“Mikal, this had better be happening,” Kalen growled as Mikal lifted his fist to hammer on the door of the tattoo shop. This early in the morning, the place was closed and locked. All the lights were out as were those in all the shops along the row. He looked around, noting the businesses. All human, it wasn’t the most salubrious of areas. “Because if this was just one of your booty calls and this woman can’t help us… I’ll gut you myself for wasting time.”

The group of warriors clustered behind Kalen growled in agreement, Marak and Feral chief among them. Thanks to Mikal’s call they’d found a rescue team up and ready to go as soon as they’d arrived at the compound, including the big warrior king.

The group also contained a pixie, held in the iron grip of two warriors in the middle. Barely conscious, it had only taken a little “persuasion” from a couple of them for him to spill the beans about where Vixen had been taken—the Lysander Clan barrow. The trouble was, pixie barrows were a part of Faery. The kyn might be many, many things, but fae was not one of them. To get in, they would need some help.

“She’s a warden, I swear.” Mikal hammered on the door again. “And she owes me a favor.”

“Really?” Kalen’s eyebrow winged up at that, his arms folded over his chest. A warden working outside one of their havens was practically unheard of. “More like she’s a hedgewitch with a few fancy tricks up her sleeve.”

A light snapped on and a window above their heads was shoved open. “I heard that, vampire,” a cool female voice snapped. “I should turn you into a frog for that, but it’s late and I’m tired.”

The warriors all looked up to see a young woman framed in the window, long dark hair cascading around her shoulders and a pissed off look on her face as she peered down at them. Her gaze latched onto Mikal and irritation crossed her features.

“Mikal, what the fuck do you want? I thought I told to stop coming round here and pestering my customers.”

Kalen groaned softly. Great. It looked like Mikal had pissed off his little girlfriend here, just like he did with everyone else.

“Well,” the grinning warrior drawled, his manner easy and charming as he looked up at the warden-woman, “technically, there are no customers here at the moment.”

“Asshole.” She moved to shut the window but Marak stepped forward.

“I apologize unreservedly for any offense or insult my warrior might have offered you, and for waking you at this time of night.” His deep voice filled the darkness. “I am Marak, and I… we… need your help. One of ours, a warrioress, was taken by pixies in the city and we need help to get her back.”

The window was shoved open again, and the warden looked out, her expression curious. “Marak as in the vampire king? That Marak?”

The smallest smile flirted with the corners of Marak’s lips. “Yes, indeed. That Marak.”

“He’s pretended to be me before though,” Mikal muttered to the side, studying his nails. Behind him, Feral cuffed him on the back of the head. Mikal hissed, rubbing his head as he shot a glance behind him at the bigger warrior.

“Well, that puts a different slant on things.” The warden leaned out the window, her attention on Marak. “You said she… a female warrior. You mean Vixen?”

At the start of surprise that rolled through the group of warriors, she smiled. “Oh come on, you guys admit a woman after years of being an all-boys club and you don’t think people notice? She’s like… an urban legend for girl power. I’m in. Besides, I don’t like pixies. They’re assholes. Which barrow are we breaking into?”

“The Lysander barrow—”

She spat before Kalen could finish the sentence. “That bunch of wankers? I’d be in even if it wasn’t Vixen…” A glow formed around her hand as she traced a symbol in the air. In front of them, the lock on the door glowed in response and then clicked open. “Make yourselves at home. I’ll be down in a moment.”

Kalen crowded into the small shop just after Marak, irritation at the delay surging through him. Every cell in his body urged him to leave, to cross the city and storm the pixie barrow, using his swords to batter through the doors and rescue his woman.

His woman.

The thought made him pause for a moment and he frowned. No, she was his woman. She’d become his when she’d surrendered her body to him up against the wall of the changing room. When she’d sighed into his kiss and ridden his cock. When she’d brought him to an ecstasy he’d never known before and come screaming his name.

“She’s an ink-warden?” Marak’s voice brought him back to the present. He looked around, for the first time registering the artwork on the walls. He’d been in a few tattoo parlors in his time, and this one was set up like the ones he’d seen, with one exception.

His kyn enhanced vision easily picked out the sigils and wards covering the doors and windows. Behind the desk a large display marked “special order only” contained the kind of artwork that had less to do with body modification and more to do with magical combat. The sort of tattoo you needed a particular skill set to even tolerate on your skin, never mind actually use.

“She is.” Mikal confirmed quietly, all traces of the cock-sure bad boy gone, leaving just the professionalism of a warrior. “Why do you think I’ve been keeping tabs on her? We could do with an ink-warden on our side.”

Kalen nodded. They could. Wardens were hellishly powerful spell casters, but ink-wardens were more than that. They could cast spells in ink for others to use repeatedly.

“That and he’s been trying to get into my pants for months,” a feminine voice cut in as the warden joined them. Looping a bag crosswise over her body, she looked up at Marak.

“Come on then, Your Highness. Let’s go kick some pixie ass.”

* * *

Vixen woke in a heartbeat, drawing in a ragged breath as the memory of pain, sharp and sudden, surged through her. The bastard had shocked her. Not all Kyn were susceptible to the weapon, just some. Feral was one of the few that Tasers did not affect, but she wasn’t.

