The words register slowly, dragging implications behind them like an anchor through mud. These men weren't acting alone. Someone sent them, someone who knows I'm investigating the smuggling operation, someone who wanted them to torture me for information before disposing of my body, someone who's done this before, to the journalist in Prague and probably others.
He reaches for my arm, and the contact jolts through me like electricity. His hand is warm, solid, real, still sticky from blood that hasn't fully dried. The bodies are real. The torn flesh and shattered bones are real. The monster who saved me is real.
"Come on." He pulls me forward, his grip firm and unyielding. I follow, because what choice do I have when the monsters are real and one of them just saved my life?
CHAPTER 6
KIAN
From the moment I transformed from tiger to human in front of her, I knew everything had changed.
The brotherhood's most sacred rule is simple: we never reveal our existence to humans. We protect the secret. We guard what we are. We let humans live in comfortable ignorance of the predators walking among them. Violate that law, and the consequences range from exile to execution, depending on circumstances and the brotherhood's judgment.
I violated it without hesitation. I watched Catriona fighting for her life against trained killers and let the tiger break free in a silver explosion of mist and thunder. I made the choice between her survival and my own safety in the space between heartbeats.
Now I'm left to deal with the aftermath.
I pull out my phone as we leave the alley behind, typing one-handed while keeping my grip on her wrist:
Three down. Alley behind the bakery. Standard cleanup. Retrieve the cop's service weapon—black Glock, lying near the bodies.
The response comes immediately from Rafe:
On it. Twenty minutes.
The brotherhood has protocols for this. Bodies disappear. Evidence vanishes. Crime scenes get sanitized before human authorities ever arrive. We've been doing this for centuries, covering our tracks to protect the secret. Tonight's just another cleanup operation, except this time the cop who lost her weapon is walking beside me instead of investigating the scene in the morning or, worse yet, lying dead beside them.
She follows me through dark streets without protest, her wrist solid and warm in my grip. Her breathing comes too fast and shallow, but her eyes never stop moving—scanning alleys, checking shadows, cataloging escape routes even as her mind tries to process what just happened. Cop training fighting with shock. Her free hand keeps reaching for the empty holster at her hip, muscle memory searching for the weapon that's lying in the alley with the bodies.
I lead her away from the bodies, away from potential witnesses, toward the warehouse district where my territory offers privacy and defensible space. My tiger coils tight beneath my skin, torn between satisfaction at eliminating threats and the cold reality that I just painted a target on both our backs.
"My... my weapon?" she asks.
"Handled. It'll be returned to you." I tug on her wrist. I need to keep her moving.
She clears her throat. "Where are we going?" Her voice cuts through the silence, hoarse but steady.
"Somewhere we can talk without being overheard or interrupted." I glance back at her, checking for signs of panic or flight. Her reaction is more composed than I expected given what she just witnessed. "Somewhere safe."
"Safe." She repeats the word like it's lost all meaning. "I just watched you turn into a tiger and kill people with your claws and teeth. Exactly what part of that suggests safety to you?"
Her survival instincts are sharp, and that's good because she'll need them. My tiger prowls beneath my skin, restless at the exposure, at the danger still hunting us through these streets.
"You're alive. The men who came to kill you are dead. The rest we'll discuss when you're not running on adrenaline and shock."
My warehouse looms ahead, an old brick building on the edge of the docks that I claimed years ago. The ground floor holds salvage equipment and storage. My living space occupies the second floor—an open concept loft that I've made surprisingly comfortable despite the rough exterior. Heavy metal doors at street level lock from the inside. The building has high windows and reinforced walls that survived my tiger's rage when exile and isolation drove me toward violence.
I unlock the door and gesture her inside. She hesitates on the threshold, every cop instinct screaming warnings about entering a secondary location with a suspected criminal who just proved he's also a supernatural predator.
"You can run," I tell her quietly. "Walk away right now. But those assassins came from somewhere. When they don't report back, when their handlers realize the hit failed, the Russians will know you survived. They'll send more killers, and next time I might not be there to rip their throats out."
Her jaw sets. She steps inside.
The ground floor is what she'd expect—salvage equipment, dive gear, storage crates, tools scattered across workbenches. Everything about it screams industrial and utilitarian. I lead her to the back where metal stairs climb to the second floor.
The loft surprises most people who make it this far—exposed brick, timber beams, windows overlooking the harbor that I keep curtained because I value privacy more than views. I built the kitchen myself when I realized I'd be here long enough to need one, installed granite counters and professional appliances because cooking keeps me sane when the beast gets restless. The leather furniture cost more than my first boat, but exile taught me that home matters even when you don't have a clan. A bed occupies the far corner behind a partial wall that offers privacy without closing off the space.
Catriona moves toward the center of the room, putting distance between herself and both me and the exit. It's tactical positioning that suggests training's returning as shock recedes. Her gaze catalogs everything—weapons, escape routes, anything that might give her an advantage if this goes sideways. I calculate how quickly I could subdue her if necessary, even as the predator in me acknowledges her intelligence.
