Adam felt his cock stir, for a vampire.
He shuddered in revulsion.
Oh, hell, no. The woman was so not his type.
Her scent surrounded him. Not the rancid, rotting stench of death he'd smelled around others of her kind. But a light, fragrant scent, almost like flowers.
What in the hell? How could she-
Maya growled and shoved him away from her, muttering something under her breath about idiots with death wishes.
Then she walked away from him.
For a moment, he just studied her. Maya wasn't exactly his idea of an uber-vamp. She was small, too damn small for his taste. The woman was barely five foot seven. Her body was slender, with almost boyish hips. Her legs were encased in an old, faded pair of jeans, and the black T-shirt she wore clung tightly to her frame.
He liked women with more meat on their bones. Liked a woman with curves. A woman with round, lush hips that he could hold while he thrust deep into her.
But, well, he wasn't interested in screwing Maya. Not with her too-thin body. Her too-pale skin.
No, he didn't want to screw her.
He just planned to use her.
Adam took two quick strides forward, grabbed her arm, and swung her back toward him.
The eyes that had relaxed to a bright blue shade instantly flashed black. Vamps' eyes always changed to black when they fought or when they fucked.
Sometimes folks made the mistake of confusing vamps with demons, because a demon's eyes, well, they could go black, too. Actually, Adam knew that a demon's eyes were always black, and for the demons, every damn part of their eyes went black. Even the sclera. With the vamps, just the iris changed.
Usually demons were smart enough to hide the true color of their eyes. But the vamps, they didn't seem to give a flying shit who saw the change. If a human happened to see the eye shift, it was generally too late for the poor bastard, anyway, because by then, he was prey.
Gazing into Maya's relentless black eyes, Adam had a true inkling of just how those said poor bastards must have felt.
A growl rumbled in her throat, then she snapped, "Slick, you're screwing with the wrong woman tonight."
No, she was the right woman. Whether he liked the fact or not.
So he clenched his teeth, swallowed his pride, and in the midst of hell, admitted, "I need your help."
She snorted. "What the hell do I look like? The freaking Red Cross?" Her gaze held his as she bared her teeth. Her extremely sharp teeth. "I am not a helper. Now get your hand off me before I have to hurt you."
As if she could.
"Playing with your prey, Maya?" A male voice drawled from the shadows.
Adam's head jerked to the left as a tall, skeletally thin man stepped forward. The guy had bright red hair and a face that looked like it had been smashed by a shovel. His twisted smile showcased his glistening fangs.
Maya swore.
"Ah, sweet, is that any way to greet an old friend?"
She moved in a flash, lunging across the room and wrapping her fingers around his throat.
"You," she told him, her voice colder than ice, "are not my friend."
Rage sparked in his black eyes, but, to Adam's surprise, he didn't try to fight her.
"Armand…told me…about Sean."
She slanted a quick glance back at the bartender and a satisfied smile curved her lips. "Ah, I knew he could get some information for me if he just tried."
Armand swallowed and lowered his head.
Adam didn't move. The tension in the air was suddenly, dangerously thick. The bar was quiet now. The guitarist had stopped strumming. There were no more whispers, no more moans. It was as if everyone were waiting, watching to see what would happen next.
Because that's exactly what they were all doing.
"Someone attacked my day watcher," Maya said, never releasing her hold on the vampire. "And let me tell you, Stephan, that really pisses me off." She drew back her right hand, and Adam saw her razor-sharp claws.
Why didn't the other vampire attack her? Why didn't they all jump her? Adam glanced around the room, confused as hell. Sure, the whispers and rumors held that Maya had woken to the undead world with almost abnormal vampire strength, but, hell, she was only one woman.
She couldn't be that strong.
"I-I've heard…talk." Stephan licked his lips.
"And?" She lifted him up, holding him in the air with one hand.
Adam wasn't particularly impressed.
"Wasn't a vampire. Not one of us."
"Then who was it?"
