Extraits

« — Ton odeur sur ma peau m’a manquée. Peu importait que je ne t’aie plus vue depuis deux jours. Je te sentais encore sur ma peau. Ça m’a manqué plus que je l’aurais cru possible.

Il déplaça sa main sur mon ventre et l’étira.

— Ça m’a manqué de ne plus te voir. »

To my surprise—and disgruntlement—I wasn’t the only backup. If we needed others, that was fine, but the woman riding in the backseat was…surprising.

On any number of levels.

I’d only met the witch a couple of times, but Tate wasn’t anybody I would have picked to watch my back.

I wasn’t going to question Justin’s decision—this job was his baby, whatever it was, and if he thought we’d need that kind of firepower—and I meant that literally—then, fine.

But I didn’t have to like it.

Unlike many shifters I knew, he didn’t just go by what his senses told him. He looked at people. Saw beneath the surface. Sometimes, he saw so deep, it pissed me off.

He moved through the low-lying mist that twined on the ground with grace and control. It wasn’t my imagination that people moved out of his path in an unending ballet. Whether they knew it or not, people stepped out of the way for Amund.

Me, I preferred to just stay out of his way.

His, and any other bloodsucker.

Chapter One

Prep could be a pain in the ass. All the things necessary to get yourself ready, this shit is a nuisance that I would love to live without.

Sadly, the kind of life I lead sometimes calls for prep.

Not that you can prepare for my life.

Not that I can prepare for my life. The few times I tried, life went and kicked me in the face.

I’m slowly learning how to kick back.

I wouldn’t be doing much kicking in the shoes I’d just slid onto my feet, though. My balance is stellar, but it’s just plain stupid to go kicking at something when you’re standing on a spiked heel not much bigger than a toothpick.

Heels.

Shoot me now, I was wearing heels.

And what would probably be considered something sort of…dressy?

Maybe?

I don’t know.

It was a costume.

I’d never been to a costume party and if I was smart, I wouldn’t have even suggested going, but impulse sort of drives my life.

I’m Kit Colbana and I’m a…troubleshooter, of sorts. Or troublemaker, depending on who you ask.

On just about any other day you could find me in a pair of battered jeans or black BDUs, a T-shirt and my vest. My vest—man, I felt naked without it. I’d seen an old Swiss Army knife in a junk store once and although the blade on it hadn’t been shit, the tool itself had been full of useful little gadgets. Maybe not useful in my line of work, but for somebody who wasn’t crazy? Yeah, pretty useful. Scissors, screwdriver, tweezers, corkscrew…you never knew when you’d need a corkscrew.

The knife reminded me of my vest.

I could pull almost any damn thing out of my vest.

But it didn’t go with sparkly green. And it was unlikely I’d need weapons.

Unlikely. That didn’t mean impossible.

I was going to a party. More to the point, I was going to a party with Damon. Damon was leader of the area’s dominant shifter faction, which pretty much made him the top dog. Or the top cat. He was the Alpha of the Southern Cat Clans, a region that spanned from Mississippi to the Carolinas down to the far reaches of Florida and the Keys. I guess in a way, I did have a weapon. He just walked and talked and grew fur and fangs.

Nerves fluttered in my stomach.

I was going on a date with Damon and I was wearing a dress and I wasn’t taking my weapons.

Panic seized me and I lunged for my trunk. No way, no how could I do this without some kind of weapon. My hands fumbled with the clasp and it only got worse as I thought about where the party was going to be, who—not a specific who but a who nonetheless—would be there.

It was a party thrown by the Assembly. There would be vamps there.

I wanted to puke. What in the hell had I been thinking?