Sinister Pretty (Alexa O'Brien Huntress Book 11) Read online

  Otis shrugged, regarding me with calm brown eyes. “We’ve got a damn good thing going here. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Straight up, no nonsense. How refreshing to hear someone show some gratitude for putting my neck on the line. Too easily we “creature of the night” types grew complacent. There was danger in the laziness of self-satisfaction. Dayne paid the price for that.

  “Unfortunately, Otis, not everyone feels that way. They see me as more of a threat than the FPA.” The government op had a way of monitoring the city without making their presence felt. They moved among us, watching, gathering, and testing. So often we viewed humans as prey, forgetting that they were monsters in their own right.

  “I see you as the one person who might actually be able to maintain the status quo. The rest of them will too, but not until it’s too late.” Otis shook his head.

  He sounded so convincing I almost believed him. My trust had to be earned and then proven again and again, so I remained skeptical.

  The Feds were up to something. Snatching Echo off the street made them unpredictable. Combined with the recent raid on Doghead, I couldn’t help but worry. Shit was coming down the wire, which meant it was only a matter of time until it ended up on my doorstep.

  Perhaps the time had come to pay Agent Briggs a little visit. He had to know something.

  “Tell me exactly what you saw,” I said. “And don’t leave anything out.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shya’s house loomed against the night. I hadn’t been back there since Halloween. Even though I knew he wouldn’t be there, my skin still crawled.

  Agent Thomas Briggs, however, would be inside. Currently he played the role of my prisoner, so to speak. Not because I enjoyed having a captive but because letting him go didn’t feel like the right thing to do. He wasn’t a pet though, so I couldn’t keep him forever. Gabriel had been staying at the house with him, and I knew the moody teen was tiring of the duty.

  I let myself in, grimacing at the skin-sucking sensation that gripped me as I crossed the threshold. Gabriel had spelled the house to keep Briggs inside. The kid had proved handy to have around. For now. At some point he would make me sorry I’d let him live.

  “Briggs?” My voice echoed in the foyer. I paused to kick off my snow-covered boots on the thick entryway rug.

  “Please tell me you’ve come to your senses, O’Brien. I’m rotting away here.”

  I found Briggs sprawled on the couch in the living room with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other. The scent of alcohol clouded him. Couldn’t say I blamed him. There wasn’t much to do when held prisoner in a demon’s swanky modern home.

  “Where’s Gabriel?” I could feel his presence though I couldn’t see him.

  Briggs flung a hand toward the catwalk that overlooked the main floor from the second floor. “Up there somewhere. What are you doing here? You’re interrupting my eighth episode of Game of Thrones today.”

  “Are you serious? We’ve got to get the books for you. Too much TV will rot your brain.” Feeling uneasy in the demon’s house, I perched on the edge of a deceptively soft armchair.

  Briggs watched with a frown as I struggled to keep from being absorbed by the chair. “It’s too late for that. Can I please just fucking go home?”

  “Soon,” I said. “I need your help first.”

  “Is that so?” Dark eyes filled with abhorrence, he scowled between swigs of beer. “Well, by all means, tell me what I can do for you.”

  His animosity was understandable. I’d felt the same for him when he’d locked me up, knocked me out, swiped my blood, and sent a video of Falon and me to my inner circle. It was pretty safe to say that Briggs and I would never be friends.

  “Don’t be like that. You haven’t exactly been horribly abused or anything.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Someone saw the Feds abduct a vampire off the street tonight. Just weeks after the raid on Doghead. What’s going on? You must know something.”

  Briggs continued to swig from the beer bottle, his gaze unwavering. “Sounds like my disappearance has created a sense of urgency. They’re moving to secure the city. Targeting those they deem most dangerous. Trying to thin the herd so to speak.”

  “So this is all about you?” I laughed. “Need I remind you that your own people want to kill you? They wouldn’t even bargain for you.”

  The FPA had shot down my offer to trade Briggs for Dayne. Briggs’s current replacement, Agent Winston, told me straight up that they would probably kill Briggs if they got him back. His time with Shya made him a liability.

