by Cynthia Eden
Ben’s gaze raked him. “And I take it you’re the asshole who’s sleeping with Erin now?”
Amy sucked in a sharp breath.
Jude just smiled. “Yeah, I am.”
“Then you’re also the prick who was screwing around with my case files.”
Jude just shrugged.
Erin knew it was time to take charge. She stepped forward, putting herself between Jude and Ben.
Ben. He looked the same. Handsome face. Thick, slightly curling brown hair. A dimple in his chin.
A solid guy. A good cop.
Human.
Not for me.
He didn’t understand her. Never would.
Not like Jude.
“Ben, perhaps we should go into my office and talk.” Away from all the watching eyes and straining ears.
He pulled in a deep breath. His fingers whitened around his badge. “Yeah, yeah, let’s do that.” His head cocked to the right. A move she’d seen a hundred times. A move he always made just before he threw out a challenge to a suspect.
Her heart thudded too hard in her chest. He’d come to Baton Rouge. Why? Not for me, but for…
“Let’s go talk, Erin, and you can tell me just why you interfered in a murder investigation this weekend and why the hell I found your picture clutched in the hands of a dead man.”
Ah, that would be why.
Chapter 16
His claws wanted to spring free. Jude could feel the burn beneath his fingertips, but he held onto his control.
The cop. The one he knew Erin had cared for back in Lillian. They were in Erin’s office now. The guy stood less than five feet away—and he was watching Erin with far too much knowledge in his eyes.
“Jude, do you mind if I speak with Ben alone?”
Yeah, he did. He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down at her.
She stared right back up at him. “I need to speak with him alone.”
Dammit. He was not happy with this crap. “I’ll be right outside.” He glanced at the cop. The guy had moved back and leaned against Erin’s desk.
Human.
Her fingers skimmed over his arm. “Thank you.”
Territorial. The word echoed in his head. The lady had no idea just how territorial he was feeling right then or how badly he wanted to rip into the cop.
Her lover. He knew it. He could see it in the man’s eyes. The detective had been with Erin. Hell, maybe he’d even loved her. Jude had heard the way the asshole first said her name.
And Erin—how did she feel? She’d told him things were over with the cop because she couldn’t fit into his “normal” world, but—
But Jude knew just how badly Erin longed for “normal.”
Rip him apart. Easy prey. Fight. Claim.
Mate.
The beast raged inside.
But he was more than the beast, and he was trying to prove that to Erin. Besides, she had her own choices to make.
He clenched his teeth and stepped back. “If you need me, I’m right outside.” Course, she’d be able to take down a human no problem, so the message wasn’t so much for her.
For the cop. His gaze held the other man’s. Right outside.
When he left the room, Erin swung the door shut behind him.
“Man, are you freaking insane?” Zane demanded instantly. “You’re gonna let that cop stay in there alone with your woman? Did you see the way he was eyeballing her, like a good fu—”
Jude turned his stare on the demon, and Zane wisely shut the hell up.
Then Jude crossed his arms over his chest and got ready to wait.
He’d agreed to stay outside, but it wasn’t like the thin walls would give Erin much privacy. Not to someone like him, anyway.
If that asshole cop yelled at her again, Jude was going inside, and the claws would be coming out.
“How did you find me?” Erin asked, keeping her voice cool and easing into her desk chair.
A shrug. One that tried to make him appear careless, but the lines bracketing his mouth belied the move. “When I linked the call at Katherine LaShaun’s place to your cell, the DA had to cough up the info.”
Ah, the cell call. She’d figured that would be traced back to her sooner or later. She just had been hoping more for later.
She’d forgotten just how good Ben’s contacts were. “I had to call her. I couldn’t let those boys see their father’s body. They never would have felt safe at that house, they never—”
“Still trying to save the world?” he asked softly.
Her lips pressed together.
Jude had understood. She’d seen the way he looked at the boys.