" It was me ." A huge guy stood just beyond the stage. Thick claws extended from his fingers, and unless Adam was very much mistaken, the fellow appeared to have horns in the middle of his wild mass of black hair.
"Ah, hell." Maya dropped the vampire and turned to face her new threat. "What is the deal? First that guy-" She jerked her thumb toward Adam, "and now you. Has Hugh gone mad-ass crazy and he's letting just any jerk inside who wants to come and play with the vamps?"
The man– no, couldn't be a man –smiled. Adam expected to see fangs. And he did. Each tooth the guy had-and he had a lot-was a sharpened fang.
Interesting.
He stepped back, not because he was afraid, but because he wanted to watch Maya work. He figured this would be a good test for her.
Unless he missed his guess, he was staring at a level-ten demon. A very old level ten. An ancient. The baddest of his kind.
There were ten levels of demons in the known world. The first three levels, well, they weren't anything to worry about. Sure, they could control a small flame, or make the wind dance. Not exactly earth-shattering.
Fours to eights-they were stronger. They could hypnotize humans. Control more of the elements.
They were hard to kill. To slay 'em, the head had to generally be severed.
Level nines and level tens-those guys were the demons that folks really feared. The demons of the sort mentioned in the Bible. Monsters who slaughtered women and children for fun, bathed in blood, had unbelievable strength, and could sometimes live forever-provided, of course, that the demon didn't lose his head. The oldest of these demons had tails, horns, claws, and skin that couldn't be pierced with human weapons. Considering that fun fact, the level nines and level tens really didn't have to worry too much about a beheading.
That's why the bastards got to live and kill for so long.
In the supernatural world, they were considered the bad-asses. They feared no one.
Sure as hell not a slip of a vampire, Adam thought.
Maya circled the demon and the other vampires backed away, going way back.
The bleeding humans even seemed to finally sense that things had taken a deadly turn in the feeding bar. They hurried to the corners, shrinking back and gazing around with lost eyes.
"Hugh?" The demon spoke the name slowly, tilting his head to the side. "Oh, would that be the man who was guarding the door?" He held up his hands and Adam could see the blood dripping from the demon's claws. "He didn't want to let me in, so I had to convince him."
A faint tremble shook Maya's body. If Adam hadn't been watching her so closely, he would have missed it.
"You bastard. I liked Hugh, and I don't like many people." She stood in front of the demon now, barely five steps away. Legs braced shoulder-width apart, hands relaxed at her sides.
"And you killed Hydan, you bitch!"
Hydan. The light dawned. That had been the demon Maya had beheaded two nights back. A rogue who'd slashed a prostitute's face and then started on her body. Adam had been following Maya when she'd stumbled onto him, alerted by the other woman's screams.
Adam moved slightly, creeping around the bar so that he could get a better view. Ah, that was it.
Now he could see Maya's face.
The woman was smiling. "Yeah, I killed him. And you know what? I'd do it again."
The demon's teeth snapped together. "I'm going to enjoy ripping you open, vampire."
"Um, are we gonna talk all night?" She lifted one dark brow. "Or is someone going to die?"
Her words seemed to push the demon over some invisible edge. He roared and launched forward, beefy arms raised and his mouth open.
Maya didn't move. She stood there, looking fragile, too vulnerable, as the seven-foot demon attacked.
Adam stepped forward, an instinctual move, because she looked so damn helpless .
A level-ten demon was too strong. She'd never survive, and if she got her heart ripped out and her head chopped off-a surefire way to kill a vamp-she'd never be able to help him find-
Maya's hands lifted at the last second. She grabbed the demon's claws, jerked his left hand back, and then drove his own claws straight into his throat.
Blood gushed down his chest, poured onto Maya, and covered the floor.
The demon began twisting, snarling, howling. His right hand raked her side, slashing deep and ripping her skin wide open.
She never eased her hold on him.
Adam saw her fingers tighten around the demon's wrist, then she yanked his hand to the left, to the right-and she cut the demon's head off.
With his own damn hand.
The head fell to the floor with a thud. The body stood stiffly for a moment. Swayed. Then the knees buckled and the demon's chest slammed toward the wooden floor.
