Date Monsters Shifter Agency Paranormal Boxset, page 37
This time, she swallowed down that impulse as best as able. “I’d love to see that. Bet we’d make quite the pair. Me strolling around all femme-fatale, you looking like you’ll murder someone with your eyes alone.”
Maybe I can just have us go to a fancy restaurant with those clothes instead. Make sure he doesn’t waste what he brought.
“I’d like that. Maybe we could have concealed carry-ons? Go stealthily to corners and look around like we’re hunting the villain of a movie.”
“Nah, couldn’t be carry-ons. Maybe I can conceal a blade in some chopsticks and use them to prop up my hair. Not sure what you can do.”
“I think you’re forgetting about the tiger thing. Or do you need me to remind you again?” Tam stroked her under the chin, and she flinched from the ticklish feeling, prompting him to go full on tickle wars with her, like they were teenagers rather than sophisticated adults. He rolled her underneath him to prevent her from escaping, though she made strenuous attempts to, and they were laughing like idiots, to the point where tears streamed out of her eyes, and her ribs hurt so much from trying to stop laughing, and failing.
Their uproarious wrestling ended when the sound of something hitting glass raked their eardrums—along with the shattering glass-fall that followed straight afterwards.
“What the fuck,” Tam said, while Jenna immediately wriggled out from his arms, reaching for her holstered gun lying on the desk.
A quick inspection revealed a pink brick resting on her kitchen floor, along with glittering, transparent shards from the sink window. More shards were in the sink, some in her flowerpot with the wilted blue hyacinth that she constantly kept forgetting to water. The sounds of a car rumbling away caused Tam to leave the house wordlessly, before she could shout a warning to him, to tell him to stay inside and wait for the police to turn up. Tam vanished into the evening, and when she risked a peek out the door, she saw the heavy body of a tiger sprinting after a vehicle, illuminated by red tail-lights.
Decision made, she abandoned her caution, leaving the house to get into her own vehicle—only to find that the wheels had been slashed.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Well, that was her out of the race. She contacted the sheriff’s department, alerting them of damage to her property and a suspect zooming down Coalmeck street, with a tiger shifter in pursuit of the vehicle.
She needed to, so they knew not to shoot Tam by accident, though Tam would still be classified as an interfering civilian. Adrenaline continued to thud through her as her mind raced through all the possibilities. If Tam got shot… run over… caught… if it was a trap…
If someone was currently waiting for her as she was alone now…
Yeah. Her thoughts weren’t really helping, but running through potential scenarios was better than pretending everything was okay.
She made sure the door was locked, and worked on patching up the window with cardboard after sweeping away the remains of the glass, convinced she’d probably missed something.
A howl resounded through the evening air, causing her to freeze, heart rate increasing. When a second howl joined the first, a shiver of fear rippled through her. Too much to think that maybe the howls weren’t for her.
Gripping her gun tightly, she positioned herself in a good defensive crouch upstairs, just out of sight in the hallway. An attacker wouldn’t be able to get to her without her being able to pop in a few shots first. At least she hoped. As an afterthought, she brought out the chair from her bedroom, propping it sideways as a low barricade. She was just considering getting some vegetable oil to cause a slippery pathway to her, when she heard pounding against her door.
They’re coming.
Taking deep breaths, she prepared herself for assault.
Chapter Twelve – Tam
With a snarl, Tam lunged at the vehicle as it was forced to slow down to avoid crashing into the stone walls that separated the fields. The tiny country lane worked to his advantage, and he was able to smash into the vehicle, causing it to skid and rub against the wall, busting a tire in the process. The person inside the vehicle slammed on the brakes, lurching the car while Tam attempted to slash at the wheels.
The person in the car leaped out, pointing a gun at Tam and firing. With a small jolt of shock, Tam recognized the driver as the teenage boy, and his hesitation upon attacking caused Benjy to fire off a few rounds into Tam’s body. Hissing through the pain, Tam managed to use his superior weight and strength to bat the boy onto the ground, then pin him with huge paws. Blood dripped from Tam’s chest onto Benjy’s face, and the boy hollered in anger and fear, attempting to beat at the tiger’s limbs. Futile effort, as a tiger weighed many times more than a teenage boy.
