Lilith started to plummet through the air. The wind whistled through her clothes. She felt…alive. Storm’s men ran to the window and looked out after her and seemed to question if they should shoot or not.

Just as she passed the railing of a balcony room at the third floor, she lashed out with her whip. It wrapped itself around the railing, and she swung onto the balcony of the hotel room just below. Her momentum sent her crashing into the glass door that the occupants had kept closed. Her suit kept the glass from cutting her as she rolled to her feet in front of an extremely startled young couple.

“Hey!” Lilith said, giving them a smile before dashing for the hotel room door.

She had twenty seconds at most before someone showed up for her. She made it out the door and ran smack dab into a pizza delivery guy, who almost dropped the pizza he was holding out of surprise.

“Pizza’s here!” she yelled back into the room before dodging around the delivery man and dashing down the hall.

Eventually, her reputation and stupid antics would catch up to her. But for the time being, she was delighted to give the guards the chase they wanted. She had never been caught. She could see her target at the end of the wall: the elevator. Soon enough, she’d be there, and she could turn on her neck choker to disguise herself. Easy-peasy.

She got to the elevator, heart pounding. She jabbed her finger into the button to go up and waited patiently. She was sure Storm’s men would expect her to go to the bottom floor to get away, but she was always one step ahead. She would go up. Her cunningness and ingenuity are what kept her alive for so long. She patted her foot in a rhythm against the ground.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she muttered. “Hurry up.”

The door dinged open. She sauntered inside and placed her finger on her neck choker after hooking her whip on her belt for easy access. She closed her eyes and focused. She was no magician, but the choker had the magic inside itself already. Her image fizzled and was replaced with another image. Every time she used one of her images, she had to come up with a new one so people couldn’t recognize her. This time she chose to be a tall man holding some very large flowers, not a small woman with a rifle and mean whip. If someone touched her, the game was over because it was only an illusion. But as far as everyone’s eyes were concerned, a man stood in the elevator.

The elevator rose gently with pleasing music in the background. She waited. The guards would find her eventually. The first thing they would do after realizing that she hadn’t smashed into the asphalt from diving off the balcony was come to find her.

Lilith hit the fourth floor. One more floor to go. She hoped the guards wouldn’t be waiting for her, but there was a good chance they would be. She had to make her disguise look convincing.

Fifth floor.

The doors slid open to reveal four guards, all toting heavy weaponry. They were smart. If she had killed the first two that had breached her room, there were two others hiding somewhere to call for backup. She was willing to bet that the hotel was littered with them. Storm didn’t take his security lightly.

“Oh god!” Lilith yelled, making herself jump backwards like she was some regular human who were scared of the rifles. “Holy fuck, what the hell!”

“Sir,” one said. “We need you to calm down!”

“Calm down?” She roared in a deep voice. She loved that the charmed choker even made her sound like the illusion that she was a man. “Get away from me!”

“We’re not going to hurt you!” one snapped. He turned to the others. “The little bitch jumped!”

Little bitch. Honestly that didn’t even make the list of the top hundred creative insults she’d received. She cowered in the elevator and listened as the men went down to the floor where she’d just come from.

“Storm will not be happy!”

“Calm down,” one ordered. “We got Night Star. At least that’s something.”

“We’re going to catch Red Shadow,” the fourth one promised. “I’m going to wring her throat myself.”

It was the last thing she heard before the elevator doors shut and she continued up to the top floor. She disengaged her choker so she could return to her normal appearance. It was a valuable tool, but it felt like her skin was being chafed by sandpaper when it was activated, so she was only able to withstand the pain for short amounts of time.

She took the elevator up to the top floor, then she jogged out to the roof access ladder and climbed up. It wasn’t locked. They often weren’t, surprisingly. If Lilith owned a building, she’d make extra sure that everything was locked up tight.

Red Shadow broke onto the roof, which was littered in snow. It was winter in Seattle, and the snowstorm had been unexpected.

“I need a less stressful job,” she said to herself as she stalked over to the edge of the building. “Why am I talking to myself?” She frowned. “Why am I answering myself?”

She got to the edge of the roof and glanced down. She was high, way too high up for her comfort. Even after all her training, she still had a fear of heights. Her heart sped up as she peered at the scene below. It was just like she thought; dozens of men below scoped out the exits of the hotel like she was going to walk out into their arms. That was an amateur’s mistake: to panic at the first sign of trouble.

