Enforcer's Heart: (BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (Stratton Wolves Book 3) (2 page)

Instantly Tom’s manner snapped to professional as he indicated an alleyway in front of them. Ce ducked down to look through the windshield. They were in an upmarket area of the city--the old quarter, filled with little alleyways and quaint shops.

“Got a report that Gabriani’s alarm is going off again. That makes four times this week. Uniform dropped by earlier in the week and advised him to get the system checked out again, but…” He shrugged and opened the car door.

Ce sighed. She knew what that shrug meant: Gabriani had done absolutely jack with the alarm system. Despite the fact available personnel were back in the precinct, it was a cold and wet night, and she and Tom were already out.

Which meant they got the call. Great.

Her fantasies of a mug of hot chocolate (with marshmallows) while huddled next to the heater by her desk in the office faded, and she followed Tom into the alley. Even from here, they heard the alarm blaring, which grew louder as they approached.

She whistled when the door came into view. The glass lay shattered, and the frame hung off the hinges. “Hell, someone went to town here.”

“Too right,” Tom muttered, drawing his gun at the same moment she did, their movements synchronized. They’d worked together so long, they operated like a well-oiled machine.

Her partner moving to the other side of the door, Ce put her back against the wall on her side and leaned in. “Ashville PD, come out with your hands up!”

It was no use. The shriek of the alarm drowned her voice. She exchanged a glance with Tom, who shrugged. She was the one with the big mouth, and a temper to match, thanks to her Irish blood. Quietly spoken, Tom couldn’t beat her on volume.

She jerked her head toward the door, indicating she was going in, and moved. Stepping through the wreckage, she kept her eyes wide and swept the room, gun muzzle level as she looked for signs of movement. Nothing. Behind her, Tom fiddled with the alarm box by the door.

“Fuck,” Tom shouted over the noise. “Can’t get it to switch off. There must be a central control panel somewhere. Probably in the kitchen.”

She nodded, but he didn’t take any notice. Stepping past her, gun ready, expression focused, he picked a path between the tables. She spared him a quick glance as she crossed to the other side of the room to walk parallel.

Tall, sandy-haired and handsome, Tom was gorgeous, and she knew she was the envy of the ladies in the department. But she didn’t see him that way, nor him, her. They were buddies, partners, more like brother and sister than anything else. A romance between them was not just unlikely, it was more like a
not-even-if-hell-freezes-over
scenario.

She returned her attention to her surroundings. Last service had been hours ago, so the restaurant was clean and tables set for the morning. Had been. Past tense. Now it looked like a rhino had barrelled through, scattering chairs, linen, and cutlery. A few tables hadn’t survived the altercation, broken legs upright in surrender.

Crap. What could have done damage like that? Concern settled low in her chest. She’d been here before, for a meal. The staff had been lovely. She hoped none of them were still here with whatever the hell had broken in.

When she’d started on the force, things had been easier. Ghosts and ghouls, the werewolves, and other things that went bump in the night had kept to themselves. Sure, the PD knew they were around, but on the whole the paranormal community policed itself.

These days, they couldn’t go a week without tripping over something supernatural. In the case of the siren who’d been murdered last week, literally. How were they supposed to know the body was slumped behind the door? Hell, they were even supposed to take anti-lycanthropy pills each morning just in case they got bitten.

She grimaced…. Crap, she’d forgotten to take hers this morning. Oh well, not like they were going to run into any lunatic werewolves in a niche bistro in the middle of town, right? At least, she hoped not.

The darkness seemed to close in, casting strange shadows and shapes around her. Nothing looked the same at night as it did in the light of day. It was as if a whole new world came out to play when everyone slept. The feeling took her back to childhood, creeping down the stairs for a midnight snack when she should have been asleep. She shook her head to keep in the present.

She ignored the shadows, just a trick of her mind, and carried on down her side of the restaurant.

They reached the entrance to the kitchen without incident. Two doors: one in, and one out. It was a sensible configuration, one that saved collisions by wait staff when they rushed in and out, and conveniently, she and Tom could enter the kitchen from different points. Doing so gave them overlapping arcs of fire and meant a lucky shot by the perp couldn’t take them both out.