Tam had to be careful not to make any extra movements that might cripple or kill Benjy, as much as instinct told him to take out the threat. Benjy didn’t deserve to make it out of here alive. Not after all this shit he was pulling. Hiring a shifter to terrorize a ranch, or to kill the police, like Jenna…
Hell, no.
Not on his watch. The brat continued squirming under his weight, his anger turning to whimpers, and once he seemed to have exhausted himself, Tam shifted back into human, taking care not to give the boy any chance to escape. The boy stared in apparent horror at Tam’s scarlet-drenched shirt. “Why won’t you die?”
“Because it takes more than a few measly bullets to put me down,” Tam growled, though admittedly, the wounds hurt, and he felt slightly dizzy from the loss of blood. But already, the bullets were clambering out of his wounds, and his blood clotted as they spat themselves onto the ground. It only took a moment, but Benjy was unable to tear his eyes away from the spectacle.
“Are you going to kill me?”
God, this boy was stupid. “Call off your hits. Cancel whatever contract you’ve got with that shifter you’re collaborating with, and stop this senseless waste of life.”
“My father was killed,” spat Benjy, eyes growing wild in anger. “That was a senseless waste of life!”
“Your father was a loan shark who chose to terrorize three women who lived on a ranch, and shot at an officer when he was caught red-handed.”
“Fuck you. He was my dad. She killed my dad. I’ll never call off the hit.” He grinned maniacally now, though the effect was slightly ruined by the fact that he let out a fart when Tam suspended him in mid-air by the throat.
“If you won’t call it off, then I will.” Throwing Benjy again onto the ground caused moans of pain to erupt from the boy’s mouth. Another time, Tam might have felt for him. It was hard to lose a relative, even if they were a shitty family member. He still missed his own dad on occasion, though his dad had done little to earn his love. Perhaps Blackjack, for all his faults, had been a good family man.
But he couldn’t let this boy’s Pyrrhic vengeance take down Jenna Wilt as well. Fishing for the boy’s phone, he saw that it had an unlock screen requiring him to trace a pattern out of a 9-dot square, but it was easy to tell what the pattern was, due to the smudges on the phone from the sweat and oils secreted from the fingers. He casually stepped on the squirming boy and quickly searched for any evidence—and caught a treasure trove of it in calls, in an installed app (Legacy Agency), which seemed to be something out of the Dark Web, and some moody Instagram posts about how much he was suffering since those cops killed his father and how he wanted revenge.
Not exactly subtle, kid. Tam tucked the phone into his pocket and called the sheriff’s department, who informed him that help was already on the way.
“Too late,” the boy managed to hiss from under Tam’s boot. “Your girlfriend’ll be dead by the time they reach her…”
Tam glared at the boy, his nostrils flaring. “You were a distraction?”
Benjy let out a laugh, which turned into a wheeze. “I was told to throw that brick through. And if you didn’t chase, we’d just try again another day...” He then scowled at himself. “I don’t have a license; I’ve not practiced enough at these roads—I went at that bend too fast...”
Well, at least he could go to jail for illegal driving, if nothing else. As a juvenile, Tam wasn’t even sure if the kid would get much of a prison sentence. Not if he and his family could afford a good lawyer.
Too angry for words, Tam searched for something to tie up the boy with. He could hardly let the criminal get away, but at the same time… if Jenna was in danger…
To his surprise, though, police sirens flashed in the distance. When they said help was on the way… I didn’t think they meant just a minute away…
The vehicle pulled up in front of him, beams illuminating the front of Benjy’s wrecked attempt at escape. Sheriff Boston stepped out of the car, handcuffs at the ready. “Someone’s causing trouble, ain’t they, sonny boy?” Boston recited the rights mechanically as he snapped the cuffs onto Benjy and shoved him into the back seat, before saying, “Jenna already called about you pursuing a subject—I was coming to this lane when I got an extra tip that you’d collared the boy. Good job. Say...” he examined Tam’s bloodstained chest. “You want me to call an ambulance?”
