After slapping them together, she checked the detonation crystal in her pyre-gun and the magazine in her Glock. Good to go.

She set them on top of the bag and sheathed a blade at each wrist, under her shirtsleeves, then two at her waist. Finished, she once again palmed the guns. With one last glance at Jaxon—his chest was moving steadily with deep, even breaths—she strode from the cell.

Has anyone else entered the home?

Negative.

Four aliens and two humans to take care of, then. Not bad numbers. She eased up the stairs and shouldered open the door that led to the first floor of the home. A quick visual scan showed the room was empty. The furnishings were old and well used but clean, and all the windows were heavily curtained.

Location of the occupants?

All six are still in the southeast quadrant.

Southeast quadrant meant the kitchen. Good. A contained area. Turn sensors off.

Sensors off…now.

She didn’t want her mind screaming they were near as she approached; she wanted clear thoughts, total concentration.

Le’Ace quickened her steps through the living room and down the hall, bypassing another staircase and a door that led to a well-tended pavilion. The double doors to the kitchen came into view, and then, suddenly, she was there. She stopped, squared her shoulders, and quietly placed her hands on the wooden planks, guns flat. She listened.

Laughter, shuffling paper.

Slow and easy, like this is any other day.

Forcing her expression to soften, she pushed the planks open. Silent, confident. Thick smoke instantly billowed around her, a cloudy haze. Perhaps later, she’d think of this as a dream. Unreal.

Laughter still resounded, louder now.

Unnoticed, she dropped her arms to her sides, behind her back. “Gentlemen.”

Five men stood at immediate, surprised attention—three aliens, two humans—and faced her. Only five. That meant one alien was missing. Damn. Where had he gone?

With the precision of a CPU, she sized up each of her targets in less than a second. They surrounded a poker table. The male farthest from her was Jacob, Thomas’s right-hand man. His skin was a lighter blue than Thomas’s, and he had seven arms rather than the standard six. Every race had its oddities, she mused.

Right now, two of his hands held cards, one held a beer, one a cigar, two massaged his shoulders, and one clutched a knife that was pointed at her.

Jacob relaxed and lowered the weapon to the table. “Everything all right, Marie?” He’d lived on Earth all his life, so he sounded completely human.

The others also held cards, beers, and knives. She hadn’t worked with them nearly as much, so they weren’t as comfortable with her and didn’t lower their blades. “Yes,” she said. “Everything’s fine. Where’s your friend? The tall male I saw you with this morning?”

“Bathroom.”

“Upstairs or down?” she asked.

“Up, I’m sure. In the guest room.” Jacob’s face scrunched in confusion. “Why does it matter?”

“Doesn’t. Are you expecting any more guests today?”

“No. Tell me what’s going on. Where’s Thomas?”

“In hell. Tell him hello for me.” Both of her arms lashed up, wrist crisscrossed over wrist as she hammered away at the triggers. Boom, boom, boom. Slowly she uncrossed her arms, blasting every inch of the room in a steady rhythm. Bullets slammed through one-half of the room and pyre-fire through the other, bright beams of yellow and orange that blistered.

Just a dream, just a dream.

All five men jerked in pain. Some screamed, some moaned. Knives, beer bottles, and cards clattered to the floor in a discordant dance. Blood splattered from the wounds caused by the bullets and flesh sizzled from the fire. She would have gagged, but sadly, she was used to the sickening smell.

Only when every man had collapsed, expressions frozen, did she relax her fingers.

Without the roar of the Glock, there was deafening silence. And as the smoke continued to waft, the deadly scene retained that faraway, distant-from-reality feel.

Sensors on. Energy levels?

Four extinguished.

The fifth?

Far right. Weak, but still alive.

Le’Ace checked the Glock’s magazine. One bullet left. She loaded it into the chamber, lifted the barrel, aimed, and fired. Boom. The bullet plowed directly between the man’s eyes, brain tissue jetting behind him and onto the wall. He defecated as his body spasmed a final time, and this time she did gag.

