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XIARA EVORA WAS LYING naked on her bed when a letter arrived for her. Travis had her facedown and was pounding himself into her from behind. The huntress batted the letter away, but it fluttered back over to her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she could feel an orgasm building and was determined to ignore the letter. The envelope started prodding her forehead and Travis snickered. He didn’t lose his rhythm as his beloved gave a strangled shout and fell over the edge of ecstasy.
Basking in bliss, Xiara pressed her face into the mattress as the letter continued to bang into her head. Travis reached his own climax, then settled next to her on the bed. “You’d better open it,” he said as he stroked his hand up and down her back. “It looks like it’s pretty urgent.”
Xiara lifted her head to reply, then winced when a corner of the envelope poked her in the eye. “Ow!” she complained and snatched the letter. “That hurt!” It continued to squirm in her hand until she ripped it open and read the message. “I’m being sent out on another execution,” she said without a shred of surprise. It was rare for her to go more than a few nights without needing to kill someone who had broken the law.
“Who do you have to kill this time?” her hot doctor boyfriend asked.
“He’s a shifter,” she replied. The name of her target and his address had been included in the message. Lord Dallinar had once made it hard for her to locate her targets. Now that he no longer broadcast the executions to the populace, her missions had become far more routine.
“Are you going to get Zircadion to question the shifter first?” he asked.
“I guess I’d better,” the huntress said. She sent the details to the angel who lived a few floors below their apartment. She asked Zircadion to speak to the shifter and to wait for her to arrive. It was their usual routine and it would determine whether her target would live or die. Usually, the person she was sent to execute was guilty of something that required death. It was rare for them to be completely innocent.
Lord Dallinar no longer bothered to keep watch on her when she hunted her quarry. Either he’d grown bored with her missions, or he couldn’t focus long enough to make sure she was doing her job.
They took a quick shower together, then ate a hasty meal and headed for the exit. The pair were running late and everyone else who had a job had already left. Since they were both heading to the Shifter District, they shared a carriage to the hospital where Travis worked. Xiara kissed him goodbye, then the skeleton drove her to the address where a werewolf was about to meet his fate.
Zircadion was waiting for the Guardian of Nox beneath an awning that sheltered the front door of the house when the carriage pulled up. “The werewolf is guilty of murder,” the angel whispered. Although she wore a different face and body each night, she was easily recognizable when she allowed her halo and wings to be seen. They were both absent tonight so she could hide what she was from the uncursed population.
“What’s wrong?” Xiara asked just as quietly, noting the unhappy frown on her friend’s face.
“He’s an alpha,” Zircadion said.
“Damn it!” the huntress exclaimed softly. “Lord Graham knows how few alphas are left! Why is he ordering me to execute another one?” The werewolf had to be responsible, since it was a shifter being marked for death this time.
“Your target is turning rogue,” the angel replied. “He’s having trouble switching back to his human form after each full moon.”
“This is bad,” Xiara said in dread. If the alphas all started to turn rogue, there would be no hope left for anyone in the Shifter District at all. “Where is he?” she asked. Her targets usually took off when Zircadion ferreted the truth about their dark deeds from them.
“He took off towards the shifter woods,” the angel said, hiking her thumb northwards. “He shifted, so he’s in his werewolf form. It won’t be easy to tell him apart from the other rogues now. Ivan is tracking him from the air.”
“How did you rope Ivan into helping you?” Xiara asked.
“He heard me heading for the roof of our warehouse and followed me,” Zircadion explained. “Lord Dallinar is at their headquarters, so he took a break from watching his private tower for damsels who need to be rescued. He figured we might need his help when I told him where I was going.”
“Good call,” the huntress said. “I guess we’d better head to the shifter woods now.” Her tone was less than enthusiastic. The forest was infested with rogues, who tended to attack intruders on sight.
“I’ll fly you there,” Zircadion offered. “It’ll be faster than taking a carriage.”
Xiara nodded her acceptance, then the angel swept her into the air. They swooped over the buildings, flew over the wealthy suburbs and headed straight for the shifter woods. “There’s Ivan,” the executioner said when she spied the big gray gargoyle through the drenching rain. She pointed at the stone creature with Wrath, who pulsed in anticipation.
“The alpha is hiding in a cave,” Ivan said to the two women when they reached him. “I can hear a lot of creatures breathing in there.”
It was raining too hard for the Guardian of Nox and the angel to hear them. Ivan’s senses were far sharper than theirs.
“I’m probably going to get torn to pieces,” Xiara predicted wryly. “But I have a job to do, so you’d better put me down.”
“We’ll drag your remains out of there and carry your pieces home,” Zircadion said sympathetically.
“That’s if there’s anything left of you when they finish eating your corpse,” Ivan added.
Xiara cut the gargoyle an unamused look, then held Wrath ready when the angel set her down. She knew the shifters would hear her coming, so she didn’t bother trying to be stealthy. It wasn’t going to be easy to kill her target without harming the rogues. None of them had been marked for death and she didn’t want to accidentally kill any of them.
Her eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom as she cautiously entering the cave. Wrath’s gray glow lit the chamber, but she’d always been able to see well in the dark. She’d expected to be attacked immediately, but the rogues seemed to be asleep. They lay in a jumble of limbs with their furry bodies overlapping each other. Wrath pulsed a few times to alert her that something was wrong. The Guardian’s eyes widened when she saw the rogues all had white fur. On closer inspection, they were old and withered. “Are they Night Cursed shifters?” she asked. Her staff pulsed twice, which meant no.
Xiara’s shock turned to alarm when she realized the implications. She spied brown fur among the white and realized her target was hiding beneath a pile of bodies. She carefully worked her way over to him and he leapt to his feet. Uncaring of the shifters he’d used for cover, he lunged at her. Wrath spun in her hands and knocked his paws away before he could gut her with his claws.
Her brooch morphed into a shield as he swiped another paw at her. His claws screeched against the metal and she tripped over a slumbering werelion when she tried to leap backwards. He raked her side, but it wasn’t a killing blow. She started moving backwards while fending him off. He followed her, growling and snarling in rage and hunger, determined to end her life.