Facts connected in her fuzzy brain. That street was on the regular patrol route she and Feral took, and they’d been carrying Tasers. Which meant the pixies had been expecting kyn, but why? Why would a bunch of pixies be looking for two kyn?

All this crossed her mind in the spilt second before she opened her eyes and looked up to focus on the ceiling. She frowned. The surface above her was fabric. A second later, she realized it wasn’t the ceiling, but the canopy of an old-style, four-poster bed. She sat up in a bolt of movement, looking around for Feral. Where was he? Was he ok? What had the pixies done with him? With her out of the picture, he would have been easily overwhelmed…

He wasn’t here. Not in the room with her, anyway. Worried, she bit down on her lower lip with her teeth, fangs safely retracted, as images of his beaten and bloody body lying in an alley someplace filled her mind. Worry rose. If he didn’t wake before sunrise…

Shit. She needed to find him and make sure he was okay. Her gaze swept the room. The bed wasn’t the only piece of furniture that was from a different era. The whole place was furnished with the ornate elegance of a bygone era. Heavy dressers and wardrobes matched the bed surrounding her. If Vixen hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn she’d been transported back in time.

“I wondered when you’d rejoin us. How are you feeling?” a smooth voice asked from the other side of the room.

Having assumed she was on her own, Vixen jumped a little, turning to yank the half-drawn bed curtain out of the way.

Lounging comfortably in an old-fashioned armchair by a large fireplace was a pixie. Unlike those from the alley, he wasn’t dressed like a punk. His lilac hair was shoulder length rather than cropped and spiked, and instead of the multiple piercings most pixies had, she saw only one, a small stud in his ear. Given the period feel of the room, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him in skin-tight breeches and a frilled shirt. But instead, he wore blue jeans and a black shirt. Although simple, Vixen was shrewd enough to realize it was simple that came with a price tag. Suddenly, she felt grubby in her plain shirt and leathers.

“Me?” she replied. “Oh, not too bad. Just a nagging pain in my side, you know? Like some asshole shot me with a Taser, pumped a couple of thousand volts of electricity through my body before I hit the deck… oh, wait, that really happened.” Sarcasm colored her voice as she slid off the bed on the opposite side to watch him. “Who the hell are you and what did you do with Feral?”

She wasn’t at all fooled by his pleasant, nonthreatening demeanor. Pixies were violent bastards, rising through the pack with brutal challenge fights or otherwise killing off anyone who stood in their way. Legitimate match, or just having your opponent disappear, it was all the same to a pixie. As long as the disappearance couldn’t be traced back, it was all cool.

From the elaborate tattoos on his hands and his forearms, this guy was a hell of a lot further up the ladder than the leader of the little band that had waylaid them in the alley. Which meant he was someone she didn’t need to piss off, or get taken in by. Gaze still on him, she did a quick mental inventory.

Her weaponry was gone. No surprise there. Knocking out and kidnapping a warrior was a dangerous undertaking. There was only one result when they woke—pissed off.

He had the grace to wince at her comment. “I apologize for that. Soran is still young and has a slightly different interpretation of the word ‘persuade.’ Rest assured, he is being educated in the error of his ways. To answer your question, my name is Markus Lysander, and your friend is perfectly fine, at least he will be. Just a little bruised around the edges and will wake up with only a headache, I assure you.”

Vixen didn’t answer for a moment, watching him impassively as relief flooded through her. There was no way to know if he told the truth or not. Pixies were known liars.

“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for him? The bastard shot me with a Taser. I hope you damn well crucified him.” She stalked around the bed toward him, her movements angry as unblinking eyes fixed on him. Pixies were dangerous but so were kyn, especially warriors, and none more so than pissed off warrior bitches.

“So, handsome...” she began, “you sent your bully boys down to ‘persuade’ me. Since I’m here, and you’re still breathing, I’d say you got my attention.”

Whatever game he played, she’d already had enough. She’d had enough of men and their damn “games” period. She stalked toward him, her long legs eating up the carpeted distance. Markus simply watched her, his lavender eyes dark as she placed a hand on the arm of the chair on either side of him.

“So… what do you want?” She leaned over him. “I warn you, I reached my bullshit limit before nine this evening,” she added as her breath fanned across his neck and stirred the pale strands of his hair.

Markus looked up at her, his body and attitude relaxed despite the tension swirling around them. She smiled, the barest hint of fangs at the corners of her lips pointing out how close to his throat she could get—a subtle reminder he might have taken all her blades away but she wasn’t unarmed, not by a long shot.

“You. I want you,” he stated bluntly, arching an eyebrow pointedly. She felt a light tapping on her thigh, right over her femoral artery. She looked down, surprised. She hadn’t felt him move. In his right hand he held a small blade that hadn’t been there before, pressed against the black leather that covered her thigh. It looked innocent until he twisted his hand slightly. A sickly green shadow moved over the metal. Not a reflection, but almost as if something moved under the metal.

A spelled blade.

