Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(61)

She only watched the band behind him, her face a mask of calm cold.

“Holly,” Luke said.

She hated that name. Was growing sick of that name.

He loosed a breath. “I’m sorry. I mean it.”

He sounded sincere.

Slowly, Selina met his earnest brown eyes.

She didn’t bother to keep her wariness from her stare. Wariness and…exhaustion.

Holly. He thought he was dancing with Holly.

It didn’t matter. Not when she had so much to do to bring this city to its knees. Not with the weight of her mission pressing on her. It had been pressing on her for longer than she could remember.

Luke said, his voice rough, “Some days, I feel like I’m still back there. Overseas. Most nights, my body and mind can’t tell the difference. And most days, I feel…half here.” He swallowed, as if unsure where he was going with this. “I’m still learning how to return to being normal again. If such a thing exists.”

Selina let his words sink in, his honesty.

She scanned his handsome face. “Being normal is a trap.”

He blinked.

Selina whispered as the song came to a close, “Don’t let it cage you.”



* * *



—

The last of the guests had been taken home by their drivers two hours ago.

His parents had headed to bed thirty minutes after that, and Luke had feigned exhaustion as well.

But as the clock struck two, he remained cloaked in the shadows of the ballroom, the light on his suit dimmed as he watched the necklace across the room glint in the moonlight streaming in through the wall of glass doors leading onto the veranda.

He’d been waiting for over an hour now. Had listened as the estate workers turned off the lights and either left or found their own rooms in the sprawling house.

She hadn’t come during the party. A small disappointment.

Perhaps she’d deemed the added security not as a challenge, but as suicide. Luke had sent them packing. He didn’t want her to see the whole thing for what it was: a trap.

Two-ten.

Two-fifteen.

Then—

Luke kept as still as one of the statues flanking him as she appeared.

She slipped through the glass doors from the veranda without a sound. She’d disabled the house’s alarm system, then. Interesting.

Catwoman moved across the parquet floors, little more than a shadow herself. Every movement fluid and graceful. Calculated and controlled.

She halted before the glass case on the pedestal—studied the necklace glinting within.

Her claws slid free.

Luke’s muscles tensed, every instinct telling him to spring.

Yet he still watched as she scratched a claw in a circle around the glass. As she held out her awaiting palm right beneath, catching the disk before it could shatter on the floor. Expert, swift work.

No sign of Harley or Ivy. The slate veranda beyond the glass doors was empty, save for a few potted boxwoods, the manicured lawn glistening with dew in the moonlight.

Perhaps she didn’t want her friends getting a cut of tonight’s prize.

Catwoman again scanned the ballroom—as if listening for something. But Luke kept pressed into the shadows, the pillar in front of him hiding any sign of his body, his armor.

She returned her attention to the case, the necklace within. Her hand slid into the circle she’d opened up, claws glinting as she reached for the jewels.

Luke sucked in a breath. He had the evidence he needed, recorded on his suit’s camera. Proof of intent. His knees bent, readying to lunge.

The attack happened so fast it took Luke a heartbeat to realize what was going on.

Not from him.

The attack didn’t come from him.

A slim female figure, clad in loose black clothes, pounced from the shadows. From above. From the windows lining the wall right below the domed ceiling.

And as the woman landed on silent feet, sending Catwoman leaping back, slamming into the stone base of the case as she went, Luke got one look at the tan-skinned woman’s face, half hidden beneath a black hood and scarf over her mouth, and knew who she was.

Tigris.

One of the most notorious and deadly members of the League of Assassins.





A League member—a powerful one—had arrived in Gotham City. Luke had read Bruce’s file on Tigris, on all the known assassins for the League.

The woman had killed her way across the world—and those kills were often ugly.

The perfect representative of the League itself, the organization that was larger, wealthier, and far more dangerous than any of the criminals in Gotham City. Mercifully, the League had yet to try to expand into this city. Luke’s blood iced over at the thought of Tigris being just the start.

Catwoman rolled, claws gouging deep lines in the wood floors to steady herself as she jumped to her feet.

They stared at each other for a long moment; in her black hood, only Tigris’s eyes were visible.

Far bigger players are coming to Gotham, Catwoman had said. She’d warned him.

Worse things than the Joker and his cohorts. Worse things like the League of Assassins.

And if the League had set its sights on Gotham City after all these years…

His parents were in this house. Sleeping upstairs.

Luke had a heartbeat to decide: to warn them to get to their panic room, or to join the fight to stop Catwoman and Tigris.