The girl bolted past him and disappeared down the side street.
Rage said, “He’s human.”
“A human executioner.”
Ripper nodded. “He’s been picking off some of the younger, sloppier Offspring. The ones who were getting themselves noticed.”
Rage glanced back at him. “You can’t let this human tell people about us.”
“I know. He must die.” Ripper hugged her around the middle and rocked her in a way that seemed so caring it twisted a knife in her heart to know that he really didn’t. “I want you to kill him for me.”
“Why?” Rage stiffened. “You could move so quickly that you could kill him without him ever seeing you.”
“I know.” Ripper released her and stepped back. “But I want you to do it for me.”
Rage spun toward him and glanced from him to Dean and then Shade. They all were in on it, whatever this was. “You mean for him to slay me as well?”
“He couldn’t touch you,” Shade laughed. He leaned over the edge and watched the man tossing the corpse in the trash. It would disintegrate completely in under an hour. Shade’s dark hair spilled around his face and tickled over the shoulders of his leather vest. He wore nothing else to disguise his incredibly toned chest. His deeply tanned skin was genetic, making him the last person you’d peg for a vampire. In life, he’d been an exotic dancer, and as a vampire he still dressed the part, tight leather pants and all. When he fought, he had moves that would make a professional dancer burn his shoes and get a job in fast food. He’d once offered to teach her to fight in exchange for some physical consideration.
In other words, sex.
She’d turned him down.
“Since when did you need an excuse to kill a man?” Dean joked. Unlike many other vamps, he refused to wear black. She’d never seen him in anything but blue jeans. White muscle shirts were practically his uniform, but he definitely had the arms and shoulders for them.
Rage frowned. “Why do I get the feeling you are setting me up?”
“Because I am,” Ripper smiled, “but not how you think.” He scooped her face into his hands and kissed her. His tongue slipped between her lips, firing a storm of flaming tingles throughout her entire body. As the kiss deepened, Ripper gently massaged her scalp with his fingertips. Rage softened under his power, enjoying the moment against her will. Finally he broke from her mouth and spoke. “If it makes you feel better, I have no desire to see you hurt. After you finish the human, I have every intention of taking you to my bed tonight.”
That didn’t make her feel better.
Ripper released her. “Now go kill the human.”
Frowning, Rage turned back to the alley below. Mindful of her heels, she hopped over the low wall and dropped to the ground three stories below her. She landed behind the man and kicked him in the back, sending him flying into the brick wall.
He managed to shield his head at the last moment. When he spun around, he led with his knife.
Rage jumped back, easily avoiding the blade.
He didn’t hesitate to charge her with efficient figure-eight swings. She didn’t bother looking at her opponent’s face, focusing instead only on the experienced movement of his body. This human had fighting skills beyond hers, but she had her vampire speed and strength. Timing her block, she caught him in the wrist and knocked the blade from his hand.
Dropping down, he tried to sweep her feet. She dodged him and then landed on top of him so she straddled his hard stomach. Before he could strike, she caught him by both wrists and forced them down beside his head. Her vampire instincts ruled her now. Curling back her lips, she hissed at him. In one second, she would have her fangs deep in his throat and the fight would be over.
“Regina!” he shouted, obviously startled to recognize her.
Rage froze. She’d not heard anyone call her by her human name in six years. Not since Ripper rebirthed her. Rage looked at the man beneath her. The summer-sky blue of his eyes ripped through her with the shock and recognition in them. His chestnut stubble masked the strong, masculine planes of his handsome face, a face she remembered cradling lovingly when they kissed. Gone was the carefree playboy she’d fallen in love with. This man possessed a hard edge that stole her breath and stopped her heart. How could he be here? After he stood her up at the altar, she thought she’d never ever see him again.
“Caden?”
“Kill him, Rage,” Ripper said. She glanced back to see him standing behind her with Shade and Dean flanking him.
Rage looked back down at Caden. He didn’t fight her, just stared in stunned silence.
Love, that traitorous emotion, roared to life in her cold heart and burned her eyes. Just feeling his warm body beneath hers made her ache to feel him inside her again, to have him complete her as he once did. She choked on her words as she whispered, “I can’t.”
