Page 4 of Mortal Heart

Stimpy had a laugh like a braying donkey. “Yeah, man, and it’s my turn to go first.”

Arkady swayed and giggled, feigning extreme drunkenness. “M’sorry…is this your car?” She hiccupped loudly and added, “I thought it was mine.”

The breeze shifted. Her nose twitched. The odor of sulfur wafted from the dipshits’ skin and clothes.

A thrill of anticipation ran down her spine. The evening wasdefinitelylooking up. First a halfway decent bar fight to watch, and now she’d get to kick the asses of two demon servants. She had to tighten her grip on the tequila bottle to keep from rubbing her hands in glee.

But right at that moment—damn it all to hell and back—Ronan, Alice’s mysterious runaway houseguest, came storming out the front door of the Rusty Pelican like a tall, dark, and gorgeous jackass and ruined her entire plan.

Ronan took in the scene with the same quick, highly trained appraisal she’d noted earlier. Once he’d assessed the demon-servant dipshits, his gaze raked over her. His expression remained impassive, but she thought she saw something like disgust in his eyes. Only minutes before, when their gazes met in the bar, he’d looked at her with interest. Now, even in her second-best bra and tight jeans, she might as well have been a bug.

Her eyes narrowed.Asshole.

Cold and silent, Ronan’s stare fixed on the demon servants. Ren and Stimpy pulled guns and took cover behind their car. Apparently they had a little bit of common sense after all.

No sense getting shot in the crossfire. Arkady rolled across the hood and landed in the gravel on Ronan’s side of the car. The tequila bottle broke on impact, spraying her with shards of glass and wasted booze. To make matters worse, sharp-edged rocks cut into her bare arms and torso. She gritted her teeth and stayed down, out of the line of fire.

Footsteps crunched in the gravel on the other side of the car as one of the demon servants moved to the back of the vehicle. “Get lost, whoever the hell you are,” the driver, Ren, warned Ronan. “Or I put two holes in the bitch we got in the trunk and six more in you.”

Shit, shit, shit, Arkady thought. This was not the first time she’d had a good plan, only to have it go to hell in the proverbial handbasket thanks to the not-so-timely interference of a guy who assumed his “help” was required. But despite his big entrance, Ronan didn’t respond to Ren’s threats—nor did he move. What was he waiting for, a trumpet fanfare?

The dipshits, on the other hand, had plenty to say. “Is this your bitch?” Stimpy asked, pointing over the hood at Arkady. “Fine piece of ass. If there’s anything left when we get done, you can have her back.”

Ronan still said nothing. He seemed to be locked in some kind of macho staring contest with Ren. Stimpy took a few steps forward, his gun still pointed at Ronan’s chest. She wanted to yell,Are you assholes going to fight, or is this some kind of foreplay?

She’d never been one to wait for anyone else to throw the first punch anyway. Slowly, she reached into her boot and soundlessly slid a knife from its hidden sheath.

Ronan hadn’t looked at her, but she still felt certain he’d seen her pull the knife. Glancing at her would have tipped the others off that she was up to something besides lying drunk in the gravel. It took a lot of training and practice to be able to resist reflexively looking at movement, especially in a tense, potentially deadly situation. He might be an arrogant prick, but he knew what he was doing.

Without looking at each other, it was damn near impossible to coordinate their attack, but Arkady knew her target had to be Ren. He was a hair’s-breadth away from shooting the poor girl in the trunk, while Stimpy had his gun on Ronan. Only their first move would take the dipshits by surprise and she was the only one with the drop on both of them. She was willing to bet Ronan’s thoughts had mirrored her own.

“Look, you asshole, Isaidto get—” Ren began.

Before he could finish the sentence, Arkady rolled to her feet and threw her knife in one smooth motion. The blade, matte black, nearly invisible in the darkness, and sharpened until it could cut through bone like butter, buried itself in the center of Ren’s heart. He was dead before he had a chance to grunt or fire a shot. His body dropped like a sack of dog food.

Bullseye, Arkady thought with satisfaction as she hit the gravel again. The pain barely registered this time. The rush of adrenaline, on the other hand, felt really damn good.

Gravel crunched beside her. It had to be the other dipshit, since Ronan was a good twenty feet away. She reached for another knife, in case Stimpy didn’t go down easy.

A heavy boot connected to a denim-clad leg crushed her right arm into the gravel. Nowthatshe felt. Stimpy had moved much faster than she’d anticipated. Sometimes demons made their servants drink vamp blood to make them stronger and faster.

With a furious curse, she twisted and used her other hand to pull her spare knife. Before she could stab him, however, he hit her wrist with the side of his hand in a lightning-quick move that made her vision go white with pain. Her fingers went numb. For the first time in many years, Arkady Woodall dropped her knife.

Her attacker grabbed the blade, turned, and threw it faster than even she could have managed on her best day. She heard a gurgle and the sound of a body hitting the ground.Ronan. Oh no.

She drew back her left fist and punched the leg pinning her right arm with all the force she could muster. Her fist connected with solid muscle. She might as well have punched a steel plate. It sure as hell hurt like she had.

She looked up. Ronan towered over her. Well, he wasn’t dead, but how the hell had he gotten to her so quickly, and more importantly, why was he grinding her arm into the gravel?

When their stares met, Arkady couldn’t help but notice even the vamps hadn’t looked down their noses at her as much as Ronan did at this moment.

So he might be gorgeous and highly trained andalmostas good at knife-throwing as herself, and smell like leather and have eyes as perfectly blue as ancient glacier ice, and Lord almighty that ass—

She lost her train of thought for a moment.

Okay, he was obviously some kind of supernatural badass. But did she want anything to do with someoneeven moreconceited and arrogant than a vamp?

Abso-fucking-lutely not.

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