Tom looked at her, using the fingers of his free hand to count down silently. On three, they burst through the doors, Ce yelling, “Ashville PD! Hands up!”

She stopped dead. There in the middle of the kitchen wasn’t the thief she’d been expecting, but a huge, furred form with its head under one of the steel counters. Not a dog. Way too big. Her mind flicked through a mental checklist she’d memorized from the paranormal species identification course the captain had them take. Massive shoulders covered in coarse gray fur, check. Powerful hindquarters, check. Tail swishing back and forth, check.

Werewolf. On the day she hadn’t taken her anti-furry pills. Fucking great.

Without missing a beat, she lifted her gun. “Paws up, Spot!”

The tail stopped swishing, and with two steps, the wolf backed up, its head emerging from under the counter. At least, she assumed it had a head. It wore a plastic container that covered its snout and entire head. There was a crack in the bottom and a large, pink tongue swept away the remnants of whatever the container had held. The tongue disappeared and an amber eye stared at her through the crack, glittering with malevolence.

She backed a step instinctively. Shit. This was so not good.

The snarl started on a bone-deep level, one she felt before heard. The wolf stalked toward her, shaking off the ruined container to fix her with a baleful stare. In the bright amber shimmered death. Hers.

“Freeze,” she yelled, bringing her gun into aim.

She’d have to shoot, but she wasn’t loaded for wolf, neither of them were. The department kept the silver bullets on strict lockdown for cost reasons, only breaking them out when they had a confirmed furry on site.

It curled black lips from vicious looking teeth. The small, still sane part of Ce’s brain, hidden at the back, started to scream about running. Ignoring it, she stood firm. She wouldn’t run. Couldn’t. If she did, this thing could get onto the street where any civilian was easy pickings.

Not. Happening. Not on her watch. She was a cop. More than that, a cop’s daughter, a cop’s granddaughter. Cop blood ran true in the Callahan family.

Protect and serve. Emphasis on protect.

“One more step and I’ll drop you,” she threatened.

The wolf leaped.

Chapter Two

Ce screamed. Or perhaps it was Tom, she had no idea.

Didn’t matter as she fired a couple rounds in quick succession. The wolf was too quick, bounding from side to side in a zigzag movement as she fired. One of the best shots in the department, she was no slouch when it came to marksmanship, but they didn’t get many lycanthrope targets.

Not many lycan targets? Try any. The paranormal threats instructor had some words of wisdom for dealing with shifters though. Namely “
if it ain’t silver, run like fuck
,” which at the moment wasn’t a great help.

Her brain slowed events, time dilating until she could see the wolf’s fur wave in the breeze of the bullets passing him. They’d all been warned about the speed of paras in the mandatory briefings the captain made them attend. Hearing it within the safe confines of a classroom, even watching it on training videos, was one thing. Seeing it in action was completely different. Scarily different.
About to meet her maker
kind of different.

The snarl drew her attention to the creature’s face. She didn’t need to speak wolf to understand the look in its eyes. It planned to make her death painful. And the tree hugging, do-gooder parade said lycans weren’t vicious—their moods and emotions were closer to nature and therefore purer.

Ha! Bull-
fucking
-shit to that.

Ignoring all advice about dealing with lycans, (which amounted to the fact she was fucked, and not in a good way) she aimed at its left foreleg and squeezed the trigger. The bullets hit dead on, tearing through fur, skin, and bone to shatter the joint. A shriek of pain and fury filled the kitchen as the wolf went down, its ruined leg folded under.

It wouldn’t stay ruined for long. Shifters healed fast. Not giving it a chance to move, she was on it in a heartbeat, boot on the back of its neck and the muzzle of her gun pressed behind its ear.

“One twitch and I scramble your fucking brains,” she warned, her voice deadly serious.

The creature froze, rolling an eye back in its head to fix on her. Intelligence and rage directed out the amber depths. Closer to nature. Animal intelligence, rather than human. She snorted to herself. Double bullshit, flying bullshit even… There was no way the creature under her boot had anything less than human intelligence.

The alarm snapped off, courtesy of Tom, but she didn’t take her eyes off the creature. Not with as fast as it was, and the fact the only threat she posed was her ability to give it a really bad headache.