Above her, heavy footsteps sounded across a hallway. Le’Ace closed her eyes for a moment, wanting the job done. Now. But reality, like dreams, was often rebellious.

Likelihood of attack?

Twenty-three percent. Target seems to be in the process of hiding.

Increase ear volume. A second later, she heard the hinges of an upstairs bedroom door creak open. Step, step, step. Pause. Swoosh. Step, step, step.

Thirty-two percent.

More footsteps.

Thirty-eight percent. Thirty-nine percent. Forty-six. Swiftly rising. No longer hiding but approaching. Gear for confrontation.

Le’Ace sheathed the empty Glock at her waist and pushed herself flat against the wall. Adrenaline zinged through her bloodstream, her heart a vibrant drum inside her chest. So far, the job had gone smoothly. Yet, over the years she’d noticed that every job came with at least one complication.

This must be it.

Closer and closer those footsteps came. There was another pause, long and heavy. A muttered curse. And then, as if the Delensean had changed his mind about checking on his friends, the tiptoeing steps moved farther and farther away.

Thirty-one percent and swiftly declining.

Her teeth gritted together. Damn him. He was going to make her play chase. Pyre-gun extended, she moved slowly and silently out of the kitchen. Her gaze darted left, then right. Clear.

Above, a door eased shut, a lock turned. Her ears caught every minute sound as he hid.

Just get it over with. Le’Ace sank into the shadows underneath the staircase. She kept her pyre-gun at the ready and used her free hand to reach into her boot and withdraw a small, thin box. She’d trained her fingers to work the device without the use of sight, so they flew to the proper buttons and pressed.

A clear holoscreen soon dappled a small patch of air directly above the keyboard, slowly solidifying into a square. Black lines and blue lights flashed over the surface as the wireless system scanned the house for body heat, movement, and voice. Each light finally congealed into a single dot, pinpointing the alien’s location in the room at the end of the upstairs hall.

He was in the middle of the room. She knew the house, knew there was a bed in that location. He must be crouched under it.

How can I do this? Play evil cat to his innocent mouse?

You know your orders, Le’Ace, common sense piped up. No survivors. Besides, he wasn’t innocent. Every man in this house had taken a turn using Jaxon as a punching bag. And judging by the extent of Jaxon’s bruises, they’d enjoyed every moment of it.

Some of her self-loathing and reluctance faded. She switched the scanner off and returned it to her boot. Up the stairs she quietly moved, gun steady. Down the hallway, eyes alert. She wondered what Jaxon would have thought if he’d been here, watching her. Would he have been impressed or disgusted? Praised her or lectured her for being cold-blooded? Men could do any dark deed, and it was for the good of mankind. Yet with the slightest hint of a woman’s malevolence, no matter the reason, she was utterly wicked. Eve with the apple. Pandora with her box.

Jaxon had an impressive kill list—over sixty predatory aliens—though he usually opted to deliver a deathblow only as a last resort. He preferred to capture. He would lecture me, she decided. Perhaps interrogate me to find out why I’m like I am.

Interrogation. He was, his file said, a master at it. Through sugarcoated words, or pounding anger and intimidation, he got what he wanted. That drugging voice and lazy nonchalance had probably helped him a time or two, as well, coaxing victims to willingly spill their darkest secrets.

If otherworlders reacted with even half the intensity she had, they’d tell him anything and everything he wanted to know and smile while doing it. A few more minutes with him and she might have caved.

Admitting it was difficult; she despised weakness in herself.

She’d scolded Thomas for letting Jaxon’s eyelids puff, because Marie was a sadistic bitch who liked to see every flicker of pain, but Le’Ace had been disappointed for another reason. She knew his eyes were blue, but photographs and holoimages could not capture a man’s raw masculine intensity. She would have loved to see just how intense a man he really was, even though she suspected seeing those eyes of his would have weakened her more than a bullet to the brain.

A whimper echoed in her ears, cutting into her thoughts.

Stop thinking about Jaxon and get this done. She was so close to finishing she could taste it. At the closed doorway, she paused, listened. No movement. He was still under the bed, then. Go time.

