Avenging Angel (The Fallen 4)

Right. He was playing the police card? Figured he’d stoop that low.

Her lips twisted as she started to walk away.

“You’re not leaving me, Marna.” There was no missing the anger beneath his words.

So what? She had her own share of anger. “Watch me.” Yes, she’d actually taunted the big, bad shifter. Marna marched away. She kept her head up and her back straight. She’d just clear her own way through the crowd.

Tanner grabbed her arm after she’d taken about five steps. “Not gonna happen, baby.”

Wait . . . baby?

She glanced at him and saw that the guy had pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Her jaw dropped.

“I tried to do this the easy way, but you didn’t want that.” He snapped one cuff around her wrist before she could even blink. “So I guess we’ll go for the drama.”

He spun her around and locked both cuffs behind her back. Marna was aware of the avid stares and not-so-quiet whispers that focused on her.

“You’re comin’ with me,” Tanner told her, his faint Southern accent deepening a bit, “because there is no way I’m letting you out of my sight now.”

She yanked at the cuffs. She should have been able to snap the things in two with hardly any effort.

Only . . . no snap.

He pushed her forward. The crowd backed up. “Thanks to a voodoo priestess I know off Bourbon Street, I was able to add a little something extra to those cuffs.” Tanner’s words were pitched low. “They can keep level-ten demons locked up, so I figured they’d keep you held tight, too.”

This wasn’t happening. She yanked against the cuffs again. No give.

Tanner had promised that he’d never hurt her. He’d seemed . . . good, despite his sadistic freak of a now-dead brother. She’d been willing to let Tanner keep living.

Only now he was cuffing her?

Fury churned in her gut. “You aren’t doing this to me.”

He leaned in close to her, close enough for her to see the dark gold flecks in his eyes. “I’ve got two dead bodies that I can trace back to you. Trust me, I am doing this.”

Two dead bodies? Marna shook her head. She hadn’t killed anyone.

Though that certainly hadn’t been for lack of trying.

I can’t kill anymore. No one knew that secret shame yet.

But the shifter wasn’t giving her time to respond. More cops were spilling through the doorway, guys in uniform this time, and they were all closing in on her. Great. Obviously, she was having another one of her lucky days.

“It shouldn’t have been this way,” Tanner told her, and anger was heating his voice again. An anger that seemed to match her own. “Fuck, too many know. Don’t you understand? There’s nothing I can do.”

She was surrounded. Men and women in blue were staring at her with narrowed eyes while Tanner started spilling some lines about her needing an attorney and having the right to stay silent.

And she did stay silent. While Tanner led her outside. While he pushed her into the back of a patrol car. And even while the vehicle raced down the road.

Silent, but the fury within her continued to build.

An angel in hell.

Tanner’s jaw clenched as he led Marna through the busy New Orleans police station. As always, she looked delicate, vulnerable—deceptively so. The woman barely skimmed the top of his shoulders. Her frame was small, slender, but Marna did have some curves he’d admired far too many times.

Not now.

Now wasn’t the time for admiring. Now was the time for figuring out how the hell he was supposed to save that curvy ass of hers.

A few of the cops stepped back when Tanner and Marna approached them. He could tell by the look in their eyes that they thought a mistake must have been made. No way were they looking at the face of a killer.

A killer shouldn’t have an angel’s face.

A killer damn well shouldn’t be an angel.

He glanced down at her, sparing her a brief glance as he led them back to the interrogation room. Her eyes were wide, a pale blue that had haunted his dreams too often. Her cheeks were high, and her chin the slightest bit pointed. Her nose, small and straight, was currently held in the air. Though his angel wasn’t talking, she sure was pissed. He could see the fury in the set of her jaw and in the tightness of her lips.

Her lips.

He didn’t even know how many fantasies he’d had about her lips. Should an angel truly have lips that looked like they had been made just for sin?

Jonathan Pardue, his new partner, whistled as he headed toward them. “This is the woman who killed those men?”

Marna stiffened. “I didn’t—”

Tanner’s hold on her tightened. He needed to get her away from all the eyes and ears as fast as he could. If so many cops hadn’t already been aware of the situation, he would have been able to protect her longer.

But, no, the lady just had to start making her kills public. Shit. She should know better. Most paranormals at least tried to keep their kills in the dark.

“You know what they say. . . .” Tanner murmured as he plastered a tight smile on his face. He’d been working with Jonathan less than a month. Not nearly long enough to trust the guy with all the secrets he carried. “Appearances can bite you in the ass.” Because if you were fool enough to think a pretty face belonged to an innocent woman, you deserved to get your ass bitten.

Jonathan laughed and opened the door to the interrogation room. His brown eyes lingered a bit too long on Marna.

Tanner felt the beast that he carried begin to stir inside of him. Back off.

“I can help you with this one,” Jonathan said as he tried to follow them into the room. “I’ll be glad to—”

“Get us some coffee,” Tanner told him as he steered Marna toward the small table. “Then we’ll all settle down and find out just why this lady thought it would be fun to kill.”

Tanner saw her shoulders tense.

Jonathan headed out, grumbling about having to fetch shit, but Tanner was just glad the guy was gone. He forced Marna to sit in the wobbly chair—the thing always wobbled and irritated the suspects, a nice bonus, usually. Then he leaned in close and put his mouth right at her ear.

And he had to fight back the impulse to lick. To taste.

She’s a killer.

But then, so was he.

“I know that you wanted your revenge.” His breath feathered over her ear, and Tanner was close enough to see the small shiver that shook her. “But, dammit, baby, you should have been more careful.” His voice was whisper-soft. “You left two eyewitnesses in that alley.” Eyewitnesses that had provided perfect, matching descriptions of her.