LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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