Avenging Angel

by Cynthia Eden

  One of the panthers screamed in pain.

  “Two . . .” Jillian inclined her head toward Russell and the guy smiled with sick glee.

  Tanner couldn’t save Cody. He was trying. Fighting and clawing, and he had one panther dead on the ground. The beast’s body shifted back to the form of a man, a man whose head was gone from his body. The scent of flowers deepened around Marna.

  Death angel. A soul had been claimed. Who’d be next?

  Only a second left. Just . . .

  “One,” Jillian whispered, and Cody’s eyes fell closed.

  “No!” Marna screamed even as Tanner roared his fury.

  Tanner lunged forward and sank his claws into the panther’s side.

  “Don’t kill him!” Marna yelled.

  Jillian smirked. “Why? You gonna trade yourself, angel?”

  Marna nodded. She would. Cody had saved her life once. Twice if you counted his deception at the hospital. Tanner had fought for her, over and over. Now it was her turn.

  She took a slow step toward Jillian. Then another. Faster now. But she found Tanner in her way. Bleeding. Bruised. With his claws out and his eyes glowing.

  “No.” The word was barely human. “You aren’t going with her.”

  “Go ahead and rip his throat open, Russell,” Jillian called out. “I can—”

  Marna tried to lunge for her, but Tanner yanked her back.

  “Kill my brother,” Tanner said to the shifter, “and I’ll make you beg for death. By the time hell gets you, there’ll be nothing left, I promise you that.”

  One thing she’d learned about Tanner, he always kept his promises.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tanner kept his hand wrapped around Marna’s wrist. She was straining against him as she fought to break free.

  Like that was gonna happen.

  His brother’s eyes were on him. Blood soaked Cody’s shirt, and the captain that he’d actually been close to respecting was standing there . . . laughing.

  The beast inside roared. His claws had already ripped free, his fangs were out, and Tanner was barely—barely—holding back the change.

  There was too much fury within him. If the beast broke free now, there’d be no controlling the panther.

  Betrayal. Cody’s blood. Death.

  “The angel or your brother, it’s your choice.” Jillian crossed her arms over her chest. Looked smug and satisfied. “But you aren’t keeping both tonight.”

  Yeah, he was.

  “Let me go,” Marna whispered. “I’ll be okay, but he—he doesn’t have much time left.”

  Because Cody was already swaying. His face had gone white, and the glamour had fallen away from him, revealing his demon black eyes. His brother always held his glamour. Always. Cody hated what he was, so he tried to pretend he was nothing more than a human.

  He wasn’t.

  Neither am I.

  Why wasn’t Jillian just trying to take him out? She’d gone for his brother, but she hadn’t come at him directly. Why?

  His gaze tracked back to her. For an instant, he saw the flicker of emotion on her face. Sonofabitch. She wasn’t scared of a death angel or another demon, but even though she had panthers as her bitches, she was afraid of—

  Me.

  Good. His eyes narrowed in anticipation. She should be afraid. He was about to show her just how deadly he could be.

  The captain had set him up. Gotten him to draw Marna out into the open. What better place for an attack than the swamp? Had the captain even lied about seeing a demon in that patrol-car video? Just another part of her plan?

  She’d regret trying to play a deadly game with him. This would be her last mistake.

  Tanner turned his head toward Marna. Locked his eyes on her. She didn’t need to see this. “Run.”

  Marna started to shake her head. Tanner dropped his hold on her. “Run!” More a roar than anything else, and that was the only word he could manage. He fell to the ground as his bones snapped and broke. Reshaped. His claws grew even longer, even sharper.

  His beast was so dangerous. Far more dangerous than he’d revealed to Marna. Because when Tanner’s panther truly took over, when the rage was too strong . . .

  The beast loved the blood and the kills. He hungered for the screams. Tanner had always fought against his instincts, but the truth was, deep inside, where the animal lurked, he was just like his father.

  And, despite what he’d told Marna, his beast was just like his brother Brandt’s—their panthers had always been linked.

  Just like the sadistic bastard who’d hurt Marna. Just like his father. Just like his brother.