  “A federal agent was abducted, O’Brien. We tend to take that shit seriously.” His lip curled up in a silent snarl. “I hope they wipe out every last one of you.”

  “Ouch, Briggs. You’re a mean drunk.” I settled back into the aggressively soft chair and pinned him with a vicious stare. “Careful what you wish for. If they take Gabriel out so he never comes back for you, you’ll be trapped in here until you starve to death.”

  That gave him pause. Brow furrowed, his expression grew grave. “What do you want from me, O’Brien?”

  “I want you to get me into that building,” I said, expecting resistance.

  We stared at one another, me with feigned patience and him with blatant disgust.

  “You’re asking me to go against every oath I took to serve humanity and my government. I’m a man of my word, O’Brien. I can’t do that.” Briggs shoved to his feet and ambled into the kitchen where he deposited the empty bottle with a cluster of others before grabbing a full one from the fridge.

  Unable to win the battle with the ridiculous chair, I rose as well. “Then I can’t let you go.”

  It was a challenge he couldn’t rise to. Not here, stripped of his government status and weaponry. Briggs held no authority. We both knew it, though I’d hoped we could do this without me having to throw it in his face.

  “So that’s how you want to do this? I help you or I die. Spoken like the monster you claim not to be.” He flicked the bottle cap into the garbage and leaned on the kitchen counter. His eyes were bloodshot, and the slightest slur edged his words.

  “If I was half the monster you wish I was, I would have left you to die on Halloween. You can’t accept that I don’t fit this cookie cutter image you’ve given us, and it just kills you, doesn’t it?” I flung the truth like a weapon, satisfied that my verbal attack would sting.

  Briggs stiffened. Jaw hard set and shoulders squared, he began to laugh. A long, bitter laugh. It went on so long I thought him surely too drunk to have this conversation.

  “You’re insane, you know that?” He slammed a fist on the counter top as if he’d just heard the world’s most fucked up joke. “Choosing not to kill me that night doesn’t make you any less of a murderer.”

  “I guess you know everything about me,” I said coolly. “I could have just mind fucked you into doing what I want, but I respected you enough to come here and give you a choice. And I guess you’ve made it. Enjoy your show.”

  With a nod toward the TV, I turned to go. Briggs knew how to play the game, as did I. He would either play, or he would stay here and waste away until Gabriel finally drained him dry.

  His laughter died by the time I reached the foyer. “You’re a real ball buster, O’Brien. I respect that. And I want to get the hell out of here. But I can’t compromise my integrity. Not for you. The only way I’d help you is if you mind fucked me into it.”

  I smiled to myself, hiding it from sight when I turned back to face him. “I can arrange for that. I know how much your honor means to you.”

  “Oh, fuck off.”

  I did chuckle then, pleased with his resistance. A challenge could be amusing. “Don’t tempt me, Briggs. I haven’t bled anyone tonight, and that kind of talk reminds me that you taste pretty damn good.”

  Showing a feisty side I didn’t see often, Briggs flipped me the middle finger and made the beer in his hand a priority. As long as he stayed here, he’d be safe.
Relatively. Once… no, if I let him go, his own people would come for him. It seemed to be the scenario he preferred.

  “Can you just kill me and get it over with then? If I have to experience your succubus touch again, I might just have to kill myself.” A visible shudder shook Briggs.

  Gabriel appeared at the top of the stairs, phone pressed to his ear. “Then there you go. The magic speaks the truth. If you want to chase this any further, you’ll have to put it to the test. I’ve got to go, guys. Sorry.” He stuffed the phone in his back pocket as he descended and gave a little two-fingered wave. “Hey, Alexa. What brings you by? Please tell me it’s to take him off my hands.”

  “No such luck,” Briggs grumbled. “We’re still roommates.”

  “Balls.” Gabriel plopped down on the couch. His dark, watchful gaze slid from Briggs to me. “So? What’s up?”

  “The short version is that the FPA grabbed Echo off the street tonight. Tomorrow night I meet with Doghead’s Alpha to discuss a plan to go into FPA HQ and spring the wolves. Without Briggs’s help, of course, because he’s too self righteous to do the right thing.” I ignored the curses Briggs muttered at me beneath his breath.

