Page 18 of Property of Scar

Colder.

Quieter.

The kind that doesn’t rush.

I tighten my grip where I’ve got it pinned, feel the strain in its neck as it fights for leverage, distance, or anything it can use to turn this back in its favor.

It doesn’t get it.

My hand shifts just enough. Fingers locking in, finding the angle beneath the jaw, the point where control turns into outcome, and for a second, everything narrows to that single line of contact, to the tension wound tight between us.

It thrashes once, hard, claws digging in, teeth snapping closer.

I turn.

The movement is short and controlled.

The break lands deep, not sharp but heavy, a thick, internal crack that I feel through my grip as its body seizes against me, the fight dropping out of it all at once.

Its hands go slack.

Its weight changes—dead weight.

I hold it there for half a second longer, making sure, feeling for anything that might try to come back, but nothing does. Then I let it drop.

It hits the floor in a loose, heavy collapse, all tension gone, nothing left holding it together but gravity.

Three down.

The silence that falls is thick and broken only by the sound of one person still crying somewhere toward the back of the room, and the wet, unsteady breathing of the man on the floor near the bar, who is alive and will stay that way. I straighten my leather cut, roll my shoulder where a claw caught it deep enough to matter, and begin the automatic calculation of damage, witnesses, and cleanup requirements…

Suddenly, glass explodes inward from above.

Not a window—the skylight.

I hear her a fraction before she hits, and she lands without hesitation, knees bending to take the drop, easing what should have been a hard impact. Her hand touches down for a second, grounding, and then she’s pushing back up in one fluid motion like some goddamn superhero.

It’s the hunter who was at the clubhouse. The one who killed Konstantine and left her calling card as a warning for me. The same one who killed a rogue vampire on our turf, as if it was a favor to me, and then vanished into thin air.

Her hair is pulled back in tight braids that don’t shift when she moves, built to stay out of the way. Lean, muscular frame, all clean lines and control, strength without bulk, the kind that comes from repetition, not luck. Her face catches the light for a second as she rises, sharp-boned, striking in a way that doesn’t soften anything about her, but makes the focus in her eyes stand out harder.

Black ink wraps her left arm, not decorative, not random, something deliberate in the lines, the kind of tattoo that means something to the person wearing it and a warning to anyone else who knows how to read it.

Nothing about her looks accidental.

Everything about her looks trained.

Both guns come up before she’s even fully upright, her movements sharp and automatic like her body already decided to pull the trigger before her brain caught up. Two shots crack through the bar almost on top of each other, loud enough to punch through the ringing chaos around us.

Not aimed at me.

Past me.

And through the open back door.

I catch movement in the alley a split second too late, something fast and pale coming out of the dark before both rounds hit home. Two heavy impacts sound outside behind the building, bodies slamming into concrete hard enough to rattle the dumpster against the wall.

But the woman doesn’t lower the guns. She doesn’t celebrate the shots. Instead, she stays locked in position, her eyes sweeping, her shoulders tight, already expecting the next attack before the echoes even die out.