Sam’s vision cleared just as Jack slowly released the other shifter, and the shorter man slid out from under him to stand to the side. He looked visibly relieved to be alive. Jack leaned against the wall, and several shifters came forward.
“You okay, boss?” one asked.
“Colton, the magishifter is not the only one who is injured,” said the man standing behind Sam, the man who had been helping her stay on her feet. “You aren’t fairing brilliantly either.” He had a British accent, and she could have sworn she’d heard it before. In her mind, puzzle pieces swam and scraped against each other in their attempt to connect, but pain was swimming there too. She swooned a little, and the British man caught her.
“Easy,” he said softly.
Jack pushed himself off the wall and turned to face her. One ice blue eye zeroed in on her. It burned away the fuzziness in her vision and brought life into sharp, merciless focus. She held her breath and her body began trembling. Her heart kicked up its pace to beat the inside of her ribs black and blue. She knew everyone there could probably hear it. She was showing weakness in a circle of predators, some literally wolves. She was bleeding to death in a sea of sharks.
She was doomed.
Chapter Eighteen
Raven perched atop the tallest building she could find and peered down at the intersections far below. Her vision adjusted, zeroed in, readjusted, and focused. And then she saw the large cats dash across a street two blocks down, make a hard right, and disappear from view. It was so fast, if her body hadn’t been honed for detecting small things moving fast, she would have missed them.
Raven concentrated on her hearing now; ravens had excellent senses for sight and sound. Not ten seconds passed before the din of a horn honking and tires squealing split the silence. Raven jumped and dove, spreading her wings to glide from the building’s precipice. She turned in the air, following the sound and light to an accident scene in an intersection that rarely saw traffic this time of night.
A large black cat lay in the road, several other animals around it. Raven could tell at once which one was Sam. She was the cheetah slowly stepping back from the other feline. The larger, injured animal was a leopard or a cougar with the gene that caused it to become black, and hence be termed a “black panther.” It didn’t take much for Raven to figure out the identity of that animal either – it was Jack Colton.
What the hell happened?
From the angle he was laying… and the distance Sam was as she slowly retreated… Raven could swear it was hinting at the fact that Jack had saved her life. Taken the hit for her.
But he was alive. She could see his chest moving, even from this distance. What do I do, what do I do…. Janet had sworn up and down that the right thing to do at this stage was let the magi and the doppel figure things out, get to know one another, and stop this cat and mouse game.
But it was maybe half an hour into it, and already one of them was seriously injured. The two shifters were like opposite, volatile forces, and when they combined, there was always some kind of explosion. Shit went down. They hurt each other.
Actually, that’s not technically true, her mind corrected. Colton has never hurt Sam. Raven recalled their meetings over the last twenty years. She thought back. It was true; Jack Colton had never brought any physical harm to Samantha. She sure as hell had laid into him a few times, though.
They would come across one another, fireworks would go off, and Sam would barely escape, leaving a scathed doppelshifter behind her. A scathed Jack Colton, a man capable of becoming any animal on the planet, a man whose human build and stature alone would scare most men, and a man who was absolutely capable of defending himself. Yet she hurt him. And he let her.
It was an epiphany of sorts for Raven then and there, one that backed up the suspicions she had already been building. Jack didn’t want to hurt her. Hell, she’d taken his eye and he’d just now saved her life.
Down below, the taxi driver got out of his vehicle, and other, new animals began to slink out of the shadows. She saw them as a separation of shapes from the darkness at first, but little by little, they took on frightening forms of their own. Wolves.
No, she thought, lifting from her perch to glide in for a closer look. She landed on a street lamp. Not wolves. Werewolves.
The distinction was one only a fellow shifter would be capable of detecting – unless of course, a werewolf was caught in the act of transforming from man to wolf or vice versa. The differences were subtle. Werewolves were bigger, just a touch larger than timber wolves. They were more violent. Real wolves never attacked humans. There had been one attack of a wolf on a human in more than a hundred years, and that animal had been sick. Meanwhile, dog attacks on humans that resulted in necessary hospitalization clocked in at more than one thousand a day. In the US alone.
But werewolves were different because they were human first and foremost – and humans were just plain mean at their core. Werewolves also had different eyes. They tended to glow with the magic that made them what they were. It was a magic that flowed through their veins and lit up their irises, resulting in readily identifiable gazes.
Their smell was different as well, not that Raven could really sense that in her current form. They smelled like humans more than wolves. Real wolves frankly reeked. They had a musk to them, all nature, all wild. Werewolves carried too much human in them to slide that far along the natural scale. There was some “wild” to them, of course. But it was muted and controlled.
The wolves moving in on the magishifter below were definitely werewolves. One of them, the one in front, was larger than the others, and his eyes glowed emerald green, a rare color for weres. They began to fan out, the way normal wolves did when hunting, and Raven knew it was time to get involved.
She formed a quick plan in her head – fly down, shift back into a human, grab Sam, and use the medallion to transport away – but before the plan was even fully formed, Sam was gone. She moved so fast, she nearly blurred, dashing into motion to leave the street, and then shooting to the right in mid-air as if she were chasing a fleeing prey.
