Fair Game

‘She survived,’ said A

Beauclaire nodded politely.‘Some mortals do. Some of them make it just fine when horrible things happen to them. Some of them

’ He shook his head and took another sip of his beer and then said with quiet savagery, ‘Sometimes broken people stay broken.’ He looked at her. ‘Why am I telling you all of this?’

A

losing something she loves is tragic. But she doesn’t seem to be the kindwho will think that she would be better off dead – not in the long run.’

Beauclaire looked at his glass.‘I’m sorry to hear that you had to be rescued.’

She shrugged again.‘That which does not destroy us makes us stronger, right?’ It came out sounding flippant, so she added, ‘I knew a woman when I was in school. She was smart, a talented musician, and hardworking. She came to college and found out that those weren’t enough to make her a first violin, or even a second – and she tried to kill herself because she had to sit with the third violins. It was the first real disappointment she’d ever had in her life and she didn’t know how to deal with it. Those of us who live in the real world and survive horrible things, we emerge stronger and ready to face tomorrow. Lizzie will be okay.’

Beauclaire frowned at her. He looked away and then said,‘You might visit her and tell her that.’

She didn’t want to. She wasn’t a counselor and she didn’t like talking about what had happened to her to strangers – though it hadn’t stopped her tonight, had it? A

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised reluctantly. She was exhausted from being on display, and from thinking about things she’d tried to put behind her. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go visit the ladies’ room.’

She left Leslie talking to the fae and let herself out of the banquet room. Away from the noise and the room full of mostly strangers, A

When she came out of the restroom, she wasn’t pleased to see that Agent Heuter was leaning against the wall next to the door. There was no one left in the restaurant proper – it must have closed at ten. So she and Heuter were alone in the hallway next to the entrance for the room where the party was still going strong.

‘So you are the heroine of the day,’ he said.

Something in his voice didn’t track and she frowned at him. ‘Not really, no. If you’ll excuse me?’

But he stepped in front of her.‘No. I don’t think so. Not today.’

And someone who wasn’t there grabbed her from behind and sent her to sleep.

11

A

Nausea and a rotten headache vied with the silver collar and high-silver-content, medieval-style cuffs and chains for the honors of the most miserable distractions. A

She’d been talking to Heuter, who’d been acting weird. And then

jeez. Had they really chloroformed her? Decades-long killing spree, witch’s magic, rare old scary fae bloodlines – and they used chloroform. Several times, if her vague memories of waking up in the backseat of a car were accurate.

That just seemed so

mundane.

She rose to her hands and knees– and that was as far as the chains would let her go. She let the burn of the silver and the desperate need to upchuck her di

Lizzie had been raped within hours of when they took her. It was almost the first thing that they had done. And that was the thought that made A

As delicious as the food in Isaac’s Irish pub had been, it didn’t taste very good the second time around. She managed to get most of it out of the cage, but enough lingered on her hair – for some reason having her hands cuffed and chained had impeded her ability to keep her hair out of her mouth – and had spattered on the edge of the floor that it added to her misery.

And then she wondered if she was as alone in the room as she had thought. She hadn’t been able to see or smell the fae who’d been guarding Lizzie’s prison on the island. Panic threatened and she forced it down because it wouldn’t do her any good.

Charles would be looking for her by now. But when she tried their bond, it was closed as tight as it ever had been. Didn’t he know she was missing? Isaac would tell him right away. But what if Isaac didn’t know? What if Heuter told him that A

So why hadn’t Charles opened the bond between them?

There was noise outside the cavernous room and A

‘

pretty one. I like the women and the pretty ones best.’

‘I thought you had decided you were a superhero, Bulldog?’ Heuter’s voice was mocking.

‘It pays well,’ the stranger said. ‘Better than janitorial work. Never got a blow job for cleaning a floor; got one for saving that hooker from her pimp. This one we got now is pretty. Isn’t she pretty?’

‘Not as pretty as the one you let get away,’ said Heuter.

‘Not my fault. Not my fault. That big wolf – he was going to kill me.’ There was an edge of hysteria in the man’s voice and an odd cadence to his speech pattern. ‘You never said they’d have a monster with them. Killing werewolves isn’t hard. I killed all of them Uncle Travis sent me. Why is that one so hard to kill?’

‘The witch did something,’ said Heuter. ‘Used some kind of magic so the wolf could see you, and it must have made him stronger. The girl we got tonight is his wife.’

‘He’s going to be so mad at me.’ He sounded scared.

Heuter headed it off at the pass.‘He has to find us first. This will be the last one for the year, and then we’ll move on.’

‘I get her first,’ said the man who wasn’t Heuter. A

‘I get her first because that wolf hurt me. I get to hurt her. I’m going to take her until she understands who’s boss. I’ m—’

He continued in that vein, working himself into a frenzy as he used fouler and fouler language to describe her fate in ugly detail. A

She couldn’t feel Charles. He was going to be too late, and that would destroy him. She tugged on the chains, but they’d held werewolves before and there was no way she could break them. Blowing on her hands to ease the burn, she thought about how Isaac had said that his wolf Otten had been waiting for achance and the killers hadn’t given him one.