Vixen went still. Normally, she would have shrugged off the threat of a blade. Sure, he could have cut her femoral artery, which would have been painful and given the room a whole new look. But, it would take her at least a minute to bleed out, and far less time than that to get fangs in his throat and replace the blood she’d lost. Pixie blood wasn’t her preferred type. Like most paranormal blood, it had a hell of a kick and left you with a rotten headache in the morning. However, with the choice of bleeding out or drinking pixie blood, she’d go with the headache.

Spelled blades were a different matter. They were dangerous. Created by dark magic, they could visit everything from true death right through to soul theft on their victims. Some were even created from souls stolen and trapped at the moment of death.

She looked back up, what he’d said registering. “Me? What do you mean you want me?” she asked.

He smiled, the expression in his eyes cold. “Wonderful device for focusing attention, don’t you think?” he asked, nodding toward the dagger in his hand. “I have two of them. This is the smaller one, Whisper—”

Vixen couldn’t help it. “So what’s the larger one? No, don’t tell me… Shout?”

His lips quirked, proving he had a sense of humor. “Actually, no, it’s called Midnight. They’re a matched pair.”

“So… Midnight Whisper? Sounds like a dodgy strip joint to me.” The amusement left her face. “You didn’t answer my question.”

He tapped her thigh again and Vixen obeyed the unspoken command, backing up a little to lounge one hip against a sideboard near the fireplace. She was happy to put some distance between them. That spelled blade made her as edgy as having her fangs within striking distance had obviously made him.

“No, I haven’t,” he replied, still watching her.

“You plan to? Or are we going to stare at each other all night?” she pressed, tilting her head to one side questioningly.

He laughed, a low chuckle that under any other circumstances would have been pleasing. Vixen had always had a thing for guys with nice laughs. It said good things about a man who laughed nicely, a genuine laugh that crinkled his eyes and everything.

That and a nice backside. She liked a good ass on a man. So, working where she did was a dream job, lots of lovely scenery daily. However, the fact he’d had her kidnapped negated any attraction his laugh, or his ass, might have held.

“Pushy, aren’t you?” he asked, his smile broad.

“Add impatient and violent to that and you’re bang on, sunshine.”

“And absolutely perfect. Just the qualities I’m looking for in a wife.”

This time it was Vixen’s turn to laugh.

“Well, don’t let anyone say you don’t have a sense of humor.” She wiped a tear of amusement from the corner of her eye with a knuckle before it dawned on her he wasn’t laughing. His amused look had faded into one of cold seriousness that sent chills down her spine. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“Nope, I’m dead serious,” he said, twirling the small blade in his fingers, the green shimmer flashing with each turn it made—a daring feat considering how dangerous it was. Even a small cut would visit whatever action the blade carried upon him. “Emphasis on the dead part.”

Vixen looked at him for a long moment, standing still as she considered his words. Her calm look concealed the wariness churning in her gut. “Okay. So I marry you, or you kill me?”

“Pretty much. After all, I went to a lot of trouble to get you here. Surely you don’t expect me to throw all that away just because you said no?”

“Might makes right?”

Her voice was light as she moved around the room and picked up objects at random to study them. Luck might be with her, and one of them would be heavy enough to knock him out with. The question was how she would get close enough to him again to do it. She sure as hell didn’t intend to get back within range of that blade without knowing what it did. Whatever it was, that sickly green sheen said it wouldn’t be good.

He nodded. “I’m so glad you understand, my dear. There’s also the loss of face to consider. And as warlord, you can understand I can’t allow that,” he said. “I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to this conversation at all. Only a fool would look forward to being locked in a room with an angry kyn.”

Vixen’s eyebrows winged up. Whatever else he was, she had to admit he had guts. She wouldn’t want to be shut in a room with an angry kyn, either. While his pixie heritage might have protected him from being turned into a vampire, it did nothing to protect him from being dead. Which led to another interesting point…

“So what’s stopping me marrying you and very quickly making myself a widow? Like, say, on the wedding night?” she asked with a grin, flashing her fangs to remind him.

“Have you ever seen a vampire defanged?” he asked conversationally. “It’s quite a simple procedure, but I’m told it’s intensely painful.”

She blinked as all the color leeched from her face. Chill fingers of fear tightened around her spine. Defanging, through accident or by design, was the worst thing that could happen to a kyn. As a punishment amongst them, it was rare, reserved only for the worst offenses. With no way to feed naturally, a defanged vampire would soon weaken and die unless a blood supply, something like a blood bank or the like, was established. More than that, as her encounter with Kalen earlier had proved, biting and being bitten was all part of the sensual experience of lovemaking.

“I see you get my point. Perhaps we don’t need to go quite that far though…” he said quietly, standing as someone hammered on the door. “Bloody imbeciles. I told them I didn’t want to be disturbed,” he snapped, striding over to the door and flinging it open to reveal the pixie from the alley earlier. “What?”

Sky blue eyes flicked from Markus to Vixen. “Boss, we got a problem. The Kyn are here.”

Markus’ voice was rough with irritation. “So? Why is this a problem? The barrow won’t let them in. We’re safe.”

“Umm, yeah. There’s a slight problem, boss. They brought a warden with them. They’re waiting for you.”