“Giguhl!”

“Got my hands full,” he grunted. I looked over and saw him crouching under the busted window. Two bullets zinged over his horns. While the driver had been taken by surprise, the passenger was using Giguhl for target practice.

Time to end this shit. I banged a fist on the hood. “Come out with your hands up and no one else gets hurt.”

Two shots exploded from the back window. I cursed under my breath. Looked like we had ourselves a regular Mexican standoff until someone ran out of bullets.

“Sabina?” I barely heard Giguhl over the constant barrage of gunfire.

“What?”

“If I create a distraction, can you take this guy out?”

I nodded. “Be careful.”

His black lips spread into a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

He held up a claw. He counted down from three with his talons. On one, he leapt up onto the roof of the car and began rocking it side to side. I jumped toward the open window. The vamp’s attention was on the ceiling of the car as he held on for dear life.

“Hey!” I yelled. His head turned, and his eyes widened a nanosecond before I delivered a bullet into the center of his forehead. His body ignited, making a mess of the Corinthian leather.

“Nice!” Giguhl said, pumping a fist as he jumped off the roof.

I wiped a hand across my brow. “Too early to start celebrating, G.”

As if to support my claim, a new volley of gunfire came from the back of the car. Giguhl and I squatted down and duckwalked toward the front bumper. I met the mage’s eyes over the hood. “Any ideas?”

“None that don’t involve one of us gaining an extra orifice.”

Toward the end, his voice sounded unnaturally loud. That’s when I realized the gunfire had ceased. The sudden silence jarred me into stillness. I narrowed my eyes and watched the back door. The car started rocking again, but this time from inside. Something was going down in the back seat.

I scooted along the side of the car toward the back, careful to stay out of sight. Muffled shouts leaked from bullet holes in the window. Two voices— one male, one female— argued with increasing volume. The car continued to shake until, suddenly, a single gunshot cut off the male’s shout. Little wisps of copper-scented smoke leaked from the holes.

“You okay, mancy?” I whisper-shouted at Adam in the unnatural silence that followed.

“All clear,” he replied. “But I wouldn’t mind someone telling me what the fuck is going on.”

That made two of us.

Two seconds later we got our answer when the door next to my head flew open. The panel knocked me on my ass. The gun slicked against my palm. My breath came out in pants as I raised my aim up the height of the door.

A mop of kinky mahogany curls cleared the top of the door. And below, a foot clad in a low-heeled black pump stepped onto the blacktop, followed by its twin. Next, a slender, milky hand with bloodied cuticles grasped the doorframe.

When the face came into view, my stomach dipped with dread. Persephone’s classically beautiful face didn’t feature a Roman nose, two beady black eyes, or a butt-cleft chin. No, only one Domina was cursed with such mannish features.

Tanith.

I suddenly wanted to vomit all over those sensible but unattractive shoes. Besides being the ugliest of the three, she was also the smartest and a mistress of the bitchly arts. In other words, she was a complication I didn’t need. With a shaky hand, I kept the gun’s unblinking eye trained on the Domina. “Tanith? What. The. Fuck?”

The businesslike smile accentuated Tanith’s unfortunate features.

“Sabina,” she said. “Forgive my presumption in killing the final guard. But time is money and the wait was growing tiresome.”

I blinked in surprise. Giguhl came up behind my back. His claws hooked under my arms and lifted. My feet hit the ground without my aim ever straying from its target. Adam skidded around the trunk to take up position behind one of the most powerful vampires alive.

“Why did you kill your own guard?”

She scowled and crossed her arms. “Your ambush was an unwelcome surprise at first, but as I sat there waiting for my guards to dispose of you I had a sudden flash of inspiration.” She shrugged. “Killing that last guard was the most expedient course of action.”

“What did this flash of inspiration entail exactly?” Adam asked.

The Domina barely spared the mage a scornful glance. With her eyes on me, she said, “Before we discuss that, perhaps you should enact the escape portion of your plan before the backup those guards called arrives.” She paused and narrowed her eyes at us. If she’d been wearing spectacles, she would have lowered them down her nose. “You do have an escape plan, don’t you?”

Even with my gun, a demon, and a mage surrounding her, she stared us down like we were incompetent underlings.