Had he seen himself in them? Yeah, she’d bet that he had. Just like she’d seen herself.
Her hands flattened on the desktop. “I didn’t break any laws by calling Katherine.”
“You tipped off a suspect.”
She jumped to her feet. So much for playing it cool. “Please! You and I both know there’s no way Katherine killed Trent! That’s not the kind of woman she is!”
“She thinks he killed her daughter. She’d do anything for her girl, you know that.”
She did, but…“Katherine didn’t kill Trent.”
“You seem awfully sure of that.” He walked around the desk, moving until he stood less than a foot away from her. “Why is that, Erin? And why is it that Trent had your picture in what was left of his hands?”
Because he was another freaking present. She didn’t flinch. “There are things going on here that you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh?” His lips twisted into a cruel smile. The smile didn’t suit him. Not at all. “Like I didn’t understand about you back in Lillian? Every time I tried to get close, you just shoved me back. When I was in the hospital, you didn’t even come to see me.”
“Because I was trying to protect you!” The words burst out. Oh, no, she hadn’t meant to tell him that. Now she was—
“And I find out now that you’re cozying up with some low-rent bounty hunter!” His face reddened as his voice rose. “I saw the way he looked at you, the two of you are—wait, what the hell did you say?”
“Uh…”
The door flew open. “Asshole, don’t raise your voice to her again.” Jude stood in the doorway, his claws out and his eyes glowing.
Ben looked at him and his jaw dropped. “What. The. Hell!”
Jude kicked the door closed with his heel but never took that deadly gaze off the cop.
“I told you there were things you wouldn’t understand,” Erin said. Then, “Jude, back off, okay? I’ve got this.”
“Bullshit. I could hear the prick yelling at you.”
Yeah, well, with his shifter hearing, he probably would have been able to hear a whisper. “This isn’t the way to handle the situation, okay?”
“He’s got claws!” Ben shook his head, hard.
“All the better to rip into prey.” Jude took a step forward.
“What’s up with his eyes? Why are they—”
“All the better to see the asshole who doesn’t need to be attacking my lady.”
“Jude!” Her snarl had him faltering and glancing over at her. “I can fight this one on my own.” Not helping. No, his big show and tell was making everything a thousand times worse.
“Sweetheart, it’s time your cop learned the truth.” In that devil-may-care grin, she caught the edge of his teeth, those too sharp canines. Erin swallowed and really hoped that Ben hadn’t seen them, too, because if he said something about the fangs, she could already hear Jude’s smart-ass response.
All the better to bite.
As much as she enjoyed his bites, Ben wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment.
And he might run screaming.
It looked like that response could be a near thing right then.
Thanks, Jude. “Ben, relax, okay? Everything is all right.”
“All right?” he thundered, still shaking his head. Then he shoved her behind him. “Do you
see that guy? He’s got claws!”
She peered around Ben in time to see Jude shrug. “So does she.”
“What?”
“There are some things I never told you about myself,” she said to Ben, using a tone she hoped was calm and easy.
He twisted around and eyed her with too-wide eyes. “What things?”
“Like the fact that I’m not…completely human.”
A shocked laugh. “Right.”
She held up her hand. Let him see her claws.
He jerked back from her and rammed into the desk. Horror was etched on his face. Disbelief filled his gaze.
The reaction she’d always feared.
“You’ve stumbled into a hell you can’t fully imagine,” Jude said.
Ben just looked between them, shaking his head. “No, Erin, I cared about you, I—”
“You cared about the woman you thought I was.” And she’d just wanted someone to love her, as she really was.
Claws and all.
“This isn’t real,” he muttered, running a trembling hand through his hair. “Can’t be, it’s—”
“The guy outside the door,”—Jude jerked his thumb over his shoulder—“is a demon. I’m a white tiger shifter.”
“Not real.”
“And the killer you’re after—the one who left Erin’s picture in the hands of a dead man—is a wolf shifter.”
