by Meg Ripley
Max operated on nothing but pure impulse now. He shoved Sabrina to his left, putting himself between her and the attacker. He launched forward, feeling his body begin to change. His spine lengthened as his hips thrust his top half forward. Max’s fingers became shorter and rounder, but they held the deadly weapons of his claws. He unsheathed them just in time to swipe across the lupine face. His back paws dug into the ground, preparing him for the next move. His human eyes hadn’t been able to see much, but shifting was like turning on night vision. Max now saw every inch of the park as though it were midday. His tail swished irritably as he rounded on his prey.
The wolf snapped his jaws and lunged to the side, trying to avoid Max’s teeth and claws. He wasn’t retreating, though. He sprang through the night, his teeth gleaming as they reached for the tiger’s neck.
The wolf was big, but Max’s feline body was heavier and stronger. He ducked low just as the wolf leapt. When he shoved his body upward again, it was like a midair body slam to the lycan. The wolf rolled to the side but recovered quickly, getting to his feet just in time for Max to bound on top of him. The two rolled through the grass. Max knew he was better equipped to win this fight. The wolf might’ve had the element of surprise at first, but the only true weapons he had were his teeth. Max had the added advantage of claws.
He sank a full paw of them into the wolf’s side, eliciting a yelp. Max pressed harder, holding back to give the shifter a chance to surrender. Instead, the cur used his pain to drive his assault. He went for Max’s throat once again.
That was all the information Max needed. He dug in with all his fury as the low, guttural roar of his people welled up in his throat and spread throughout the park. His claws swiped through the thick gray fur and into flesh, repaying the wolf with the exact attack meant to kill him. As the tiger ripped out the soft spot at his enemy’s neck, blood sprayed across the grass, peppering Max’s fur.
Max turned to see Sabrina standing there behind him. Her arms were still partially extended from catching her balance when he’d shoved her aside. She stared past him to the dead wolf, her eyes wide and her mouth agape.
Slinking off into the deeper shadows, Max kept a sharp eye on her while he licked himself clean. Sabrina needed him, but not in the form of a bloody killer. It’d been a long time since he’d had to do something like this. Adrenaline exhilarated his bloodstream, and what he truly wanted to do was barrel through the park to get it all out of his system. There was no time for that now, and he wouldn’t dare leave Sabrina there alone.
When he’d shifted back, his human body felt awkward and useless. He put his hand on her arm, bringing her startled gaze up to his. “You all right?”
She nodded slowly and then gave one firm nod as she closed her mouth. “Of course. Of course I am. I’m fine. Completely fine. But what do we do about him?” Sabrina gestured vaguely toward the wolf’s carcass.
“Already on it.” Max put in a call to headquarters before jogging to the chopper for a tarp. He wrapped the body and stowed it in the back. “It’ll have to ride with us for a bit, but someone will be at your building to take it.”
“At my place?” She fanned her fingers across her chest. “Do we have to?”
“We can’t just leave it here for someone to find,” Max reasoned. “He died as a wolf, which means he’s going to stay in that form. It would be bad enough to find a dead wolf in an urban park, but even worse to find that he’d been killed violently by some other creature. The whole city would be in an uproar.”
“Oh. Right.” She followed him back to the aircraft and climbed inside, firmly buckling her belt and keeping her head turned away as he prepared for takeoff.
Max had his hands full already, but he watched her. She was too quiet. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I said I was,” she replied coolly.
“Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s not easy to see someone die like that.”
“I’ve seen plenty of people die, thank you very much. I suppose you’ve forgotten that I’m a surgeon?” She lifted her chin, but she still refused to look at him.
“Okay. That’s true.” But there was still something very wrong. He could feel the tension between them like a force in the air, driving them apart. “Are you upset with me for killing him? I mean, there wasn’t any choice. He was there for blood, and he would’ve killed me first if I’d have given him the chance.”
“No.” Her bitter reply crackled through the air. “I’m mad at you for not giving me a chance to defend myself.”
If he’d been driving a car, he would’ve slammed on the brakes and pulled over. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard some words, but they didn’t make much sense. Pardon me, Dr. Barrett, but I was under the impression that I was hired to do exactly what I just did. Someone threatened you, I took care of it, end of story.”
Now Sabrina did turn to look at him, and her eyes shot daggers in the dim glow of the control panel. “You didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself! All you did was shove me out of the way. Might as well have said, ‘Stand back, little lady. I’ll handle this.’ I’m a tiger, too. It’s insulting!”
He pressed the fingers of his free hand against the bridge of his nose. “Sabrina. You’re the most intelligent, logical person I know. In fact, I’d be willing to be that most people who know you could say that about you. But what you’re arguing right now is crazy!”
“It is not,” she spat back. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I need some man to jump to my defense like a helpless princess.”
“Maybe not necessarily a man, but someone. No one would ask me to operate on someone who needed their appendix out. They’d call you. We each have a role to fulfill, and I think it’s pretty clear who should do each one.”
“Right. You’re saying it’s clear that I’m a wimp. So kind of you.” Sabrina crossed her arms in front of her chest.”