“I’m fine. Shifter healing is better than human healing. Is Jenna okay, then?” asked Tam, relieved that Jenna had at least the capacity to call. A part of him wondered why Jenna hadn’t followed, but he supposed it made sense that she instead focused on getting the police on wheels.
Still staring suspiciously at Tam’s stained clothing, Boston said, “I don’t know. That was the only call we got from her.”
A chill went through Tam. Benjy’s gloating message about it being too late for Jenna set in. He handed the phone to Boston as evidence, before croaking, “I need to return to her home. I think she’s in danger. The boy said he was meant to distract me...”
Boston let out a curse, before hollering for backup on the phone, while Tam, in mortal panic, morphed back into his tiger form, ignoring Boston’s cries of concern (You’re injured! Don’t run off!) and pounding his heavy paws down the narrow lane. His body strained at the abuse it was receiving, but he didn’t have time. Not if Jenna was in danger.
His breath ran ragged as he picked up his pace as best as able, his muscles screaming in pain, his injuries threatening to put an end to his frantic pace. Moments later, Jenna’s house came into focus, and his keen eyes in the dark saw the broken door. Growling, claws clacking in the lane, ears flattening against his head, he slowed down just at the door, before padding inside.
Sounds like a door being banged on seized his attention, and he followed the noises, breaths wheezing through his nose. Climbing the stairs was awkward to do quietly, but at the top, he stepped over the groaning body of a man with multiple bullet wounds—two in his head, five center mass.
Might kill him. Might not. Shifters had difficulty healing from multiple killing wounds at once, and usually a few to the head were more than sufficient. The shifter certainly seemed unaware of Tam’s presence due to the damage in his brain. Tam stepped over a discarded pistol and torn-up chair, in time to spot a hairy werewolf breaking down the top part of Jenna’s bedroom door, to clamber over all the furniture she’d used as a barricade. With a screeching wail, Tam threw himself at the werewolf, managing to grapple the beast’s tail. The werewolf instantly yelped, and was yanked through the gap backwards. Tam set upon the werewolf, engaging in a rapid, bloody battle of teeth and claws, followed by yelps and snarls.
Only when the werewolf’s attacks slowed, and the red rage left Tam’s brain, did he note with grim satisfaction that Jenna had clearly popped her last round in the second werewolf as well. Likely buying her time to barricade her room.
The werewolf morphed back into a human and cried, “I surrender! I surrender!”
Tam regarded him impassively for a moment, then shifted back as well. “Cuffs,” he said to Jenna, who had just peeked over the ruined remains of the top half of her bedroom door. “Let’s get him locked up.”
“Gladly,” Jenna said, disappearing and emerging a few seconds later with handcuffs. “Only one pair.”
“I don’t think the other guy will be moving for a while.” Tam indicated the semi-comatose shifter. “You did him in good.”
“He’s still alive...” Jenna shook her head in amazement. “All those bullets...”
“Yeah, we take a little more of a beating.”
“Tam!” Her eyes widened when she looked at his dark soaked chest. “What happened? Were you shot? Stabbed?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her, as her shaking hands went to his shirt and lifted it off. A little awkward, since the dried blood stuck to the shirt—and she stared at his bloody chest, noting the three wounds that were already clotted.
He told her as briefly as he could about catching up to Benjy, glossing over the shots, Sheriff Boston arriving, and him rushing to her, hoping he’d reach her in time. “I barely made it, it seems. Did you have anything left after that gun?”
“A coat hanger,” said Jenna. “My spare bullets are in my lockbox at work. I forgot to take them back home. Stupid of me in retrospect...”
A coat hanger. He tried to picture Jenna bludgeoning a werewolf with one, and the mental image caused a smile to jump to his face. He eradicated the smile when she slumped against him, and his eyes traced a dark stain on her side, to her back.
