Avenging Angel (The Fallen 4)

Too late.

Tanner turned his head and saw with the intense sharpness of the panther. The fool shifter who’d thought to take his brother, the one who’d been a part of Brandt’s pack for so long . . .

Russell dropped his hold on Cody, leapt away, and raced for the woods. Coward. Tanner would get him, but—

But the others were braver. One shifter came at Tanner with a roar.

Tanner’s panther ripped his enemy’s chest right open. His razor-sharp teeth sank into the guy. Blood filled his mouth. The panther snarled and wanted more.

“Tanner!” He didn’t turn at the yell. He finished his kill. Tossed back his head and screamed his victory.

But there was more prey waiting. More to kill. Kill.

His hind legs pushed against the earth, and he leapt into the air, heading for the prey he wanted the most. Prey that was still trying to shoot at him, only her gun was out of bullets.

His front paws slammed into her chest, and he took the captain down.

“Tanner!” The scream again, but he didn’t look back. His gaze was on his prey. On the demon who stared up at him as the scent of fear poured off her.

“Your life’s ending,” Jillian told him even as she trembled beneath him. “You think I cleared you at the station? Think again.”

Kill. His claws sank into her shoulders and she shrieked as she bled.

“You’re . . . gonna be . . . hunted. Not a cop anymore . . . hunted!”

Panthers weren’t the prey. They were the predators. He brought his mouth to her throat. Suffocation. That was the way the panther liked to take his prey. One bite to the throat. That was all he needed.

“She’s never gonna . . . be safe . . . not ’til she’s dead.”

The panther’s rough tongue flashed out. Licked away flesh. Jillian screamed beneath him.

Don’t watch. The man inside the beast still didn’t want Marna to see what he was doing, but she hadn’t run. She’d been the one screaming his name. Why hadn’t she run?

Pain, white-hot, burning, lanced through him, and Tanner realized—too late—that Jillian hadn’t been armed with just a gun.

She smiled up at him as she twisted the knife she’d slid into his chest. A knife that she’d plunged into the panther’s heart. “I just had to . . . ” she whispered softly as his blood soaked her shirt, “get killing close.”

And she had.

But so had he. The panther’s teeth closed over her throat. He bit down, sinking his fangs into her, suffocating her, even as that knife still twisted in his heart.

She was killing him, but he’d make sure he took her life, too. Marna would be safe. His brother would be safe.

And Tanner knew he’d finally get just what he had coming to him.

Hell.

Right then, he could have sworn that he heard the sound of his father laughing. Tanner’s head lifted, and he got ready to tear into the SOB that had ruined his life but . . .

But the ghost of his shifter father wasn’t standing over him. An angel was. An angel with big, black wings, and gold, ice-cold eyes. Eyes that stared at Tanner with hate.

Then the angel reached down to touch him.

Bastion. The whisper slid from man to beast. He knew, knew, that he was staring at the angel who’d followed Marna.

You aren’t taking me away from her.

Just as the angel’s fingers came close to the panther’s fur, Tanner lunged back, rolled, and the knife broke off in his chest. He howled in pain, but kept rolling, determined to get away from that angel.

Only Bastion wasn’t following him. The panther shuddered to a stop, and Tanner saw that the angel had bent over Jillian’s body. His hand feathered over her brow. Her eyes opened, stared up at him, and then her whole body jerked. Like a puppet on a string. The pain and the fury vanished from her face until nothing was left.

Nothing.

“Tanner.”

His head turned at Marna’s voice. She stared at him with wide eyes. Her hands were fisted at her sides. Afraid. Her fear smelled different from Jillian’s. It didn’t make him hungry for more blood and fury. It . . . pissed him off.

But then she ran to him. Marna wrapped her hands around the panther’s body and pulled him close. “Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

He kept his claws and fangs away from her and let the change sweep over him. Slower now, because he was weak. But the shift was still brutal. Painful.

Fur faded. Bones reshaped. Her arms soon touched his naked flesh, and it was his blood that stained her fingers.

“No,” she whispered and pushed him back. The hilt of the knife had broken off, and the blade was still in him. In my heart.

The heart that he’d never thought too much about, until he’d found a lost angel.

“Help me!” Marna screamed and footsteps shuffled toward them. Cody weaved, stumbled, then stared down at Tanner as horror slowly swept across his face.

Tanner tried to tell him that everything was gonna be okay. He’d take care of this. Just like he’d always taken care of everything.

But he couldn’t speak.

And he was starting to feel so . . . cold.

Except where Marna touched him. Her hand was against his chest, and her fingers seemed to burn his flesh.

Cody dropped to his knees beside him. Claw marks lined his throat, and his blood still spilled down his shirt.

So much blood. They always seemed to be bathing in the shit. Story of their lives.

And deaths?

His hand lifted toward Marna. Air rustled against his skin. Wind?

No, air stirred by the rushing of an angel’s wings because that bastard Bastion was back. Staring at him with a faint smile curling his lips. The guy still thought that he’d take him? No, not when Marna was so close.

“Fuck . . . off,” Tanner muttered and his hand sank into the thick fullness of Marna’s hair. He pulled her close and pressed his mouth against hers. If he was dying, she’d be the last thing he tasted.

“Not now, man,” Cody snapped at him and his brother tried to pull Marna away.

Only Tanner wasn’t letting her go.

The panther inside him, injured, weak, stirred at the thought. Why should he have to let her go? He’d just found her.

Something sliced into his chest. He barely felt the pain.

“Just got to get it . . . out.” Cody’s voice. Worried. Desperate.

But Tanner kept kissing Marna. He needed her to understand. In this world, she was the one thing he wanted.

The one thing that he’d kill to keep.

His claws began to stretch even more. The slicing in his chest dug deeper. Marna pulled back as she broke the kiss.