Sunglasses at Night (Claws Clause 3)

Yeah.

Not so good.

“Stay back,” Tabby ordered. “It’s still light out.”

He froze.

Right. The sunlight wasn’t his friend any longer.

Got it.

Adam’s gut tightened as he listened to Tabby and moved further into the shadows of the stairwell. For a moment, he was about to follow her across the room, to the window, to the door, straight outside if he needed to. For a moment, he completely forgot that he was bound inside by the power of the sun and his new fate.

Not Tabby. The slayer, it seemed, never forgot that he was a Nightwalker. Not when he was ready to head back to Grayson too close to sunrise, and not now.

He shoved his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, pushing them so roughly that the rims bit into his eye sockets. Outside, he could hear the baying and the howls and he knew, even before Tabby pulled the shades away and peeked outside, what would be out there.

So when she confirmed that it was a wolf, he had only one question—

“Para or real?”

She let the shade fall back into place with a soft slap. “Nothing that size came out of these woods. It’s a shifter for sure. From the looks of it, I’d say feral.”

Shit. A feral shifter was like a rogue vampire: a mindless, heartless beast that was a danger if not outright deadly. If there were any human parts left to a feral shifter, they were buried under the bloodthirsty nature of the beast.

And there was one loose on the streets of Woodbridge.

Adam’s immediate reaction was to go for his phone. Colt’s Bumptown wasn’t too far away and, considering this was a shifter problem, it made sense to call the only shifter he was friendly with. What if the wolf out there was part of the Eastern Pack? The Alpha needed to know.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing if I can call in some help.”

Before he could use his claw to pull up Colt’s number, Tabby dashed over to him, pulling his phone out of his loose grip.

“No time. He’s already sniffed us out.”

“What?”

As if answering his question, Adam heard scratching at the front door. He could only imagine the deep grooves left in the wood and already made a mental note to leave some cash for the homeowners so they could repair it. A few seconds later, when the wolf threw its body at the door, causing the whole damn house to shake, he added more to the total.

“What the fuck is it doing out there?”

“Told you, Adam. He’s sniffed us out. He knows he has a vamp and a slayer cornered. He’s not going to leave us alone. Calling for help is pointless when we’ve got a problem now.”

Another howl split the air. It sounded farther away and, for a brief moment, he wondered if Tabby was wrong—right before the wolf threw its body at the window next. It creaked, though it didn’t break… that time.

“The door won’t hold,” Tabby said, reading his mind. “Window, either. If he breaks in, there won’t be any room to fight and he’ll tear us to pieces. We’ll be wolf chow. I’ve gotta go out there now where I’ll have a chance of collaring him.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Next time.” Standing on her tip-toes, Tabby patted him on his upper bicep. His phone was gone, Adam noticed. In her back pocket? Probably. “Hang tight. I’ve got this one.”

She wasn’t really going to—

He let loose a rumble deep in his chest. “I don’t think you should go out there on your own. You might get hurt.”

The look she gave him reminded him of his mom and wasn’t that a fucking shock. Since Fiona Wright’s sudden death, Adam did what he always did: pushed it out of his mind so that he didn’t have to focus on how much he missed her and how bad it still hurt. It was the same way he approached being a Para now. Once he got past the worst of it, once he accepted that—unless he gave in to his darkest impulse and just walked into the sun—this was his life now, he shoved it so far out of his head, it was like it belonged to another person.