She realized they were both breathing shallowly and instantly altered her pattern, lengthening her inhales and exhales. She didn’t need a mirror to know what she looked like.

Savage. Eyes much too bright, hot and cold at the same time.

Blood and guts on her face, in her hair. Covered with it, boots, jeans, skin. Body thrumming with barely harnessed energy.

Hungry, even after so much killing, to lash out, to do something to balance the scales inside her that felt so impossibly out of kilter. “You want me to waste time leaving to take a shower when we have—Don’t touch me!” She was on her feet, yanked to them. Her hands went up and out, blocking, knocking his hands away.

They stood like that, a foot apart, and she thought for a moment he was going to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, but he didn’t. Merely let his hands fall. Good thing. She would have kicked his ass across the office.

He said coldly, “You tell yourself you’ve learned the right things to turn on and off inside you. You haven’t. You killed tonight with fury. I smell it on you. And you lied to yourself while doing it. You killed from the pain of not knowing how the fuck to live in this world. Get used to it. A superhero doesn’t flaunt his kills. He slides in, takes the lives he came for, and slides back out, wearing shadow.”

“How would you know? You’re the villain of the piece.”

“Not tonight, Jada. Tonight it was you. How many did you kill?”

She said nothing. She had no idea.

“How many were human?”

Again she said nothing.

“And you’re certain they deserved to die. Certain you’re thinking coolly enough to pass that judgment.”

She could stand in silence a long time.

“I’ll say it one more time. Jada. Let me teach you.”

“The only thing I’ll let you do is tattoo me.”

“You’re brittle.”

“I’m steel.”

“Brittle snaps.”

“Steel bends.”

“Christ, you’re so close.” He shook his head in disgust.

“To what?” she said derisively. “To the way you think I should be? Isn’t that what you’ve always been doing? Like Rowena? Experimenting on me? Determined to make me what you want?”

He went still, assessing her intently. “You know what Rowena did.”

“I live inside my own head. I’m brilliant.”

He didn’t speak for a moment, as if debating what to say and what not to say, and she wondered what he thought he knew that she didn’t. Measuring her. Deeming her, if she could read the look in his eyes, on the verge of an explosion. She wasn’t. She had herself completely under control. To prove it, she once again adjusted her breathing. Deepening it. She wasn’t entirely certain how it had gotten so shallow again.

He stepped back then, as if giving a cornered, wild animal room so it wouldn’t spook. “Rowena wanted you to be what she wanted you to be,” he said finally. “I want you to be what you want you to be. And it’s not this.”

“You don’t know what I want. Your inferences are incorrect. Tattoo me or I leave.”

Another measured look. “Wash and I’ll tattoo you.”

“Fine. Where’s the nearest lav?” She wanted that tattoo.

Without bothering to reply, he turned for the door.

She followed, chafed that he had something she wanted badly enough that she would follow. Chafed that she was so wired her hand trembled as she swept her sword back to pass through the door.

Chafed that he was right.

She had killed with fury tonight.

She’d played Death like a lover, seeking release. If she’d really wanted to help Dublin the most logical and efficient way possible, she’d have gone to Inspector Jayne, forged a new alliance, and cleaned out his overflowing cages so the Guardians could capture more. Let a hundred Guardians net for her so she could slay even greater numbers. But efficient killing hadn’t appealed to her, standing there, methodically slicing off the heads of dull-eyed, defeated enemies. There was something about the heat of the hunt she’d craved.

She had no desire to analyze motives that had been so clear at the last full moon, now splintered, impaling her every way she turned.

She followed him in silence. She would put up with anything, do virtually anything, to get her tattoo finished.

—

“Unbutton your jeans.”

Resting her head on her arms on the back of a chair, Jada didn’t move. “Make it smaller. I doubt any part of it needs to be on my ass.”

“I won’t bastardize the spell. Do you want it to work or do you want to walk around with a tat that may not perform at the critical moment?”

She popped the top two buttons on her jeans and shoved the waistband down. Then his hands were on the lower part of her back where it met her hips, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from shivering. Her skin felt too hot, the air too cool.

Once, she’d watched him touch a woman like this, close his hands on her body where he was touching her now. He’d been pushing into her from behind and thrown his head back and laughed; beautiful, cool, strong man. She’d wanted to catch that moment in her fourteen-year-old hands, explore it, understand it, strain it through her fingers. Be the cause of it happening.

Joy. This cold, hard man was capable of joy. The conundrum had fascinated her. And stirred something inside her that she now understood with a mature woman’s brain, that moment when her young body had intuited on a visceral level that she, too, would experience those things, that her body was made for it, and soon a whole new realm of experience beyond imagining would open to her.