One of the male EMTs left her mother’s side and hurried to the body.
“Not much they can do for him,” Jude muttered.
“Ah, hell!” Antonio closed his eyes. “Clothes! Man, I’m so tired of seeing your naked ass!”
“Yo!” Zane tossed a pair of jeans toward Jude, then his gaze snapped to Dee. “Woman, what the hell happened to you?”
Worry there.
A wan smile curved Dee’s lips. “Wolf tried to play with me.”
“Huh.”
“Nothing I can do for him,” Barlow said, rising. “He’s gone.”
To hell, she hoped.
Dee’s right shoulder lifted, then fell. “He didn’t know I like to keep silver bullets handy.”
“And wooden stakes in your bag,” Zane added.
The ambulance’s siren wailed on. They were loading Theresa. “I-I need to go with her.”
“You can’t.” Antonio’s face was grim. “I’ve got at least half a dozen cops who just saw you shoot that bastard— and I’m real damn glad he was in human form at the time.” Yeah, that after-death shift would have been a hard one to explain. “You can’t leave the scene, not yet.”
Samuels climbed in after her mother’s gurney, and the EMT yanked the doors closed.
“She’ll be okay,” Antonio told her. “Samuels has a lot of experience with your kind.”
Your kind. Erin licked her lips and managed a nod.
“We’ve got to do this by the book.” His voice barely floated in the air. “There are too many eyes here. Watch what you say, Jerome.”
She would.
The ambulance pulled away. The swirling lights vanished into the darkness.
Not the same as before.
Her mother hadn’t dropped her off without a word this time.
She’d sacrificed herself. Almost died, for me.
You didn’t risk death unless there was a very, very good reason. I’d always thought she didn’t care.
Tonight, she’d cared enough to die for me.
This time, her mother had chosen her.
“Dammit. Now who the hell is that?” Antonio’s hands fisted on his hips as he craned his head. “Hey, dick, get out of here!
You’re not one of my guys so your ass needs to get lost!”
Erin followed his glare and stiffened her shoulders when she caught sight of a familiar figure, the dick in question. Ben.
He was trying to push his way through the cops. He had his badge out, and he shoved it at the officers as they fought to keep him away from the crime scene.
“Asshole, did you hear me? Get the f**k out!”
Erin’s fingers touched Antonio’s arm. “He’s a cop from Lillian. He…knows the judge.”
Antonio’s brows flew up. “Uh, the judge?”
Jude, with his spare jeans on but his chest bare and still bleeding a bit from his battle, stalked up to them. “Yeah, the dead bastard was a judge.”
And so much more. She’d tell Jude. Tell him everything when they were alone, but her mother’s secrets weren’t for all the others to hear.
Antonio’s jaw locked. “Never. Easy.”
Another ambulance sped away from the scene. Erin’s attention jerked to Jude. “Dee?” She hoped the human was all right.
“She’ll be okay. Zane threw her bleeding butt into the ambulance. He knows how weak humans can be, and the guy wanted to make sure Dee wasn’t taking any chances.”
Weak—Dee? Not likely. She’d fought with more spirit than most shifters.
A long sigh ripped from Antonio’s lips. “Asshole! Get over here!”
The cops holding Ben back glanced at the captain with raised brows.
“His name’s Ben,” Erin told him. “Detective Ben Greer.”
Another sigh. “Long-ass night, I know it’s gonna be one long-ass…” He waved toward the uniforms. “Let Detective Greer pass!” Then, for her and Jude, “’Cause we’re probably gonna need him to help cover our asses.”
Yeah, they probably would.
Ben stormed toward them, his face locked in hard lines of tension and his eyes blazing. “Erin?”
Jude wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back against the solid wall of his chest. “She stopped the killer.”
Ben craned his neck to see around them. She knew immediately when he caught sight of the body because his eyes doubled in size and his jaw dropped. “Holy Mother of Christ— Judge Harper!”
Erin was pretty sure most of the citizens of Lillian would be having that reaction. “He killed Trent. He attacked you.
Murdered another man named Bobby Burrows—”
“Butchered him,” Antonio threw in.
“He tried to rape me, and tonight, tonight, he would have killed me.” And Dee and her mother.
Death had been the only way to stop him. Her mother would understand that more than anyone else.
Erin stared into Antonio’s dark eyes. This part was for him and for the mess he’d have at the station. “He confessed. In front of me, Dee and my mother. They’ll swear to what they saw and heard.”
He yanked out his notebook. “And what else did they see, Jerome? I’m guessing some things I don’t want on the record.”
“He was a wolf shifter,” Jude said, his hold never wavering. “That’s one of the reasons he was so hard to kill, and why when your ME digs into him, he’ll find a silver bullet lodged in his chest.”
“Harper?” Ben still seemed stunned.
She’d been that way, too.
“Silver bullet.” Antonio closed his eyes. “Great.”
“It kept him down,” Jude said. “I’d already all but ripped his throat out—and he still got up. Trust me, Tony, we needed that bullet.”
Some legends were based on a bit of truth.
Some weren’t.
Jude pressed a kiss to her shoulder, then she felt the warm lap of his tongue as he licked lightly at her flesh. Shifters tended each other this way.
The way of their kind.
Her head tilted back against him and heat spread through her.
“Save it!” Antonio snapped. “Get a room later, but I don’t need this crap now!”
One more swipe of Jude’s tongue. The tending wasn’t sexual—well, okay, maybe it was. But the soft strokes meant more than just a prelude to sex.
To a shifter, it was the way to express affection.
Maybe even love.
Erin turned toward him. She found Jude watching her with eyes that were so very blue.