Free Assassins Bite by Mary Hughes Page B

“Stop! Police.”
    The sedan signaled a right at the corner. The back door was within reach. I grabbed.
    The car zoomed out from under my hand.
    I put on a burst of speed. The sedan stopped at the next intersection. I got closer…it zoomed away.
    I needed wheels.
    My frantic gaze landed on a scooter, parked in a nearby driveway, keys in the ignition. What can I say? Meiers Corners. I hopped on, cranked the engine to life and wobbled a turn.
    I lit out after the sedan. I got the hang of the scooter pretty quickly and soon was zipping along at well over the speed limit. Ahead of me, the black car was going even faster. I cranked the throttle. I didn’t catch up but they didn’t lose me either.
    The sedan popped over the Adam’s Street bridge and squealed into the Settler’s Square band shell parking lot.
    Elle Louise Smith emerged. Two men hopped out after her. She said, “Plan B is a go.” They scattered as I parked the bike. I hopped off to pursue Smith.
    One of the men ran toward me on intercept. A thickly muscled dude with broken nose and cap that read “Thuggoh”, his face bore an identifying tattoo, a humped line like an m or double wave.
    â€œPolice.” I shot out my palm like a stop sign. “Hold it right there. You’re with a known felon—hey!”
    Thuggoh grabbed my extended wrist.
    A quick twist freed me. “Cut that out. You’re impeding an investigation by an officer of the law—”
    â€œHe’s coming.” The second man stood near the municipal fountain, phone clapped to his ear. He wore an armband with the same symbol as Thuggoh’s tattoo.
    Thuggoh swept me into a bear hug, lifted me off my feet and lumbered forward. I struggled, kicking his shins and knocking his chest with my skull—but pitcher, stone. I only hurt myself. He dragged me toward the fountain, a concrete depression next to the band shell that functioned as a wading pool in summer but was drained in the winter.
    Only it wasn’t. It was full of water. All the hairs on my body rose.
    â€œWe need a scream,” Armband said.
    Thuggoh squeezed my breasts.
    My heart tripped into overtime. I was alone, in the grasp of the associate of a known murderer, and thanks to my clever patrol idea, no one knew where I was.
    â€œGet the fuck off me!” I doubled my struggles. Unless things changed quickly, I was dead meat.
    Aiden Blackthorne, by dint of sheer concentration and willpower, of which he normally had magnitudes but with Sunny’s scent and feel and taste clamoring in his awareness he had barely enough to remember to breathe, managed to actually arrive at the Dawn terminal.
    Inside, the building was divided front and back. The front door opened to a noise-filled room, humans and vampires clicking away at keyboards and the chatter of impact printers spooling out multi-part forms. The back had truck bays in the east, a loading platform in the middle, and to the west a short-term storage area and a locker room with showers.
    Three trucks were currently at the loading dock, a couple of long-hauls and one city delivery. He put on leather gloves and joined in unloading. The work centered him and helped him feel more in control.
    Until a trucker bumped into him and he realized he’d been standing there, picturing Sunny’s face as she orgasmed for him.
    Immediately he grabbed a stack of the heaviest boxes he could find. He was not savoring Sunny’s scent or thinking about her lush lips or pretty breasts or soft anything . He tossed freight so fast he actually beaded up a sweat.
    Then a bad feeling hit, so hard it bent him in two.
    He jerked straight, alert for immediate danger. Nothing smelled or looked off, and around him, truckers continued to work. The biggest, a vampire named Elwood, raised a questioning brow at him.
    Aiden shook his head, pulled out his phone and hit his only speed dial. If not here, then the problem was with