Ben’s brows bunched. “Were…wolf?”
“Close enough.” Jude nodded.
“No, that’s not even possible, there’s no way—”
Jude held up his claws and this time, he bared his teeth.
The gulp that clicked in Ben’s throat seemed way too loud right then.
Erin reached out her hand to him, claws gone, but he flinched back. Knew it would happen.
Jude had never flinched away from her. She glanced at her shifter. No, he’d never flinched away, not even when he’d found out she was part wolf.
He’d wanted her from the beginning. No holdups. No hedging.
Taking her, as she was.
Jude’s bright blue gaze held hers.
“Erin saved your ass by getting the hell out of Lillian,” Jude told the cop. “The werewolf who killed Trent is after her and, if she hadn’t left you behind, odds are high he would have killed you.”
“What?”
She managed to look away from Jude and turn her attention back to Ben. “Seems that I acquired an…admirer, of sorts.” Her lips pulled down into a frown and she rubbed her temple. “He does things, hurts others, even kills, and he thinks he’s doing it for me.”
Jude eased closer. “He killed a perp here in Baton Rouge and smeared the bastard’s blood all over the walls in her house. Another guy, a lawyer, made the mistake of arguing too much with Erin in court. The freak put him in the hospital. ICU.”
Erin flinched at that. She’d gone to the hospital that morning, before work, hoping to hear better news about Lee. His son had been sitting in his room, holding his hand. She’d stepped away, ducking into the empty room beside Lee’s as she fought to control her tears.
Seeing that boy, praying for his father to wake up…
He has to be stopped.
Clearing her throat, she tried to push the memory of that kid aside. Lee would wake up. Oh, but she hoped he would anyway. “I have very good reason to believe that this guy is also the one who attacked you.”
“Erin, there’s no way to know that!”
“I’ve got good reason to believe it, because he told me he did,” she broke across his words and dropped her hand. I took care of your lover. Fool wasn’t worthy. He’d been so proud of nearly killing Ben. He’d whispered his words to her that terrible night. “He’s been making my life hell for too long now. I tried running from him, hiding, but he just found me, and he started killing again.”
Ben’s mouth hung open. After a moment, he snapped his lips closed.
“It’s the truth,” she said. Might seem crazy, but crazy was her world.
“Wh-why didn’t you tell me? I thought you left because you didn’t care.”
“He’s a paranormal.” Simple. “You couldn’t have handled him. The other cops in Lillian are human, too. They wouldn’t have known how to stop him. He would have sliced right through them and—”
The cop’s head craned toward a watchful Jude. “This guy—let me guess, he can handle him, right?”
Jude shrugged.
“Yes.” Erin was definite. “When he’s in his tiger form, he’s the closest physical match the bastard has.” More than a match. Jude would be able to take the bastard down, she knew it.
“Werewolves?” Ben asked again and rocked back on his feet. “Come on, babe, I’ve dealt with some screwed-up killers in my time, but I haven’t—”
“Shifters have been around for as long as humans have walked this earth.” Jude crossed his arms over his chest. “Deny it if you want. If it makes you sleep better, do whatever the hell you have to do. But, the fact here is…you’ve got a paranormal killer out there. One who is obsessed with Erin, and you—well, you’re playing out of your league, human.”
There wasn’t room for Ben in this fight. “If you try to get involved in this, you’ll just get hurt.” The freak out there would like his pain too much. “Go back to Lillian. We’re going to stop him, and when we do—”
“What?” Ben’s voice snapped out, high and sharp. “When you stop him, I book a werewolf for murder? How’s that going to fly with the mayor and DA, huh? And what kind of cage am I going to toss him into?”
“This one won’t stay in a cage.” Jude’s voice was soft, deep. A calm opposite to Ben.
Erin knew he was right. The killer they were looking for was too strong for a human prison. “A cage won’t ever hold him,” she said, her stomach knotting. She’d known it would come to this.