However, in this circumstance, she was the prey. Every wolf in the street took off after her in a flurry of fur and speed, and Raven didn’t know where to look. She only knew that when she looked back down at the spot where the enormous black panther had been hit by the taxi cab, the cat was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Sam tried to step back, but there was a hard body behind her. She could hear herself breathing, nearing hyperventilation. And Jack Colton moved slowly in, his boots sounding out her doom with every purposeful step he took.
“Samantha, you need –” he began softly, his tone gentle but insistent, however he cut off mid-speech and froze. Something had caught his attention. Every man around him stilled as well, and she could almost see their senses go on high alert. There was no movement. No sound.
What did they detect that she didn’t? Christ, it could be anything, she thought miserably as her head swam and her guts felt like they were swimming too. She was wounded, she was exhausted, and her mad dash from Colton had drained her drugged-up body to fainting point. She had no idea why she was still conscious. It was as if she were living on adrenaline alone.
Her eyes sure felt like it. They were open wide, locked on Jack’s impressive figure, her breath held as the world seemed to go quiet around them. And then Jack slowly turned, his head cocking slightly to one side. One more second of stillness passed…
In a sudden flash and furious movement, he transformed again. The air filled with black fur and strong muscle as the massive cat leapt, climbing five times its body height to rise directly over Sam’s head.
She gasped and her head snapped up to follow his movement. Like some vicious scene from a nature movie, the panther’s jaws opened and then closed around something small and black. A squawk of surprise loudly screeched through the alley.
Raven!
“No!” Sam cried, fighting her fatigue to yank out
of her captor’s embrace. “Don’t hurt her!”
The panther turned gracefully in the air, bringing his quarry down with him. He landed and spat the animal out, and the large black bird fluttered, feathers flying, as it rolled across the ground.
“Raven!” Sam fell to her knees beside the grounded bird, which righted itself indignantly, but appeared for all intents and purposes to be unharmed. It squawked loudly and angrily, and there was a second flash as it shifted into its human form.
“Watch it with the flight feathers, kitty!” Raven hissed once she was back to herself. She glanced from the massive cat to Sam and back again as she tried unsuccessfully to smooth down her black hair and un-ruffle her clothing. Then she rubbed her ass – which none of the men in the alley failed to notice. “Those are some deadly teeth there,” she muttered softly, catching the eye of one of the werewolves.
He smiled. Fangs flashed.
She paled a little.
Another pop of light filled the alley before Jack Colton was a man once more. “What are you doing here?” he asked point blank. And then he ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Never mind. Stupid question. And it doesn’t matter. You both need to leave now.” He looked around at the shadows, as did the others. Their hyper-alertness had not faded, had not receded. Something was wrong.
Sam’s gaze slid to the men around them. She recognized one of them at once – Darius Walker, the Shifter King. Any shifter would know who he was, even a runaway magishifter like her. Raven had shown her pictures in the past, just to get her up to speed on the shifter community. The strange thing was, he didn’t seem like the king in that group just then. His presence was diminished somehow; something… was different.
The only other man in the alley Sam recognized was the man who had been holding her, helping her stay on her feet. Now she knew why his voice had sounded familiar. She’d caught sight of him on some talk show somewhere, maybe on a television screen on in the background of some office. Green eyes, dark brown hair, excruciatingly handsome. He should have been a model or a movie star, but he wasn’t. Malcolm Cole was a number one New York Times bestselling author thirty times over. And… apparently also a werewolf.
He smiled warmly at her, as if he recognized her misery and either empathized or sympathized. But it didn’t matter. Sam looked down at Raven. The avian shifter got on her knees and took Sam gently by the hands. “We do need to leave,” Raven said softly. “You’re still hurt, and this is too –”
“Quiet!” Jack hissed, forcing Raven into sudden silence. Sam looked up at him. The strip of leather across his eye was like a whip against her skin, dangerous, painful… sexy. She shivered. It was ludicrous in her state and in this situation, yet there was a warmth spreading through her. Even now.
But that warmth was quickly overshadowed with a sudden sense of doom. She felt her skin prickle. She sat up a little straighter. A familiar, unpleasant scent filled the air. It was evil. It was hatred.
Hunters.
Oh gods, she thought. They’re back. She didn’t know how she could have ever thought this bunch here was associated with them. The vehemence of a Hunter was palpable. It was recognizable, like a disgusting signature. It was a perfume that filled the air, sickening and heady, and turned the stomach inside out.
At least that means Jack isn’t one of them. But then again, she was pretty sure she had known that all along.
The blue of Jack’s eye illuminated, brightening into an unnatural and mesmerizing glow. “Raven, get her out of here.”
“Yes sir,” said Raven, as if she was accustomed to taking orders from the man who was basically a stranger. “Sam, grab hold,” she instructed, leaning into Sam as she pulled an ornate gold medallion from her jacket pocket. Sam had never seen it before. It must have been part of the secret life Raven lead as a guardian. Her earlier anger over Raven’s duplicity came flooding back. But she had bigger fish to fry right now.
They were both on their knees, so Sam pulled her left leg up and got her boot under her. It wasn’t easy. But fury fueled her.
