By a Thread by Jennifer Estep

Author:Jennifer Estep [Estep, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781451651768
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2012-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

15

Fuck. Randall Dekes knew exactly who I was—which meant that things were about to get seriously ugly. I wasn’t just going to have a chat with the vampire and warn him to leave Callie alone. Not anymore. Now only one of us would be leaving this room alive, and I was determined that it was going to be me.

I thought about immediately launching into full-scale attack mode but quickly discarded that idea—at least until I was out of reach of the two giants looming behind me. It wouldn’t do to let them latch onto me, not when I still didn’t know what kind of elemental magic Dekes had and what he planned to do to me with it. I had no doubt that Dekes would kill his own men if it meant taking me down with them.

No, the vampire was the real threat here, and I needed to deal with him first. So instead of reaching for one of my knives and charging at my enemies, I walked over, put my purse up on the mantel so both my hands would be free, and leaned against the fireplace, affecting a nonchalant air. The whole time, though, I was calculating speed, distances, and angles and wondering how much of his weird elemental magic Dekes might blast me with before I put him down for good.

“So you know my real name. Bravo for you. I assume that Jonah told you about my alter ego as well?”

“That you’re really the assassin the Spider? Oh yes. Jonah and I had quite a fascinating conversation about you—and the fact that you killed his son, Jake. Jonah was very upset about that. Still is, as a matter of fact.”

I’d killed Jake McAllister during a party at Mab’s house, leaving his body in one of the Fire elemental’s bathtubs. Jake had tried to rob the Pork Pit, in addition to wanting to rape and murder me, but I showed Jake just what a fatal mistake he’d made by taking me on—just as I was going to show Dekes.

But instead of backing up or moving away from me, Dekes gave me a smug, satisfied, slightly maniacal smile the Cheshire cat would have been envious of. The vampire didn’t seem concerned at all that he was in the same room with a notorious assassin. My worry cranked up another notch. Dekes didn’t strike me as the kind of man to lay his cards on the table without first being absolutely sure that he had the winning hand.

“Tell me, is my good friend Jonah here at the press conference?” I asked, matching Dekes’s calm with a bored, indifferent mask. “Because I’d love to personally thank him for introducing us, so to speak.”

“Sadly, no. Jonah couldn’t make it,” Dekes said. “But we had an interesting conversation on the phone this morning. It was something of a fluke, really. I was dealing with other things, namely the discovery of the bodies of several men I employ that were found floating in the pool of the Blue Sands hotel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.