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Tallak ducked to evade a chair being tossed his way. The liquor shelves behind him shattered as the chair crashed into them, showering Tallak with shards of glass and some of the best whiskey in Portland.
Rhun landed on the bar and rolled behind it to take cover for a moment. When he spotted Tallak—drenched in liquor—he gasped and clasped a hand over his mouth. “They wasted your fine whiskey! How dare they?”
Tallak glared.
“Are you going to let them get away with that?” And before Tallak could growl something in response, Rhun winked at him and dashed back into the chaos.
“Godsdamn crazy lot,” Tallak snarled, cracked his knuckles, and leaped over the bar top to join the fight.
He punched a shifter lunging at him, kicked a hirudo demon in the junk, and rammed his elbow into a kitsune’s face. If only he had his sword… Incapacitating—with lethal consequences, admittedly—these morons would be so much easier. But Ava, the owner of Nine Circles, probably wouldn’t like a Tallak-style body count, and he needed this job too much to jeopardize it with the kind of bloody killing spree he longed for.
Ah, well.
Sidestepping a bottle flying his way, he twisted and grabbed a puma shifter—fully in his animal form—by the scruff of his neck, pivoted in place, and hurled the giant feline toward the group of fighters that had thrown the chair into the bar. The ensuing roar-and-scream-fest made him smile.
“Revenge by cougar,” Rhun said, dropping down from who knew where to land right next to Tallak, a savage grin on his face. “How deviously creative.”
“Duck,” Tallak barked.
Without hesitation, Rhun plopped down, and Tallak coldcocked the demon swinging his fist behind the bluotezzer.
“Jump,” Rhun shouted.
Tallak leaped over Rhun just as he struck out with his legs, and judging by the thump and groan, whoever had attacked from behind Tallak now snuggled with the floor.
The brawl raged all around them while they fought their way to Bahram, who currently had the faunus in an impressive chokehold. His blood singing with the thrill of the fight, Tallak barely noticed the hush in the air until a piercing shriek of a sound made him double over, his hands clasped over his ringing ears. Next to him, demons and shifters alike hit the floor, crying and writhing and holding their heads, their faces contorted with the same kind of pain that threatened to explode Tallak’s skull.
The high-pitched sound stopped, followed by oppressive silence. Tallak raised his eyes, focusing on the shape emerging from the shadows on the other end of the room. Her blood-red heels clicking on the tiles, Ava flowed—there was no other word for it; she seriously moved like silk in a breeze—through the heaps of patrons groaning softly on the floor. Only a human without any sense of magic or danger would ever look at her and merely see a tiny woman with curves to make the gods cry and a smile to seduce the devil.
Any otherworld creature with half a brain, however, would know her for the predator she was.
Coming to a halt in the middle of the still-hushed room, she flicked back her black hair—streaked with red today—narrowed her eyes, and put her hands on her hips. “Who started this?”
All patrons in their right minds and capable of moving pointed toward the faunus—except for half a dozen people indicating Rhun.
“Hey!” the bluotezzer said with rightful indignation. He stood and faced Ava. “Seriously, it was the horned guy. He went for Bahram, and loyal as I am, I had to fan the flames of this fight—I mean, jump in to help my friend. He’d be dead without me. Just ask Tallak.” And with a grin, he gestured to where Tallak got to his feet.
“Twatwaffle’s right.” Tallak cracked a kink in his neck. “The faunus attacked Bahram.”
Gold eyes flaring, Ava approached the horned demon, who was still sprawled on the floor next to Bahram. The faunus grunted as Ava set one heeled foot on his throat and leaned down a bit.
“So you thought,” she whispered, “it was a good idea to come into my house and disrespect my rules.” She grabbed him by the collar and pulled the giant male up until he was face-to-face with her, as if he weighed nothing. “Know what I do with disrespectful patrons?”
The demon made a strangled sound, his eye twitching.
Ava gave the faunus the kind of smile that raised the hairs on Tallak’s neck. “C’mere.”
She brought her mouth down on the demon’s in a move that resembled a cobra’s strike more than a kiss, and the faunus jerked. He flailed half-heartedly, struggling for a few seconds, before he surrendered with a groan deep in his throat. His body tensed, then slackened, and he kept moaning while Ava kissed him with all the sensuality of a cat playing with its prey. The unmistakable bulge at his crotch spoke volumes as to the effect of the kiss.
“How exactly,” Tallak whispered to Rhun, “is that supposed to work as a deterrent? He looks like he’s about to blow his load.”
“Just wait,” Rhun said under his breath.
Still moaning and twitching as if nearing orgasm, the faunus’s form changed. Gradually, his skin sank in on itself, as if he were an inflatable losing air. Ava gripped him tighter and continued kissing him until the poor bastard hung limp in her grasp, little more than a mummy. Skin stretched tight directly over bone and a few sinews, his glassy eyes stared at nothing.
“I stand corrected,” Tallak whispered. “What a way to go, though.”
A considering nod from Rhun. “There are worse ways of dying than at the hands of a succubus.”