“No,” she said firmly.
Everyone looked down at her. She could feel Jack’s gaze like a blue-hot laser beam, so she made the life-saving decision not to look at him. “I’m not going anywhere. The Hunters need to be stopped.” She couldn’t get their smug self righteousness out of her head. It was like a poison under her skin. Their hatred, apparently, was contagious.
“No way in hell you can face them, luv,” said Malcolm Cole. “You’ve been shot, and that’s the least of it.”
But Jack had already made his way to her in three long strides, and was lifting her as gently but firmly as he could by her un-injured arm. Without thinking, Sam reacted. Fire lit up like a gasoline trail along her arm, flames shooting a foot into the air. Jack hissed where his hand had been burned and released her at once, taking a step back.
The Phoenix, she thought wryly. It had always been her favorite.
Over time, many shifters learned the fine art of changing a part of their body while leaving the rest of it in human form. Eyes, teeth, body hair – you name it. It was beneficial when trying to intimidate someone to be able to suddenly growl and have the sound coming from wolf lungs and from between wolf teeth.
What she had done was no different, except that the magishifter didn’t just become a wolf or a cat or a bird. So if she wanted her arm to catch on fire because fire was a part of the Phoenix – that’s what it did. The Phoenix was Sam’s favorite because becoming the Firebird had the power to focus her, rejuvenate her, and end her pain. She just almost never did it, because, well – the bird was on fire. That made everything around it susceptible to going up in flames. Not a handy shifter animal for someone living in an apartment. Or any building, really.
Sam bared her teeth and stared Jack Colton down with renewed spirit as he, too, glared in silent determination. All around them, the shifters and weres were silent. Even Raven had nothing to say. It was as if they were waiting for the entertainment to continue, wondering what would happen next and who would win.
“They’re coming for me. Don’t think I’m not aware,” she told him firmly. She knew damn well they’d tracked her. Somehow. They’d seen her become a dragon, and now their bloodlust was as strong as ever. If anyone was going to bring an end to this, it needed to be her. Besides, she was pissed. They’d ruined her birthday. And her favorite store. “So let them come. I have a bone to pick.”
Shifting even a little into the Phoenix seemed to refuel her a small amount.
She expected Jack to rally, to come at her again, or to argue. But instead, he took a deep breath, his scrutiny slid to the tops of the buildings around them, and he took another step back, rolling up his sleeves as he did so. “Well, my little Firebird, it looks like you’re going to get your chance.”
Sam looked up, following his gaze. And that was when they struck.
Chapter Twenty
Sam watched the darts fly like they were stuck in molasses. They spun slowly in the air, coming in from all directions, and the light from the nearby street lamp glimmered off their metal. She was a single thought away from transforming, her instincts automatically deciding which animal would be best, when she suddenly found herself in Jack’s arms. The scent of him, leather, blood and aftershave, washed over her. Heat infused her at once, strange and unwelcome, yet… not. His right arm was wrapped tight around her waist like an iron band, and a tattoo on his left forearm was glowing.
She had no time to react as the portal opened, swallowing them both whole. It moved much faster than she was accustomed to, not that she’d been through a whole lot of transport portals in her life. But before she knew it, the exit was opening, and Jack was pushing them through.
The moment Sam’s boot touched down onto hardwood, she pulled from Jack’s grasp and spun to face him. “What the hell?!” she demanded.
“Sorry,” he said frankly. “I lied.”
Then he was touching the tattoo on his forearm a
gain, brushing his fingers against it to bring it to glowing, shimmering life. Sam knew what was coming, and she could barely breathe she was so furious. “No!” she yelled, running forward to grab his free arm. It felt like steel under his shirt, hard and un-giving, but she dug in with nails. “Don’t you dare leave me here!”
She thought of Raven, of that insane Hunter leader with eyes like hell and his smug, sick promises, and her heart threatened to rip right out of her chest. “Please,” she said suddenly, begging for what might have been the first time in her crazy life. “He’s going to do something to her, I just know it. I feel it,” she told Jack, and he stilled, his gaze swinging to pin her to the spot. “He and his men, they have something. I don’t know what. But they’re using magic now and they have plans. Sick, twisted plans! His men were told not to kill me; I think they wanted to take me alive, and it couldn’t have been to throw me a surprise birthday party! They’re doing something to shifters! I promise they are!”
She had no idea how she suddenly knew all of this. But there it was. She just did.
Jack Colton stared at her long and hard. She could almost hear the wheels turning in his handsome head. His expression was unreadable. And his eye was very, very blue.
“Then I’m even more certain that you’re safer here,” he finally told her softly. The hard edge had been removed from his words – and from his face. “I’ll watch out for your friend.”
Sam opened her mouth to protest again, but with a flash, a gust of wind, and a gentle shove from Jack, she was stumbling backward. And he was gone, swallowed up by the same portal that had brought them here.
Here, Sam thought numbly. She swooned as the room around her tilted on its axis. She closed her eyes, touched her cool fingertips to her forehead, and winced when it hurt because she’d used her right arm. She doubled over and took a minute to breathe. The adrenaline was fading now that she was out of immediate danger, and she didn’t like the feeling one bit.