  Just. Like. Them.

  Don’t watch. The man couldn’t tell Marna that now. The man was gone. The panther was taking the lead with a fierce rush of fury. Don’t see what I become. Don’t fear me.

  Because she would. By the time he was finished, she’d have to.

  “No!” Jillian’s scream. Then she had her gun up, and she fired at him. Once. Twice. “Stop him before he shifts!”

  Too late.

  Tanner turned his head and saw with the intense sharpness of the panther. The fool shifter who’d thought to take his brother, the one who’d been a part of Brandt’s pack for so long . . .

  Russell dropped his hold on Cody, leapt away, and raced for the woods. Coward. Tanner would get him, but—

  But the others were braver. One shifter came at Tanner with a roar.

  Tanner’s panther ripped his enemy’s chest right open. His razor-sharp teeth sank into the guy. Blood filled his mouth. The panther snarled and wanted more.

  “Tanner!” He didn’t turn at the yell. He finished his kill. Tossed back his head and screamed his victory.

  But there was more prey waiting. More to kill. Kill.

  His hind legs pushed against the earth, and he leapt into the air, heading for the prey he wanted the most. Prey that was still trying to shoot at him, only her gun was out of bullets.

  His front paws slammed into her chest, and he took the captain down.

  “Tanner!” The scream again, but he didn’t look back. His gaze was on his prey. On the demon who stared up at him as the scent of fear poured off her.

  “Your life’s ending,” Jillian told him even as she trembled beneath him. “You think I cleared you at the station? Think again.”

  Kill. His claws sank into her shoulders and she shrieked as she bled.

  “You’re . . . gonna be . . . hunted. Not a cop anymore . . . hunted!”

  Panthers weren’t the prey. They were the predators. He brought his mouth to her throat. Suffocation. That was the way the panther liked to take his prey. One bite to the throat. That was all he needed.

  “She’s never gonna . . . be safe . . . not ’til she’s dead.”

  The panther’s rough tongue flashed out. Licked away flesh. Jillian screamed beneath him.

  Don’t watch. The man inside the beast still didn’t want Marna to see what he was doing, but she hadn’t run. She’d been the one screaming his name. Why hadn’t she run?

  Pain, white-hot, burning, lanced through him, and Tanner realized—too late—that Jillian hadn’t been armed with just a gun.

  She smiled up at him as she twisted the knife she’d slid into his chest. A knife that she’d plunged into the panther’s heart. “I just had to . . . ” she whispered softly as his blood soaked her shirt, “get killing close.”

  And she had.

  But so had he. The panther’s teeth closed over her throat. He bit down, sinking his fangs into her, suffocating her, even as that knife still twisted in his heart.

  She was killing him, but he’d make sure he took her life, too. Marna would be safe. His brother would be safe.

  And Tanner knew he’d finally get just what he had coming to him.

  Hell.

  Right then, he could have sworn that he heard the sound of his father laughing. Tanner’s head lifted, and he got ready to tear into the SOB that had ruined his life but . . .
<
br />   But the ghost of his shifter father wasn’t standing over him. An angel was. An angel with big, black wings, and gold, ice-cold eyes. Eyes that stared at Tanner with hate.

  Then the angel reached down to touch him.

  Bastion. The whisper slid from man to beast. He knew, knew, that he was staring at the angel who’d followed Marna.

  You aren’t taking me away from her.

  Just as the angel’s fingers came close to the panther’s fur, Tanner lunged back, rolled, and the knife broke off in his chest. He howled in pain, but kept rolling, determined to get away from that angel.

  Only Bastion wasn’t following him. The panther shuddered to a stop, and Tanner saw that the angel had bent over Jillian’s body. His hand feathered over her brow. Her eyes opened, stared up at him, and then her whole body jerked. Like a puppet on a string. The pain and the fury vanished from her face until nothing was left.

  Nothing.

  “Tanner.”

  His head turned at Marna’s voice. She stared at him with wide eyes. Her hands were fisted at her sides. Afraid. Her fear smelled different from Jillian’s. It didn’t make him hungry for more blood and fury. It . . . pissed him off.

