Page 60 of Hunt Me Down

The door to Catalina’s swung open with a softswoosh. Zane’s head appeared and his brows lifted. “Jude, you ready to?—”

Footsteps. The slam of a car door.

Jude swore when he saw his ADA drive away.Running away. “Not finished, Erin.”

Not by one hell of a long shot.

* * *

By the time she got back to her office, her hands had stopped shaking and the ball in the pit of her throat, that weird tangle of fear and fury, had finally dislodged.

Erin managed to make it through the rest of the day in a semi-normal fashion. No snarling at the other lawyers. No flash of claws or teeth. But Jude’s words kept echoing in her head.

And they twisted with her mother’s words, spoken so long ago. “Kill or be killed, that’s the only way we know.”

Her mother had been very, very good at killing.

She hadn’t wanted to be like her mother. But the freak on her trail was giving her no choice.

Hell, yes, she knew the prisons couldn’t hold some paranormals. Sheknewthat. But the only other option?—

Death.

She’d never taken a life before. The bastard was wrenching her choices away. Because she knew—sheknewhe wanted her to kill.

So she’d be just like him.

Dammit, no.

* * *

Erin went to court at the end of the day. A last-minute trip. The demon had been right. She hadn’t been scheduled for a court appearance, but the cops needed her help, so she had to go. Erin needed a warrant to search a suspected drug dealer’s house on Grant Avenue, and the cops waiting in the wings didn’t have any more time to waste. They wanted to get in that house before midnight.

At 6:09 p.m., the warrant was signed, the cops were ready, and Erin was so damned ready to get back to her house that she was all but growling. She headed across the middle of the courthouse’s big atrium, eager to?—

A rich, musky scent teased her nostrils.

Erin froze.

Pine trees. Sweat. Animal.

Her heart slammed into her chest just as some guy with a too-large briefcase crashed into her back. He grunted an apology and stumbled away, but she didn’t even spare him a glance.

She closed her eyes for a moment and drank in that scent.

He was there.Close enough to smell.

The whiff of his scent was deliberate. She knew it. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. He could control his scent, disguise it. The bastard had told her about his little secret technique that fateful night. He’d bragged about it.

But now, he was baiting her with his smell. Letting her know that he was close. Watching.

Her hands curled and her claws dug into her palms. Her eyes opened as her head turned to the left.There.The door marked exit in bright red letters. The stairwell.

Erin was at the door before she had time to fully realize what the hell she was doing. She shoved it open, sucking in a hard breath, then she climbed down the steps. The jarring metal echoed with every move she made, and she followed that scent with her palms sweating and the hair on her nape rising.

Tired of running. Tired of the blood.

The killings had to stop.

---