“Jenna, you were injured?”
“I’m fine,” she said, echoing his words from earlier, but she didn’t appear very fine. A closer inspection showed four deep slashes, as if a werewolf’s clawed hand had scratched along her side. “The first one tried to grab hold of me, but I took him down. It’s just a scratch.”
“Just a...” Anger and fear blossomed in Tam. “No way. We’re getting you to that hospital.”
“You first,” she said a little groggily. “Since you have three… bullet wounds.”
Both of them clung to each other, a little out of it, as they waited for help to arrive, and the groans of the severely injured man echoed in the background.
“You’re safe,” he whispered to her, stroking her messy hair, not flinching when her fingers brushed over his healing wounds. She didn’t allow herself to stay in that position for long, instead keeping guard over their now captives, until the wail of sirens outside signaled help.
Tam accepted the ambulance ride to the hospital, and was referred to a doctor specialized in shifter physiology. He went through the hoops as required, and by the time he was discharged, with no need to stay in the hospital, he found that Jenna was waiting for him as well.
“I was expecting someone to come out and tell me to return tomorrow,” she said, giving him a careful hug so neither of them ended up aggravating their injuries.
The drama of the last few days might have been exciting, but Tam was more than ready to have things calm down again, so he could focus more on the fake date thing, rather than the save someone else’s life thing.
That would be nice.
Though he wasn’t opposed to saving Jenna Wilt’s life. There were worse lives to preserve out there.
Chapter Thirteen – Jenna
Sheriff Boston cracked open a bottle of whisky, pouring out a shot for Jenna. She declined, wanting her head to be screwed on straight for later events, but accepted the pat on the back.
“Those magistrates are looking mighty silly now, ain’t they? Good work. But don’t come in for a few days, alright?”
“Sir, there’s still those cases to take, quotas to hit...” Jenna trailed off when Boston fixed her with a stern, disapproving glare.
“I told you once, and I’ll tell you again. Take this drink, because you deserve it—and get the fuck out of the bullpen for a few days. You were injured in the line of duty. We can’t all be supernatural beings with Wolverine healing, can we? Last I checked, you’re all human.”
Again, he shot down her feeble attempts at protest, until she could finally accept his terms, but not before asking, “Have you got Greg to take over what I’m working on?”
“I’ll be taking over what you have,” Boston said. “Don’t you worry.”
“But sir… weren’t you sick just yesterday?”
“Nothing an Irish remedy can’t fix,” Boston said, grinning as he took another gulp. “Shot of whiskey, honey, lemon, hot water. Maybe some cloves floating—you’ll be right as rain.”
“I’ll… take your word for it,” Jenna said dubiously. Boston waved her out, promising to contact her if anything new and exciting happened.
Leaving her now to slither home, contact Tam, and face the music.
Although Jenna now had the perfect excuse for not going to her mother—thanks to the stitches in her side, and the rest she needed to take to shrug off the events of the last few days—she opted to tell Tam the truth anyway. Even if it twisted at her heart to do so, and would force an earlier separation between them as per the terms of their contract.
It seemed incredible to consider just how much they’d gone through together. All the trials, the drama with Blackjack’s son, with the stress and fear coming from the Arnetto Ranch, and with the explosive personality of her mother… had that really happened in the space of just under two weeks?
Damn, she thought. That was quite impressive. Less impressive was having Tam sitting in front of her now, waiting for her to spill the beans.
“You’re not still thinking of going to the event your mother and father are doing, are you?” His dark eyes crinkled with concern, sending fresh stabs of guilt into Jenna’s guts. “I’m sure your mother would listen if you explained about the injuries...”
“Oh, I’m not going. Don’t worry. She knows.” Jenna Wilt gathered her courage together, preparing herself mentally for the next statement. “What I wanted to say was… I wasn’t planning to go. Even before the injuries. And I didn’t want to tell you about it.”
Tam scowled. “Wait, what?”
