Marley felt a splinter of temper jab through her fear. She wasn’t a frigging prostitute. She’d done years of backbreaking work to claw her way up from nothing. But not that. Never that. She just wanted to go home, get off the streets. She didn’t ask to be hassled.
Her eyes were glued to the ground, measuring the passage of distance by the number of weedy sidewalk cracks, but she didn’t know how much farther until her turn. She didn’t dare lift her face and chance making eye contact in case they took that as encouragement.
“Aw baby, don’t be like that.” One of them reached out and brushed the back of his hand clumsily down her arm. “We’ll make it good for you.”
Marley’s skin crawled. The hand gripping her keys shook, the edges pressing so hard into her palm, she wondered she didn’t bleed.
Think, think.
The voice of Chaz, an older foster brother, echoed in her head. Keep your head, little bird. If you can’t walk away from a confrontation, don’t hesitate. Out here hesitation can cost you your life.
They were far too close for her to get up good momentum with her backpack now. A stupid, careless mistake.
A pair of dirty shit-kicker boots entered her field of vision as one of them stepped directly into her path. She stopped short; her whole body recoiled rather than allow itself to bump against him, and she stumbled back, into the chest of another delinquent who gripped her bag. “Whoa there. Don’t fall.”
“Didn’t anybody ever tell you to look up when you’re being spoken to?” A hand reached toward her face.
Marley sprang into action, whipping the keys out of her pocket, slashing toward the arm in front of her as she jammed one foot down on his instep. As the first guy started shouting, she drove her other elbow back and caught someone in the diaphragm. She barreled past a third and began to run. Pounding feet rang out behind her.
Her pulse beat frantically in her throat. She’d never make it home. She needed help. But as someone caught her bag and yanked her backward, Marley knew no one in this God-forsaken place would hear her scream.
~*~
Ian Ryker moved through the shadows, silent as a ghost. It was an unnecessary precaution; he could hunt as easily while visible. The people in this area kept to themselves, kept their heads down, stayed uninvolved. They made a point of not seeing things. If they did see, they kept it quiet. It was an excellent characteristic for the population surrounding a safe house, particularly given the nature of the people who used this one. Ian had to admit that the Council of Races had chosen the location wisely.
It didn’t make him any happier to be here.
He should be out on missions with the rest of his squad, not relegated to this shithole on fucking babysitter duty. But what else was the Council supposed to do with a washed up Shadow Walker no longer physically up to mission standards? Ian supposed it was a mark of his rank and accomplishments that he hadn’t simply been fired and put out to pasture. Somebody higher up probably thought they were doing him a favor by plunking him down in the middle of this miasma of human suffering, a veritable smorgasbord for wraith-kind. No hunting necessary to feed.
Fuck ’em. He wasn’t a total goddamned cripple.
Even if the constant ache in his leg said otherwise.
Sheer obstinacy had him out here every night, maintaining the skill set that had saved his sanity years ago. Missions had given him the opportunity to feed, to survive, without preying on the innocent like the other carrion eaters of his race. But now he was forced to confront the very nature he abhorred.
A streamer of brilliant red fury shot into the sky, chased by two others, a bit fainter, and a final sickly yellow trail of unease. These silent fireworks were the visible hallmarks of human emotion— bright, obvious markers of easy prey. His kind fed on that brand of emotional energy, and there it was, free for the taking.
A scream rang out, choked off before it reached crescendo. In its wake, a vibrant fountain of purple fear splashed across the night. Ian was already running for the nearest bridge of shadow before the repulsive ooze of violence and lust bled across the purple. His gait uneven but still fast, he hit the conduit, skating along the angular pathways and around corners, flashing past buildings until he emerged between two crumbling brownstones.
He caught the woman’s scent before he saw her. The delicate flora of a hothouse orchid, incredibly out of place in the squalid stench of misery pervading the general area. It was seductive, intriguing, and for a moment Ian could focus only on it, on her essence of good. The rest of his senses woke up when he saw the quartet of men hauling her toward a house, while she writhed and bucked in their hold. An ugly bruise of tempers surrounded them, proclaiming their intentions. In their center, a vivid burst of orange determination exploded, and the woman redoubled her efforts to fight free.
Ian phased out, an invisible specter as he crossed to the group and rematerialized behind the one in the rear, the one whose arm wrapped around the woman’s head and mouth. He laid a hand on the man’s nape and felt the punch of power as he drained the hatred and fury.
“What the f—” The guy tried to turn his head.
Ian gave an instant’s thought to helping him with that, just cranking it on around until his neck snapped. But leaving a body would cause too many questions. So when the thug’s face came into view, Ian smashed his fist into it, enjoying the satisfying crunch of cartilage beneath his knuckles. The man gave a short, muffled scream and dropped his hold on the woman.
A second one rushed him, and Ian gripped him by the throat, lifting until he dangled. Aggression and anger poured into him, priming muscles kept on the brink of starvation. And God help him, he enjoyed the sensation of power, the scent of the human’s fear. A third shoved the woman into the last thug’s arms and charged Ian. A quick, two-fingered strike to his windpi
pe had the bastard crumpling to his knees. Ian drove a fist into the stomach of the man he still held and dropped him as well, already turning to go for the fourth.
But the woman was taking care of him herself, using a palm strike that drove shards of the asshole’s nose into his sinus cavity. Blood sprayed in a small geyser as she followed up with a knee to his balls. As the assailant collapsed at her feet, she staggered back, away from the group, hands still fisted, breath sawing in and out of her lungs. Her eyes went a little feral as she finally saw him.
As bolts of citrine wariness and cobalt relief spiraled out around her, Ian held his hands up, palms out. “Are you okay?”
Blood spray dotted her milky white cheeks. He could see the tremors running the length of her body, the slightly glassy sheen to her violet eyes and waited, prepared to leap if she fainted.
But she held her ground, dragging her gaze from him to the groaning, grounded attackers scattered like refuse at his feet. Surprise and more wariness pulsed off her before she looked back to him. When she spoke, her voice was soft and rough, stroking across his senses like tattered rose petals. “Thank you.”