  But then she ran to him. Marna wrapped her hands around the panther’s body and pulled him close. “Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

  He kept his claws and fangs away from her and let the change sweep over him. Slower now, because he was weak. But the shift was still brutal. Painful.

  Fur faded. Bones reshaped. Her arms soon touched his naked flesh, and it was his blood that stained her fingers.

  “No,” she whispered and pushed him back. The hilt of the knife had broken off, and the blade was still in him. In my heart.

  The heart that he’d never thought too much about, until he’d found a lost angel.

  “Help me!” Marna screamed and footsteps shuffled toward them. Cody weaved, stumbled, then stared down at Tanner as horror slowly swept across his face.

  Tanner tried to tell him that everything was gonna be okay. He’d take care of this. Just like he’d always taken care of everything.

  But he couldn’t speak.

  And he was starting to feel so . . . cold.

  Except where Marna touched him. Her hand was against his chest, and her fingers seemed to burn his flesh.

  Cody dropped to his knees beside him. Claw marks lined his throat, and his blood still spilled down his shirt.

  So much blood. They always seemed to be bathing in the shit. Story of their lives.

  And deaths?

  His hand lifted toward Marna. Air rustled against his skin. Wind?

  No, air stirred by the rushing of an angel’s wings because that bastard Bastion was back. Staring at him with a faint smile curling his lips. The guy still thought that he’d take him? No, not when Marna was so close.

  “Fuck . . . off,” Tanner muttered and his hand sank into the thick fullness of Marna’s hair. He pulled her close and pressed his mouth against hers. If he was dying, she’d be the last thing he tasted.

  “Not now, man,” Cody snapped at him and his brother tried to pull Marna away.

  Only Tanner wasn’t letting her go.

  The panther inside him, injured, weak, stirred at the thought. Why should he have to let her go? He’d just found her.

  Something sliced into his chest. He barely felt the pain.

  “Just got to get it . . . out.” Cody’s voice. Worried. Desperate.

  But Tanner kept kissing Marna. He needed her to understand. In this world, she was the one thing he wanted.

  The one thing that he’d kill to keep.

  His claws began to stretch even more. The slicing in his chest dug deeper. Marna pulled back as she broke the kiss.

  Tanner’s eyes opened. Bastion stood just beyond Marna’s shoulder. Watching. Waiting. Did this asshole really have to be the one to come for him? Figured.

  “Got it!” And what was Cody sounding so freaking happy about?

  But then the fierce pressure in his chest eased. He glanced at Cody and saw the bloody knife blade in his brother’s hand. “Now just stay alive,” Cody told him, voice grim and haggard—probably because his throat was still damaged, “until I can get you stitched back up.”

  He wished he could but . . .

  Death is coming for me. No, Death was right there waiting. Tanner’s gaze returned to Marna. Her cheeks were wet. Crying? Over him? He wasn’t worth an angel’s tears. Never had been. She should know that. She should also know . . .

  “You were the best . . . thing . . . I ever had.” The only thing, other than his brother, that had ever mattered.

  So it seemed only right that she’d be the last vision he saw on this earth. The flames in hell would never burn her memory from him.

  Let ’em fucking try.

  “Time to go,” Bastion said, his voice rumbling like thunder.

  Tanner’s eyelids began to sag.

  Kill to keep her . . .

  The man might be fading, but the beast was still struggling inside of him. Fighting. Clawing. Desperate to reach out to the one woman he’d wanted to claim as—

  Mate.

  Jonathan Pardue raced into the swamp, his legs running as fast as they could. Behind him, a fire crew battled the blaze, a blaze that had destroyed the house of Tanner’s brother, Cody.

  It had taken him too long to track Tanner to this place. Too long to break free of those cuffs and haul ass out of the city.

  Now, he just might be too late.

  All of his plans. All his work.

  Too late?

  Hell, no. Things couldn’t end like this. “Tanner!” Jonathan shouted his partner’s name, but heard nothing. What he wouldn’t give to have a shifter’s sense of hearing or smell right then.