“Fuckit,” Tom muttered, sliding his cell from his pocket while keeping his gun trained on the werewolf. “What the fucking hell is one of them doing here? There have been no reports of lycan activity recently. At all.”

Ce shrugged. “Not a clue. Perhaps he’s just a fan of prawn cocktail,” she said indicating the ruined container.

Tom shook his head as he dialed with his thumb. “Hey, yeah, this is Pineton. I need backup at Gabriani’s. We’ve got the biggest fucking werewolf you have ever seen pinned down. We’re going to need the dangerous animal team, some form of containment, and silver bullets.”

Ce looked up sharply at the last two words, already shaking her head. But the words were out, loud and proud, ringing in the air. She felt the creature under her boot shift, as its expression became calculating. She’d banked on it not realizing they didn’t have silver bullets, but Tom blew that out of the water.

She was already pulling the trigger as the creature moved, clipping its ear with the first bullet but the rest passed harmlessly over its fur. With a wordless bellow, she threw herself backward, a perfect roll she’d have killed to be able to do in gymnastics class way back when, and came up on her knees, finger on the trigger. She emptied a full clip into the oncoming werewolf, right into its face, but it still came.

Snarling, bleeding, it knocked her back, and hunkered over her with sharp teeth snapping the air inches from her nose. A bullet hole was by its eye, but as she watched, flesh filled in and fur flowed over the gap. Healed within seconds. Fucking hell… If this thing killed them because the captain didn’t issue silver bullets as mandatory, she was
so
coming back to haunt his ass.

The creature pulled back as if to look her in the eye before it killed her. She heard gunshots and Tom’s scream of rage, but the creature barely flinched as the rounds hit its side.

She became aware of the breath filtering from her lungs, as though a higher power had focused her attention to allow her to savor the moment. To appreciate her last few seconds of being alive, and right then she was
truly
alive. From the beating of her heart, to the breath punching in and out of her lungs, and feeling of her clothes over her skin… She felt it all. Even the coarseness of the lycan’s fur under her fingers as she jammed her hands into its throat to keep its jaws away was a welcome sensory experience.

Anger and determination flooded her. It wouldn’t end this way.
Couldn’t
. She wouldn’t allow it. One hand firmly around the creature’s throat, unsuccessfully choking it, her free hand flailed, looking for something—anything—to use as a weapon. Her fingertips met cold tile and hope faded.

Fuck. Why couldn’t she have been attacked somewhere useful, like a silver merchant’s workshop? There, she could have used anything, a silver teaspoon, to gouge the creature’s throat out, or its balls. She didn’t really care which, as long as it couldn’t tear out her throat.

Her finger touched the edge of a cold handle under one of the units.

Wooden and smooth, it was obviously well used. Without turning her head, she caught the gleam of light on the edge of the blade in her hand. Hell, yeah, she’d lucked out. Tightening her grip, she plunged the knife into the side of the werewolf’s throat. Perhaps if she hit it hard enough, often enough, it would bleed out.

As soon as the blade touched skin, the werewolf screamed. The sound was filled with agony and terror. It reared away from her, and she scrambled back as far as she could. Which wasn’t very far. Within seconds, her back hit a stainless steel refrigerator and she had a front-row seat as the lycan twisted and contorted in pain.

“Shhhit,” she breathed, watching in horror as it shifted.

He didn’t make it to human. Instead, he locked between the two forms, morphing between one and the other. Fur receded and bone snapped as a paw became a hand, but just as quickly, the fingertips sprouted talons and fuzz erupted from pores to cover the skin. Same with the rest of the body. He rose on two legs, bones grinding for bipedal motion, stopping, re-snapping, crunching to lupine as the torso became human.

“Ce, watch out!” Tom cried a warning as the creature leaned toward her and she yanked her body to the side. Too late, the creature crashed over her, dead as a dodo. Its upper jaw lupine, lower jaw human, the razor teeth—nothing to stop them—sliced her jeans and tore skin.

She leaned her head back.

She’d just been bitten by a werewolf. A dead one, but a werewolf nonetheless.

On the very day she’d forgotten to take her anti-furry pills.