Finally set, they took their bags down to the SUV, then walked across the street to the marketplace, looking for food. It was dinnertime by then, with the sun beginning to set and the air cooling just enough that they could wear jackets to cover their weapons without standing out in the crowd.
It was while they were walking back from dinner that everything went to shit. Maeve watched as Dragan stopped to study a store window display, his third so far, which seemed out of character. He’d barely cared about choosing the clothes they’d bought for him, much less shopping for anything more. Linking her arm with his, just two more lovers out for a stroll, she said, “What’s going on?”
He shot her a surprised look, which was rather insulting, but he said, “Just a feeling. It could be nothing, but—”
“Your Spidey senses are tingling.”
He stared as if she’d spoken a foreign language, then shook his head sharply and said, “Instincts born of too many years of war are warning me there’s a threat.”
“That’s what I meant,” she agreed and kicked up their pace. “Let’s go.”
He shifted sides, leaving his right hand unencumbered, then dropped back half a step so that his greater size shielded her from anyone coming up from behind them.
“I know what you’re doing,” she muttered.
“So do I.”
She made a disgusted noise, but kept walking, and before long, they were crossing the busy street and striding toward the hotel parking garage. There was an itch on her back that she tried to blame on Dragan’s warning, but she couldn’t get rid of the idea that someone really was stalking them. “How’re those instincts of yours feeling?” she asked as they bypassed the hotel entrance in favor of the garage.
“Unhappy.” He glared at an older couple who tried to share their elevator in the parking garage. They tsked in disapproval, but took the hint and backed away. Once the doors closed, he relaxed enough to take Maeve’s hand and squeeze it reassuringly, then immediately dropped it again. “How’d they find us?”
“I used a credit card to make this reservation. It’s one I never use, in my grandmother’s name, making it difficult to track me with it. But Sotiris only hires good people. That has to be how they found us.”
Dragan held her back when the doors opened on their parking level, stepping out ahead of her to scan the garage, before motioning for her to follow.
“You think they’ll come at us here?” she asked quietly, mindful of how voices carried in garages like this. “Did you see anyone?”
“No, but my instincts are well-honed and enhanced by the goddess’s gift. Someone was definitely watching us with ill intent.”
“Could be a regular robber who saw us spending money.”
They were already at the SUV by then, and Maeve was thinking they might have evaded their pursuer, when the faint ding of the elevator sounded.
She and Dragan both reacted before the bell’s echo finished bouncing off the walls, no more than an instant before several shots zinged off the car next to theirs. They took up defensive positions, Maeve with her gun in hand, as she tried to spot the shooter.
“I don’t see anyone,” she hissed, then dropped down to her belly trying to find their assailant that way. But there were too many tires in the way. She sat up, sheltering against one of the SUV’s back tires. “Nothing.”
“Stay,” he ordered and crouching low, made his way first to the front of their vehicle, and then in the same bent-over position along the wall and down the line of cars.
Maeve tracked him as he got closer to the elevator, all the while thinking of his last order, and that she wasn’t a fucking dog. She also wasn’t an idiot to react out of pique, however, and giving the matter some thought, decided it made tactical sense for her to remain where she was, while Dragan flanked the shooter from the other side. Moving to one of the SUV’s front tires, where she had a better view of the garage, she scanned from side to side of the elevator, peering under and over the parked cars. Even bad guys had to move sometime, and they couldn’t shoot without showing themselves.
She’d no sooner had that thought than she heard the soft scuff of a boot. Tilting her head from one side to the other, she replayed the noise in her head and tried to place it. She didn’t think it was Dragan. Somehow, she knew he’d be a silent stalker, but the sound had also seemed too close. She peered around the front bumper of her SUV, checking the low angle once more. There weren’t any telltale feet or legs, no one lying on the ground, searching the way she was. But when she lifted into a walking crouch, in order to move, she caught a shadow on the opposite wall. Thinking it was more a flutter of light than a true shadow, she nonetheless checked the surrounding lights and quickly calculated where the person casting that shadow had to be. She smiled. If Dragan had continued his path along the wall to the end of the garage, he might be in the perfect position to come up behind the bad guy. Unfortunately, she had no way of letting him know that without giving away his position.
On the other hand . . . since Maeve wasn’t a dog to stay on command, she decided to give Dragan the opportunity he needed. Lifting her Glock, she fired at the spot on the wall where she’d seen the shadow.
The shooter—or someone she hoped wasn’t Dragan—cursed. One word, snapped out in a voice that started loud and ended in a hiss of breath. Definitely not Dragan. As if to confirm her assumption, the same man abruptly surrendered all stealth and screamed in fear. Curious, Maeve stuck her head up just in time to see Dragan, shirt gone, muscles bulging, and wings fully deployed, as he literally flew down the length of the garage, cruising a few feet above the grease-stained concrete floor. His face was a terrifying mask of fury, his teeth bared like some creature out of myth come to seek revenge.
The shooter stepped into the open to face him, hand shaking only a little as he aimed his gun at Dragan and fired. Maeve rose to her feet and fired before he did. Three rounds, just as she’d been taught, struck him between the shoulder blades, throwing his own shots off so they missed, but not moving him enough to stop Dragan from dropping before him and sliding one taloned wing across his belly, ripping him open to the stench of human waste, as bloody pink guts spilled into the air.
Dragan didn’t so much as pause to review his work. Turning a furious glare on her, he closed the distance between them with several hard strides. “What the fuck did you think you were doing? I told you to stay where you were. You could have been killed!”
She’d been all prepared to soothe his tortured soul, since he’d seemed to hate the magic that produced his fighting form, but his raging words hit her like a slap of cold water. A slap that quickly sizzled out of existence as her own anger swept up to meet his.