Storm rarely attended planned social events. When an informant alerted her to his name on the guest list, she was thrilled. Unfortunately, Night Star also knew about Storm’s planned appearance. Rather than fight it out, the two decided to team up.

Her green eyes scoured the crowd for the dragon shifter.

“Where are you?” she muttered.

She caught sight of his powerful frame moving through a flock of bodyguards into a black SUV. He was hot. Really hot. With tousled pitch-black hair and a chiseled face, he looked like he had just stepped off the runway. Lilith couldn’t suppress the excitement she felt between her legs that moved quickly and powerfully through her core.

She had second thoughts about killing such a perfect-looking specimen, but it didn’t take long for her to remember he was also a dangerous dragon. And besides…money was money.

She brought her rifle up to her shoulder and leaned it up against the side of the building for support. It was an easy shot. Nobody saw her, somehow. Storm was well-protected, but not from the rooftops. She could still hit him. She might take out a bodyguard in the process, but hey, the bodyguard knew the risks when he took the job. Calmly, she chambered a bullet. The trick to being successful in the Slayer business was not getting rattled. Getting rattled meant getting anxious. Getting anxious meant you made stupid mistakes that got you caught or killed.

She lined the dot on his skull, breathing coolly and evenly. Storm had been shot before, but never by a gun like hers and not with a bullet like that one, and not in the head. Storm was outrageously powerful. She couldn’t doubt or deny that. Most dragons were powerful, but Storm was magnificent. His father was the Dragon King, and his mother was Mother Earth. The legends said that Mother Earth had given each of her sons the power over an element, and Storm controlled the wind. The dragon was literally capable of creating a tsunami with his mind.

Several guards raced up to Storm, and his posture became more rigid. Storm moved quickly to his SUV. The guards probably just told him they’d apprehended Night Star, but Red Shadow was still on the loose.

Before she could take the shot, he was gone.

“Fuck!” she hissed, lowering her barrel.

He was gone, but he could still be tracked. She’d waited too long.

Gone…but not untraceable. She had her methods. She took her clip out of her rifle and popped in another one. They weren’t bullets, but they were trackers. Small, effective trackers.

The SUV started to pull away. She quickly jerked her gun up, aimed, and fired. The little tracker was well-hidden, but it would be easy to miss and hit the window or somewhere too noticeable. The small black tracker zipped through the air and went, against all odds, into the exhaust pipe. Literally the best possible scenario. Nobody looked inside the exhaust pipe for a tracker.

It wouldn’t be easy, but she had no other choice than to track him. She wasn’t going to let a bounty of that size get away. Besides, for her, it was personal. Storm had killed her friend and ally, Raven, when Storm and his army invaded a nearby Slayer building. She was going to kill that heartless creature if it was the last thing she did.

He was like all dragons: cold, heartless, and arrogant. They didn’t deserve to live, in her opinion. All they did was steal, loot, and murder. At least, that’s what she’d been told.

She slung her rifle over her shoulder, watching the SUV vanish into the distance. She’d find him. And when she did, she’d put a bullet in his skull. It was for the money, of course, but also for Raven.

She touched her choker, and her image was replaced with that of one of Storm’s men, complete with the insignia. She’d prepared for this contingency.

She was coming for Storm.

Lilith had no problem making it out of the hotel in her guard form. Nobody even questioned her.

After rushing into the parking garage, she found her steed: a solid steel sports car with a tinted glass windshield, four off-road tires, and the symbol of a phoenix on the bumper. It was painted green in the same tone as her suit. She couldn’t help it. She knew it was too obvious, yet she couldn’t resist the temptation to make a car version of her. And it was a car version of her. It was sleek, fast, and just plain sexy.

The keys were securely placed on the fender of the front driver’s side wheel, magnetized firmly to the frame. She unlocked her car and stepped inside. It was her own, personal cave, and it felt like home.

Everything in her car wasn’t completely functional though. She added a few personal touches that made her smile, such as the miniature disco ball that she kept around the mirror for fun.

She placed her phone into the GPS holder and fired up the app paired to the tracker. Within seconds, the tracking dot appeared on the map. Storm was moving away.

She followed.