Chapter Two
Rage couldn’t begin to think. Her brain felt as if it seized up, stiffening her muscles so her whole body trembled. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
Staring at Caden as if she thought for his next trick he’d grow a second head, Rage backed off him cautiously. When she settled beside him on her knees, he raised to his elbows. The reality of him so close, so real, so substantial, body slammed her.
Testing her sanity, Rage reached out hesitantly, half expecting him to collapse like a wisp of illusion. With the flat press of the length of her fingers, she sampled the hardness of his flak jacket.
But that wasn’t him. Rage could feel the metal plate in the lining. She needed to touch him. Half expecting Caden to dodge her, Rage tentatively stretched her trembling hand up to caress his face. The rough stubble scraped her palm as she cupped his cheek. Heat seeped into her cold, inhuman flesh. Her thumb drifted across his lush lower lip, and the remembered sensation of his mouth on hers flooded over her. Caden’s lips parted ever so slightly. His searing exhale spilled over her hand. The painful familiarity of his gaze skinned her, leaving her raw and weak before him. After six years haunted by the memory of him, just a few seconds in his presence destroyed her anew. In this moment, faced with Caden’s devastating nearness, Rage understood why she hated him so. It was because, even after all this time and distance and changes in them both, she still loved him. And he’d abandoned her.
Rage could tell he wanted to stare at her with equal disbelief, but right now, reckless though he was to hunt vampires at all, he seemed well aware of just how precarious his position was. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut and remained alert for threatening movement from any of the vampires.
“Told you she wouldn’t do it.”
Dean stifled a laugh. Ripper seemed far less amused, his fangs showing as he gritted his teeth and Dean covered his smile and distanced himself from his master. Risking life and limb, Dean muttered to Shade, “You owe me five dollars.”
“Shut up,” Shade hissed, cutting his black eyes like a death threat at him, “It’s not over.”
“Was this a joke?” Rage glowered at them.
Ripper moved closer with the smooth gait of a panther. When she held up a palm for him to stop, he actually complied. That was more shocking than Caden’s sudden reappearance in her life. On instinct Rage shifted, blocking Caden from Ripper.
Ripper’s frown deepened, making him no less handsome, only ten times more frightening. Under his heavy brows, his eyes darkened. His fists clenched spastically at his sides as if he wasn’t sure what act of violence he wanted to commit first. Tendrils of his blond hair dipped wildly across his forehead, a metaphor for the fraying of his emotional control. When he snarled back his lips so his fangs glistened at her, she knew he was barely containing himself. For one second she thought he meant to kill Caden, but he ignored him even as the human eased backward a few feet and got his feet under him. No. Ripper’s fury was squarely focused on her. Growling inhumanly deep in his throat, he asked in a quiet voice that practically sizzled, “Will you accept no gift from me?”
“Gift?”
“I am sick of hearing you bitch about him,” Ripper snapped. His solid silver eyes threatened her with their metallic fury. “What happened between you doesn’t justify you killing everyone with a pulse and a Y chromosome who can’t defend himself from you, and making those of us you can’t kill miserable.”
Dean barked a laugh then broke into a coughing fit when Ripper glared daggers at him. Holding his side, Dean walked off, still chuckling and waving as if the situation was just entirely too funny and he might shoo them away before they killed him with laughter. God, Rage hated that jackass.
Peripherally, Rage was aware of Caden slipping slowly farther and farther away from them. If she wasn’t facing off with Ripper, she might have done something about it. What, she didn’t know, but something. Shade stalked Caden, moving just as slowly, so he neither gained nor lost ground. The Offspring’s fingers twitched loosely at his side, like the tail of a cat that could barely contain the urge to pounce while it sought the perfect angle to attack its prey.
With one long stride, Ripper closed the distance between himself and Rage and snatched her by her arms so hard they would bruise, and shook her until she couldn’t focus on him. “Now kill him and be done with it!”
When her vision cleared, Rage twisted and looked back at Caden. Even though he’d backed off almost twenty feet, she could still see his stunning too-blue eyes locked on her, stealing her anger. Just the thought of combing her fingers through his honey brown hair made her weak with desire. Having him so close, so real, destroyed her. He’d been easy to hate as a memory. Faced with the flesh and bone of him, she couldn’t bring herself to take his blood. Even knowing the punishment would be harsh, she whispered, “No.”
