Page 4 of When He Hunts

He advanced. Slowly, rather like a snake slithering toward her. “I like the mask. I’ve found people are far more terrified by what theycan’tsee than what they can.”

She was filled plenty with terror, thanks so much. “It’s because you’re not scary beneath the mask, right? A letdown?” She always talked too much when she was nervous. And Luna was way, way past justnervous.She was terrified. She’d lost her taser, she had no gun, and there werethreeof them.

They closed in on her.

“You made someone in Atlanta very angry.” From the mask. The leader, clearly. “And that someone is going to pay me a whole lot of money to slice you up.”

Oh, God. “Any chance I could change your mind?”

“How much money do you have?”

Great question.Five hundred, four dollars, and seventy-two cents.“How much money would it take?”

“There’s a million-dollar bounty on your head.”

What? This could not be her reality. “I’ll pay you two million,” Luna promised without blinking. “Tomorrow morning, we can meet at the bank and get it all squared away. Does that plan work for you?”

The mask laughed.

Yeah, she took that as ano.Unfortunately, the plan did not work for him.

He lifted his hand, and the two men with him sprang for her. She turned to run because it was truly her only option. She whirled, lunged and—once again, hit a very large, immovable object.

He’s back.

Her head tilted up. She stared at him. Tried to, anyway. He was in so much darkness—the shadows from the edge of the nearby building covered him. But she had no doubt that it was the stranger who’d so casually told her that he dealt in death. His sandalwood scent filled her nostrils, and his heat wrapped all the way around her again.

And, damn it all, her body got that weird electric charge once more.Fantastic. You’ve truly gone off the deep end, Luna. You’re attracted to a killer.

“Darling, did you miss me?” he asked her, voice all tender. “I missed you. Just couldn’t stay away, in fact.”

“You’re crazy,” she fired back.

“Crazy good at handling trouble. Why don’t you watch and see for yourself?”

Why didn’t shewatch?

He pushed her behind him.

“Get the fuck out of our way, hero!”The yell came from the man in the mask.

Hero? Oh, the masked leader was mistaken, just as she had been. “He’s not here to save me,” Luna announced. “He wants me dead, too.”

Her “hero” turned his head to glare back at her. “How about we don’t share info with the enemy, hmm? That good for you?”

“Nothing about this night is good for me,” she muttered.

“He wants to get the bounty!”The man in the mask was clearly enraged. “Destroy that bastard!”

All three men attacked the “hero” who was trying to take their bounty. Luna scrambled back because this was going to be horrible, but…maybe it would also give her the chance to flee. The bad guys could fight each other and perhaps she’d live to run yet another day.

Only…

Only there was no time for running.

Because the “hero” moved wicked fast again. And he knocked out the tall and thin attacker. Then kicked the beefy one in the stomach, jabbed him in the jaw, and had the fellow tumbling into a heap on the ground five seconds later. As for the masked man, he lost his mask. Or rather, he got it ripped away, and when a sliver of light fell on him, she saw his gaunt face. The nose that was slightly off center. The receding hairline.

He lost the knife he’d tried to shove into the ribs of the “hero” who easily beat the crap out of him. When the beaten leader tried to flee, he just got shoved face-first into the pavement.

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