Predatory (Immortal Guardians #3.5)(25)

On cue, the slender female still dressed in black stepped out of the pantry and offered him a mocking smile.

“About time,” she drawled. “I thought Arel would never leave.”

“Dylan.” He clenched his hands at his side. His weapons were upstairs, but it didn’t matter. He could kill as easily with his hands. Or even a well-placed kick. “How did you get past the security system?”

Her eyes glowed with an eerie crimson heat as she strolled forward, one hand held behind her back.

A hidden weapon?

That was the most logical guess, although he couldn’t catch the scent of gunpowder or the metallic tang of a blade.

He would no doubt find out soon enough, he conceded with an explosion of frustration.

Goddammit.

Why the hell couldn’t this female simply accept that she was made precisely as nature had intended? She was graceful, strong, intensely intelligent and beautiful in an exotic fashion.

Everything most women wanted to be.

“I was watching the property when dear Arel was kind enough to punch in the codes so I didn’t have to waste time trying to sneak past the cameras,” she confessed.

Fan-f*cking-tastic.

“What about the alarm that just went off?”

She shrugged. “I set it off with a delayed explosion.”

Ah. Of course.

“Clever, but a waste of your time,” he said, his voice steady and his expression carefully devoid of his seething fury.

She strolled forward, a smirk curling her lips. “There’s no need for us to be enemies, Niko. Give me the female and I’ll walk away. No harm, no foul.”

“The female’s name is Angela,” he said from between clenched teeth. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Then I’ll take her.”

He shifted, making sure he was standing between the crazed bitch and the door.

“It won’t do any good. She can’t help you.”

Bitterness flared in the crimson eyes. “Oh, I think you would be surprised what people can accomplish when they’re desperate.”

“So you’ve proven,” he pointedly reminded her, his acute hearing picking up the sound of the shower being shut off overhead. Oh. Christ. Don’t come down here, Angela. “You betrayed and murdered your own family. And for what?”

“For a life beyond the prison walls.”

His brows snapped together. “Valhalla has never been a prison.”

She hissed in anger. “Not to you.”

Niko shook his head. He was wasting his breath. Dylan had convinced herself that her life had been some sort of torture at Valhalla. How else could she excuse the murder of those who’d offered her only kindness?

“And you believe if you can pass as a normal human your life will be filled with endless happiness?” he instead sneered.

Her chin tilted, the slits of her flat nose flaring in anger.

“Endless happiness? No. But fleeting happiness? Maybe,” she ground out, taking another step closer. “Why shouldn’t I have the opportunity to fall in love? To have children.”

He barely listened to her whining. He could smell . . . what? Something he couldn’t identify.

Which was worrying the hell out of him.

“If a man loves you he doesn’t care about your appearance,” he said in absent tones.

“Don’t insult me,” she snarled. “Would you be bedding your scientist if she looked like a monster?”

Niko didn’t even have to consider. “Her looks have nothing to do with my feelings.”

“Liar.”

Niko narrowed his gaze. “Believe what you want, Dylan, but be very clear on one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll kill you if you lay a hand on Angela.”

A slow smile of anticipation curled Dylan’s lips as he widened his stance and squared his shoulders.

“So at last we get to discover who the better Sentinel is.”

“Being the superior fighter doesn’t make you the better Sentinel,” he reminded her, his attention torn between the threat standing in front of him and the nagging fear that Angela would return to the kitchen before he could disable Dylan. The last thing he needed was her leaping into the fray. And she would leap. He didn’t have one damned doubt about that. “Or didn’t you learn anything in our training?”

“You mean all that shit about loyalty and honor and protecting the weak?” she mocked. “Blah, blah, blah.”

“You’re lucky Wolfe never heard you call his teaching shit.”

“I’m a warrior not a f**king Girl Scout.”

Yeah. No argument there.

The mere thought of Dylan as a Girl Scout made him shudder in horror.

“With power comes responsibility.” He repeated the words that had been drilled into his head from the minute he’d walked into Valhalla.

Dylan gave a sharp laugh, pulling her hand from behind her back to reveal the small device that was strapped around her forearm.

“And your insistence on clinging to honor will make sure I win.”

“Dammit, Dylan,” Niko breathed, recognizing the weapon that had been developed as an advanced stun gun only to be banned when it was discovered the electrical charge was enough to stop all but the strongest heart. “Where the hell did you get that?”