Sunglasses at Night (Claws Clause 3)

He huffed. At least, Tabby thought it was a huff. When he did it again, rougher, louder, she realized it was more than that.

He was choking on his breath.

What the hell was going on?

“Ron.” Tabby tried to keep her voice calm. It was difficult, but she tried. “Talk to me. What’s going on? Is it the collar?” Slayer collars were like the collars they used on shifters in the Cage: treated on the inside so that the raw silver didn’t kill the Para outright. Unless he touched the outside, the most it could do was corral the beast. “What’s wrong?”

“Not…” He gasped. “Not the collar.”

“Then what—”

Tabby never got the answer to that. Before she even finished her question, the wolf shifter’s eyes flew open, bulging out of his face. Blood vessels burst on each side, making it look like the whites of his eyes were running red. He choked, then gagged, then let out a soft rattle.

A rush of air escaped his open mouth. It had a purple glow to it and, when it wafted past Tabby, it reeked strongly of the cloying, sickly scent of way too much baby powder.

Magic.

Seizing in place, Ronald stayed up on his knees for a heartbeat before slumping over onto the grass.

Dead.

He was dead.

Tabby blinked.

Well. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

She had to call it in.

Tabby didn’t realize how much watching some kind of outside spell kill the shifter in front of her had messed her up until she tried to make that call. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she tried entering the passcode three times, growing more and more frustrated when it didn’t unlock—before she figured out that she still had Adam’s phone on her.

Whoops. She’d forgotten about that. Luckily, it survived the fight.

She couldn’t say the same thing for hers. It was in her other back pocket and, based on the spiderweb cracks all over the screen, it had taken the brunt of the impact one of the many times she hit the ground.

On the plus side, it still worked and, a few minutes later, she had given her report to Boone.

It was tough, picking and choosing what to tell him without out-and-out lying. Good thing she had a lot of practice growing up as his overprotected niece.

She explained she got held up in Woodbridge after she took out the Nightwalker earlier, only to be hunted by a shifter while she was catching some rest before heading back to Grayson.

Since that wasn’t so out of the ordinary for a night-based slayer, Boone accepted her explanation without too much trouble. But then he asked for the address of the house she was staying at and she had to think on her feet. When Tabby made it clear that she didn’t need a pick-up—because how would she explain Adam?—Boone told her that he just wanted to compensate the homeowners for any damages.

Slayer’s Code.

A slayer hunts honestly and with integrity…

Tabby might have used her best judgment to seek sanctuary in some rando’s basement. As a slayer, it was alright—but the whole “honestly and with integrity” part made it so that it was an in-and-out deal. With the damages left behind by the cursed shifter, throwing some money at the situation was the best they could do.

Especially since secrecy kind of went out the window when she was forced to fight Bowers on the lawn. At least no one could be sure that she was a slayer. She didn’t actually tell anyone that she was.

Well, except for Adam, that was.

Sighing when Boone ended the call, Tabby tried to push Adam out of her mind as she dealt with the last of the clean-up.

Tried.

Failed.