Pandora Veleur threw herself to the floor and felt a whoosh of air pass over her head. The iron pipe missed her head by inches. The hawk ‘shifter was thrown off-guard by her quick dodging of the bar, and she took this opportunity to throw out her foot and kick his legs out from under him. She rose in one swift, graceful movement as he fell, and she pulled the pipe from his hands. She used it to give him a knockout blow to the head. One down.

Hearing a rapid succession of footsteps behind her, Pandora whirled, swinging the pole as she went. She knocked her attacker in the arm and then the leg, crippling her, and then she smacked the woman in the head with the end of the pipe. The woman fell to the floor unconscious. That was two down.

“Dora! Get down!” Pandora dropped onto the ground as if doing a push up and bullets whizzed overhead, followed by a large dark blur. Pushing off her hands, Pandora was on her feet again. She turned and saw Trax Romero, who had just jumped over her, wrestling with a wounded vampire. Bullets wouldn’t kill a vampire, but they could hurt it for all of ten seconds. Trax had approximately four seconds left. It would take two for Pandora to help him.

Calling on the natural fire that burned within her, Pandora channeled her energy and shaped it into a glowing mass that she cupped between her palms. She blasted it out, knocking the vampire off of Trax. Her dark-haired teammate pulled a wooden knife from somewhere on his person and stabbed the other vampire with it as he fell. Then Trax turned, threw Pandora a boyish grin, and jumped onto the three lamias who had his girlfriend pinned to the floor of the Circle Daybreak safe house.

Spinning, Pandora threw a punch that connected with the jaw of the werewolf who had been trying – unsuccessfully – to sneak up on her. She kicked him in the kneecap, disconnecting it, and then threw out a kick that caught him in the neck, cutting his breath short. She pulled the .357 Magnum loaded with silver bullets out of the holster strapped to her thigh and shot the werewolf in the forehead at point blank range.

Cupping the gun in a teacup grip, Pandora quickly turned so that a wall was at her back. She looked around. The room was relatively quiet, and now motionless, if not virtually destroyed. It had once a been a very nice living room, with a sofa set done in earth tones and polished wooden furniture. The hunter green carpet was now covered in dark splotches that would have been bright red if the rug were white. Blood splattered the walls, and both the armchair and loveseat had been overturned sometime during the fight. The TV was still on. The movie Blade was playing, and a pale, blue-eyed Stephen Dorff was looking especially delicious. The sound was off.

Pandora glanced at her teammates. Trax was wiping the blade of his knife on the shirt of a disintegrating vampire. Cassandra McLaughton, his girlfriend, was walking around the room checking pulses. Whoever still had a beating heart was staked. Her blond hair was streaked with red. Cicero Flores, a made vampire, had pulled out a cellular phone and was busy dialing. A blue-eyed witch named Azura walked over to Pandora as she was holstering the gun.

“I’m glad that’s over with,” Azura said, smiling. “And is it just me, or are these spontaneous battles getting a little tedious?”

Pandora grinned at the other girl. “I know what you mean,” she agreed. “It’s getting to the point where we beat up our enemies so often that it’s boring.”

Azura laughed. “Yeah. Afterwards I go home, take a shower to wash the blood off, and go to a club. What happened to the days when killing was unusual?”

Shrugging, Pandora made her way over to Trax, picking her way around the dead bodies. “So, what was the count this time?” she asked the green-eyed made vampire.

He grinned at her. “Eleven to five, six minutes.” Pandora raised her eyebrows.

“We’re getting good,” she commented.

“We’re a good team.”

Smiling, Pandora shook her head at him. “You mean we have a good leader,” she corrected. “Don’t you agree, Cassandra?” she asked over her shoulder. The tall blond lamia gave her boyfriend and team leader a seductive smile before walking over.

“Oh, yes,” she affirmed. “Very good.” Pandora laughed. Cassandra might have looked like a supermodel, but she always took out more people during a fight than anyone else did. To say she was great in all forms of martial arts was an understatement. Cassandra had mastered every technique Pandora had ever heard of, and then some. She left Cassandra staring into Trax’s large green eyes. She knew they were speaking to each other mentally. That was one of the really cool things about being a vampire – you automatically got telepathy. Not that Pandora wanted to be a vampire. She was already a shapeshifter and a witch. That was more than enough for her.

She went over to Cicero who was just ending the phone call. “¿A quien llamaste?” she asked.

“Thierry,” he answered, turning his dark brown eyes to look at her. “He left a message for you. He wants you to go straight to his mansion after this.” He looked uncomfortable. “He also said for you to take my car.”

Pandora’s mouth dropped open. “The Lexus?” It was all she could do not to jump up and down. She was in love with Cicero’s car, but he never allowed her to even touch it. Now he had direct orders from the Lord of the Night World to hand over his car keys. It was a dream come true.

“Don’t worry, Cicero, I’ll take care of her,” she assured the dark-haired lamia. He still looked reluctant, but he pulled a key ring out of the pocket of his black jeans and handed it to her. Pandora transferred it to the pocket of her brown cargo pants and smiled at him. She called goodbye to the other members of her team and left the room.

In the hallway Pandora stopped in front of a full-length mirror to study her reflection. Her long wavy brown hair was a mess from jumping around, and her clothes were wrinkled. Somehow or another blood had gotten on her white tank top, even though she wasn’t bleeding and she hadn’t made anyone else – oh, wait, yes she had. She’d punched a werewolf in the face and broken his lip and nose. And with all the gunfire and fighting going on, it was a wonder she wasn’t covered from head to foot in the thick red liquid. She shrugged and continued down the hallway. If Thierry didn’t care that she wasn’t at her most presentable, then she didn’t, either.