Page 33 of Hunted

Sanchez said, “I warned you,” and let off both knives, straight at Mikey.

Chapter 15

The knives hurtled across the room toward her.

Slap. Slap. The knife hilts smacked into Mikey’s palms as she stopped them in mid-air, inches away from her body.

“Hah,” she said. “Mine now.” She stuck the knives in her belt and headed back to her chair.

All three of the men were staring at her, open-mouthed.

“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” Cisco asked finally. “The fucking circus?”

“Close enough.” She’d learned it hanging out with the Bad Blood shifter crew as a kid, and that place was a fucking circus at the best of times. Mikey had loved it there—lots of chaos and way fewer rules than Silverlake. “A guy named Xander Fierro taught me.”

There was another silence, and then Sanchez and Cisco burst out in giant guffaws.

“Oh, sure.” Sanchez said. “One of the most badass shifters in the history of badass, and he spent his time teaching little creampuff Enforcer girls to catch knives. Nice fantasy.”

Michelangela shrugged. “Actually, yeah, he did. Uncle Xander and my dad go way back.”

That just made them laugh harder, which she gave zero fucks about. She loved when assholes underestimated her.

“Uncle Xander,” Cisco choked. “That’s a good one. I guess ‘Uncle Flynn’ bought her Barbie dolls for Christmas, too.”

Yeah, right. The ‘Flynn’ they were talking about was the legendary alpha of the Bad Blood crew, and if they’d ever met Flynn, they’d know his gift-giving ran more to survival manuals and machine pistols.

Sanchez said, “Are your imaginary friends going to come beat us up if we bleed the wittle wolfie?”

Michelangela said, “To be honest, Flynn’s threatened to kill me himself more than once. He’s easily annoyed. But since my actual uncle is mated to his sister-in-law, if I turn up dead they’ll probably manage to convince Flynn to join the revenge mission. It was nice knowing you.”

In a sudden fluid motion, she pulled one of the knives and threw it back at Sanchez. He ducked without taking his eyes off her, and it clattered against the far wall.

Finally he said, “Come on, Cisco. Let’s go.” Retrieving his knife, he walked out, Cisco trailing behind him.

Michelangela sank back into her chair, glad she hadn’t had to fight them. She’d beaten them once, but she really wasn’t in the mood to have to do it again—especially with the blood she’d already lost today.

Rex said to her, “Nice move, pulling the Bad Blood card. Was any of it true? Word is, Bad Bloods don’t hang with outsiders.”

“Not an outsider,” Mikey replied. “Like I said, related by marriage.” She took Dobe’s vitals again. His pulse was getting slower than she liked.

He said, “Does Gunn know that?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t talk about it much. You can see why.”

“Mmm.” Then he caught the look on her face and frowned. “What?”

“Dobe’s not good,” she admitted.

“Can’t you give him more antidote?”

She shook her head. “If the second dose didn’t do anything, a third won’t either. I’m going to have to try something else.” She pulled her chair closer. “Do me a favor, and make sure no one comes in. I need to concentrate.”

Rex said, “He better not die.”

Nobody knew that better than she did.

Gunn’s message had been about a crisis on another mission. He’d had to shove everything else out of his mind and deal with it.