The wait at the border crossing was treacherously long. There was such a pileup that Belinda almost wished she could have camped out at some motel overnight and come back in the morning. The Guild had been very clear on the timeline they were expecting, though, so she had to get across that very day. Her motorcycle purred between her legs, helmet resting on the handlebars as she waited for her turn to cross.

“Can this take any longer?” she groaned.

Her partner, Bill Jetson or Johnson or something like that, yawned. He’d turned off his bike, just walking it every time they were able to inch forward. “Be patient, little sis. We’ll get there when we get there. No use in getting your panties in a bunch.”

Belinda wanted to snap at him not to call her that – as she wasn’t his sister and they had just barely met – but held her tongue. No use pissing off her partner before they even got to the dangerous stuff.

This was her first assassination. Up until this point, she’d been given live-capture assignments. The Guild, or, more formally, the Bounty Hunter Guild, had a special unit for kill bounties: The White Watch. This assignment was given to her to see if she could one day be part of the Watch. They hadn’t asked her if she wanted the position. She merely did as she was told.

If there was someone that needed to be found, then she was the one to call. Over the course of her life with the Guild, Belinda had proven to be the best. Assignments that were meant to be impossible were handed over to her and she got them done. The difference between her and the others wasn’t just her track record. She was the one with the most to prove, given how she had ended up in the Guild.

Still, assassinations . . . 

The line of vehicles moved and she inched forward with it. It was more than just the assassination itself that had her on edge. It was who the bounty was on: King Carlos, a vampire-fae who was thousands of years old. While most fae kept to themselves, except for the occasional celebrity, there were still free-standing kingdoms that acted as their own countries and had their own laws. Carlos ruled one of these small states. Which was why Belinda had to wait in the lineup between Oregon and Carlos’ kingdom.

Once she was at the crossing guard station, she handed over her papers and was waved through. Driving down the road a few hundred yards, she stopped to wait for Bill. The cocky man handed over his papers – and a light inside of the station turned red. Belinda tensed. She watched for two more minutes before she kicked her bike into gear and drove away. Glancing back once showed a couple of armed guards leaving the station.

Shit.

Bill had meant to be her guide over here. But the idiot had gone and gotten caught. If he managed to get out of this, he’d turn around and go right back for the Guild. He’d been compromised. If it had been her, she’d be dead for failing the assignment. But him? He was just the guide. He’d get off easy. It was her job to kill the king, not his.

She just hoped that he wasn’t so badly compromised that it would put her at risk, too.

Belinda drove steadily, making sure she stayed at a reasonable limit while not yielding to anybody else on the road. Several hours later, well away from the crossing, she stopped at a rest area to re-center herself. She gulped down a bottle of water and counted to ten.

“Okay, Greene,” she muttered to herself. “First things first. Get the stakes.”

It was too risky to bring weapons over from the other side of the border, so there was a cache she was meant to locate on this side. It’d have everything she needed to complete her mission. Stakes made of silver and iron, poisons, guns. Without Bill, she was going to have to adjust her strategy. The original plan was for him to create a distraction so she could sneak into the palace, kill the king, and get out before anybody was the wiser. But going at this alone . . . 

She pulled her cellphone from her pocket and called the Guild. As usual, there was no response. She left a brief rundown of what had happened on the answering machine. “I will proceed with the mission solo. Advise with further details if necessary.”

They’d call her if they were going to send backup. Chances were, they’d let her do it on her own, though. She worked better solo. Maybe this was all a test to see how well she did under the worst of conditions.

Vampires were among the deadliest of the fae. Demons were higher on the list, but only by so much. So not only did she have to kill someone, but it was an ancient being that had probably survived more assassination attempts than winters she’d seen. But then again . . . how much harder could it be to kill a vampire than kidnap one? She’d had those missions before. And it had to be easier to get only herself out of the palace once her job was done, rather than having to drag a kicking, screaming fae with her.

“Just get the mission done, Greene. Then that’s one less vampire sucking the blood out of the world.”

A rare twinge of guilt made her wince. Vampires weren’t all bad. She’d met a few that were quite nice. In fact, she had several friends in the Guild that were vampires or married to vampires. And when she researched her target, she’d concluded that King Carlos was a more gracious king than most fae rulers – or even human ones.

He had modernized his kingdom a great deal and offered a lot of free services to human citizens. Few people drove cars because transit in and between cities within the kingdom was free and efficient. Everything was solar-powered. The arts were encouraged. Education was free for everybody.

But in the Guild, it didn’t matter what she felt about the targets. Only that she obeyed and brought them in. Or, in this case, killed them.

The Guild was all that mattered.

