Sin's Gift (Veiled Alliance 1)

Sin spun around and looked up a naked, jagged cliff face. Not something she could climb in broad daylight, much less manage in the dark. She was stuck waiting. “Will a bullet stop him?”

“No. Might just piss him off, so make sure it’s a head shot to slow him down if he backtracks. He saw you, Sin. He knows. He can’t live.” Wings flared behind his back, and he crouched and bolted upward with a downward slice.

With her fingers tightening around her pistol grip, she followed his ascent, craning her neck until he slipped over the cliff edge. “Wonder why he felt the need to strip bare-assed naked the last time,” she muttered.

“Didn’t want to mess up my clothes,” his voice echoed inside the narrow box canyon.

Sin snorted. “Excellent hearing. I’ll remember that.” She wiped sweat off her forehead with her sleeve and looked around.

Once again, she stood in a “Shadowland”—this time with darkness creeping from the crevices of the rock face and moonlight silvering the center of a canyon in a narrow, white strip. This part of Theo’s hell world looked an awful lot like Texas Hill country. She wondered if there were other parallels between this world and hers.

The rattle of pebbles sliding down the rock face had her stepping into the moonlight, away from the wall. She hoped Theo was kicking the demon’s ass.

With only her imagination to follow him, she wondered at the instinct that had prompted her to grab Theo’s sleeve the moment before he’d “crossed.”

Theo had cussed a blue streak when she’d landed in the dirt beside him. “You shouldn’t be here. Do you want every demon here to know about you?”

She didn’t really know why she’d done it. Curiosity did burn a hole inside her gut for another glimpse into this world. However, she really wasn’t jonesing for a suicide mission. Seemed she had a lot to live for. More than she’d realized a week ago.

She hoped Jake had stuck to the cruiser. If not, and if he’d tried to track them down, he must be scratching his head and getting madder than hell.

His anger she could manage. She’d channel it into a mutually enjoyable revenge, but his questions were another thing. Theo didn’t think she should expand the tight circle of those who “needed to know.”

Another rumble of shifting stones had Sin stiffening, seeking the shadows above her for the cause.

A shape moved on a ledge not twenty feet above her.

“Shit!” She stepped slowly backward, raising her gun to train on the long outline of a big cat. A wicked snarl ripped through the quiet, and the cat launched.

Sin stepped back again, gritted her teeth, and began to unload her clip—one shot at a time—more for the noise to alert Theo she was in trouble than in any hope she’d stop the cat before it killed her.

The creature was enormous. It landed on the ground in front of her at the edge of the path of light. Her first good look sent a shiver shuddering down her spine.

While his body was shaped like a cougar’s, its head and neck were frighteningly distinct. Its muzzle wasn’t sleek and curved—wasn’t even catlike. Instead, it was shaped more like a mastiff’s with long, curved fangs interlocking at the corners of the outward jut of its jaws.

The creature locked its golden, glowing gaze with hers, and its head sank toward the ground. Fur bristled on the back of its neck above a ridge of saw-like scales as it stalked her backward steps. The cat toyed with her, seeming to enjoy her deepening fear.

“Theo?” she said, her voice rising as she kept her gaze glued to the demon.

The snap of wings above her gave her hope she might live a moment or two longer. But she didn’t dare look away. She held the cat’s mesmerizing, glowing gaze and slowly pulled back the trigger again.

The shot struck the cat between the eyes, but he only shook his head, his jaws opening around a strangled snarl that sent a chill straight through her body. It leaned back, tension knotting in its powerful haunches the moment before it leapt.

Sin hit the ground, hoping the cat would jump right over her, but she didn’t hear it land. When she rolled to her back, she saw it dangling from beneath Theo as he flew high into the air.

He flew beyond the rim of the canyon, beyond her sight and hearing.

Sin didn’t relax until he soared back many minutes later, empty-handed. “Bullets won’t do it, but falling from the sky will?”

“I dropped him into a fire pit,” he said, closing his wings. The moment they folded behind him, they disappeared.

“That word again. What is it? A barbeque?” Sin asked, walking in a circle around him to touch his smooth back.

“A lava pit, for lack of a better word.”

“Cool,” she said absently, feeling along his body for the place his wings were hidden.