Leopard's Kiss (Shadow Guardians) (Shadows Guardians Book 1) (2 page)

He located his target almost immediately. She was in the back right corner, hidden behind several groups of people. He could sense her, but he couldn't see her yet.

He didn't know her name. He never knew names. Names were messy. Names were things that people had, and his targets could never be allowed to present as people. He identified his targets by touching something they'd owned, something that had mattered to them, something that they'd connected with. To him, his targets were an essence, a scent, an energy signature, a job.

Ducking a bride trying to do shots off a tattered veil while her girlfriends screamed with laughter, Slade began to weave around people, his internal clock calculating exactly how much time he had until he had to strike. Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

He hadn't asked why it was so certain that the meeting would start at that exact time. He didn't care. His job was just to kill her.

As he neared the corner, he began to discern the shape of a person tucked in the shadows. His focus sharpened, and he began to reach out with his mind—

"You'll have a choice." A woman stepped in front of him, staring at him.

Slade stopped, startled by her appearance. He wasn't used to anyone addressing him directly. He was accustomed to eyes sliding past him, not seeing him, not wanting to see him. He couldn't remember the last time a random woman had stepped in front of him and demanded his attention.

It wasn't normal.

So, he said nothing, studying her carefully. Her auburn hair cascaded almost down to her waist, and her deep blue eyes were haunted and stark. Her black leather pants and sequined pink top showed off a body worth admiring, but he didn't bother. He never bothered.

"You get to choose, Slade," she said.

She knew his name? He narrowed his eyes. "Choose what?" He didn't believe in coincidence or accidents, including obscure statements by apparent strangers who knew the name that no one knew. He'd seen too much in his lifetime to disregard anything. He still had over two minutes to take care of his target. He had time to engage her.

"Immortality in hell, or one mission in exchange for your life." The redhead raised her hand, as if to brush a speck of dirt off Slade's shoulder.

He stepped aside, out of reach, as he always did. No one got to initiate physical contact with him. Ever. "Clarify that statement." There was something about her he couldn't place. An etherealness to her eyes. A grace to her movements. She was more than she seemed.

"Death is coming for you.
You will get to choose your fate.
" Her fingers drifted toward his face, as if to stroke his cheek, and he caught her wrist, blocking her.

"No."

She smiled at him. "The Black Swan gets to choose. So much potential. So much evil.
So much evil in you
."

Shit. She knew both his name
and
his alter ego. There wasn't a person alive besides himself who knew that Slade Cross and the Black Swan were the same person. There was no way she could know that. And yet…she did. His interest in her sharpened. "Who are you?"

But before she could answer, Slade sensed agitation from his target, and his gaze shot past the redhead to the corner. He could still see his quarry's outline at the table. She hadn't moved. Still there.

He looked back at the redhead...but she was gone. His fingers were still curved from when he'd grasped her wrist, but she had vanished. He dropped his hand and looked sharply around the bar, scanning with lightning speed, but the redhead was gone.

He ground his jaw against the compulsion to hunt her down for more information on how the hell she knew who he was, but he had to get in position. The time to kill was almost upon him.

He would track her later.

Drawing his energy inward to focus on his target, he strode toward the back of the bar, his gaze searching the darkness for her. He got closer, and closer, until he could finally see her clearly. She was sitting at a high table at the bar, facing the wall.

Who sat with their back toward a room? People who weren't worried about being killed. The people he was sent to kill rarely sat like that. They knew better. Something pulsed at the back of his mind, a faint hint of discomfort that she might not deserve what he had in store for her…but he quickly suppressed it.

His job wasn't to judge.

His job was to execute, and he never failed.

But as he moved closer, he couldn't help but study her more carefully. Her hair was long, tumbling over her shoulders as if the wind had unleashed it from its bindings and left it loose and wild. Her shoulders were bare, and black straps crisscrossed over her toned back. Jeans hugged her hips, and her feet were bare in low-heeled sandals. Her ankles were sexy as all hell, dainty enough to be all woman, but strong enough to shove her heel into a man's throat if she needed to. She was sexy and badass, but she was also demure, the most alluring combination a woman could use to trap a man.