***

After getting to the weapons cache and retrieving everything she could carry inconspicuously, Belinda headed for the capital city. It was a slight risk to stay on her bike, as the vehicle would draw attention to her, but she had covered it with emoji stickers and sewed all sorts of flags to her backpack, as well as slapping a great big maple leaf on her helmet. Anybody looking at her would think she was a tourist, which would help to dispel a bit of the curiosity.

It was close to midnight by the time she got to the city. The hours of driving left her stiff and the stress of the mission left her exhausted. When she saw a little bar with its lights on, she pulled into the parking lot. A quick bite to eat and then she would find a hostel to sleep at before casing out the palace in the morning.

She rolled her shoulders as she entered the bar, the spiked shoulders of her leather jacket feeling constrictive. When she pulled off her helmet, she ran her hand through her short black hair. The tight curls caught her fingers, but the coconut oil she’d used that morning still had it soft. With a sigh, she slipped into a booth.

It was only then that she realized that the other people in the bar were all looking at her strangely.

Belinda tensed as she glanced around. There were only a dozen people in the bar, but she could now see they weren’t the type of people she had first thought.

The woman in the far corner had purple-blue skin with curling goat’s horns sprouting from her hairline. The man with her had scales over his arms and face, and the four people ahead of them had pointed faces with hard shells over their backs. The nearest person to her, a man, had overly-large yellow eyes with slits for pupils. The bartender was covered with a fine layer of fur. Fae, all of them. And they did not look happy to see a human in their midst.

A barmaid, wearing an old-fashioned corset with skin was so pale it appeared to be painted, hurried over to her.

“I’ll take a menu,” Belinda grunted, trying to act as though everything was fine.

“You need to leave,” the barmaid whispered. “It’s the full moon.”

The full moon? Belinda glanced at the fae around her again. Mentally, she tallied them. A couple fairies. A few were-animals. And was that one a frost giant? They said the full moon did crazy things to the fae . . . Had she stumbled in on something that humans weren’t meant to see?

Belinda got to her feet. “I’ll just be on my way, then.”

She grabbed her helmet and turned to the door, only to find a fae with goat’s eyes and a forked flickering tongue blocking her way. The server backed away from her as the other fae in the bar started forward. The bartender grinned at her as he circled around the bar.

“Humans are always welcome here,” he said. There was a spur on the inside of his wrist. Probably poisoned. From the chittering way he spoke, he was a shifter of some sort. “We have a special menu just for your kind.”

The server twisted her hands. “Please—”

The bartender whipped a hand across her face.

Belinda didn’t even think about what her actions might cost her. She leaped forward, swinging her helmet towards the bartender’s face. It connected with his nose with a satisfying crunch. The server skittered off and Belinda smirked. It had been an awfully long time since she’d been in a proper brawl.

Another of the fae jumped in from behind and tried to grab her arms, but Belinda stomped on his instep, then elbowed him in the throat. One of the beetle-like faes came at her from the left, and with a sharp twist, she grabbed it and threw it into the other one trying to sneak in from the other side. The frost giant reached for her and she slid between its legs. She shoved her helmet onto her head as she did so and headbutted the fae that tried to grab her on the other side.

The bartender’s hand shot out. Belinda blocked it instinctively. The spur on his inner wrist grazed her skin, instantly making her feel woozy. As she staggered, the frost giant pinned both her arms to her sides in its steel grip. Belinda made a squeaking noise as it squeezed her.

“Not too tight,” the bartender chided. “Humans are worth far more if they’re not battered and bruised. Do you know how much we can get for her parts on the black market?”

Another of the fae snatched her helmet off her head and put it on its own. “Pretty lucky, huh? A human just happened to stumble in on the full moon?”

“Luck?” a deep, musical voice said from behind him. “I think not.”

A huge ax appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It sliced through the helmet on the fae’s head. The giant released Belinda as it gave a squeaking noise and fell. Behind the fallen fae stood the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Belinda stared with a hanging jaw as he whirled into the midst of the fae. Her head spun a little as she slumped into a chair. A small ax, decoratively trimmed in gold, was in his hand. A long dagger was in the other.

“Wow,” she cooed as the stranger punched the bartender’s face in.

She giggled when he skewered the two beetles with his dagger and clapped when the frost giant fell to its knees, begging to be spared. Sirens wailed in the distance, and suddenly, the stranger was right beside her. He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the door.

“Wait.” Belinda frowned. “I want to punch someone in the face, too.”

“That’s rather violent, don’t you think?”

Belinda pouted. “You got an ax. Why can’t I punch someone?”

The stranger chuckled as he put her on her bike. “You’d better leave. The police will be here soon and — shit!” His eyes were black. Like inkwells holding a million stories in their delightful depths. He grabbed her face and tilted it towards his own. She stretched to kiss him, but his hands were firm on her, stopping her from moving closer. “You’ve been poisoned.”