One. Two. Three. With a hard kick, the hinges shattered and the door burst open. From under the bed, just as she’d assumed, there was a gasp, another whimper. Her gun was already raised and aimed, so she simply squeezed the trigger.

A split second later, yellow-orange flames were incinerating a hole in the mattress and melting several of the springs. Realizing he would catch fire if he remained in place, the Delensean yelped and rolled from underneath. One of his arms snagged on the carpet and became trapped under his body, pinning him in place. He struggled, flicking her horrified glances.

“D—don’t. Please,” he begged, as if he hadn’t done worse things over the years. She knew better.

“Have to.” Once again she applied pressure to the trigger. There was no recoil; the bright yellow beam simply jetted out and slammed into the alien. He screamed a sound of such agony, even she cringed.

Over and over his body convulsed, his legs kicking. Where the beam hit him, his shirt had burned away and she could see a hole where his heart should have been, the jagged ends sizzling. Had he left Jaxon alone, she might have cut his throat to quickly end his misery. Since he hadn’t, she remained in place.

When he stilled, she asked, Energy level?

Extinguished.

Done. It was done.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Her arm fell to her side, the gun suddenly heavy, a thousand-pound weight. A bead of sweat trickled between her breasts, down her stomach. Mission complete, and she hadn’t sustained a single injury. Injury.

No, not complete yet, she thought. One last thing to do. A sense of urgency suddenly bloomed inside her and she raced back to the underground cell. What would she find? Had Jaxon somehow managed to escape her? Had he died?

Thankfully, he was exactly where she’d left him and still breathing. She released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, tension easing. Another success.

She popped out the tiny earpiece attached to the left strap of her bra and pushed it into her ear. At the moment of contact, her boss’s number was dialed.

“Outcome?” he asked in lieu of saying hello. No niceties for her.

“Successful.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“I’m extracting now and will contact again when settled.”

“No. There’s been a slight change of plan.”

She stifled a groan, her gaze shifting once more to Jaxon. What were they going to command her to do to him? He’d already endured so much and wouldn’t be able to withstand much more. Compassion, Le’Ace? You know better. “Yes?”

“Two more infected females were captured. They were muttering about Earth being next. Next for what, they didn’t know or they wouldn’t tell us. Jaxon is the only person who was able to get answers from the others, though I’m willing to bet he’s been selective about what he’s shared. You can break him.”

“The plan?” she asked, careful to keep the dread from her voice.

“Whatever it takes, win him over. Get me answers.”

Whatever it takes. A phrase she’d heard a hundred times before. Usually it sickened her. Today, she could not squelch a thrill of excitement. More time with the enigmatic Jaxon? Hell, yes. She’d take it. Stupid girl. What would Jaxon force her to do for those answers?

As she thought of him, though, her adrenaline levels spiked a lot higher than they had during the gunfight and ensuing chase, causing her limbs to shake. Her brow furrowed. What kind of reaction was this? She hadn’t experienced one like it before.

She frowned. “What about the Tutor case?”

“You’ll return, just later than we originally intended.”

That meant starting all over with the disgusting Tutor, a man who didn’t trust easily. That meant more flirting and more dirty talk, all with a man she despised with every fiber of her being, just to regain his confidence and win her way back into his life. He had to wonder where she was and what she was doing. She’d left so suddenly, without explanation, because she couldn’t chance being detained.

“Jaxon is injured, sir, barely able to talk.” Had her voice just quivered?

“Doctor him,” was the reply, “and make him talk. I told you, use any means necessary.”

“And if I refuse?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. Hopefully the question would hide her anticipation. And anyway, sometimes she lived to antagonize him. Sometimes she despised her boss more than she despised the thought of being killed.

“Acting human again, Le’Ace?”

She popped her jaw. He hadn’t been her first owner, every one of them was now dead. Sadly, not by her hand. But this bastard knew she’d been constructed in a dish and therefore didn’t consider her anything more than an object, a machine.