He moved up closer behind her, until he caught her scent. It was faint and delicate, and it made his gut wrench with sudden lust. Swearing, he stopped dead. What the hell?
Lust?
Because he liked her ankles? But before he could recover, she turned her head to scan the bar, giving him a profile view of her. She was in her mid-twenties, but there was an innocence to her face that made his gut twist. He killed very few innocents, and he wouldn't have taken this assignment if he'd seen her picture. Yes, he'd done those jobs a few times when it had been necessary, but there was something about
her
that made him recoil from the idea of extinguishing her light.

But he'd taken money, and when he took money, he always followed through.

There was a small scar underneath her jawbone, and her face was tense as she scanned, no doubt searching for the person she was supposed to meet. A waitress walked up to the table. "You have to order if you're going to take a table," she snapped. "You need to get up or order."

The woman barely glanced at the waitress. "Tequila shot."

Jesus. Slade's cock got hard as her voice rolled over him. It was soft and sultry. Throaty. Rough. But incredibly feminine at the same time. There was nothing innocent about the way she spoke. She was pure sin, pure sex, and pure danger...and he wanted her.

Completely shitty luck that the first woman he'd wanted to seduce in years was one he had to kill.

There were less than thirty seconds left until he was supposed to kill her, but her meeting hadn't appeared yet. If the meeting hadn't started by the time he was scheduled to kill her, should he kill her anyway, or wait for the meeting? He'd asked the question, and he'd been assured that the meeting would happen on time. What if it didn't? What was more important? The absolute timing of her death, or the timing of it relative to the meeting? Rapidly, he replayed every detail of the situation he knew, processing every fact to determine when to move.

Making her an example was more important than the time of death, he concluded.

He would wait.

A
nya Diaz felt
as if invisible fingers were sliding down her spine in a sensual, dangerous caress. Uncertainty rippled through her, and for a brief second, she wondered whether meeting this unknown contact was worth the risk. She couldn't afford a single mistake, and she really couldn't afford to die.

She swallowed, wishing she'd ordered water instead of a tequila shot that she'd never drink. She'd wanted to appear tougher than she felt, but who cared if she looked like a badass who downed tequila? If her mouth was so dry she couldn't even manage to ask the questions she so badly needed answered, she'd look like an idiot, not a formidable opponent.

Dammit. She needed to do better than this.

She stiffened as she felt that same invisible caress sliding along her back. What was going on? Striving to appear calmer than she felt, Anya slanted a sideways glance behind her, trying to ascertain the cause of the sensation along her spine. Her breath caught when she saw a man, well over six feet, standing several yards behind her,
staring right at her
.

His dark hair was short, his blue eyes so intense it was as if they were a tropical ocean on a blazing sunny day. Even through his black leather trench coat, she could tell he was heavily muscled, a predator more than a man. He was unshaven, his dark whiskers making shadows fall across his angular cheeks. He looked like he roamed the untamed wilds beyond the reaches of civilization, a man who lived by his own rules, not the ones society tried to impress upon him. He was pure sex, deadly sin, and unmitigated danger…and his gaze was fixated on
her
.

Her heart rate began to escalate as his attention dropped to her mouth, his eyes darkening as if he were imagining what she tasted like, or what she would feel like against him. Desire pooled in her belly, and she stiffened at the unfamiliar sensation. She'd learned her lesson long ago about letting her need for a man rule her, and she never allowed herself to notice men anymore…but it was impossible for her to drag her gaze off him.

She felt as though his hands were gliding over her skin, touching every inch of her body as he assessed her. Was it his invisible touch she was feeling, or was she just imagining things because she was so strung out? She shivered, trying to shake off the yearning pulsing low in her belly. How was a complete stranger stoking such need in her? And more importantly, why was he focusing on
her
?

He wasn't the person she'd come there to meet. He was all wrong. An unwelcome distraction and an unsettling attraction…but she couldn't stop her response to him.