“Venom, not poison. The bartender has a spur on his wrist.” Belinda giggled again, showing her handsome rescuer the injury on her arm. “He scraped me with it. See? I’m bleeding. Hmm . . . Must be an anesthetic. Maybe even an opioid or something, because I’m feeling really, really happy . . . You’re beautiful.”

The stranger jumped onto the bike behind her, one arm wrapped tight around her waist while he used the other to steer. Soon, the wind was blowing through Belinda’s hair. She threw her hands into the air as she shouted with excitement.

“Weeeee! We’re flying!” She turned to nuzzle into her stranger’s neck. He smelled like pumpkin pie. Wanting to know if he tasted as good as he smelled, she licked his throat. She could feel his Adam’s apple bob and she licked again, this time giggling.

She knew she should be feeling worried. No matter what sort of venom that bartender had in his spur, she was in a bad situation. Brain not working properly. Heat flashing through her body. If she wasn’t careful, she’d wake up the next morning in bed next to a perfect stranger after having had sex she couldn’t remember . . . But she couldn’t make herself worry about anything. There were worse things than throwing herself all over a handsome guy, right?

Abruptly, they pulled over to the side of the road and into an alley. There, the stranger stopped the bike and stepped off. Belinda’s eyes widened as she watched him. Was he going to leave her?

He opened his mouth. Two long, pearly fangs flashed. She gasped. A vampire? Was he going to drink her blood? But those fangs didn’t come anywhere near her. Instead, they slashed into his own wrist and then it was being pressed against her mouth. Belinda choked and spluttered in protest.

“Drink.” His firm, commanding voice was not to be argued with. “It’ll reverse the effects of the poison.”

Venom, she thought, then drank.

***

The human drank only a little of his blood before throwing up. He made sure she took another couple of swallows before bandaging up his wrist and putting her back on the bike. This time, he drove faster since she wasn’t squirming around in his grasp. He quickly found a hotel and paid for a room. She woke up as he carried her to the room. By the time they got there, her eyes were open and clear. They were the most beautiful amber-brown he’d ever seen.

“Where are we?” she asked him once they were in the room.

“It’s a hotel.”

She rolled her eyes. Carlos liked that. It was one of the reasons he liked to take these late-night strolls out into the city. People never expected to see their king walking among them. For a few hours, he could pretend like he wasn’t the king. As though he didn’t have the crushing weight of that responsibility on him.

“I get that it’s a hotel, smartass. I meant to ask where we are.”

“It’s the Starlight Blinks hotel on fifty-third street. I’ll just patch up your war wounds and be on my way.”

He opened the first-aid kit he’d gotten from the front desk and gestured for her to sit. The human considered him for a moment before sitting on the bed. Her curly hair fell into her eyes as a smile widened over her lips.

“I’m glad to see you’re just as pretty in real life as you are when I’m drugged,” she cooed. “Thanks for the rescue, by the way. I could have handled them, but thanks.”

Carlos had to grin back at her as he turned her wrist over. Though drinking his blood would have helped heal her, it would have gone to combatting the poison in her system first. The scrape was clotted and had a greenish tinge to it. Nothing to worry about – not when magic was involved. He wiped it down and taped some gauze over it.

“I’m sure you had it covered.” He smiled at her as he gently began to probe her ribs and torso for any possible broken bones or bruising.

“Whoa there, handsy. If you’re going to start feeling me up, the least you could do is buy me dinner first.”

Carlos’ brows rose. Was that her normal reaction to life and death situations, or was she still suffering from the effects of the poison? No, it couldn’t be that. The effects would have been completely neutralized by then. Still . . . “I need to make sure you don’t have any internal injuries.”

“Well, then you should have a closer look.” She hooked her fingers under her shirt and pulled it up over her head.

Carlos couldn’t stop his gaze from dropping to her breasts. Bite-sized peaches. Yum. Her skin gleamed with a rose undertone. His hands coasted over her smooth abs and he had to bite back a moan.

She crooked a finger towards him and that was all he needed to drop over her, his mouth pressed to hers, the hunger devouring him.

***

An earthquake threw Belinda out of bed. She yelped as the weapons in her backpack clattered against one another. The shaking was over quickly. Belinda jumped to her feet to assess the state of her room. Everything was thrown here and there. Lamps were broken. Pillows were torn. The desk was half-broken. But the earthquake hadn’t done any of that – it had happened the previous night.

She groaned as the aches from her acrobatics the previous night hit her. Who knew that sex with a vampire would hit so hard? She couldn’t stop herself from grinning, though, as a glow overtook her body. It had been epic. It was a good thing she worked out as much as she did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to survive it.

It was too bad she didn’t have time to have more fun . . . He had left after their Olympics, anyway. It’d take her days to track him down again.

Belinda shook her head as she went on a hunt for her clothes. No, it was best to find the king, kill him and get the hell out of there. She’d never meet the vampire from the previous night again, so why bother to continue thinking about him?