Page 41 of Kiss of Smoke

He was jittering in place, doing an insane tap dance in my grasp, then a massive crack filled the air.

The man slumped over on my shoulder, and a gush of heat that I didn’t immediately register as blood spilled down my front.

I froze in place, and Gwyn looked up, his garnet eyes as cold as Jack’s and focused on someone behind me.

“There is nothing you can do, Hunter,” a cool, clipped Gentry male said. “On the Queen’s orders, we are permitted to kill on sight.”

I turned my head and saw a Gentry male standing on the far side of the circle, holding a gun.

He’d fired a neat shot directly through the human’s skull.

“You had no idea if he was one of the Souls or not,” I said in disbelief, my voice hollow. The man’s corpse was heavy, still gushing his lifeblood and brains out over my funeral dress.

"Are you a human lover?” the Gentry asked, staring at me hard, and it wasn’t lost on me that he was still holding the gun.

They probably weren’t loaded with cold iron, but even normal bullets would kill me…

“She’s Robin Goodfellow’s agent.” Gwyn stepped between me and the Gentry male. “Fuck with her, and you fuck with him… and me.”

Gwyn cracked his knuckles, grinning wider, and that was all the Gentry needed to melt into the crowd.

They had started disappearing as soon as Gwyn said Robin’s name, and soon enough we were alone on the street, just us and a dead human.

I eased him down, my back aching under his weight, and looked into his glazed eyes.

Who knew who he had been? Probably just some unfortunate mortal who’d gotten trapped behind the Veil, seeing no way out and no way to stay.

“Help me,” I asked Gwyn, and he carefully picked up the body.

We brought him back to Robin’s house, setting him on the back porch.

I had no idea what to do with him, besides burying him under Robin’s faerie fruit bushes, but what if he had a family that was looking for him? They would never know where he’d gone.

I was still standing there, covered in gore, when Jack and Robin appeared.

Jack looked down at the dead human, who was now dusted with snow, and at the variety of disgusting things smeared all over me. “Fuck.”

15

I hadno idea what they did with the mortal. I just walked upstairs, feeling numb and cold inside, and stripped off the bloody clothes and shoes.

Half an hour under boiling water had me feeling somewhat normal, but still emotionally washed out.

He’d died in my arms. I’d felt it the moment he’d gone, the stiffness of shock and then the limpness of death, then the horrible sensation of his full dead weight resting on me. The heat of his blood.

Maybe I was really becoming immune to what this job entailed, because I didn’t throw up.

I just tossed the clothes in the wardrobe, washed off, and then got out, all of it stone-faced.

Sisse was probably right. The Briallen of several months ago was long gone.

Back then, I’d thought dealing with Numa Purkiss staring at my ass was the worst thing I’d ever face.

Now I’d run through tunnels in the dark, worn faces that weren’t my own, investigated murders and had a mortal die on me. I’d been nearly hunted to death several times myself.

I exhaled, tugging the wardrobe open. It gave me jeans, a tank top, and a jacket, along with knee-high boots.

I was a different person now, but I didn’t feel the worse for it. Sisse had told me I’d get used to it, and back then, I’d thought she was crazy.

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