Free Pas by S M Reine Page B

been home to Stark’s terrorist organization was now little more than four half-walls and a lot of bricks.
    Footsteps shuffled among the debris.
    Vidya was beside Deirdre in an instant, wings flaring, fists lifted.
    But the man who stepped out of the dust wasn’t Jacek—an insane idea that had only fleetingly crossed Deirdre’s mind. It was Lucifer, his arm slung over Niamh’s shoulder. The harpy didn’t look happy to be carrying him.
    “You,” he snarled, pushing Niamh away. She stumbled among the bricks.
    Deirdre pulled a cloak of confidence around her as Lucifer approached. “Good to see you here. We need to regroup and—”
    “Shut your mouth, bitch,” Lucifer said. “I don’t want to hear another word from you until I talk to Stark. I made my deal with him. Not you. Where is he?” She opened her mouth, but he continued before she could say anything. “If you tell me he has better things to do after we were nearly subject to a public execution, I will rip out your throat.”
    “I’d like to see you try,” she said.
    He slammed his fist into her gut. She didn’t see it coming and failed to dodge. The breath blasted from her lungs.
    She was so dizzy from the instant lack of oxygen that she didn’t retaliate against his vampire-speed uppercut, either.
    Vidya kicked Lucifer in the face. It drove him back, but he didn’t seem to care. His point had already been made: He might not be able to tear Deirdre’s throat out, but it wouldn’t exactly be an easy fight, either. Especially now that other vampires were emerging from the rubble, crimson eyes glimmering in the night.
    Their glowing eyes were the only way that Deirdre could tell they were approaching. They were so quiet, like rats clawing through sewer tunnels. The night was their domain.
    Deirdre made a quick count. A dozen, two-dozen, three.
    Lucifer, vampire lord and mercenary, had been followed by all of his people. But Stark’s people—the remaining shifters, like Gianna and Geoff—weren’t there to back Deirdre up.
    She could probably beat Lucifer, but could she beat his entire murder with nobody at her back but Vidya?
    “Calm down, guys,” Niamh said softly. She hadn’t bothered getting off the ground. She looked so pale and weak. “We’re friends here.”
    “I’ll decide if that’s still the case,” Lucifer said. “Where is Everton?”
    When Deirdre swallowed, it felt like she was trying to get one of Vidya’s razor feathers down her throat. “He’s hunting in the Winter Court.”
    “Have you been communicating with him?”
    “We’ve spoken.”
    “Recently?”
    Deirdre balled her hands into fists. “Look, he made me his Beta. I’m in charge when he’s gone, and—”
    The vampire seized her throat. It felt like being in the grip of a frozen spider. His strength was even more shocking than his speed, too.
    He closed her airway. Squeezed hard.
    “Everton left us,” he said. “I knew it. He left us.”
    “Yeah, all of us,” Deirdre said. “But I’m still here.”
    “Stark’s fallen through on his end of this deal,” Lucifer said. “And I don’t have any deal with you. We’re gone.”
    Deirdre wrenched him away from her throat. “You can’t leave now, not when we’re so close to—”
    “To what ?” he interrupted. “We’ve lost the election. Rhiannon and Melchior are going to put North America under eternal winter. Where do you think vampires will fall under her new hierarchy?”
    “It’s not too late if we work together,” Deirdre said.
    Lucifer wrapped his fingers around hers. They were tangled together, all hands squeezing, testing the strength of the phoenix shifter against the strength of the dead. A man with no nerves, no sense of pain, nothing to hold him back.
    She only needed a single flame to make an example of him. Just a little fire, and poof —he’d be permanently dead. It would show the vampires who was boss. It might even be enough to bring the rest of them to heel.
    It was what Stark