Page 296 of Secret Shifters Next Door

Tate looked at the one I was eyeballing, then looked over at Steff. “Got us a hard-ass here, it looks like. Wanna go first?”

Steff stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. “It would be my pleasure.”

Tate and I walked up and pulled the gags out of the men’s mouths. The one who was full of himself snapped his teeth at my fingers—the fucker actually tried to bite me. Instinctually, I backhanded him, my panther growling before I walked away.

Steff put his hands on his hips. “Who sent you?”

The two others glanced at what had to be the team leader, looking for assurance or some kind of clue what to say. He glared back at Steff. “Get thee behind me, Satan. We will not speak to filthy beasts such as you.”

“Oh good,” Tate said. “Looks like Antonio is still pushing the religious zealot angle.”

Steff leaned forward and got right into the leader’s face. “You think God sent you to hunt us down? Some fucking prophet maybe? I have news for you. The God you think you’re following is not the real God, and this prophet or cleric you think is leading you is nothing but a rich piece of shit who’s mad that his ex-wife found a new man who was a shifter.

“How’s it feel knowing your big man isn’t even big enough to keep his woman satisfied?”

The guy didn’t flinch or hesitate. He spat a wad of phlegm right at Steff’s face. Steff’s head jerked back, and he used his shirt to wipe the offending bodily fluid off his cheek. He turned to look at us and laughed. The three of us didn’t laugh back. We knew what was coming.

Without warning, Steff twisted back to the man, shifting to his bear as he did. In less than a second, an eight-hundred pound grizzly was standing nose to nose with the man. Before the guy’s scream could get out of his mouth, Steff opened his maw and let out an earth-shaking roar.

Even I had to slam my palms to my ears to block out the sound as it echoed off the cinder block walls. Spittle flew from Steff’s mouth, spattering onto the asshole’s face. The two other men leaned away from the bear. The looks in their eyes told me they were positive they were about to watch their buddy get mauled and devoured in front of them. Good news for them? Steff wasn’t a man-eater.

Steff’s roar died and he paced around the three men, nudging them heavily with his massive shoulders. Tate stepped forward. “Ready to talk?”

The young guy’s entire body was shivering; it looked like he might be going into shock. He went to open his mouth, but the leader barked at him. “Don’t you say shit! Not a damned word. The Lord will protect us. You know this. Anything they do to us will only increase our reward on the other side.”

Steff was behind him, and after he chastised his buddy, he leaned his face over the man’s shoulder and opened his jaws. Then, very gently, he bit down on his ear. It wasn’t hard enough to even hurt, but the man’s eyes bugged out of his face and he jerked his head away. He pulled his ear across one of Steff’sfangs and blood spurted from the wound. Hot blood ran down his neck as he screamed like a baby.

Tate stepped forward, his eyes blazing the fiery gold of a dragon. “Looks like you boys think you’ve got some big balls. Maybe you think we aren’t all that scary? I mean, everyone’s seen a bear, a wolf, and a panther. Shit, you can go to any zoo and see all that. Let me show you how bad this can get.”

Tate took a few steps until he was just outside the unit’s door. He glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then shifted. A massive, scaled monstrosity at least forty feet tall stood where Tate’s hulking form had just been.

I heard a trickling sound and turned back to see that Mr. Piss Pants had two buddies with matching bladder problems now. All three of them stared in horrified awe.

Tate leaned down and pushed his head through the doorway. Miles and I had to press back against the walls to let his gigantic skull through.

Tate put his face right up to the three of them as Steff shifted back to his human form. A puff of smoke curled from Tate’s nostrils, filling the room with stench of brimstone and sulfur.

Steff slapped a hand on each shoulder of the leader’s body and leaned down. “You’ll burn so fucking completely that they won’t find any bodies. Your bones, your teeth will turn to ash. Are you ready to talk yet?”

All three men bobbed their heads frantically. “Don’t let that monster get us,” one of them squealed. “We’ll tell you what you want to know.”

The dragon head vanished from the room as Tate shifted back. I wrinkled my nose at the piss that now permeated the storage unit.

Miles took two heavy steps toward the men. “What was the plan for my mate? At the apartment? Were you going to kill her?”

The leader blinked in surprise, then shook his head. “You? The wolf? No. Our orders were to scout each of your homes and make sure you were at work before moving in on the actual target.”

“Cops caught us,” Young Guy said. “We’d already scoped the panther’s and bear’s places.”

Tate’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed past Miles. “You did all of them first? Why? What was the mission?”

“We, uh, well…” the main man swallowed hard. “We were given your daughters’ school schedule and a list of their extracurricular activities. Our intel told us they would be escorted anywhere by your own security team. We…oh fuck…we were to neutralize your security team, then take the girls.”

“Fucking what?” Tate leaped forward, snatched the man up by his collar, and lifted him—chair and all—into the air. His nose was pressed into the other man’s nose and the flaming dragon eyes returned.

“Oh God, oh God!” the man screamed, trying to get his face as far away from Tate as he could manage. “Don’t fucking eat me. Jesus, Lord Jesus, do not eat me.”

Tate slammed the man back down with a bone-cracking thud. One of the guy’s ankles got caught under the chair leg. The sound of it breaking was like a green twig cracking. He started howling in pain and terror, jerking his body toward his mangled leg, yanking on his bound hands to clutch his injured limb.

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