Мишель Роуэн - Lady & the Vamp

She frowned. "What?"

"Oh,shit! " Barkley repeated. "How the hell did they find us?"

Quinn followed Barkley's gaze out of the diner's window. Four huge men had pulled up in the parking lot in a big black pickup truck. They got out simultaneously and moved toward Barkley and Quinn's rental car.

"Who are they?" Lenny asked.

Quinn sighed heavily. "They just happen to also be Barkley's destiny."

"They're wrecking your car."

He nodded. "Yes. Yes, they are."

The men had baseball bats, and they were going to town on the Ford, bashing in the sides and breaking the windows. One whipped out a knife and slashed the tires. After only a minute had gone by, the car was definitely not roadworthy anymore. And the men hadn't even broken a sweat.

Janie looked at the rampage blankly. Looked like a good way to let some frustrations out.

She grabbed her beloved necklace from the table where Barkley had dropped it, and she put it back on.

There was a very subtle trace of amusement in Quinn's expression. "I'm so not getting my security deposit back."

Barkley slunk down in his seat. "They're going to kill me."

"Who exactly are they?" Janie eyed the men, assessing if they were her problem and deciding that they weren't. At least not yet.

"Pack. They hate me. Want to kill me. Why didn't we go farther than ten miles?"

Quinn stared through the window. "You wanted the best hamburger in the state, remember?"

"I take it that you don't want them to find you in here," Janie said.

Barkley shuddered. "You take it correctly."

A plan was quickly formulating in her mind. Not a good one by any stretch of the imagination, but it would have to do. As soon as those men strolled in the diner, that would be the end of her negotiation, or whatever this had turned into. A bust, most likely. But at least Lenny was fed.

Why was nothing ever easy?

"Lenny… take the keys." She tossed them to him.

He caught them in his left hand and frowned. "What?"

"Take wolf-boy out the back so his friends don't find him."

Barkley turned to her with a tentative smile. "You'd help me? Thank you so much."

She held up a hand. "Not so fast. Here's how this is going to work. Are you listening, Quinn?"

He glowered at her. "I'm listening."

"Lenny will take Barkley and keep him safe. For now. He will wait for my call. In the meantime, you will take me to the Eye."

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"I disagree." She leaned across the table so they were eye to eye. "I may be a bit squeamish about shooting somebody in cold blood, it's true, but Lenny doesn't have a problem with it. So I strongly suggest you don't give me any problems today. Do you understand?"

Barkley and Quinn exchanged glances.

A small crowd had gathered near the front door as people watched the men finish destroying Quinn's rental car. Janie slipped out of the booth, but Barkley didn't make a move.

"Don't have all day here," Janie prompted after another moment. "They're going to be coming in here any minute. Then again, if you two think you can take those boys, then have at it."

"Quinn—" Barkley whimpered.

Quinn's eyes narrowed, and he looked at Lenny as if assessing the brute power behind the bodybuilder's physique, then returned his gaze to Janie's to give her a truly withering look. "Fine. We'll do it your way."

His words were so cold that they managed to freeze her just around the edges. She returned his look with a frosty one of her own. "That's good to hear."

Barkley finally got up from the booth. Lenny stood up, twisting the key chain around his finger. He stared at Janie as if he was waiting for something.

She raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Be careful."

She nodded. "Of course."

"I worry."

She glanced at Quinn, whose blank expression held.

"Would you two like to be alone?" he asked.

"Go," Janie told Lenny. "I'll call."

With a last longing look, Lenny turned away, grabbed Barkley by his elbow, and steered him toward the back entrance of the diner.

Barkley looked over his shoulder. "I'll try to remember more of my dream."

Before she could say anything in reply, they were gone. She quickly composed herself and sat back down in the booth across from Quinn.

She glanced at him. "Now you're going to take me to the Eye."

He nodded slowly. "And if I don't, you're going to get on the phone and tell that human Rottweiler to kill Barkley."

She shrugged.

His expression darkened. "What makes you think I give a damn what happens to him?"

"Are you saying that you two aren't friends?"

"I don't have any friends."

"Oh come on, now. You were very popular back in the day."

"Things have changed."

"Yeah, I noticed." She glanced out of the window to where Barkley and Lenny were skulking toward the Mustang.

Quinn eyed her with anything but friendliness. "And I thought my day was a disaster to start with."

"We'll give the boys a few minutes to make their getaway."

"Whatever you say."

She felt a chill go down her spine at his cold expression and struggled to keep her composure.

What did she think she was doing, anyhow? Baiting a vampire like this? A lot of vamps were completely harmless, that was true. But some of them… some of them were as dangerous as anything she'd ever faced. She still had the marks on her neck to prove that little theory. Two weeks ago, a master vampire named Nicolai nearly ripped her throat. She'd trusted the bastard—even worked for him part-time—right up until she learned he was a serial killer.

Had he fed on her any longer, she would have either been permanently dead or picking up her vampire membership card. She was in a business where it was easy to get jaded and unfazed by life-threatening situations, but that vampire had taken her by surprise, and she'd never been particularly fond of surprises—especially the kind that left scars behind.

She studied the man in front of her for a moment as he looked away. She knew that Quinn was dangerous to start with. When he'd been a hunter, there were rumors that he would rise in the ranks and become a real leader. That's what his father had always groomed him for. From what she'd heard through the grapevine, Quinn was good at the job. Real good. But there was something missing. A lack of passion for it. He took no joy in slaying vamps.

Now he was a man with nothing to lose. A wild tiger waiting to hunt his next meal. And she was sticking her hands in the cage and trying to take its catnip away.

She frowned at the thought.Or something like that .

The werewolves entered the diner. Janie didn't even have to turn around to see, she could feel it.

Werewolves, especially in the company of other pack members, gave off a preternatural vibe—a pulse of energy that raised the hair on the back of a human's neck.

Three years ago, on her very first assignment with the Company, she'd killed a werewolf. He was a bad guy, a lone wolf, and he had taken hostage the wife and three children of aU.S. congressman from Mississippi . The Company had sent Janie in on a rescue mission. Janie received her first of many scars, on her upper thigh, from that experience, but she'd lived.

She'd managed to stare death in the eye. It had been terrifying and also rather ... furry. Before she pulled the trigger to send the silver bullet into the beast's heart, she vaguely recalled making a Little Red

Riding Hood joke. Damned if she could remember what it was now. She did remember the fear that filled her and almost made her run away. But the thought of the woman and those innocent kids, and imagining what that monster planned to do to them, was enough to keep her moving.

Yeah, she was such a hero.

Sure.

With that memory firmly fixed in her head, she turned to look. The werewolves had cornered the manager of the restaurant, who had his hands up and was talking to them with a panicked expression on his face. Panicked, but not surprised. Maybe the fur patrol were regulars at the Stardust Diner.