“Do you always meet here? How many fights have you done with these people?” Adri asked, his nose wrinkling at the smell of old garbage and spilled alcohol—smells that were strong enough to hide anyone’s approach.
Axel glanced back at him. “Having second thoughts, Crusher?”
Before he could answer, they reached a grimy metal door, and Axel raised his fist to knock on it. A skittering noise from behind them had Adri turning away to search the shadows of the alley for any threat as the door’s hinges squeaked in complaint at their use. Shifting his eyes so he could see better in the darkness, Adri scanned his surroundings, wondering how far back Angelo’s guards had waited to stay out of sight.
A loud crash startled him into jumping to put his back to the wall. The door had slammed shut behind the two men he’d been following, leaving him alone on this side. Swearing to himself, Adri didn’t hesitate, sprinting back toward the road. Metal flashed from a window overhead, and he shifted mid-stride as the concrete where his head had been a moment earlier exploded in a burst of gunfire. Pain and a sharp impact in his shoulder had him staggering when he landed on four paws, but a flash of movement ahead showed Angelo’s people had finally joined the fray.
Leaping up onto the nearest fire escape, Adri pounced before the figure taking potshots could get another one off, squeezing his teeth around their skull and using his grip to throw them into the alleyway below. If the attacker was human, they probably hadn’t survived the rag doll treatment of being thrown that way. Too bad. Adri wasn’t fucking playing. Angelo’s guards could scrape whoever it was up off the ground.
Ignoring the blood oozing from his aching shoulder—the same one he’d almost lost to the feral fighter the other day—Adri carried on scaling the fire escape up to the roofline that was his own personal highway in the city. Padding on silent feet, he stalked across the building, nose twitching as he drew in deep breaths of air, searching for the scent of the two men he’d been following. There was no way they’d be staying in the building now that it had been used to try to take him out.
Sure enough, as he crouched peering down onto the darkened streets like some sort of gargoyle sentinel, he caught a brief flash of colour a block over that was the same as the garish blue shirt Axel had been wearing. It was followed by the sound of a revving engine. In the time it took him to bound closer, they had already disappeared, leaving only the fading trace of their scent.Snarling in frustration, he slunk back to the meeting point he’d arranged with Angelo’s people if they got separated.
At least he’d managed to press one of the tracking stickers behind Axel’s ear when he’d greeted him in the gym by clasping him behind the neck like the wolves often did. Marco’s tech guy, Luca, should be able to follow the signal. That didn’t sate his jaguar’s need to tear into them for the injury he’d sustained that was still seeping blood and hurt like a bitch, though. It must’ve been a silver bullet from the burning sensation searing in his skin.
Rafe was going to kill him.
CHAPTER 10: RAFE
A familiar metallicscent filled the air as Adri stepped into the clinic, and Rafe’s head snapped up as he let loose an involuntary rumbling growl that filled the room. He had his mate pinned to the wall in under a second, turning him gently to inspect the bullet hole that was still healing in his arm.
“What the fuck, kitten?”
“The bullet dropped out already. It’ll be healed in no time.”
“You’re damn lucky it wasn’t encapsulated silver nitrate.”
“I’m fine, Doc.”
“I need to examine you.”
Adri rolled his eyes at him, and Rafe raised an eyebrow. “Are you winding me up on purpose? Is that how you want to play it?”
“Rafe? It sounds like you’re busy!” Katie’s cheerful voice called through the speaker from his laptop where they’d been looking at images of the melted device he’d found in the dead shifter’s brain.
Pulling Adri along behind him because he couldn’t stand to let him go, Rafe moved back to the computer so he was in the video feed frame. “Thanks for your help, Katie. Let me know if you think of anything else.”
“Of course. And if you get a live subject and need a consult, call me. Any time.”
“You’re not going to Rafe’s clinic to perform surgery, babe!” Bella called in the background. She had a strict no contact with illegal business rule for her wife, although Katie was as independent as Adri was, so it didn’t always work out how Bella hoped.
“I can give him pointers by video, sweetness,” Katie replied over her shoulder. The idea of anyone calling the murderously scary woman ‘sweetness’ was hilarious.
“Sorry to cut things short, but I need to go sort Adri out,” Rafe said.
“Ah, yes! Your jaguar fighter! Is that him?”
Adri sent Rafe a quizzical look, but dutifully waved toward the camera. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask if we could borrow you for a fundraiser. One of the hospital board members got it into their head that we should run our own version of an amateur celebrity boxing tournament, and we can’t seem to dissuade them from it. I want to sneak some professionals in there to reduce the likelihood that I spend the rest of the night dealing with avoidable concussions. You can still win the match, but your reflexes will mean you can avoid hurting them too badly while you do it.”
“Katie’s a neurosurgeon at the hospital,” Rafe explained to Adri, who was looking even more confused.
“For humans?” Adri asked.
Katie laughed. “Yes. It’s fun and rewarding. The best combo.”
Bella had come into the shot now and was watching her wife indulgently. “Classic contrary cat shifter. Her folks forbid her from studying medicine, so of course she went and spent fifteen years at college to specialise in an area that was the least likely to be of use to her own kind.”