“What are you saying?” Ben reached out a hand, as if he were going to touch her, but stopped, the fingers freezing in midair.
Can’t touch the shifter. Not normal. Her chin lifted. “I’m saying we’ll let you know when this threat is gone.” That was all she was going to say. She couldn’t really tell a cop that murder was the only option. Not really murder, though. Self-defense. “Now, I’m sorry, but I have work to do.”
“If you’ve got more questions, human, I’ll answer them,” Jude said.
Ben’s gaze drifted over her face. “This is the last damn thing I expected.”
“I know.”
“Erin…”
But there was nothing more to say. Like she’d told Jude, they’d ended in Lillian.
His hand fisted and he turned away from her. “I want to know everything you’ve got on this bastard.”
Jude’s claws were gone. For now. “Then I guess you’d better get ready for a little visit to Night Watch.”
Jude took the human to the agency. Introduced him to a few of the hunters. Left him with Dee for a while so that she could brief him, one human to another.
And the fury inside him built.
Erin had been hurt. The human asshole had hurt her. He’d looked at her like she was…like she was some kind of freak.
Erin.
Jude growled.
That was the prick Erin had been dating? An ass who didn’t recognize how great she was?
Idiot.
The cop’s hands were shaking when he finished his briefing with Dee. Yeah, she usually had that effect on men.
“Heard enough?” Jude asked from his slouch against the wall.
A jerky nod.
“Good, then it’s time to get your ass back on the road and head home to old Lillian.” He straightened, then remembered the way the guy hadn’t even been able to touch Erin after he’d learned the truth. “But first”—his fingers clenched around the prick’s shirtfront, and he yanked him inside the nearest office.
“Jude! What the hell?”
“Beat it, Gomez.” Gomez Montiago, charmer extraordinaire.
“This is my offi
ce, I’m not just gonna—”
Jude slanted him a hard look.
The charmer jumped up from his chair. “I had to go talk with Pak anyway.”
The door slammed behind him.
Jude turned his focus back to the cop. “I ought to kick your ass.”
The human got some spunk then, because his jaw clenched and he gritted, “You can try, but I’m not as weak as you may think.”
“No?” Yeah, he was. “Are you as stupid as I think you are?”
Ben blinked and a furrow appeared between his eyes. “What?”
“She’s not less because she’s a shifter. She’s not some kind of freak or abomination or monster.” The tiger roared inside. “She’s still the same woman you knew. Still smart, still sexy, still Erin.” He shook his head now, the rage burning his tongue and leaving an acrid taste in his mouth. “But after you knew the truth, you couldn’t even look at her the same way anymore.”
Humans. They could piss him off so easily.
Dee and Tony were the only ones who’d ever been different. Dee because well, she’d been introduced to the paranormal world at a very early age.
And Tony…he’d come across Jude mid-shift once. The guy hadn’t run or screamed. He’d just stayed and watched, gun drawn because he wasn’t totally stupid. When the shift was done, that gun hadn’t wavered. “That you, man? You still fucking understand me?”
Jude had managed a nod.
The gun hadn’t disappeared, not right away, but he’d helped Jude ambush two killers who’d been hiding in a slum.
When a guy had seen you at your worst and he didn’t flinch, but instead stepped up to the plate and helped get the job done—yeah, you could respect a guy like that.
“I didn’t know what she was.”
It would be so easy to rip his head off. “What she is. She’s a woman. Strong and beautiful. The same as she’s always been.”
“It’s a lot to deal with, all right? My head is spinning, I’ve got a body to deal with—”
“And you didn’t have to treat Erin like she’s something less.” Would Erin get too pissed if he clawed the guy a bit? What she didn’t know…
“I-I care about her,” the cop mumbled and his eyes fell.
What? Care, not cared. A snarl from the tiger that was echoed by the man as he said, “You didn’t act like you do.”