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a freelancer. A freelancer that could strike fear into the hearts of Breeds as well as humans.
    He ranked up there with Cavalier, Brim Stone, and the rarely mentioned Loki, a known assassin rumored to hunt rescued Breeds.
    "Well, I guess we're just going to have to quarrel over this." She could feel the panic beginning to edge inside her now, the fear she had fought since the night her father and brother were killed.
    She gripped the hilt of the only weapon left to her, a small sheathed dagger she had pushed into her right front pocket, beneath her jacket, as her gaze moved quickly behind the Coyotes. She didn't want the Coyotes to hurt innocent bystanders if they wandered by, but she wasn't letting them take her. She didn't dare. At least, not alive.
    Life meant a lot to her, and freedom, as dangerous as it could be at times, was still a hell of a lot better than what was waiting for her in either Breed or Council control.
    They both wanted something from her. The same thing. Information they believed she held. Information her father had given her before he was killed.
    She had sworn she would only give it to the person her father had promised would come for it. It was the only task he had ever trusted her with, the only vow he had asked her to make. He and her brother had died for her safety; she wouldn't betray them.
    But she was so tired.
    She was tired of having to fight to live, so tired of running, of never being warm, never being safe.
    Farce stepped closer.
    "Please, let's not play this game," she whispered. "Tonight, one of us will end up dead, Farce. That's not what I want."
    A hard, sardonic chuckle rasped from his throat as Storme felt resignation begin to fill her.
    "The only weapon you have, bitch, is a blade," he sneered. "What do you think you're going to prick with that?"
    She felt the weariness, the acceptance. If they came too close, she would prick herself. She would kill herself before allowing this Breed to take her.
    "Hell, lads, what ye doin' cornerin' a pretty lass like this in the dark?" Mocking, smooth and sexy, the Scots brogue had the Coyotes facing her stilling, even as Storme restrained the curse rising to her lips.
    How had he managed to find her so quickly?
    Storme turned, careful to keep both the Coyotes and the newcomer coming from behind her in the corner of her eye, and watched as Styx Mackenzie moved from the back entrance of the bar into the alley.
    "Well isn't this my lucky night?" she drawled.
    "I was rather thinkin' the same thing, lass," he chuckled. "See now, wouldn't ye have done better to have continued the dance we were havin' inside?"
    Her brows lifted. "I was definitely doing much better."
    He chuckled patiently at the admission, and the sound, deep and filled with warmth, had her stomach clenching.
    The weapon he carried loosely in the crook of his arm was big, heavy and lethal. The fully automatic laser rifle would put holes in a Breed that would leave nothing left to identify, let alone survive.
    She let her gaze flick to it slowly before returning to the blue, amused gaze. "Hell of a weapon," she drawled. "Where were you hiding it?"
    "The jacket at the table." He grinned as he shrugged his shoulders to indicate the leather jacket he hadn't been wearing on the dance floor. "I never leave home or a bar without it."
    She almost laughed. She wanted to. The small spurt of amusement was out of place, and definitely out of character for her.
    "You're making a mistake, Wolf," Farce growled, but she heard the defeat in his voice.
    "Lad, anytime I'm rescuin' a pretty little thing from your clutches, then my time's not bein' wasted." Smooth as aged whiskey, rough, filled with determination, that brogue seemed to caress the senses despite the fact that there was nothing about Breeds that she considered being the least bit caressable.
    "Run along now, puppies, and I'll pretend to be the nice Breed everyone thinks I am and let you live for another day."
    Storme searched for a way to