Frost Burned

landed on her. I heard the snap of bone before my eyes registered that Asil crouched on top of her, his face eerily calm with eyes the color of citrines.
    “Half-breed fae,” he grunted, examining her face as I changed back to human. It wasn’t an epithet, just an observation. “That gun has too much metal for a full-blooded fae to handle even with leather gloves.”
    I opened my mouth to argue with him instinctively—Zee had no trouble with metal—but the dead woman kept the words in my mouth. My head caught up with events and I realized that, although he seemed to be calm enough, his bright eyes said differently. I’d been raised among werewolves and I’d never seen anyone, not even Adam, who was pretty damn fast, move that quickly. Just a feeling of motion, then she was dead, and Asil was there.
    I pulled the bra all the way off to give myself time to think—and the scary werewolf time to calm down. Realizing I was standing naked next to a very full parking lot that might soon be filling with people, I put the bra on correctly and pulled up the panties. The sweatshirt lay between Asil and me and I had to force myself to walk toward him and pick it up.
    “She is also truly gone,” he said impersonally. “Full-blooded fae are usually harder to kill than this.” He patted down her body with a speed that indicated long familiarity with the process. His voice was a little darker than it had been before, a little more strongly accented.
    “She didn’t see you in the passenger seat,” I said, glancing at the Mercedes. The windows were darkened beyond strictly legal limits, especially the glass on the back and side of the car. For Marsilia it was a safety measure—if she happened to be out too long, the sun would be kept at bay. For me it meant that the fae woman hadn’t noticed that there were two of us in the car. The passenger door was opened where Asil had exited.
    “Careless,” Asil agreed, standing up and looking at me. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and carefully didn’t look up to his eye level as I pulled the shirt down.
    There was subtle tension in his body to match the predator’s gaze, and I thought of his warning not two minutes earlier. I wondered if killing a half-blood fae was close enough to human to be an issue. He seemed to be handling it okay so far—but with the wolves, that could change awfully fast. And that calm of his was ringing all sorts of bells in my hindbrain.
    “We need to hide her before someone walks out to dump their garbage,” I told him, approaching him and kneeling. It was a submissive posture—even if I did it to grab the sweatpants that lay at his feet.
    He didn’t say anything, just watched me. I didn’t look up to see him doing it, but the back of my neck felt his eyes. The ground was really cold on my butt, and I pulled the pants on with more energy than usual. I’d kept one sock on—I try not to think about how ridiculous I must look in coyote form when I have to change without losing my clothes first, but I couldn’t help but wince as I looked about for the other sock.
    I didn’t find the sock, but my shoes were next to the driver’s side door of the Mercedes. The sight of the door put the search for my sock, the dead woman, and the werewolf who’d just killed her, momentarily right out of my mind.
    “Damn, damn, damn,” I said, putting my hand on the dented metal. When I’d knocked her into the car, the would-be assassin/kidnapper’s head had left an impression in the driver’s side door—cars aren’t as tough as they used to be. My old Rabbit could have taken a blow twice that hard without even noticing it. I took another step closer, and my cold bare toes bumped into warm flesh.
    I looked down and met a pair of eyes that had been dark before death fogged them over. The half-fae woman had been stunning, but now, her magic gone, she looked merely ordinary. I glanced at the werewolf who had taken himself away from the body and now stood with his back toward me, facing the nearest apartment building, an apartment building with lots and lots of windows.
    “We’ve got to get the body out of sight,” I said.
    I had to pull the body out of the way to open the driver’s side door and pop the trunk. Asil didn’t move, and I didn’t ask him to. He wasn’t in the way of the door—and he was still scaring me.
    She jerked a little when I moved her. I was a coyote, a predator—I’ve killed before. I knew it was only the air left in