Page 43 of Hextreme Measures

“What will they do now? Do you have any idea? Will they go after other paranormals, hoping to boost their numbers before going after you again?”

“I’m not even sure they still want me,” Ofelia admitted. “That’s not me being self-deprecating either. Maybe they think, with the women who are in detention and Angelique, they got what they needed.”

Sully rolled his neck. “I can’t imagine them going after you and deciding after the fact that they don’t want you.”

“Probably not,” Ofelia admitted. “The way you took out that banshee, maybe they are coming up with a different plan, though.”

“Like attacking from within?”

Ofelia didn’t want to say that out loud, but she nodded. “They might think that Angelique will be able to get me.”

“Well, then we need to make sure that Angelique doesn’t turn.”

They finished their dinner quickly, then headed off. Sully parked in the garage, on the second floor, when they got back.

“I should probably stop in and check on Krewe,” Ofelia said as she eyed the door that led to the bar.

Sully shook his head. “You don’t need to do that. The bar runs smoothly whether you’re here or not.”

“That’s kind of a weird kick to my ego,” she admitted.

He smirked. “You know what I mean. You put together a solid team to run the bar for you because you wanted to branch out. That team will be taking care of the bar when we’re on our honeymoon. You can trust them.”

Because it was what she wanted to believe, she nodded. “Let’s check on Angelique.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

He made it three feet before the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Something inside of him warned that they weren’t alone in the parking garage, and he shoved Ofelia without thinking it through. All he knew was that it wasn’t a human.

Ofelia stumbled forward and extended her hands in front of her. She hit the wall hard, bounced off it, and then dropped low behind a car. She’d sensed the new presence too and was preparing to throw up a protection spell when Sully reacted.

She hunkered down, pressed her back to the front of the car, and looked left. Sully had dropped down as well. He was on all fours, his fingers flexing into claws, and she could tell he was preparing to shift.

“Do you think you should be doing that?” she hissed. “What if somebody sees?”

Sully didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. He lived in fear that the wrong person would see him shift and load a clip to YouTube. Of course, with the way AI had taken over the internet in such a short amount of time, most people wouldn’t believe the video was real, so he had that going for him.

“Do you have a better idea?” he asked reasonably. “The banshees, their screams, couldn’t pierce through my shifter veil last night. I want to make sure they can’t do it again tonight.”

Ofelia was impressed despite herself. “You didn’t mention that part.”

He shrugged. “It slipped my mind.”

She watched as he shifted, not worrying about his clothes. Before she could blink twice, he was in his panther form, and it was glorious. He didn’t shift a lot — he worried about somebody witnessing it — but when he did, he turned into the most majestic animal Ofelia had ever seen.

“You’re turning me on,” she mused, chuckling when the big cat butted his head against her leg as he stalked low in front of the cars.

He couldn’t talk in his animal form, but Ofelia could see the thoughts he was projecting at her thanks to her magic. Don’t move. Stay there. Let me hunt.

Part of her wanted to argue with him — a big part — but she remained where she was. If the banshees couldn’t work their particular brand of magic on panther shifters, then that meant Sully was in the perfect position to take this one out.

She had no doubt it was a banshee in the garage with them. The only thing she questioned was what the banshee was going to do. Where was she going to attack from?

Sully was silent as he stalked the garage. Thankfully, the garage didn’t see a lot of traffic this time of year. Not every local bothered with a vehicle because mass transit was solid, and it was possible to walk most places. This wasn’t the highest tourist stretch either because it was too hot.

Still, Ofelia was worried that somebody was going to walk into the garage and see Sully. So, despite his warning that she should stay put, she started craning her neck to look around. She couldn’t see the banshee, no matter how hard she looked. She couldn’t see Sully either. The latter was more difficult for her to swallow than the former.

“Zach,” she whispered as she dropped back to her knees and tried to edge around the vehicle she’d been hiding in front of. “Zach Sully,” she tried again.