Maya jumped back, barely avoiding being taken down by the headless corpse.
She stared at the demon's remains, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her fangs bared.
Now, I'm impressed.
Apparently, the rumors were true. Maya Black was truly one badass vampire.
Maya gazed down at the body, trying to swallow back the nausea rising in her throat.
Shit. The damn thing is still twitching.
She drew a deep breath, smelled his blood.
He wasn't human. I didn't kill a human.
But she'd killed.
And he would have killed me. He'd already attacked Sean, left him for dead. Murdered Hugh.
The demon had deserved to die.
A demon, not a man. She just had to remember that fact.
She lifted her head, deliberately drawing her gaze from the demon. The room around her was quiet, too quiet. She knew everyone had been watching her. Some, if not all, hoping that she'd be the one who wound up on the floor.
Luckily for her, that hadn't been her first encounter with an L10. No, she'd gone against a level-
ten demon three months after her change. She'd learned the hard way that the legend about the mortal weapons not being able to pierce their flesh was true. She'd been about ten seconds away from her second and final death when she'd managed to shove the demon's claws back against his chest.
When the blood had begun to flow, Maya had known instantly what she had to do.
Kill or be killed. It was the new law, the only law, she followed these days.
Stephan sauntered up to her side. He was smiling. The guy was always smiling. "That'll teach 'em to come into our territory."
A rumble of agreement.
Great. Now the vampires were going to act like they'd just won some kind of pissing contest with the demons.
"So that's how you kill 'em, huh?" He bent down, dipped a finger in the L10's blood. "I'll have to remember that." He brought the fingertip to his lips, then frowned.
Level-ten demon blood was sour as hell.
The music started again then. The strumming of the guitar was light at first, tentative. Then louder, stronger as the vampires and humans began to drift from the shadows.
Maya stepped over the demon. His body would be taken care of. She knew Armand had a policy of destroying the dead left in his bar.
She'd settled her score. Now it was time for her to leave.
She hated the killing.
He wasn't a man.
He'd been a monster. Evil. Deadly.
A monster.
Just like she was.
Maya shoved open the door, stepping into the night. She didn't look down at Hugh. She couldn't bear to, not then, but she knew he was dead. She could no longer hear his heart beating.
Human. Hugh had been a human, a watcher of sorts, just like Sean. He'd always been civil to her.
The guy had also never tried to kill her, a definite mark in his favor.
Footsteps thundered behind her. Eager whispers reached her ears.
She froze. Didn't glance over her shoulder. "Don't even think about drinking from him." The scavengers drank from the dead.
But she didn't want anyone drinking from Hugh.
"Bury him. Get him a priest. But don't drink from him." Now she did turn back, looking at each vampire in turn. "Or I'll come back for you."
The fear that flashed on their faces told her that they believed her. Good. Because she'd hate to have to hunt them down.
Too much work.
Maya inclined her head, then stalked down the road. Every step, the air became a little cleaner.
The stench of death faded. She could almost pretend that she hadn't just been in hell.
She'd easily traveled ten blocks before she realized that she was being followed. It was the faintest of sounds that alerted her. A soft sigh. Could have been a whisper of breath or a scuff of a shoe on the pavement.
But Maya knew she wasn't alone on the dark street.
Her nostrils flared slightly as she inhaled. Since her change, all of her senses had grown stronger.
Hearing. Smell. Sight.
Especially sight. She could see perfectly in the dark. When she hunted, it was like she was using some kind of heat vision. She could see the warm red glow of her prey. Could stalk and hunt easily for miles.
Normally, she could also smell with the detection of an animal. She could pick up scents, even identify different people from miles away.
But tonight, she didn't smell any trace of her pursuer.
Just as earlier, when the human had approached her, she hadn't detected his scent. Which was damn odd. Humans always carried a scent. Perfume. Cigarettes. Soap. Something. But that guy, the tall, dark guy who'd approached her in the feeding room, he'd had no scent.