He sauntered toward her, moving with the lithe grace of a predator. As he got closer, a cold chill seemed to wrap around her, an ominous cloak of death and danger. She went still, sliding her hand along her lower back for the dagger she'd hidden beneath her shirt. It was small, but she was very good with it. She'd known how to defend herself since she was three, but as he neared, doubt flickered through her. He radiated raw power, the kind that could devastate his prey without him so much as blinking.

He was a man who delivered death, she was sure of it. Her heart rate sped up as he neared, and a cold sweat broke out between her shoulder blades. She didn't know if she could defeat him, and she didn't have time to try.
Keep walking
, she urged him silently.
Just keep walking.

One dark eyebrow quirked at her, and for a split second, she thought he'd heard her silent command. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth again, sending searing heat cascading through her. She caught her breath, as he raised his gaze to hers again. His expression didn't change, and his stride didn't falter as he strode past her toward the bar.

She let her breath out as he moved past her, her hands shaking with relief as she wiped her wrist across her damp brow. Spared. The intensity of her response to him was shocking, and she had no time to waste trying to cope with it.

He took over a stool at the bar, swiveling the seat so he could face her. Her moment of relief fled as his gaze settled upon her once again. Tension began to rise hard and fast. He wasn't even trying to hide the way he was watching her. His attention was locked on her, assessing her every move. The way he'd eased onto the edge of the bar stool, relaxed yet primed to react in a split second, made him look like a wild panther, a predator so agile and lethal that he could take her out in a single leap. He was too dangerous to be handsome, and too elusive to be appealing, and yet, there was something about him that was drawing her in. Something compelling. Something...

Yes. You want me.

A deep, darkly seductive male voice rolled through her mind, making her belly clench with desire. Had he just spoken in her
mind
? His voice was sensual, rough, erotic, with a faint cultured accent that made her think of black tie dinners and foreign royalty instead of the dangerous predator sitting so still on his perch.

Don't hold back.
His voice slid through her mind again, a tantalizing, deliberate caress that made her breath catch.
Think about kissing me. Think about my hands sliding over your naked skin—

Whoa. She swallowed as the image popped into her head exactly as he'd suggested it. The satisfied gleam in his eyes told her that she'd been correct in assuming it was his voice in her head, and he knew that his decadent suggestion had worked. What the hell? She glared fiercely at him. "Stop it," she snapped. "I didn't invite you into my head. Get out."

He didn't smile, and he didn't back off.
What's your darkest fantasy? Handcuffs? A threesome? A little pain...
As he spoke, images of each scenario flashed through her mind. Her naked, silken ties around her wrists—

Heat rose off her skin. "No." She jerked her gaze away from him, breaking their connection. She fisted her hands, quickly weaving safeguards in her mind, invisible walls that encased every last thought, every feeling, every bit of herself that wasn't physical. Within a millisecond, he was out of her mind.

Her lungs expanded in sudden relief as the sensual sensation of being caressed along her spine vanished. Had it really been
his
touch she'd been feeling on her back? Some metaphysical extension of his mind that felt like actual physical contact? What kind of power did he carry? And why was he directing it at her?

His expression didn't change once she'd booted him from her mind, but he seemed to become even more still.

She met his gaze, daring him to try again.

He did.

She felt him testing her protections, feeling his way through her mind, searching for the one gap she'd missed. Anya smiled, allowing the same satisfied gleam in her eyes that he'd had in his. "I'm good," she said. "Don't bother."

He didn't answer, his gaze flicking behind her.

At the same instant, she sensed someone approaching behind her. She froze in sudden anticipation, realizing that the woman she'd come to meet had arrived. Anya's heart began to hammer, and she had to fight not to whirl around to look behind her. Her instructions had been not to turn around, and not to look at the person she was meeting, or the deal would be off.

All she could do was wait.

One second passed.

Then another.

Anya dug her fingernails into her palms to make herself stay still, terrified she would do something wrong and her contact would vanish without telling Anya what she so desperately needed to know.

Another second passed… then, finally, mercifully, someone leaned up against her seat, and a warm breath brushed over her neck.

Anya's heart was racing so fast the beats were like a relentless crescendo hammering in her ears. This was it. Her chance. "Is Julia still alive?" she asked, her breath frozen in her chest as she waited for news of her best friend, her only friend, the only person still alive who mattered to her.

