Max scented the air too but detected nothing. He turned to Carter. “You smell anything?”
Carter shook his head. “Nada.”
Max shot Arlo a questioning look. “How do you smell it?”
Arlo shrugged, his toothy grin flashing in the moonlight in a way that sent an involuntary shiver down Max’s spine. Again.
What was up with that?
“I’ve always had a nose for blood,” Arlo said.
Max’s frown deepened. “Why?”
Arlo’s grin widened as he offered a one-word explanation, “Shark.”
Max blinked. At first, he didn’t understand the reference and was just about to ask Arlo what he was referring to when it hit him.
“Holy shit. You’re a shark shifter?”
Arlo nodded. “Sure am.”
The revelation took Max aback. He had met many shifters in his lifetime, but never a shark shifter. Heck, he hadn’t even heard of one until now. He turned to Carter to see the man was just messing with him, but Carter simply nodded.
With Arlo leading, they moved in the direction of the scent. As they neared, the tangy metallic scent of blood filled the air, becoming detectable to Max and Carter as well. As they followed the trail, a sense of unease gripped Max. What were they aboutto find? For a brief moment, panic gripped him when he thought that they were about to find the mangled corpse of Mia, but she had promised not to leave the mansion without her bodyguards anymore. Max had to trust that she wouldn’t be that reckless.
As Max, Carter, and Arlo advanced towards the house, the metallic scent of blood became stronger with each step. Toby and Sebastian approached from the opposite direction.
“You smell it, too?” Seb asked, his eyes narrowing as he scented the air.
Nodding, they all moved as one, forming a group that held a quiet, deadly intent. Their feet crunched lightly on the gravel driveway leading to the house. It was then they heard the low rumble of laughter. The front door swung open, and out stepped the four Mexican shifters Max had confronted the night before. Their laughter died as soon as they noticed Max and his friends.
A charged silence hung in the air, the tension taut enough to snap. Then, with a growl that sounded almost inhuman, chaos broke out.
Max and his friends, all experienced fighters, met the challenge with grim determination. The conflict was swift and brutal. Max, with the powerful, calculating precision of a tiger, engaged one of the shifters. Around him, Carter and Toby moved with a predator’s grace, while Seb, almost as big as the bear he turned into, became a whirlwind of power and fury.
During the chaos, one of the Mexican shifters transformed into his jaguar form, launching himself towards Seb. But Seb, drawing on his bear heritage, shifted his arm into a massive, furred limb tipped with lethal claws. His retaliatory swipe met the shifter mid-leap, claws raking across the jaguar’s neck in a deadly arc.
The jaguar shifter fell to the ground, his body reverting to human form, and he didn’t rise. The sight sent a wave of unease through the remaining attackers. With their numbers now reduced, Max and his friends managed to overpower them.
As they stood panting, the defeated shifters lay groaning on the manicured lawn. Max glanced at his colleagues.
“You all good?” he asked.
After all the assurances that they were fine, Carter rang their office and was given the address of a secret location where they could take the men to question them before they were handed over to the relevant authorities. Because the CIA technically weren’t allowed to operate in the US, their interrogation needed to be carried out somewhere off-the-grid. Their superior told them he would send two vans, one that they could use to transport the three shifters and one to collect the dead shifter and the dead mangled body of the man who lived in the house. Max was pretty sure that a check would reveal the man to be criminal with links to Ethan. Afterward, Carter called Ezra and Logan and gave them their location. As they waited for the transportation to arrive, Logan and Ezra showed up.
Their steps faltered when they took in the dead body on the gravel and the three apprehended shifters.
“Can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” Logan joked.
Max’s phone buzzed in his pocket, cutting through the adrenaline-laden silence. Glancing at the screen, he saw Mia’s name displayed and he swiftly answered, his voice low. “Mia? Is everything okay?”
“Max, I need to see you,” she said, her voice echoing strangely in the quiet that followed the violent exchange. “Can you come here? My father and most of the bodyguards are out.They won’t be back for hours.”
A strange sense of dread gnawed at him. “You’re alone? Mia, that’s not safe.”
“I’ve turned off the cameras,” she continued, her tone both determined and imploring.
His frown deepened. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