  Where are you?

  Tanner had taken the angel with him. She had to hate the swamp. If the stories about her fall were true—stories he’d forced supernaturals to tell him in the last few days—then she would have good cause to avoid the swamp.

  Only she was out there now. With Tanner. With Cody?

  More cops would be coming soon. They’d bring dogs. They’d search every inch of the area. Jonathan had to find Tanner before the others did.

  But . . . where? “Tanner!” Darkness was coming, sweeping over the area in shades of muted red as the sun began to sink into the sky. It looked like damn blood in the sky.

  He rushed ahead. Turned to the left. The right. Saw only more twisting trees with heavy moss hanging from their branches.

  Swearing, he spun around. He’d go back. He could retrace his footsteps, check to the left, and—

  And his gaze fell on footprints on the ground. He yanked out his flashlight. Shone the faint glow on those small impressions.

  Hell, yes.

  His left hand clamped tight around the flashlight, and his right hand reached for his gun.

  Time to go. The words seemed to freeze Marna’s blood. She grabbed for Tanner, pulling him close even as she turned on Bastion with a fury she’d never felt before. “No!”

  But Bastion just stood there, face cold and hard and stoic, with his wings pulled low near his body. “Your shifter’s time is up. His body’s dying.”

  She shook her head, frantic. He couldn’t leave her yet.

  “Didn’t you see what he did?” Bastion took a step closer.

  Cody kept working on his brother’s chest. Swearing and muttering, apparently oblivious to the angel who waited just steps away. An angel who, unlike her, could truly kill with a touch.

  “He protected me,” Marna said, lifting her chin. He was always protecting her.

  Cody glanced up at her, brows pulling together. “Yeah, that’s just great. My brother’s a hero, but right now we need to—”

  “You can’t take him!” Now she sounded desperate, like others before her—so many others over the centuries. She’d never understood their rage and helplessness.

  She did now.

  Cody blinked. Then his e
yes widened, and he followed her gaze over his shoulder. “One of ’em . . . one of the angels is here?”

  She barely nodded. “Work faster,” she whispered to him. Could Cody really not see the angel? He wasn’t a pureblood demon, so maybe he couldn’t see Bastion.

  Or maybe he could.

  Bastion’s lips tightened. “There is no delaying, no deals, no borrowing. There is only death. You know this.”

  His eyes were too bright. His words too strong. He seemed satisfied. Almost eager. Did Bastion want to take Tanner’s soul?

  Yes.

  “Come on, Tanner, fight. Shift again for me.” Cody’s desperate voice.

  Because a shift would give Tanner strength. That was the way it worked for the shifters. That was how they got their power. Their strength came from the beast.

  She’d already seen just how strong and dangerous Tanner’s beast could be.

  Bastion sighed softly. His wings moved with a faint rustle of sound. “He’s too weak to shift. He’ll die soon, and I’ll take him.”

  And she’d be alone again. Marna glanced back down at Tanner. She held him cradled in her arms. So big. So powerful. So . . . still.

  “What can I do?” Her own voice came out sounding broken.

  “Nothing,” was Bastion’s answer.

  But Cody, his hands bloody and still pushing against Tanner’s chest to apply pressure to the terrible wound, looked up at her. “What would you do?”

  To save him? “Anything.”

  Bastion lunged at her. He caught her chin in his hand and made her look up at him. “He’s a killer.”

  He was also the only man who’d ever made her feel like she was more than an instrument of death.

  Cody grabbed the knife blade that had been in Tanner’s chest. He wiped off the weapon on his pants, smearing red. “Bleed for him.”

  Marna jerked her chin from Bastion’s hold and looked at Cody. “What?”

  He reached for her wrist. Did he realize how close he was to touching Bastion? No, you never knew the danger of a death angel. Not until it was too late.

  “There’s nothing more powerful than angel blood. It has magic in it. So much magic.” He licked his lips and gripped the knife blade with a tight fist. “I’ve seen it even bring a woman back from the dead.”