Guarding Valentina [Paladin Protection Agency 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Susan Hayes Page A

around his neck and kissed him back, careful to keep the dagger angled away from him. His fingers tightened in her hair, and she felt him tense even as he deepened their kiss. She opened her eyes and saw he was staring past her to the window. She wanted to know what he was staring at, and so she tried to twist out of his grasp and take a look.
    “No!” he snapped, his supernatural strength making sure she obeyed him whether she wanted to or not.
    “Let me go!” She fought his hold, frustration building as every tug and pull accomplished nothing against his greater strength.
    “Stop it, Val.” He shook her lightly, as though she were a wayward puppy. “He wants to see your reaction. You don’t want to give him the pleasure. Trust me.”
    “Reaction to what, the car? I’m pissed, sure. But it’s just a thing. You were right. Paladin will buy me a new one.”
    “Not the car, luv.”
    There was a discordant note in his voice now, and a sick feeling washed over her as she asked, “What the hell is going on out there?”
    He kissed her again, his gaze never wavering from the window. He drifted a line of kisses from her mouth to her ear and whispered to her. “When I let you go, you can turn around. But you are not to give him any reaction. Show him the best game face you’ve got.”
    Icy tendrils of dread were clutching at her heart and squeezing hard enough it hurt. “All right.”
    She took a deep breath and let all the animation drain away from her face. She saw the look of approval in Aedan’s eyes as he eased up his hold on her and then finally let her go. She withdrew from his embrace and turned, the dagger held firmly in her hand.
    It was a good thing he’d warned her because even with all her years as a soldier, it wasn’t easy to stay unresponsive to the horrific tableau that was laid out across her front yard.
    Words had been painted in blood across her front window, and through the blood-smeared glass she could make out a figure propped up against the windshield of her destroyed car. Her heart slammed in her throat as she read the gruesome message Christoph had left her on the window.
    You can’t protect them all.
    Aedan rested his hand on her shoulder, and that was the only part of her body that felt warm. The rest of her was ice cold as she stood there in silence. Before she let herself look more closely at the body, she took a moment to double-check her mental shields and rein in the emotions that roiled just under the surface. When she was ready, she just walked up to the window and peered through one of the still-clean sections of glass. She could see Christoph as he lounged on the twisted remains of her car. He had a broad smile on his pale face and his blond hair gleamed almost white in the harsh lights of the street lamps. He raised a hand to wave at her in greeting, his body casually stretched out beside the figure of a woman, and she swore under her breath as recognition struck her. Her grip on the knife shifted instinctively as she briefly considered going outside and tearing his head off with her bare hands.
    “Whatever you’re thinking, you can forget it, Val. He’s too strong for you, and she’s already gone. There’s nothing you can do to help her.” Aedan’s words were more heavily accented than normal, and part of her mind noted that his accent was stronger when he was angry.
    “How do you know that she’s gone?” She let her gaze move from Christoph to the body sprawled in a disturbingly casual pose on the hood of the vehicle. It was like a grotesque parody of a pin-up picture, the model draped over the hood of some expensive car.
    “I can’t get any kind of reading from her. I never sensed her presence at all. Whoever she is, he killed her before he brought her here.”
    “Her name was Ingrid.”
    “So she’s from Paladin then?”
    “She was in payroll, nothing to do with Division S at all really.” Val scrubbed a hand over her eyes, the weight of yet another death