LITMIR.BIZ

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threat to you,” he said.

      Alexia didn’t even bother to reply. “On your knees. Hands clasped behind your head.”

      He obeyed, each muscle working in such perfect harmony that suddenly he was on the ground without her having even noticed how he got there.

      “You see,” he said in that same reasonable tone, “you have nothing to fear from me. It’s generally accepted that Half-bloods are only a little inferior in strength and skill to my kind, so you seem to have the adva—”

      The butt of a rifle slammed into the Daysider’s temple, and he slumped to the ground. Michael turned the gun around and aimed it at the Daysider’s head. He was already stirring, only temporarily stunned by the blow.

      “Are you crazy?” Michael demanded, glaring at Alexia. “Chatting with a Daysider as if he wouldn’t bite your throat out the second you blinked?”

      Alexia knew she had no call to be angry with Michael. He was right. She’d let her curiosity about her first Daysider dangerously compromise her training. And her sense.

      “Shoot him if he moves,” Michael said, crouching behind the enemy operative. He unfastened a pair of steel cuffs from his belt and bound the Daysider’s hands behind him. Then he rolled the man over, patted him down and removed a wicked-looking knife and a small pistol of a type unfamiliar to Alexia. He tossed them into the bushes, pushed the agent back onto his stomach and jabbed the muzzle of his XM30 into the Daysider’s spine.

      “Sit up,” he said.

      The Daysider rocked to his knees and blinked as a thin trickle of blood dripped from his forehead into his left eye. In a few more seconds the bleeding had stopped, the small wound closed by the accelerated healing powers dhampires and Daysiders shared, and the agent was studying Alexia as if nothing had happened.

      “That wasn’t necessary,” he said. “I have come to offer a truce.”

      “A truce?” Michael scoffed. All the good nature he displayed at home, the charm that drew so many women to him—even the human ones—was lost in hatred. The very emotion Director McAllister had warned her about. “You?” he said. “You have the authority to make a truce for your masters?”

      Not by the slightest flicker of expression did the Daysider acknowledge that Michael could sever his spine at any moment. “Not for Erebus,” he said. “For myself.”

      Alexia stared into those remarkable sapphire eyes and had to fight off a shiver. “Explain,” she said harshly.

      “We have both been sent on the same mission,” the Daysider said. “If your people were not aware of the colony, you would not be here, so close to the Citadel’s border. We both know that the settlement is illegal under the Armistice, and that human serfs are being held within it, but the Council has no desire to see new conflict break out between our peoples. They have assigned me to observe the colony for Erebus and gather information that will help them determine what should be done to prevent such hostilities.”

      The Daysider was so straightforward compared with the average leech that a normal human might actually have been taken in by his story.

      Michael wasn’t. “‘Hostilities,’” he said mockingly. “Your leaders should have thought of that before you broke the Treaty.”

      “They did not,” the Daysider said. “That is why it is necessary to—”

      “Liar,” Michael snarled. “Freak. You were sent here to kill us.”

      The Daysider tilted his head as if he were listening to Michael, but his gaze never left Alexia’s. “I had the discretion to kill you if it would have served my mission, but you know as well as I that your unexpected deaths in the Zone would likely be counterproductive.” He paused. “I think we all want the same thing, and that is to maintain the peace.”

      Michael spat into the brown grass at his feet. “There will never be peace until every last one of you is—”

      “Carter,” Alexia interrupted. Michael glanced at her, took a deep breath and calmed down. She didn’t know what had gotten into him, but his uncharacteristic loss of control didn’t exactly make either one of them look strong in the eyes of the enemy.

      She and Michael were at least going to have to pretend they were considering the truce the Daysider had offered. Just as she would continue to act as if she didn’t despise this leech even more than Michael did. And despise herself for feeling nearly overwhelmed by his sheer, undeniable masculine power.

      His. She didn’t want to know anything more about him than she absolutely had to, but it was going to be damned inconvenient to keep thinking of him as “the Daysider.”

      “What is your name?” she asked him.

      He inclined his head as if to acknowledge her civility. “Damon,” he replied.

      Appropriate, coming as it did from the ancient Greek word for “demon.” But what interested her more was that he had no Sire-name to indicate which Bloodmaster or Bloodlord claimed his vassalage.

      It was true, then, what Aegis taught…that Daysiders lived outside the strict hierarchy of Nightsider society. No one in the Enclaves was completely certain of how they had come into being. The ongoing question was whether or not they had “awakened” years ago along with the regular Nightsiders, or if they had been created since.

      “I’m Agent Fox,” she said, “and this is Agent Carter.”

      “Ms. Fox,” Damon said, arching a brow. Alexia wondered how close he was to comparing her to her animal namesake. What did he remind her of?

      A leopard. Sleek and swift, well-defined muscle sliding under golden skin and mottled olive-brown uniform, dappled with shadow.

      “Agent Fox,” she corrected him. “Let’s not waste any more time. What exactly are you proposing?”

      Damon moved his shoulders as if he were stretching against the pull of the cuffs. It almost looked as if he could snap the reinforced steel like the thinnest plastic.

      “I propose that we work together,” he said, “pool our skills and our knowledge. Learn what we can about the colony without engaging the colonists, and then go our separate ways.”

      “That’s insane,” Michael burst out.

      Alexia was inclined to agree. But she also wasn’t too blinded by hatred to see the possibilities inherent in Damon’s suggestion.

      “Why would you encourage your enemies to learn more about a settlement founded by Nightsiders?” she asked him bluntly. “Wouldn’t that be against your handler’s best interests?”

      “Since Aegis will eventually obtain the information in any case,” he said, “it is my judgment that our working together would be very much to the Citadel’s advantage.”

      Michael spun to face Alexia. “Can’t you see he intends to lead us along the garden path and annihilate us at the end of it?” he said.

      Alexia let his anger pass over her. “Why should we trust you?” she asked Damon.

      The Daysider’s eyes, already so dark, grew darker still. “Your partner wants to destroy me,” he said. “I am in no position to stop him. There are two of you, and I am alone. Yet I am offering this truce because I know that the distraction of fighting each other will lose us valuable time.” He leaned forward. “You understand the delicacy of the situation. Even the smallest misstep—”

      “Are you trying to tell us that your Council didn’t encourage this colony from the beginning?” Michael interrupted.

      “Yes.”

      “And your masters don’t see this setup as a way of getting a foothold in the Zone, or provoking a new war they think they can win?”

      Damon blew out his breath in a brief sigh. “Your agency is well aware of

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