Leopard's Kiss (Shadow Guardians) (Shadows Guardians Book 1) by Stephanie Rowe

someone took her?"
    She frowned. "She's like my sister. She wouldn't have left me."
    "How can you be so sure?"
    "How can you even ask me that? Don't you have anyone in your life who would never walk out on you? Or someone who you would never walk out on? A bond that would stand through anything, no matter what?"
    Something flashed in his eyes, a pain so sharp she felt it in her own heart, but it was gone almost instantly. "No," he said evenly. "I do not. That would not fit in my lifestyle, and it would be a liability. I don't do liabilities."
    He was lying. He had someone. Her heart sank. "Who is it? A woman?"
    His face became a cold visage of impenetrable steel. "There is no one," he said again, an edge to his voice, that made her wonder whether she'd been wrong. She'd been so certain that he had someone he cared about. "I don't like people enough to want to get that close. If you're correct that Julia was taken," he said, refocusing the conversation, "why did they take her alive instead of killing her like your mom and Marjorie?"
    "Because they fought back? Maybe whoever it was tried to take them, too, but they chose to fight to the death instead of surrendering." A chill rippled over her at the idea. She knew her mom would have chosen death over succumbing to whatever horror had been hunting them for so long. "But Julia was taught to fight as well."
    "Maybe they were ready for her. Maybe they underestimated your mom and Marjorie, and had upped their game when they went after Julia."
    Her stomach dropped. "Julia was taught to fight. We both were. If they took her without a fight—"
    "They had a plan." He sat back, clasping his hands behind his head. "What's so important about your little clan, Anya? Your mom and Marjorie were on the run your entire life. What were they hiding from?" He leaned forward suddenly, a gleam in his eyes. "Unless it was you and Julia they were hiding, not themselves. Maybe you and Julia were the targets originally. Did anyone else try to get to you over the years?"
    "You think we're the targets?" Fear leapt through her, and she turned away quickly, pacing away from him to hide her face. "It wasn't us that my mom and Marjorie were hiding. We aren't the targets." But even as she denied it, she couldn't keep her voice from trembling.
    "It is you," he said softly, apparently being a master at reading body language. Bastard. "You're the one they were hiding. You and Julia. Why?"
    There was no way she was giving him the answer that would betray her. Besides, she didn't even know if it were true, at least for her. And if it was, even Slade couldn't be trusted with the truth. No one could. "I don't know if it was us," she said evasively, "and I don't know why. How would they have found us, anyway?" She turned to face him suddenly. "How did you find me? Who hired you?" She couldn't believe she hadn't asked that before.
    "I scented you, and I don't know the name of the man who hired me. I never ask. They have no idea who I am, and I don't know who they are."
    "You scented me? What does that mean?" How could he go around killing people without doing research on who he was hunting? She didn't understand how he could live like that. She knew it didn't really matter what drove him, but she needed a distraction from the line of questions he'd latched onto.
    He didn't take his gaze off her, as if he knew exactly what she was doing, and was plotting a strategy to get the information he wanted anyway. "I was sent a piece of fabric of something that belonged to you. Once I locked onto your essence through it, I could track you no matter how far away you were."
    She frowned. "What fabric? Can I see it?"
    "I burned it, but it was a small piece of denim about two inches wide." He narrowed his eyes. "Do you remember losing a pair of jeans?"
    "I left everything behind at the fire," she said. "Including jeans."
    He drummed his finger on his knee. "So, we start with the warehouse."
    "Start what?"
    "The hunt for who is after