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Her delicate nostrils widened. “Most don’t.” A shrug. “Your senses must be stronger than the average shifter’s or you wouldn’t have known about me at first, either.”
Yeah, they were stronger. Came from being a white tiger. Rare breed, stronger shifter talents. But if her scent couldn’t be detected by the others...shit. The woman had some serious camouflage going on. “So you’ve been just slipping right by your kind haven’t you? Walking right past the shifters your whole life.”
“Notmy kind,” she interrupted, voice rising.
His turn to blink. “Yeah, we are.” A slow anger began to burn in his gut.
She swallowed. “I-I’m not going to do this with you, not now. You don’t understand.”
Because she hasn’t told me a damn thing.Erin kept telling him, “not now.” Well, when? He stared her down. “Try me.”
“Shifters...” Her shoulders straightened. “That’s not my world. When I didn’t change at puberty, theshifterworld kicked my ass out and left me in the cold.”
Her mom abandoned her, dropped her off on her father’s doorstep when she was fifteen.
“I’ve lived as a human since then. I don’t transform. For all intents and purposes, Iamhuman, and that’s the only world I know.”
No, last night, she’d found another world, with him. He’d felt her beast, raging just below the smooth, controlled surface she presented.
Erin turned away and began walking toward her waiting car.
Stop her.“Shifters don’t play by the same rules as humans.” She knew that. He shouldn’t have to shout it at her.Shouting.He winced. Good thing that spell of Catalina’s was keeping the humans away. “Sometimes we have to play rough.” Like when he’d dug his claws into Mickey the asshole.
Erin glanced back at him, black hair sliding over her shoulders. “I know how shifters play.” Anger. Fear?
“I’m trying to find the bastard after you, and believe me, I’ll play by any rules that I have to. I’llbreakany rules I have to, in order to get the job done.” Find him, stop him, put him in a shallow grave.
He’d marked her.
The killer wasn’t gonna play nice and easy. And Jude had never been that dumb nice-and-stupidly-easy type.
Their eyes held. When Erin spoke, her voice was soft but it carried easily to him as she said, “My job is about protecting the rules of thehumanworld. Following the law.”
Sometimes, you had to bend that law.
And maybe even break it in order to stop the badasses. “Human laws and human jails don’t do much forourkind.” Oh, yeah, maybe he’d put too much emphasis on the our, but screw it. She was just like him beneath the skin.
Animal to animal.
Night Watch brought down criminals and sometimes, bringing down the supernatural scum meant putting a power-mad demon, a blood-sucking vamp, or even a rabid shifter out of his misery.
No, human jails couldn’t hold a strong supernatural for long. Hell, a level ten demon could blow the walls out of a jail with barely a thought. And if a guard got too close to a vamp...
Some monsters couldn’t be stopped by the normal means. That was the reason Night Watch had been formed. Night Watch’s mission was to bring down the supernatural criminals—one way or another.
When Mickey got to the jail, his ass would be tossed in a cage. Just where he belonged. And he’d stay in the pen, doing his time, kicking the crap out of any human foolish enough to cross him.
But someone stronger than low-life Mickey...hell, no, a prison would never work.
“Accept it,” Jude said. “Your laws just don’t work for everyone.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Like that bastard after you. Do you really think a cage will hold him?”
She swallowed, and he saw the hard movement of her throat. His hands clenched when she said, “I know it won’t. Why do you think I’ve been running?”
“Erin—”