  “Count me in,” Gabriel said, shoving long black hair out of his face. “I can help with that.”

  He managed to be one of the most intriguing people I knew. On one hand, he was such a typical teen: awkward, moody, and unpredictable. On the other hand, he was unlike any teen I’d ever known. Gabriel possessed an uncanny cleverness that, when paired with his abilities, made him potentially unstoppable. I wanted so badly for Hurst to be wrong about him.

  I had no intention of allowing the kid inside the FPA building. He was a black magic practitioner with the blood of the most powerful vampire in the city running through his veins. The evil in that place would have a blast manipulating him.

  “I’ll keep you posted. For now, keep him here and keep him alive.” I jerked a thumb at Briggs who scowled.

  Like the teenager he was and always would appear to be, Gabriel affected a moody grimace and crossed his arms. “Will do.”

  * * * *

  Blood stained the photograph in my hand. My fingers were sticky with it. I stared at the smiling faces of two young children, waiting to feel something.

  A blissful numb fogged my head. Caught up in the high of my kill, all I felt was euphoria. But reality lurked on the edges of the illusion, ready to slam into me with enough force to rattle my teeth.

  Leaning against a barren tree in the middle of a park long dead for the winter, I flipped through my victim’s wallet. I shouldn’t have. I had no need to humanize him. Not with his cooling corpse beside me on the snow-covered grass. Although I did my best to choose victims who wouldn’t be missed, there were still times when I just snapped, unleashing the bloodlust on whoever happened to be unlucky enough to cross my path.

  Now I stared at a picture of his kids and waited for my bubble to burst.

  While the rush of the kill raced through me, sweeping me up in a dizzying whirlwind of pleasure, I swept the hair out of my eyes and stuffed the photo back into the wallet.

  My gaze dropped to the man at my feet. He’d put up a hell of a fight. Just the way I preferred it. Too bad he couldn’t meet all of my needs. Nobody could. No one victim could sate all my desires: sex, power, violence, blood. Humans offered me blood and death. Shaz offered me blood and sex. Falon offered me sex, power, and violence, but his blood was too dangerous to take more than a taste. Arys offered me almost all of it: blood, sex, violence, and power, but he was nobody’s victim. Not even mine. Once perhaps. Though that had been necessary for us to heal and move past my death at his hand.

  The older vampires in my bloodline had found a way to balance these desires. I had yet to do that. Had Gabriel? I often wondered how he was adapting. Better than me, I suspected.

  Lingering after a kill while the Feds were abducting vampires probably wasn’t the smartest decision. In the bliss moment, I just didn’t give a shit. About anyone or anything. Nothing existed but this moment. Of course, if they ruined it by coming for me, there would be slaughter and mayhem.

  Making the mistake of forgetting the FPA was a threat would be foolishness. In some way I’d feared them right from the start. A federal organization run by each country it occupied, even I couldn’t laugh off the gargantuan international operation. Not only were they hunting us, they were doing terrible things to us. Torment and experimentation. I didn’t know how bad it got, but I knew without a doubt that it must be worse than I could let myself imagine.

  When my mind began its descent back to Earth, I dropped the wallet and shoved away from the tree. Guilt didn’t bitch slap me; it seemed to fade a little each time. Still I thought, There has to be another way.

  Taking carefully calculated steps, I made my way through the park in silence. My thoughts strayed to Rachel. Our time together had been brief. There was so much I didn’t know about her and Ozzie, her twin flame. One thing she’d said had stuck with me, and I found myself going back to it often.

  Arys had asked her how she managed to keep her shit together when her lighter half had lost his mind. Rachel had confessed to working as an assassin. She’d specifically said she killed people in order to save others. That was how she maintained the balance that kept her sane. Until she didn’t. And then she killed Ozzie and herself.

  Rachel hadn’t been willing to tell us who employed her, but maybe it didn’t matter. Except I couldn’t stop wracking my brain trying to figure out if perhaps Rachel’s method had postponed her madness. Could it postpone mine?

