On the run in Washington, D.C. from a cop who cares more about inflicting pain than serving justice, Remy Capra grabs a handful of coins and jumps out a window. She lands seventy-five years back in time and across a continent in Los Angeles — at the feet of bounty hunter Nathan Pierce.
Remy isn't like any woman's he's ever met. She's street-smart and sassy, but she needs help, and Nathan, against his own better judgement, offers it. Danger looms on all sides: Remy might be whisked back to her own time at any moment, a murderous gang lord is after them, and then there's the mystery of the Silver Maiden, a mystical coin with strange powers. Remy and Nathan may have a future — if she can evade her own past, and if they manage to keep alive in the ever-threatening present . . .
EXCERPT
...The air crackled with electricity. With the light flaring to an ice blue, one last reverberation shattered the high windows, sending Nathan diving to safety. Glass shards showered down in a lacerating rain. As abruptly as it had arrived, the sudden brilliance vanished, leaving the warehouse blanketed in darkness.
The ensuing silence was almost as painful as the explosions had been. The discomforting quiet was broken when a soft groan echoed from the murk, followed by a muffled, “Fuck.”
Nathan stiffened. That wasn’t Tian or Cesar. That was a woman's voice.
He blinked several times, chasing the black dots from his eyes, before focusing on the almost shapeless form on the floor. He raised the gun, leveling it at her head as he approached. “Who are you?” he demanded. “A friend of Tian’s? Are you armed?”
She didn’t respond.
He stopped within ten feet of her and pulled back the hammer on the gun. “Put your hands up where I can see them.”
Slowly, the shadows shifted like oil on brackish water, something metallic catching a sliver of light to glint in the darkness. A pale cheek became visible as the woman lifted her head, but her hands remained out of sight. “This has gotta be Hell.” Her voice was a husky alto, sharp with annoyance. “Is this supposed to be my punishment? You torture me for all eternity with bad movie clichés?”
“What the hell?” He circled her without looking away, keeping a safe distance as he approached the open door. A quick glance down the hall showed that Tian had high-tailed it out of there.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Nathan turned back to the strange woman, sudden fury overriding any confusion or shock at her mysterious appearance. He marched over to her, grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. “Who are you? Did you help him plan this?”
Her eyes widened, as if he’d surprised her by being tangible, but it lasted only a moment before she twisted in his grasp, her back pressing into his chest. A sharp elbow slammed into his diaphragm, followed by her booted heel stomping on his toe. In the fraction of a second Nathan loosened his grip, the woman wrenched free and bolted for the freedom of the open door.
“No, I don’t think so,” Nathan muttered, running after her despite the red pain blossoming in his chest. Tian may have escaped, but this woman wasn’t going to be so fortunate. He’d be damned before he let another one escape tonight. He grasped her shoulder, using his momentum and weight to slam her into the wall.
“Who are you?” Nathan grunted. She tried to wrench away from him, but he took her wrist with his free hand and yanked it behind her back.
The only sound she made was a muttered curse of discomfort. He pulled her arm tighter until her rapid breathing was choked off by a pained cry.
“Remy,” she growled. “You want to know my cup size, too, asshole?”
Nathan didn’t know the name, and he knew all the names surrounding Tian. He would keep his guard up in case she was lying about her name, but she seemed as confused as he was. “Maybe later,” he muttered, easing the pressure on her arm.
Something warm and sticky coated his stomach. Holstering his gun, he put his hand between their bodies, searching for the source of the blood. Did something get me? Shrapnel, maybe. But there weren’t any holes in his stomach.
Nathan stepped back without releasing her and pulled the back of her shirt up. It felt like it was made of tissue paper, like he could rip it right from her body if he wasn’t careful. Curious, he gave it a light tug, but it didn’t tear. He lost all interest in the odd material when he saw the deep cut stretching across the small of her back. The black blood glistened in the murky light. He brushed his fingers across her skin, pulling back quickly as she hissed.
“You’re hurt. How did this happen?”
The contact made her squirm, her spine bowing away as if to get as far from him as possible. “Felt like a knife,” she admitted. “I didn’t bother to stop and ask for details. I was a little busy running for my life.”
Nathan examined the wound. It did look like a knife injury. He imagined the assailant, slashing at her . . . as she what? Where had she come from? Who was chasing her? How did she end up in the middle of a third-story room of an abandoned warehouse? Maybe she was right and this was hell. Maybe he hadn’t moved fast enough when that grenade came through the window.
Regardless, she was going to lose too much blood if they stood around talking about it all night.
“If somebody’s chasing you, I think you should get out of here. I know a back way out.”
She snorted. “That’s all well and good except, you know, when you’ve got your face shoved into a wall and your arm twisted behind you.”
“Well, I hope you’ll forgive my caution around strange women who fall out of thin air and hit like a man three times their size. I’m going to let go and step back. You don’t run, and I won’t slam you into another wall. Deal?”
Her mouth opened as if to argue, and then snapped shut. Instead, she gave him a curt nod in agreement.
Keeping one hand ready to grab his gun, Nathan let her go and stepped back, waiting to see if she would be true to her word. Remy immediately pulled her arm to the front of her body, stretching the muscles in her back in the opposite direction to loosen the constraint he’d forced upon them.
“Is that what happened?” she asked. When he didn’t answer right away, she glanced back, her face shadowed with unanswered questions. “I fell out of thin air?”
Nathan shrugged. “All I know is, one minute I was here ready to take that fucker down, and the next, he’s flown the coop, and you’re bleeding all over the floor. Might as well been out of thin air.” He narrowed his eyes. “You mean you don’t know what happened? How you got here?”
“I don’t even know where here is.” As she swung her gaze around the warehouse, her features passed in and out of the stray light filtering through the shattered windows. He caught sight of her full, sensual mouth and dark eyes glittering with intelligence before the murk swallowed her up again. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say this isn’t Washington, DC.”
“No. Los Angeles. Culver City, technically.” He moved to take her elbow, but she stepped back, shifting to a defensive position. Nathan put up his hands, trying to flash a soothing, I’m-just-here-to-help, smile. “Sorry. There’s a lot of debris in the hallway. There’s a flight of stairs to the right. We’re going to go up to the next floor, then take the back stairwells out.”
Her eyes jumped back and forth between him and the doorway. With a feral grace, Remy edged along the wall toward the exit, only turning her back to him once she stepped into the corridor. Even then, frequent glances over her shoulder betrayed her anxiety.
“You’ve got the trump hand.” She kicked an empty box out of her way. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Nathan.”
