Синтия Иден - Eternal Flame

His little victim didn’t push him away. No, she tried to pull him closer.

My kind of woman .

And if those flames weren’t waiting, he’d show her just how she could truly thank him. No time now. But maybe later.

One last lick. One last stroke of his tongue. Then Zane forced his head to lift. Her eyes were closed, and her expression a bit dazed. Her lips were red now, heated from his mouth.

He released her and stepped back.

Her eyelashes lifted, and she blinked. Once. Twice.

“Told you I wasn’t an angel, baby.” He let a grin curve his lips. “But if you want to show me how much you appreciate my help just stick around a while.”

Her jaw dropped. He almost laughed. Almost … but his cock was shoving hard against his jeans, and the firefighters were losing their battle with the flames. They needed him.

So he turned away from her and didn’t look back.

“Miss? Miss, are you okay?”

Jana Carter hunched her shoulders at the voice. More vehicles had arrived. Cops. An ambulance. She glanced to the right and found a fresh-faced EMT staring at her.

“Were you burned?” he asked her quietly, compassion flowing with the words.

She let her lips tremble. “N-no.” Her “hero” had disappeared. Had tall, dark, and dangerous really gone back inside the house? To save a killer?

Stupid move. His funeral .

Two cops began to approach her. Time to leave. Jana pressed her lips together and realized she still tasted the man on her mouth. Zane Wynter . Bounty hunter extraordinaire. Yes, she knew who he was. Zane’s mistake was not knowing her identity. He should have been better prepared.

Weren’t the Night Watch hunters always supposed to be prepared? Like freaking Boy Scouts? Night Watch … the multistate bounty hunting agency had a reputation for always getting the job done. Whether the agents were chasing the worst human criminals out there-or stalking the Other who’d crossed the line, they brought down their prey.

Most humans didn’t know about the Other in the world. They didn’t know about the vampires, the demons, the shifters, and the hundreds of other monsters out there on the streets. They didn’t know because they were blind.

Jana wasn’t blind. She knew the real score in this world. And she knew that her “hero” hadn’t been an average hunter, either. No, a man hadn’t hauled her out of the flames. A demon had.

Angel, my ass . She’d almost choked when she told him that one.

“Miss, I need you to get in the ambulance. I want to check you out.”

Ah, now that sounded promising. The ride in the ambulance would let her get away from the cops. Because those boys in blue were already eyeing her with too much curiosity and she really didn’t want to get into an explanation of just why she’d been in the house on Francis Street.

Jana’s knees buckled. The EMT grabbed her, and she let her lashes sag. “So … weak.” Though she’d rarely been weak in her life. Appearances could be so deceptive, but the EMT didn’t realize that.

“It’s okay!” He scooped her up and yelled for help. Seconds later, he was loading her into the back of the ambulance. The doors slammed shut behind them, and the cops were left out in the cold.

Well, with the cold-and with the flames.

The ambulance’s siren screamed on and when the vehicle lurched forward, Jana smiled.

Too easy .

Or maybe she was just too good because Jana had just taken out her prey, destroyed the evidence, and even been given a getaway car. A chauffeured ride away from the scene of her attack.

Not bad for a night’s work.

Poor Zane. The guy obviously thought he was the big, tough demon badass. He’d be realizing soon enough that there was a new sheriff in town.

“I didn’t get the demon.” Zane rubbed the back of his neck, felt every ache and pain in his body, and met the stare of his boss, Jason Pak, head-on. “When I got to the house on Francis Street, the place was a damn inferno.” The flames had spread so quickly that the firefighters thought accelerants must have been used to soak the place.

Everything just exploded . The woman’s voice whispered through his head. Yeah, the house had exploded all right. With a little help.

He exhaled and dropped his hand. “The bastard had a victim with him. He was still hunting.” Not just hunting, but acting like a vamp. Trying to bite prey. No longer slicing them with claws and knives, but biting, vamp style. What the hell? “She was lucky to get out alive.”

Pak’s leather chair creaked as the owner of Night Watch leaned forward and flattened his palms on the desk. “Was she?”

Zane’s shoulders straightened a bit. “I pulled her out of the flames.” That good deed had to be worth something, right? No matter what most folks thought, he didn’t spend his whole life telling the world to screw off.

“Where is she?” Pak’s fingers drummed on the desktop. There was a skeletal staff in the Night Watch office then. Most of the bounty hunters were out on cases. Dragging in prey.

Pity. This time, Zane wouldn’t have any prey to bring in.

“The EMTs took her to the hospital,” he told Pak. “She’d sucked in a lot of smoke, and that jerk-off Jacobson bit her.”

“Any other injuries?” Pak’s dark gaze was steady.

“Uh, no. None that I saw.” He hadn’t smelled blood on her, but the smoke had been clogging his nose. He didn’t think the woman had been hurt. But she’d trembled against him.

Desire? Fear? Or pain? “What did she look like?”

Zane blinked at that. “Ah … pretty. About five-foot-four, curvy, black hair, blue eyes-”

“Could have changed her appearance,” Pak murmured and his fingers stopped tapping.

And Zane got a really bad feeling in his gut. “Uh, excuse me?”

Pak’s black brows shot up. “Did I ever tell you I thought you handled yourself damn well when all that shit went down with Dee?”

Dee . Dee Daniels was another bounty hunter in the office. She’d watched his ass, he’d watched hers, for years. He’d trusted the woman with his life more times than he could count. Then she’d become a vampire.

“I do my job,” Zane said quietly. Just like he’d done his job when Dee changed. He’d protected her and made sure the assholes after her were taken down. “No matter what happens, I do my job . “

Pak rose and walked around the edge of the desk. A ghost of a smile curved his thin lips. “Good. You know the job has to come first.”

What the hell? The job always came first for him. Zane sucked in a sharp breath. “Jacobson’s body wasn’t recovered on the scene. The fire department was still there when I left, digging through the rubble, but-”

“But you don’t think they’ll find a body? Or what’s left of one?”

“Jacobson was a demon.” Demons and fire always mixed. “The guy was low level, but he should have been strong enough to knock the flames back, at least for a few moments.” A few moments would have been all the guy needed for an escape.

“You want to keep searching for him.”

Hell, yeah. “He’s my collar.”

Pak didn’t blink. That dark stare just weighed him.

“Uh, boss?” Pak didn’t usually get all quiet and focused like this unless he was out in the swamps, talking to the gators. The guy was a charmer, a being born with the ability to speak to animals. On the weekends, Pak would spend hours with the twelve- to fourteen-foot gators that loved to snap and feast in those muddy waters.

“I’m going to give Jude the Jacobson case,” Pak said.

“The hell you-”