  Without a glance back, I left another victim in my wake. I couldn’t go on like this. As both a protector and predator of mankind, I’d become my own worst enemy.

  Something had to change.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Home. There was no place like it. As soon as I stepped through the front door, the scent of leopard and wolf mingling in a cocktail of predatory aromas greeted me.

  Jez wasn’t there. According to the text she’d sent, she was still at The Kiss with Wendi. Which made the pile of dirty dishes she left in the sink my problem. After depositing my things on the couch, I snarled and grumbled my way through loading the dishwasher.

  “Freakin’ lazy ass leopard. I can’t even eat pizza. Why the hell am I scraping it off this tray?”

  I crammed the tray into the dishwasher and reached into the sink for the next filthy item. As much as I adored Jez, I didn’t love her neglect of household chores. If she thought she was going to escape the reading of the riot act when she got back, she was going to be surprised.

  The sound of Shaz’s car in the driveway brought a smile to my face. I hadn’t expected him for a while yet. I didn’t know if Arys would be by. He seemed to be up to no good when last I saw him. I didn’t even want to know. We should have hunted together. Arys wanted it. I found it awkward. Intimidating. If I could just let go of my hang-ups, I might find that hunting with my dark vampire would feed all my needs.

  Those thoughts fled with the opening of the front door. I glanced up with a smile, always happy to see my white wolf.

  “Hey, babe.” I took in the sight of Shaz’s bruised, bleeding face, and my jaw dropped. “What happened?”

  Blood stained his bottom lip an inviting shade of crimson. A dark-purple bruise decorated his nose and spread out beneath one eye. A few other nicks, cuts, and bruises marred his handsome face. Those enchanting green eyes stood out in stark contrast to his injuries. Whoever did this to him had to have gotten it as bad as they dished it out.

  “Why do you ask like that? A good time was had by all. Nothing else to tell.” With a mischievous grin, he strode down the hall toward me, looking very much like a man up to no good.

  He grabbed the dirty plate out of my hand and put it on the counter before planting a heated kiss on me. His hands on my hips were aggressive and warm. A jolt of excitement tickled my insides, and I slid my arms around his neck, kissing him back. Encouraged by my re
sponse, Shaz backed me up against the wall with enough force to squeeze a squeak out of me.

  “Oh my. Only one thing better than fighting, huh?” I teased.

  A good fight could be the perfect foreplay for an even better intimate encounter. The wolf thrummed strong beneath his skin. Both man and beast oozed a feral need to dominate.

  “You know it. Jez isn’t here, is she?” His hands on my hips were possessive, holding me pinned between the wall and his body.

  “No, she’s with Wendi. If she were here, I wouldn’t be doing her dirty dishes.”

  I’d barely gotten the last word out before Shaz had stripped me of my pants. He jerked them down and dropped to his knees to press his face between my legs before I could ask whose fist he’d gotten acquainted with tonight.

  “Right down to business then?” I gasped, my breath hitching as the flames of arousal ignited.

  “Is that a problem?” he asked without waiting for my reply.

  “No. Not at all.” A sigh slipped from my lips.

  Without wasting even a second, Shaz tugged my underwear aside. The soft touch of his tongue followed, and my knees weakened.

  My hands splayed against the wall on either side of me but found nothing to hold onto. I grabbed a handful of his platinum hair to center myself so I wouldn’t melt into a puddle on the floor.

  Shaz didn’t play around with a slow build up. There was no gentleness in the way he devoured me. With raw, primal desire, he licked me until I quaked with the effort it took to stay on my feet.

  Just as I neared that crucial stride that led to orgasmic joy, he stopped.

  He stopped? “Don’t leave me hanging here, Shaz.” A glare might have accompanied that suggestion.

  His grin was downright evil. Seeing as he’d been on the receiving end of a little teasing torment, I couldn’t complain. When he didn’t waste time getting my underwear off me, I was quick to forgive.

  “I want to be inside you when you come. I need it.” Shaz shoved his jeans down and lifted me in his arms.