He caught up with her at the front door. “Let me walk you to your car,” he said. “This is a rough neighborhood.”
“No, thank you. I didn’t drive here. I’m just going to walk back to my hotel.”
“By yourself?” He glanced at the clock on the wall in astonishment. It was quarter after twelve. “At this time of night? You do understand where you are, right?”
Since the Badlands were unregulated, shifters could do whatever they wanted there. Literally anything.
Outside the Badlands, shifters were strictly regulated. All shifters were required to be a member of a pack or a pride or a tribe, to ensure that they didn’t go feral. They carried identity cards and checked in monthly with the Council for Shifter Affairs.
Here, shifters went feral all the time – part of Finn’s job was to hunt down the ferals. The only law that existed was that which was created by the local Alphas, Rexes, or Warlords, or whatever the local leaders chose to call themselves. Leaders rose and fell, killed others or were killed, with the regularity of the rising and retreating tides.
This curvy innocent with the sexy repressed librarian vibe didn’t belong here.
“You can’t walk around here at night by yourself,” he said, following her outside.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about me, thank you. I’m a cat shifter. I have claws.” She held out her hand and extended her claws, and for a brief moment her hand went flat and furry as it turned into a paw.
The fur was silvery white, shot through with black, like her hair. Silky-looking fur, he thought. He wanted to pet it.
But her notion that she could defend herself here was ridiculous. She was a lynx; even though shifter animals tended to be bigger than non-shifter animals, she’d probably weigh a hundred pounds at most in her lynx form. Could she defend herself against a pack of wolves? Or a lion? Or a bear?
Before he could answer her, she turned and walked away. Which hotel was she going to? he wondered. Wherever she was staying, she was heading out of the Hudsons’ territory.
The residents of their territory paid protection, and wore a large “H” symbol on their clothing to show their allegiance. Anyone without the symbol was fair game to the roving packs of thugs, or lone muggers, in the territory.
She wasn’t wearing an “H”, he realized now. And she wasn’t wearing any other Alpha’s or Rex’s or Chieftain’s symbol either, so she was unprotected. Did she not know about it? He hadn’t noticed before because frankly, she’d had his head totally fogged up from the minute he’d laid eyes on her.
He hesitated.
He didn’t know this girl. It was no fur off his back if she got mugged. He looked out for his own and nobody else – that was the rule he lived by these days.
His brother Liam was standing by the front door with Jose. He handed Finn a bottle of mineral water. Finn took a long swig of it.
“You going to let her go?” Liam asked him. He glanced at Jose. “That’s his new girlfriend.”
“Nice.” Jose nodded approvingly. “A step up, for you.”
Finn snorted. “What are we, in kindergarten? She’s not my girlfriend, and she doesn’t want my help. Whatever happens to her is nothing to me.”
“Yep. Sure.” Liam gave him a knowing look, which annoyed the hell out of Finn.
“I mean it,” Finn growled. “She’s not my problem.”
“Of course she’s not.” Liam shrugged. “Can’t go picking up every waif and stray that wanders through Darwin.”
“Damn straight.” Finn nodded, and thought of how she’d smelled. There had been that hint of cinnamon mixed in with her natural musk. Did that mean she would taste like cinnamon as well?
Liam leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his broad chest. “She knew what she was getting into, coming to the Badlands.”
“Course she did,” Finn said, and tried to believe it. Everyone knew about the Badlands.
“Say, you see those four wolves in the doorway across the street? The ones who aren’t wearing our mark?”
Finn brightened. A fight? Something to take his mind off the sexy lynx?
He looked at the doorway where Liam was pointing.
“What four wolves? There’s nobody there,” he said, puzzled.
“Yeah,” Liam drawled, “That’s because they just took off after your little lynx. They all turned the corner at 14thStreet.”
Finn dropped his bottle of mineral water and took off after them at a dead run, shifting as he ran.
