemed to be watching him without watching him. He recognized that skill immediately as one he used himself on a regular basis. She was a hunter, a warrior. He liked the taste of warrior women more than the finest tequila.

Ronan scowled, shifted his weight on his creaky barstool, and downed the rest of his drink. He had work to do. He couldn’t afford to think with his dick—especially when he had to figure out what the hell to do about the girl in the trunk. Thanks to his enhanced senses, he could tell she was relatively unharmed and could breathe normally. As much as he disliked the idea, for now she had to stay where she was so he could follow the minions to their contact. That seemed like the best and probably only way to find out more about the traffickers. As soon as he’d ascertained the next link in the chain, he’d find out what she knew and then get her to safety.

Meanwhile, Mireille Richards pulled pints, poured shots, and glanced at the door every few minutes, waiting for the man she loved, who’d given her the bruise she’d covered so carefully with makeup.

Oblivious to why Ronan had sat at the bar for the entirety of every shift she’d worked since Tuesday, Mireille used a towel to wipe the scuffed bartop and leaned toward him, her arms folded under her cleavage. Ronan kept his gaze on her face and didn’t let it stray to her neckline. She was a lonely kid with a violent bookie father, desperately in love with an abusive punk, and he wasn’t some drunken predator cruising the bar for tail.

“Hey, Johnny.” She called him that because he wouldn’t tell her his name and he wore all black. “You’re quiet tonight.”

“I’m quiet every night,” he said, his voice gruff.

“Oh, he talks!” She giggled and tucked some stray hair behind her ear. “What do you do, Johnny?”

I put people like your boyfriend in dumpsters with the rest of the trash, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Telling her she deserved better than abuse would fall on deaf ears. Even disposing of the boyfriend wouldn’t solve the problem, since she’d likely find a replacement soon enough, but he’d settle for what he could get.

“I’m between jobs at the moment,” he said finally.

“You and everybody else here. I’m lucky to have this job.” She lowered her voice. “If you need some money, I could probably get Carl to give you some work. He needs someone to watch the door, haul kegs, that kind of thing. You look like you could do that.” She reached for his bicep, probably intending to give it a playful squeeze.

He moved out of reach. “I’m not looking for that kind of job.” Or flirtations from a vulnerable twenty-one-year-old woman he’d been hired to protect.

Her smile vanished. “Fine. Never mind. Don’t know why I bother trying to be nice. Everyone’s an asshole. Even you, Johnny.”

His conscience pricked him. More than once, Alice had called him an asshole, and he’d certainly deserved it every time. He’d left her house fifteen days ago and hadn’t checked in to let her know he was all right. No doubt she understood why he’d left, but he also knew he was an asshole for leaving, and doubly so for not at least calling her.

Mireille had genuinely tried to help him, and he’d all but slapped her hand for trying. She was the first person to do something nice for him since he’d walked out of Alice and Sean’s house.

“Thanks for the offer,” he said before Mireille could storm away. “I’ve got something lined up.”

“Oh.” She put her hands on her hips. “You could have just said that, you know.”

“What can I say?” He sipped his tequila. “I’m an asshole.”

Her lips twitched. Before she could reply, her attention went to something going on behind him.

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