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“Dylan,” she called out to him, “stop.”
She watched him freeze, hesitating as he continued to glare down at the panther under him. It had to be Slick. There was no other shifter that he’d be fighting this hard. She glanced around the room again, taking in all of the damage ... all of the aggression these two shifters had expelled.
It made her shiver. Shifters were truly frightening.
Underneath Dylan, Slick let out a choked growl.
“You can’t kill him,” she went on, stepping more into the room. Her hands itched to run through his soft-looking fur. “You need to step away before you do more damage.”
He swiveled his head toward her and closed his mouth slowly. She hoped that whatever he saw in her conveyed enough for him to understand that hurting Slick more ... killing him even ... was going to do more harm than good.
Even if Slick was a scumbag and deserved whatever it was that was coming to him.
Dylan turned back to Slick, shaking himself out of whatever spell she’d temporarily wrapped him in, and shifted his entire body weight into crushing Slick’s windpipe. The panther choked, his paws thrashing up at Dylan to try and claw him away.
“Dylan!” she screamed. “Please! You can’t kill him!”
She felt so desperate. She couldn’t let him do something that he might come to regret later in life. No matter what sins Slick had on his hands, she didn’t want Dylan to add something just as terrible to his own. Taking out Slick wouldn’t solve anything, let alone her problems or Jazzy’s death.
“You can’t.” She swallowed. “You could hardly stand losing Jazzy. And that wasn’t your fault. You can’t kill him and walk around with that on your conscience. I know you can’t.”
She watched his eyes dart back and forth between Slick’s, some kind of contemplation coming over him at her words.
She wanted to plead and beg and get down on her knees to get him to come to his senses, but she had no idea how far gone he was and how much the shifter side of him had taken over, giving his real conscience a back seat to this whole ordeal.
Rose stumbled back when dark paws came up and lifted Dylan into the air and away from him. He crashed onto the floor near her feet, landing in a pile that made her wince. Before she could bend down and see if he was alright, Dylan stood and shook himself.
“Dylan?”
He shifted back into his human self. Holding up a hand and wiping a trickle of blood from his mouth. She looked him over, taking in the various scratches covering his naked body. They looked like they hurt, but they didn’t look especially deep.
Dylan turned to glare at Slick, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he panted.
“If I ever,” Dylan said in a low voice, “catch you messing around with my mate, I’ll finish this. And you won’t have her talking any sense into me before I actually complete the job.”
Slick rolled over onto his stomach, shifting back as well. He glared up at Dylan, grimacing at his bruised neck.
Dylan didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he turned back to her and cupped her face in a tight grip. His palm felt clammy against her skin.
“Dylan?”
He didn’t answer her, just rotated her face a bit to each side to regard her with a hard expression. As if he were looking for something.
“I’m okay,” she said softly.
She watched his shoulders relax. He let go of her face and stepped around her to gather up his clothing, slipping it back on before taking her hand and leading her out of the office. She squeezed his hand tightly in hers, letting him lead her out of the building at a brisk pace.
“Car?” he spoke as soon as he pushed the double doors open and guided her onto the busy street.
“I took a cab.”
He nodded and tugged her over to where he’d parallel parked his car.
She blinked when he opened the door for her and helped her inside before closing it behind her. She found it kind of funny that despite his brain seemingly being in half shifter mode and half not, he still had the sense to be a gentleman.
She buckled herself in, watching him come around to the driver’s side. He said nothing when he climbed in and buckled himself, starting his car with a quick flick of his wrist and a slight tug at the gear shift before they were pulling into traffic.
Rose curled her hands into her lap, feeling the anxiety grow with each sign they passed.