“Of course we have an escape plan. But I’m seriously considering aborting this mission altogether unless you explain yourself. Why did you help us?”

She tilted her head like something I said didn’t compute. “I’m helping myself. Or rather, you will be helping me. I assume your plan is to trade me for your sister?”

I squinted at her, neither confirming nor denying. But her unmitigated gall left me speechless. Like I’d ever help a Domina again after everything they’d put me through.

“Do you honestly believe Lavinia will agree to a trade?” Tanith snorted. “Of course you do. You get that naiveté from your mage side.”

I took a long cleansing breath through my nose. “How about you spend a little less time insulting me and a lot more time explaining why you think I’d ever help you.”

“Because I know where Maisie is. And I have a plan that not only helps you save her, but also ensures this distasteful war business is taken off the table forever.”

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“She’s not in Los Angeles. That’s all I’m willing to tell you until I have certain assurances from both the Hekate Council and Queen Maeve.”

“Now who’s being naive? Or are you forgetting the army you sent a few days ago to kill off most of the mages in New York?”

She held up a finger. “Correction. Lavinia sent that army. It wasn’t until after the attack that she told Persephone and me that she’s formed an alliance with the Caste of Nod.”

The Caste of Nod is a mysterious sect made up of members of all the dark races. As far as I could tell, their goal was to cause me a lot of fucking problems. In New York, they’d orchestrated several attempts on my life because they thought I was destined to unite all the dark races. That’s the last thing they wanted, because only an all-out war between the races would bring on the second coming of Lilith. In other words, they were total wackos. And homicidal ones, at that.

“Assuming I believe Lavinia acted without your knowledge, why haven’t you confronted her?”

She laughed— an awkward, insincere sound. “Surely you haven’t been away long enough to forget how things work here. Confronting the Alpha Dominae is a death sentence.”

I frowned. “But law dictates the three of you share power equally.”

“Despite what the laws state, your grandmother has been the de facto leader of the vampire race for centuries. Persephone and I assist her in running things, of course, but she holds all the real power. At best, she could have the Under Council strip us of our titles. At worst, well …..” She trailed off, knowing she didn’t need to finish the thought. After all, I used to make my living being the worst-case scenario for vamps who pissed off the Dominae.

“What about Persephone?”

Worry lines creased her normally smooth forehead. “Unfortunately, Persephone remains loyal to Lavinia. She’s too weak to be a real threat anyway. As for why I’m here, well, it’s simple.” She adjusted the French cuffs on her white shirt. “I’m double-crossing your grandmother.” She paused to let the concussion from that bombshell sink in. “I’m going to help you find Maisie in return for the Hekate Council and the Queen’s support in my plans.”

“What plans?” I crossed my arms. This ought to be good.

“My plan to become the sole ruler of the Lilim, of course.” Tanith’s lips lifted, flashing a little fang. “In order to take control of the vampire race, I need Lavinia dead and an alliance with the Council and Queen Maeve in my pocket.”

In the stunned silence that followed that announcement, I literally had no idea what to say to her. Instead, I glanced at Adam and waved my gun to indicate I needed a moment of his time. “Giguhl, watch her. She moves an inch, rip off her fucking head.”

The Mischief demon cracked the knuckles of his claws and waggled his scraggly black brows at the ancient vampire. Tanith tapped her toe on the asphalt but otherwise remained unimpressed. With one last parting glare at the Domina, I went to join Adam for a private confab.

“What the fuck?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“That pretty much sums it up for me, too.”

He nodded absently.

I continued, “I don’t suppose we could just kill her now and save ourselves a lot of trouble.”

He gave me one of his Sabina-be-reasonable looks. “Red, I know it’s a curveball, but our goal was to kidnap a Domina, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“The way I see it, we have two choices.” He counted the options off on his fingers. “We can stand here all night questioning her motives and risk becoming bull’s-eyes for more of her guards. Or we can continue with the plan and get her to a place filled with heavily armed guards of our own and let the leaders sort it out.”

Twenty feet beyond Adam, Giguhl called. “I vote for C) Stop yapping and get the hell out of Dodge.”

“I concur,” Tanith added.

So much for talking in private.

Nosy demons and vampire leaders aside, I didn’t like this one bit. But I wasn’t any more interested in becoming target practice than he was. “Everyone circle up.”

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