Kai returned the favor, assessing her. She was slender, but not weak. Her body was hard with muscle, but there was something feminine about her. She worked out hard, but she was still light, fast, flexible. She didn’t have the body of some female mercenaries who looked as masculine as their male counterparts. She had kept her curves. Lovely hips, wide, sensual. Her body curved up her slender waist to her breasts, filling out her tight tank top. A hint of lace from her bra peeked out from under her top’s strap.

Her lips were full, inviting, kissed by the hint of smirk, which even her anxiety couldn’t smother. Her long dark hair looked soft and lush. It bounced down her back in gentle waves. Her dark eyes, warm as melted chocolate, met his. Behind those eyes, he could feel magic—overwhelming, delicious magic. It flooded his senses, drawing him in. He couldn’t look away. He resisted the urge to step forward. She was scared of him already. But why?

She could feel his magic, he realized. He’d been right. From her scent, he’d expected she might have the ability to sense magic. A Sniffer, just like him. But she was so much more. She was hiding her magic, keeping it locked away behind layers of self-control, but she couldn’t hold in that much magic. Not magic that powerful, that beautiful. He inhaled it, allowing it to seep into him. She was magnificent.

And her self-control as she held back her magic was as intoxicating as the power she was trying to hide. Her clothes were torn and bloody, and there was a stale smell of monster beneath the perfume of her magic. But it only made her more intriguing. This was a woman who wasn’t squeamish about getting her hands dirty. She was no weak flower. God, how Kai hated weak women who fainted the moment things turned the least bit south. His life was too dangerous to worry about carrying around dead weight. Sera was brave enough to push through the fear storming inside of her. That might have been the most attractive part about her.

“Is something wrong, Sera?” Riley asked her.

“No,” she said, her eyes still locked on Kai.

“I’m Kai.” He extended his hand, smiling.

She cringed but held her ground. A fierce fire shone in her eyes, a fire that screamed, ‘If you make a move against me, I am fully prepared to kick your ass’. He loved it. She shook his hand, and a spark of magic sizzled across his skin, burning his blood. Like a shot of adrenaline, it kicked him into high gear.

That same excitement sparked in Sera’s eyes briefly before fear swallowed it. She backed up, spluttering, “Please excuse us for a second, Kai.”

Then she dragged Riley into the kitchen with her and closed the door behind them. Kai could have moved closer to eavesdrop, but he fought the temptation and walked instead to the other side of the living room. He looked at the pictures on the shelves, pictures of Sera and Riley and another woman who looked a lot like Sera except her eyes were bright blue and her dark hair perfectly straight. She must have been Alex, their sister.

As Kai was looking at an unusual piece of pottery, Sera came out of the kitchen. She looked even more rattled than before. But her unease hardened to resolve when three vampires swung open the front door and stormed inside.

Their eyes were red, burning with the hunger that defined all vampires, especially the common ones. The older vampires had learned to control it, the shapeshifting and demon-powered vampires sooner rather than later. But not the common vampires. When the thirst hit them, they became vicious killers, without mercy or compassion. They couldn’t control it. The other vampires used them as foot soldiers, the front line in their armies. In their bloody rage, they didn’t feel pain. They didn’t back down. They just kept going until they were dead.

Kai was about to intervene, but he stopped when he saw the look in Sera’s eyes. The vampires had invaded her territory, threatened her home, and she was going to take them out. He could not deny her that pleasure.

She moved quickly, darting between them, using her knives. Someone with that amount of magic could have fried them on the spot, but she used steel instead. Her resistance to using her magic was both absurd and admirable. Kai had met a lot of powerful mages, but he’d never met anyone with her strength. If she would just used that strength to fuel her magic, she would be unstoppable.

As she fought, the mask she used to hide her magic flickered, and he caught stronger hints of her power. So sweet, so potent. And it wasn’t full of anger or hate. It was fueled by love, pulsing with the need to protect. She was someone who would never go back on her word. She could not be turned, and she could not be bought. She was someone he could trust. She would be perfect for the job.

As Sera took down the last vampire and stabbed him an extra time to make sure he was dead, Kai said, “That was impressive.”

She was still heaving from the exertion of killing three vampires. Wow, he’d never seen someone move so cleanly, so efficiently. It was like a dance.

She shrugged. “If you thought that was impressive, you should have seen me chop monstrous caterpillars to bits earlier today.”

She flashed him her teeth. Maybe she was trying to scare him, but a feral grin didn’t scare someone who turned into a dragon. Her expression was a challenge. She should have known that.

Unless she didn’t know what he was. She’d sensed his magic for sure, but if she was untrained, she might not know it for what it was. Plus, he’d been holding in his magic as much as he could. He’d thought she might be a Sniffer from her magical scent, and he didn’t want to scare her. People who could sense magic—which didn’t include a lot of mages—tended to freak out when they came face-to-face with his dragon magic. And he didn’t want to scare her off.