Ripper shoved her back roughly and tossed his hands up in frustration. “Can no one explain this woman to me?” He spun to Dean. “Can you?” Pointing to Shade, he shouted, “Can you?” Finally, to Caden he cried, “Can you?”
They all watched him with his tentative control on his anger, ready to descend on the first one of them to make a wrong move. Ripper arched back and roared at the moon. Rage cringed. She’d seen him pissed off before, but never this bad and never because of her. Finally he spun back around. “Fine!” he spat at them. “Shade, you kill him.”
A predatory grin that was as sexy as it was frightening crept over Shade’s face. His body coiled like a jungle cat as he prepared to pounce. In his black leather and tanned flesh, he even resembled the jaguar he moved like.
“No!” Rage dove to block him, even knowing she’d never reach them in time.
Caden tossed a canister and shielded his face as it exploded in a concussive blast of light and sound. For several seconds, Rage could see or hear nothing. When the night reappeared around her, she found herself on her knees holding her head. Just out of reach, Shade rolled on the ground, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms and cursing with some of the foulest language she’d ever heard.
As the wisps of smoke cleared, she saw Ripper land on Caden farther down the alley, knocking him to the ground. He’d kill Caden before she could reach them. Rage felt her joints lock up with terror for him. Her heart clenched so viciously, she thought it might never beat again.
Dean lifted Rage under the arms and propelled her ahead of him until they were both racing down the alley. His hand never left her elbow, making sure she didn’t fall behind as she ran in her heels. When she glanced up at him, the amusement was completely gone and something else replaced it.
Something akin to fear.
With strength more than ten times that of a human, Ripper unleashed the full might of his Kinsman power on Caden. Grabbing the human by his flak jacket, Ripper flung him into the brick building with enough force to topple a semi truck. Caden bounced off and collapsed to the ground, not moving. He wasn’t dead yet though. Her vampire hearing could still distinguish the liquid-rushing sound of his heart beating.
Descending on Caden, Ripper clawed at him as if trying to live up to his name. The flak jacket blocked most of the killing strikes, but with each new slash the protection disintegrated.
“Don’t kill him!” Dean grabbed Ripper in a bear hug that clamped his arms to his side. “Give Rage her revenge.”
“What?” Ripper jerked out with an elbow that caught Dean in the ribs with force enough to make his bones crack audibly, and propelled him backward through the air. Dean landed heavily on his backside.
Clenching his side, Dean struggled to breathe. “Rage,” he gasped. “Give her a few days to warm up to the idea.”
Ripper snatched Dean by the front of his muscle shirt and slammed him into the wall. If Dean hadn’t
flinched
his head forward, he would have had it knocked off by the impact. “What are you saying?” Ripper snarled.
Cringing in pain, Dean submissively averted his gaze. “You know she wants to kill him herself,” he panted. “You just surprised her. She needs to build up to the moment.”
Rage gaped at Dean, trying to fathom what the hell he thought he was doing. Coming between a Kinsman and his kill, was he insane?
The pain on Dean’s face eased fractionally as he glanced at her. A shadow of his usual indomitable smile showed as he continued. “Like sex, a woman needs some foreplay to warm up to a major grudge kill. Lock him up in the cellar. Let her talk to him for a day or two. She’ll remember why she vowed to hang him with his own tongue.”
Ripper scowled at Dean and then Rage, obviously debating what he heard. Finally, he released his Offspring.
“Besides,” Dean slumped down to sit on the grimy, oily asphalt where he struggled to catch his breath and talk at the same time, “if she still won’t kill him, you can present an actual executioner as the main course at the rave this weekend.” Laughing, and then moaning as he clutched his ribs again, Dean continued. “The clan Offspring will get a real kick out of it.”
Shade, having recovered, walked up to them. Minor flash burns and soot marred the perfection of his face. With a wash and a few days to heal, the marks would be gone, but at the moment he practically exuded volcanic hatred as he stood over Caden, waiting for permission to disembowel him. He breathed through his mouth, tasting the scent of Caden’s spilled blood.