“Sabrina, you didn’t even shift!” He felt like a real jerk for pointing it out, but she’d driven him to it. “You just stood there. If you wanted to jump in and do something about it, you certainly had the chance.”
“Easy for you to say after you pushed me out of the way.” Her shoulders were so tight, they were lifting up near her ears.
Max adjusted the controls aggressively. George would be pissed if he did so much as got a scratch on this chopper, and yet he had a dead body in the back of it. Just a short time ago, he’d have done anything Sabrina asked him to do. Now, he wished he could just drop her off and call someone else in to finish the shift. Technically he could do that, but he wasn’t about to be the one to give in. “Right. Nothing ever makes you happy, Sabrina. Nothing is good enough for you. That might serve you well in your career, but it makes real life awfully fucking difficult.”
She gasped and opened her mouth for a reply, but for once, she couldn’t find one. She worked her lips, opening and closing them a few times until she snapped them shut. The rest of the ride was silent.
Max knew the night would be, too.
8
Sabrina woke to the sound of her apartment door opening and closing. Low male voices vibrated through her bedroom door, making her heart thud in her ears. Had someone else come to attack her? Why was this happening all of a sudden when there hadn’t been any other threats lately?
But when someone knocked on her door, she figured it probably wasn’t anyone who wanted to kill her. Sabrina cleared her throat. “Yes?”
“Jack is here to take over for the day. Thought I’d make the introductions.” Max’s voice was gruff and clipped. He didn’t want to be talking to her any more than she wanted to be talking to him.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” Feeling sassy, Sabrina considered taking her sweet time getting dressed before coming out of the bedroom. But the faster she complied with Max’s wishes, the sooner he’d be out of her apartment. She threw on jeans and a t-shirt as she recalled the night before.
It’d been utterly
terrifying to have someone come at them out of the dark, and even more so that it was someone as their animal. For whatever reason, Sabrina had always imagined the death threats she’d received as coming from someone in their bipedal form. But of course, a wolf would be more fully prepared to attack. Max had dispatched him quickly, almost easily. He was right that he’d done his job, but it left her with a cold feeling in her veins that she still couldn’t shake. Sabrina glanced in the mirror as she ran a brush through her hair and then opened the bedroom door.
Max was standing at the breakfast bar, a coffee mug in his hand as he spoke in low tones to a tall man with broad shoulders. He straightened when he saw her and gestured to the other man. “Jack, this is Dr. Sabrina Barrett. Sabrina, Jack.”
She plastered on a smile and made sure it was directed only at the newcomer. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You as well. I’m afraid I don’t come with a helicopter like Max here, but I understand you have the day off today.” He had a warm hand and a friendly smile, and he was about as much the opposite of Max as you could get.
“I am off work, but I do have some errands to run.”
Max rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea after last night. It’s best if you just stay here.”
She looked past him through the patio doors. “I’m fairly certain you were hired to watch over me, not to keep me prisoner. I have appointments, and I plan to keep them.” Sabrina didn’t turn to look, but she was aware of the two men exchanging a glance.
“We can handle it,” Jack said. “I’ve brought the company car.”
Max’s lips were tight, but he looked ready to say something. Instead, he gave them a curt nod and left.
Sabrina let out a sigh of relief as the door closed behind him. She didn’t know Jack, and it should be more unnerving to have a stranger in her house than someone she knew, but she was more than ready to get rid of him.
Jack proved to be an amiable bodyguard. He had mastered the art of small talk much more than Max had, making him easier to talk to. As she got ready to head out for the day, Sabrina realized that the man simply didn’t carry the same rigidity with him that Max did. It was a nice change.
Nor was he as insistent about hovering over her as he did his job. When she joined Angela in the booth at Grayson’s, Jack had taken up a seat in the far corner. She could see him, pulling out his laptop and settling in, and she allowed herself a satisfied smile. At least she wouldn’t feel like he was in a hurry to leave, and she could try to enjoy her day off as much as possible.
But that was a bit more challenging when the conversation unavoidably led to Max. “So, I feel like I haven’t talked to you at all ever since this whole trial thing came up. How are things going with your newest hired guns?” A distant cousin of Sabrina’s, Angela knew all about shifter life.
Sabrina twirled her fork in the air to encompass all the trouble, feels, and uncertainty she felt about the situation. “I think it would be just fine if one of those hired guns didn’t happen to be Max.”
Angela tipped her chin down and widened her eyes at Sabrina. “Surely you mean some other Max, right?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“And I take it that hasn’t been going well. Tell me, did you rip him a new one for running off and leaving you hanging like that? I know you’ve wanted to do that for a long time.” Angela sliced into her rare steak, the juices running out onto the plate.
Sabrina sighed. “Sort of.”
“Sort of? That doesn’t sound like the kind of drama I was hoping for here.” She gave Sabrina a sparkling smile to let her know she was kidding.
“I did bring it up a little, but that was only after we kissed in my bedroom.”
The sound of Angela’s fork hitting the plate caused several other diners to look in their direction. “You what?”
