“Barrett, we both know that business comes before personal in our world,” I countered in a gentle yet firm voice. With four lycans spread out before me, I wasn’t sure I could keep them all at bay. “The secret comes before personal vendettas.”

“I’ll not let you tie my hands like this!” Barrett took a step closer to me, and the other werewolves closed in as well. The air seemed to shimmer with power. They wouldn’t bother to shift, but they would call on whatever energy they had at their disposal to take me down and get to the human.

Slowly walk over to the man and get him to his feet, I directed Knox telepathically.

“I need your patience. This man owes me answers. He may have killed Bryce and I think he attempted to kill Knox and me earlier tonight.”

“No!” The sound was more of a snarl than actual English, but I got the point and so did his compatriots. They all thought I was going to kill the human because he potentially attacked me first. It would be my right, and Barrett was pissed because his sister’s slight would never be properly avenged. But, no, I didn’t plan on killing the human. I had a much better idea in mind.

As the werewolves lurched forward, I threw out my hands to my sides, creating a semicircle of fire between me and the lycans. It wouldn’t stop them for long, but I needed only a few seconds.

Get him out of here, I ordered Knox. I’ll catch up.

I heard the man groan once and then there was only the soft whisper of fabric. Knox had lifted up the human and run to a safer location. I didn’t need to tell him to be careful. My main concern was the man doing something stupid to anger Knox, who could kill him before I’d had my chance to question the Coalition flunky.

The moment I felt that Knox was a few blocks away, I lowered and extinguished the flames. The lycanthropes didn’t hesitate. I narrowly dodged one fist flying toward my face and answered by slamming the heel of my palm into his solar plexus. The air exploded from his lungs, dropping him to his knees as he gasped for air. Balanced on the balls of my feet, I spun to my left and ducked down as another charged. I landed two blows and dodged one before I finally sent him flying across the parking lot.

The third stood back, his body hunched over as he struggled to find a way to take me down when his two companions so quickly failed. Barrett also remained in the background, his large hands clenched into fists. He was still smart enough to know that if he attacked me it could cause an all-out war between the shifters and the vampires in my domain. For now, this was just a little scuffle and I was simply defending myself.

I was shaky on my feet and there was a fine trembling in my fingers, but the rest in the car had given me the strength I needed to face off against Barrett if it came down to it. “I won’t kill him, Barrett,” I called out, my eyes locked on the one lycanthrope besides the Alpha that was still standing. “I need answers, and that man dead won’t help me get those answers.”

“Mira—”

“You can have him back when I’m done, I promise.”

“Are you serious?” The hardened edge had left his voice—he seemed surprised by my offer. The change in tone was enough to get his people to give me a little more space.

“Dead serious.”

“Leave us.” Without another word, the three werewolves filed out of the parking lot and back into the restaurant, closing the door behind them. The power that had flooded the small parking lot instantly left with the light breeze that blew through, shifting the leaves in the nearby trees. “He tried to kill you?” Barrett said once we were alone.

“He’s not the only one.”

“We didn’t—”

I knew what he was about to say and I cut him off. “He’s not the only one who’s tried to kill me tonight and he won’t be the last. There’s always someone trying to kill me. It’s the world we live in.”

“Your world, not mine,” Barrett corrected.

I smiled at him as I walked over to my car. “I’ll contact you when I’m done with the human,” I said, then drove off before he could say anything further. Whether Barrett wanted to admit it or not, we lived in the same world, with rules that threatened to choke those that could not accept it. I loved this world and its tight boundaries. Finding ways to manipulate the system we all lived in was one of the few things that still got the blood pumping in my veins, so to speak.

7

I located Knox at a warehouse a few blocks away from Bella Luna. It seemed as if he was reluctant to stray too far considering I had been outnumbered by a group of angry lycanthropes. But then, Knox still had a touching tendency to underestimate me.

After my car was properly stowed, I joined him in the nearly empty warehouse with the Daylight Coalition member. The dark-haired man paced the open area, his eyes never straying long from Knox as he looked for possible exit routes.

“There are two doors on the ground floor and a third on the second floor that leads to the roof,” I announced as I soundlessly walked across the main floor. I knew the warehouse because I owned it. It was kept empty for meetings just like this one.

The overhead lights remained out, but patches of light spilled through dirty windows into the gritty expanse filled with large crates and warped wooden pallets. I stepped into a square of light and stayed there so Franklin could see me clearly. “But you won’t make it to any of those exits unless I want you to.”

“Why’d you kidnap me?” he demanded in a harsh, ugly voice. His accent didn’t contain any of the soft Southern drawl that I had become accustomed to when dealing with humans. He was from somewhere up north originally.

“Kidnap you? I think you mean saved your sorry ass.” Knox laughed deeply, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his torn jeans as he leaned against the wall. “You threaten the sister of the owner of Bella Luna, and you expect to walk out with your balls still attached? Very unlikely, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend!” he raged, taking one step closer to Knox before backing off again.

“I know what you are!” Franklin shouted. He paced toward me as if his courage had returned for a second before it left him and he paced away. “You’re a vampire.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to deny it, but I let the comment pass. If he was the one that blew up Bryce’s house, then he mostly likely saw me at the house seconds before it exploded, and now I stood unharmed before him. Was there a better explanation than the fact that I was a nightwalker? Well, none that would make any sense.

“And you’re a member of the Daylight Coalition,” I said with a light shrug of my shoulders. He honestly seemed shocked by my sudden pronouncement. He stumbled backward a couple steps and shook his head, causing me to laugh. “You know about us, but do you honestly think we wouldn’t know about you?”

I stopped laughing suddenly, letting the silence overwhelm him before I started speaking again. “You kill nightwalkers. This morning, you killed one by the name of Bryce at the edge of town. He was tall, slender, with brown hair and freckles. He looked like he was nineteen. You killed him and made sure the body was left in a spot where the sunlight could reach it.” As I spoke, I watched the memories playing back in his mind like a silent movie. In a slightly broken jumble, I saw Franklin drag Bryce’s unconscious body up from the basement. With an enormous knife, he sawed opened the nightwalker’s chest and cut out the heart. He then removed the head. The whole time, Franklin was grinning as he was washed in Bryce’s blood.

Bryce had been asleep and completely helpless when the human struck just after sunrise. Nothing in heaven or earth could have wakened him. Some would argue that at least he felt no pain. But he also had no chance to fight back. No chance to fight for his right to exist.