"Then do it because it's important," Mira pressed. "And it is important, Rune. I won't lie to you, it's a matter of life and death."
"Whose life we talking about?"
Although she didn't so much as look Kellan's way, he felt her body tense beside him. "Does it make a difference who?" she replied, echoing the fighter's words back to him.
"Might," he said. "Might not."
"I need to talk to Rooster, the sooner the better," Mira told him. "And no one can know that I'm looking for him. No one."
Rune's hard stare bore into her, then slid to Kellan in what felt a lot like suspicion. "What about the Order?"
"No one," Mira stated firmly.
It took the menacing Breed fighter a long moment to respond. When he did, it was with a curt inclination of his head. Agreement, even though he started closing the door on them again, in earnest this time. "If that's all, I've got more important business to attend to."
The sharp turn of the lock punctuated his exit. Then Kellan and Mira were standing alone in the passageway once more.
"Let's get out of here," Kellan said, taking her by the hand to make their way back up the stairwell to the club at street level.
They had no sooner cleared the back stairwell and were on their way through the noisy crowd, heading for the door, when a low voice sounded from behind them. "Thought you got the message a few nights ago when you were in here causing trouble, warrior."
Kellan and Mira slowed to a halt, then together turned to face Cassian, La Notte's proprietor. His eyes were the color of peridot, shrewd and hawklike beneath his dark brows and snowy crown of short-cropped hair. No small man in stature or build, he stood with arms crossed over his leather-and-buckle-clad chest, his long legs braced in a commanding stance.
"In case there was any doubt, you're not welcome in my club." His mouth curved in a smile that bordered on profane. "Or are you in here slumming with your friend?"
He wasn't looking at Kellan when he said it, but Kellan's hackles rose at the sight of the guy. Tension seeped into his limbs, tightened his grasp on Mira's hand.
"We were just leaving," she replied.
"Who's this with you?" Cassian asked now. "New recruit?"
Kellan lowered his head as the man strolled toward them, moving with a rolling, pantherlike smoothness that belied that rough edges of the rest of his demeanor. Cassian's bright green eyes pinned Kellan in a hard stare. "I know you."
"Don't think so," Kellan growled, certain he'd never met the human. He would have recalled the arrogance and the none-too-subtle undercurrent of menace that vibrated around him.
That shock of silvery white hair seemed glacial under the swirling, colored lights from the stage behind them. A huge Faceboard monitor on the opposite wall flashed live coverage of a bloody human boxing match, no doubt meant to be an appetizer for the real fights set to take place later that night in the club's basement. The monitor's images illuminated Cassian's angular face in harsh relief and shadows. "Yes," he said, letting the word out slowly, almost a hiss. "It's been some years, but I have seen you somewhere once before."
Kellan dropped Mira's hand because his were suddenly fisting of their own accord at his sides. "And I said you're mistaken."
"Let's go." Mira took his arm in both her hands as though she were prepared to drag him away from the confrontation with La Notte's owner.
Cassian chuckled. "She likes you, wants to protect you. That's intriguing. Figured she might've gone the other way . . . not that I didn't find that thought intriguing too."
The man had the poor judgment to take a step toward Mira, and Kellan's hand shot out like a viper, blocking him. The chest that flattened against his palm was rock solid, unyielding. And where Cassian's gaze was ice, his body was hot like coals beneath the leather, radiating a power Kellan could hardly reconcile.
As he held the man in place, physically keeping him from getting close to Mira, Kellan's psychic gift roused awake inside him. It reached out through his touch on Cassian, searching for the truth of the human's intentions.
And came up blank.
Utterly unreadable.
How the fuck could that be?
Cassian held his gaze for a second longer than Kellan liked, then the man simply stepped aside and strode toward the bar, where a group of inebriated, pretty young women were having trouble staying upright on their spiked heels.>"This was once used as a crypt," Mira informed him. "Now the fighters' private dressing rooms are down here, along with the arena."
Kellan had never been near one of the illegal cage-fighting clubs, and he wasn't enthused to realize how familiar Mira had become with them. A surge of protectiveness rose up in him as he watched her hips sway with each quiet stride of her combat boots on the stone floor. He didn't want her in the vicinity of dangerous males, let alone dangerous Breed males who made their names and fortunes by tearing one another to shreds for the amusement of violence-thirsty humans willing to pay to watch the spectacle.
"Hey." He snagged Mira's hand and drew her to a halt. Pulled her closer to him than was necessary, if only to feel her heat radiating toward him in the dank coolness of the corridor. "Where the hell are we going?"