Eternal Hunter (Night Watch #1)(63)
Author: Cynthia Eden

He twisted around and eyed her with too-wide eyes. “What things?”

“Like the fact that I’m not…completely human.”

A shocked laugh. “Right.”

She held up her hand. Let him see her claws.

He jerked back from her and rammed into the desk. Horror was etched on his face. Disbelief filled his gaze.

The reaction she’d always feared.

“You’ve stumbled into a hell you can’t fully imagine,” Jude said.

Ben just looked between them, shaking his head. “No, Erin, I cared about you, I—”

“You cared about the woman you thought I was.” And she’d just wanted someone to love her, as she really was.

Claws and all.

“This isn’t real,” he muttered, running a trembling hand through his hair. “Can’t be, it’s—”

“The guy outside the door,”—Jude jerked his thumb over his shoulder—“is a demon. I’m a white tiger shifter.”

“Not real.”

“And the killer you’re after—the one who left Erin’s picture in the hands of a dead man—is a wolf shifter.”

Ben’s brows bunched. “Were…wolf?”

“Close enough.” Jude nodded.

“No, that’s not even possible, there’s no way—”

Jude held up his claws and this time, he bared his teeth.

The gulp that clicked in Ben’s throat seemed way too loud right then.

Erin reached out her hand to him, claws gone, but he flinched back. Knew it would happen.

Jude had never flinched away from her. She glanced at her shifter. No, he’d never flinched away, not even when he’d found out she was part wolf.

He’d wanted her from the beginning. No holdups. No hedging.

Taking her, as she was.

Jude’s bright blue gaze held hers.

“Erin saved your ass by getting the hell out of Lillian,” Jude told the cop. “The werewolf who killed Trent is after her and, if she hadn’t left you behind, odds are high he would have killed you.”

“What?”

She managed to look away from Jude and turn her attention back to Ben. “Seems that I acquired an…admirer, of sorts.”

Her lips pulled down into a frown and she rubbed her temple. “He does things, hurts others, even kills, and he thinks he’s doing it for me.”

Jude eased closer. “He killed a perp here in Baton Rouge and smeared the bastard’s blood all over the walls in her house.

Another guy, a lawyer, made the mistake of arguing too much with Erin in court. The freak put him in the hospital. ICU.”

Erin flinched at that. She’d gone to the hospital that morning, before work, hoping to hear better news about Lee. His son had been sitting in his room, holding his hand. She’d stepped away, ducking into the empty room beside Lee’s as she fought to control her tears.

Seeing that boy, praying for his father to wake up…

He has to be stopped.

Clearing her throat, she tried to push the memory of that kid aside. Lee would wake up. Oh, but she hoped he would anyway. “I have very good reason to believe that this guy is also the one who attacked you.”

“Erin, there’s no way to know that!”

“I’ve got good reason to believe it, because he told me he did,” she broke across his words and dropped her hand. I took care of your lover. Fool wasn’t worthy. He’d been so proud of nearly killing Ben. He’d whispered his words to her that terrible night. “He’s been making my life hell for too long now. I tried running from him, hiding, but he just found me, and he started killing again.”

Ben’s mouth hung open. After a moment, he snapped his lips closed.

“It’s the truth,” she said. Might seem crazy, but crazy was her world.

“Wh-why didn’t you tell me? I thought you left because you didn’t care.”

“He’s a paranormal.” Simple. “You couldn’t have handled him. The other cops in Lillian are human, too. They wouldn’t have known how to stop him. He would have sliced right through them and—”

The cop’s head craned toward a watchful Jude. “This guy—let me guess, he can handle him, right?”

Jude shrugged.

“Yes.” Erin was definite. “When he’s in his tiger form, he’s the closest physical match the bastard has.” More than a match.

Jude would be able to take the bastard down, she knew it.

“Werewolves?” Ben asked again and rocked back on his feet. “Come on, babe, I’ve dealt with some screwed-up killers in my time, but I haven’t—”

“Shifters have been around for as long as humans have walked this earth.” Jude crossed his arms over his chest. “Deny it if you want. If it makes you sleep better, do whatever the hell you have to do. But, the fact here is…you’ve got a paranormal killer out there. One who is obsessed with Erin, and you—well, you’re playing out of your league, human.”

There wasn’t room for Ben in this fight. “If you try to get involved in this, you’ll just get hurt.” The freak out there would like his pain too much. “Go back to Lillian. We’re going to stop him, and when we do—”

“What?” Ben’s voice snapped out, high and sharp. “When you stop him, I book a werewolf for murder? How’s that going to fly with the mayor and DA, huh? And what kind of cage am I going to toss him into?”

“This one won’t stay in a cage.” Jude’s voice was soft, deep. A calm opposite to Ben.

Erin knew he was right. The killer they were looking for was too strong for a human prison. “A cage won’t ever hold him,”

she said, her stomach knotting. She’d known it would come to this.

“What are you saying?” Ben reached out a hand, as if he were going to touch her, but stopped, the fingers freezing in midair.

Can’t touch the shifter. Not normal. Her chin lifted. “I’m saying we’ll let you know when this threat is gone.” That was all she was going to say. She couldn’t really tell a cop that murder was the only option. Not really murder, though. Self-defense.

“Now, I’m sorry, but I have work to do.”

“If you’ve got more questions, human, I’ll answer them,” Jude said.

Ben’s gaze drifted over her face. “This is the last damn thing I expected.”

“I know.”