Wishing she had the weapon she usually carried beneath her jacket, Storme closed the door behind her and began moving quickly for the end of the alley.
Head down, she pulled her cap from beneath her jacket and yanked the bill down to shade her face, praying the small amount of scent neutralizer she'd applied to her body and the smells from the crowd in the bar had hid her scent enough to assure Styx Mackenzie remained off her ass for a while longer.
She was running out of the formula used to hide from the Breeds, which she tried to keep on hand for emergencies. The spray-on camouflage had saved her life more than once in the past years, but lately she'd been forced to rely on it more and more. It was almost as though it wasn't even working.
"Well it's about time."
Storme drew up short, her head jerking up at the malicious tone as a dark figure stepped from the shadowed indent of a closed doorway at the edge of the building.
Coyote.
Stepping back, she stared into the cruel dark eyes as the Coyote Breed was joined by a partner from the building on the other side of the alley.
She knew this Coyote. He'd been chasing her for the past four months. He seemed to be a bit more tenacious than most, or else just more scared of whoever controlled him.
It did surprise her that he'd brought company though. He normally worked alone.
"Two against one. You boys like to hedge your bets, now, don't you, Farce? So, are you Council or Haven Breeds?"
They had been doing that for a while, sending teams out rather than a lone Breed to capture her. Farce, a Breed with no last name that she knew of, had shed more than his fair share of blood over the past six months as he followed her.
But the Breeds chasing her for the past ten years were known for that.
"Does it matter who sent us?" the first Breed asked, his tone rasping, rough with a cruel edge of intent.
Hell, she would have thought she could have figured out who his handlers were by now, but Farce was a bit more mysterious than most Breeds. There were no records of him, period, in the Breed or Council databases she had managed to hack. Even her sources within the Council didn't seem to know who he was or who he worked for. Not that she trusted those sources, but it was the best she had to work with.
"Well, a girl likes to know the origins of the Breed courting her," she said mockingly. "It does make all the difference."
Between life and death in some cases.
She hadn't managed to truly upset Haven's Breeds yet. Of course, she hadn't been forced to kill one either. The Council bitches on the other hand were another story.
She slid her hand beneath her jacket, fingers curling over the butt of the precise, illegal laser blaster she carried there.
"Come on, bitch, let's not get into a firefight here," Farce suggested, though his tone was anything but conciliatory as he noticed the movement. "I don't think our bosses would like it near as much if we brought you in dead."
Which still didn't tell her which faction had sent them.
"Ten years, and you still haven't given up." She shook her head in disbelief.
"What will it take to make you understand that whatever you want, I simply don't have it."
"You have something," the other Breed growled. "Or you'd already be dead."
That she didn't doubt in the slightest. Neither the Council nor the Bureau of Breed Affairs were known for their patience in acquiring whatever they wanted.
Storme shuddered. She recognized that voice now. As he came farther from the shadows, she recognized the Breed as well.
Dog. Just Dog--she'd never heard if he had chosen a last name as other Breeds had after their rescues, or if he was one of those Coyotes that continued the Council tradition of no last names for their pets.
Dog was no longer a Council pet though, according to him. He was 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.