Fingers drifted through her hair, and lips feathered over the back of her neck. A seduction, for anyone in the bar who was bothering to watch. A charade to protect them both. "For now." It was a woman's voice, breathy and sensual.

Tears of relief burned in Anya's eyes. Alive. Her best friend was
alive
. "How do I find her?" She slid her gaze toward the mirror behind the bar, taking a forbidden look at the woman she'd spent the last three weeks hunting down. Raven black, ultra-straight hair reached just past her shoulders, and her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. Her lips were pale, her skin the color of a latte, and her simple outfit of a tight black tee shirt and fitted jeans made her look sexy, but unmemorable, blending easily into the atmosphere of the bar.

Who was she? How did she know what had happened to Julia? How was she involved? Anya had found the woman's email address in Julia's belongings, the only clue she had as to what had happened to her friend. It had taken weeks to track this woman down, and even longer to convince her to meet…assuming the woman standing behind her was the same person who had answered her emails.

The man at the bar leaned forward, drawing Anya's attention off the mirror and back to him. He was staring at her even more intensely, his gaze boring into hers as if it were a dagger that could cut out her heart. She could feel him testing her psychic defenses, trying to get back in her mind.

She jerked her gaze off him, refusing to let him distract her. She closed her eyes to cut him off, so she could focus on the woman behind her. She couldn't afford to miss a word. "Where is Julia?"

The woman's breath tickled her neck. "You must go to the warehouse on the corner of Hartford and—"

Fingers closed around her wrist. Anya's eyes snapped open as the man at the bar jerked her off her stool and across the floor. She slammed into his hard body, and his arms locked around her. No longer were his eyes blue. They had shifted into dark, bottomless pits of death…and something else. Something more dangerous. Something more personal.

"I love you," he said, his whisper rolling through her, making sudden tears fill her eyes as longing swept over her. To be loved, to be held like she mattered, to be—

He kissed her.

Not just a kiss.

A kiss so tender, so beautiful, so seductive that it made her heart cry for more. Never had she been kissed like that.
Ever.
His lips were decadently soft. His tongue seduced with a sensual dance of promise and tenderness. His hands framed her hips, as if he were her shield against the world. He was pure male, offering himself to her as her protector, her lover, the man who would never let her be alone again.

Her soul cried out for his kiss and his declarations with an intensity so strong that it made her heart ache with longing. The pain in her heart jerked her back into her own mind just enough for her to realize that something was wrong, terribly wrong. He was in her mind again, reeling her in, offering her the words and emotions that she burned for, as if he knew exactly what triggers would ensnare her. He was manipulating her, drawing her into his kiss…

Dear God. His kiss was his weapon, wielded with the skillful, ruthless finesse of a well-practiced assassin. Why had he come for her? Sudden conviction pulsed through her, and she knew it had to be because of Julia. Was he simply trying to keep her from talking to the woman? Or was he there to kill her?

Her gut knew the answer instantly. She was in extreme danger from him. She had to break his hold on her. She had to talk to the woman. She had to find Julia. She shoved at his chest, trying to raise her mental shields and sever the grip he had on her mind—

He deepened the kiss, a searing hot kiss that seemed to ignite her very soul. His lips were hot and sensual, his kiss deep and intoxicating, sending desire sparking through every part of her body. Yearning filled her, a desperate need for him, for his kiss, for his touch, for everything he could offer her.

In the deep recesses of her mind, she knew it was wrong. She knew what she felt was unnatural, but the realization was faint, fading, too weak for her to grasp. He tunneled his hands through her hair, angling her head as he deepened the kiss, drawing her away from her mission and into his spell.

She couldn't stop herself from responding to his seduction. Her soul was crying out for him, despite the threat he was weaving around her so tightly. She was called to the emptiness of his soul, even as she knew that his whispers of love were lies he didn't mean. But it didn't matter. Something about him touched her heart, something far deeper and more real than the illusionary seduction he was weaving in her mind.

She needed to stab him.

She needed to save him.

She needed to run.

But she couldn't do any of it.

She simply wanted
him,
this moment, and his kiss.