She hated to say it all out loud, but Sabrina needed to get everything off her chest. “It was really random. Max came and picked me up from work the other day. I knew it would be one of the new guys, but I didn’t know he would be one of them. I was just so shocked at first that I didn’t know much of what to say. But he got to me without even trying. Max has always had this way of looking at me when he knows I’m having a vulnerable moment. It’s like he’s saying he’s on my side and he understands, but then he turns right around and acts like the jackass we all know him to be.”
Angela rolled her hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah. Get to the kiss and whatever good stuff comes after that.”
“No good stuff. It was just a kiss, and I told him the next morning in no uncertain terms that it was a mistake and that we had no business behaving that way. It’s been fire and ice between us ever since. As soon as we get past our anger and start getting along, things become so physically intense. Then things get awkward and we’re at each other’s throats again.” They were certainly at each other’s throats right now, and she could only imagine how awful this lunch would be if Max were there instead of Jack. Then again, she always felt safe when he was watching over her. She knew he’d do anything to protect her.
“What’s that dreamy look on your face? Do I need to get you a composition book so you can write ‘Sabrina Loves Max 4-Ever’ all over it?” her friend teased. Angela knew about the bond Sabrina had with Max, the type of fated tie that had drawn them to each other as mates. It was the kind of thing only shifters could understand.
“Absolutely not,” Sabrina replied tartly. “I know that Max and I are a poor match, and I don’t care what our tigers have to say about it. But it’s been a lot harder to be around him than I imagined it would be. I always figured if I happened to run into him somewhere, I’d either chew him out or give him the cold shoulder, move on, and live my life as though it’d never happened. But now he’s in my apartment all night, and last night, he actually had to kill someone who tried to attack me.”
Angela pushed her plate away this time. “Girl, if you had this much drama to talk about, we should’ve gone to a place with better wine. What happened?”
She relayed the events in the park as best as she could remember them, although she didn’t think the image of that bloodied wolf would leave her mind any time soon. Max had said the Force would try to determine who the attacker was. “I was just so angry with him for treating me like a damsel in distress.”
Scratching her temple just under her fringe of short hair, Angela made a face. “I hate to break it to you, but you were a damsel in distress. And don’t you think you should be thanking him for saving your life? There’s no telling what might’ve happened if he wasn’t there.”
Sabrina took a sip of iced tea. “I like to think I would’ve taken care of myself.”
“But he’s the trained soldier. He’s been through all sorts of situations like that, pilot or not.” Unable to resist, Angela pulled her plate closer and began eating her lunch again.
“You’re not supposed to be on his side, you know.” Sabrina slumped a little in her chair. “Maybe I was a bit of a bitch toward him. This whole thing has been incredibly stressful, and I’m ready for the trial to get over with so I can go back to a normal life.”
“One without Max?” she challenged. “Or are you going to keep him on your couch for a while like I know you want to?”
Sabrina made a sour face at her friend, but then she laughed. “You’re terrible, you know that?”
“Only because I’m right,” Angela asserted. “You and Max are crazy about each other. You have some differences to work out, sure, but I don’t see how either one of you can actually move on with your lives unless you either work this out or find a way to end it once and for all. You both left everything hanging, and that’s a lot of dirty laundry to go through.”
“Even if we did, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. He’s got a stubborn streak about a mile wide, and he constantly shuts down when he doesn’t like how things are going. He criticizes every aspect of my life.” She was getting angry all over again just thinking about it.
Angela reached across the table and put her hand on top of Sabrina’s. “He’s not the only one who’s stubborn, and I happen to know you’re more than capable of packing away your feelings until you’re ready to deal with them. Take it from a third party who’s seen the two of you together before. You have a lot more in common than you think. If you just find a way to talk about it and really let each other inside, you might be surprised.”
“When did you become a counselor?” Sabrina joked. But she was genuinely touched by how much Angela cared. She was more interested in the reality of the situation instead of just stirring up more drama. There were plenty of women out there like that, and Sabrina didn’t have a use for them.
“Hey, all those high school kids I’m teaching seem to want a lot more from me than how to construct a proper sentence. They might be young, but some of them have some very adult problems.” She pushed the bone from her steak aside and started in on a baked potato. “So, now that we’ve got all that figured out, tell me how things are going with your other projects.”
Sabrina realized as she started in on her meeting with Dr. Corton and the other board members just how badly she needed a girls’ day. There was something unbelievably refreshing about just talking and hashing everything out. They didn’t need to come to any sort of conclusion, necessarily, but she was able to lay everything out on the table. And she could always expect an honest opinion from Angela.
When they left Grayson’s to do some boutique shopping, Sabrina had nearly forgotten that she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t until Jack just happened to be exiting the restaurant at the same time as they were, giving a very convincing show of being a kind stranger opening the door for her, that she remembered she was under constant surveillance.
The two women headed down the sidewalk on foot, with Jack just a few yards behind them. Sabrina knew that if anything happened, this man would do exactly as Max had done the previous night. But something significant had changed. When the conclave had first assigned her a guard, she’d been actively receiving death threats. The few days without them had made her complacent, but the incident in the park had proven that was a mistake. Sabrina might have a trained Special Ops soldier just a short distance behind her, but she needed to start watching her own back from now on.
