Steal the Light (Thieves #1)(25)

Dev’s workspace was large, but it was beginning to get the tiniest bit cramped. Adrenaline started to pump through my system. This wasn’t a friendly meeting.

The largest of the three men had scruffy gold hair and the beard to match. He stepped forward, his dark eyes on me. “Just give us the human and no one has to get hurt.”

And by “no one,” I assumed he meant no one except me. Who the hell had I pissed off this time?

Daniel tensed beside me and leveled his gun at the biggest shifter. “Dev, please tell me these rounds are silver.”

Dev took another target, aiming for the one with the beady eyes and the moving head. “Absolutely. Nothing but the best.”

“Excellent.” Daniel took a small step forward, that gorgeous face set in arrogant lines. “Now, you tell me who hired you, and I might not fill your ass with silver. Though to be honest, I probably will anyway.”

Beady Eyes hissed a little as he looked at the guns. “I thought you said there were no weapons allowed.”

The boss smiled, a cold thing that held no humor. “We don’t need weapons to take down a Fae and a human. Only the vampire and the werewolf will be the slightest bit troublesome. And if they wish to live, they’ll give the human to me.”

I was pretty sure I didn’t want to go with them. And that whatever hot water I was in, it was beginning to boil.

I slipped off my heels. There was no way this didn’t end in bloodshed.

The thing you have to remember about fighting is comfort is everything. Hollywood movies might show women in martial arts battles while wearing four-inch heels and never mussing their lip gloss, but the truth is heels hurt you and not the enemy. You can’t run in them, and they break more often than you would think. They might be great as a projectile weapon, but they were not staying on my feet. They also weren’t cheap, and I couldn’t afford to replace them. Before my heels even hit the floor, the shifters started changing.

The air around me felt charged with power as they shifted before my eyes. Limbs moved and cracked and reformed. The largest made a loud chuffing sound as he dropped to all fours, golden fur spreading to cover his previously human flesh.

Daniel didn’t wait for them to finish. He took the high ground, leaping on to Dev’s desk and firing. I winced at the sound, so much louder since it was contained in a small space.

“Look, Zoey,” Neil said as he pulled off his shirt. “That one is shifting into a bear. Idiot, I’m not really afraid of bears. I just love the way they taste.”

With that Neil changed so fast I could barely register it. One minute he was my debonair friend, and the next he was a hungry werewolf hot on the trail of some bear meat. The big bear roared, the heat and weight of the sound heavy on my skin. Neil went for his throat, leaping through the small space.

I leveled my gun at the third shifter. Daniel was taking on the big guy who was now the largest lion I’d ever seen. The lion roared, and I was sure I could feel the office shake.

That left me and Dev with the smallest of the three, the one who seemed more animal than man. And he was. The third shifter came straight for me, and naturally he turned into a snake. I really, really hate snakes. They’re gross and tend to eat their prey alive and feet first for maximum horror. I looked too good tonight to end up in a snake’s belly. I took aim and fired, but snakes are shifty little fellas even when they measure at least nine feet in length and weigh a good one hundred and fifty pounds.

It looked at me with its dead eyes, and I managed to turn away before he caught me. Snake shifters have the insidious power to catch and hold their prey with those big, dead, black eyes. The very darkness is hypnotic, and you suddenly find yourself powerless to move. I unloaded the rest of my clip into the snake’s body.

Unfortunately, he just kept coming. I found myself backed into a corner, trying to get a decent shot. Hitting the body hadn’t slowed it down and the snake’s head moved so fast, whipping back and forth until it was damn near impossible to hit. I could hear the hiss and see those white curved fangs flashing as he neared. My heart pounded, the need to flee riding me strong, but there was nowhere to go.

Dev jumped on the snake’s back and started firing straight into his body, proving close contact had some effect. Blood soaked the carpet. The snake jerked, causing Dev to fall backward, his tall body crumpling.

The snake was slower now but infinitely more pissed off. He gave up his pursuit of me and turned on Dev.

I threw down my utterly useless gun and looked around for another weapon.

When fighting with supernatural creatures, I have discovered that guns, while almost always the first line of defense, don’t always finish the job. Unlike my poor human body, shifters can handle a lot of bullets, even silver ones. Though I try to keep fighting to a minimum, I have done it enough to know that creativity can shift the balance of power.

I found what I was looking for hanging on the coat rack. I jumped over the chair and managed to avoid Neil, who was wrestling with his opponent. The bear was howling and trying to fight back, but Neil had the advantage. His enemy was on its back, writhing under the power of Neil’s bite.

I grabbed the umbrella hanging on the rack and turned back to the snake. My hand accidentally hit a button on the handle, but to my surprise, the umbrella didn’t open. Instead, a long, thin blade popped out of the end. I silently thanked Dev for turning his cozy office into a weapons cache, and then it was my turn to jump into the snake’s den.