Page 44 of Shifter For Hire (For Hire 2)

Checkers swung at her. She brought the baton down on his arm, blocking the punch. The reverberation rattled her teeth. Talk about hard as a rock.

He swung again. For the second time she dodged the attack. Adrenaline kicked in. She saw every move he was about to make but it didn’t matter because she had to stay on the offensive. In the midst of the dance, she realized this guy wasn’t moving or speaking like he was drunk. He seemed clear-headed and in full command of himself.

This is a trap, and that glass was just a ruse to get rid of my TO.

There was no way she was going down because of this jerk. Rather than aim at the man’s arm again, she ducked low and went after his leg. A good solid hit put him on his knees. He grabbed her wrist and jerked her forward.

Both of them fell against the side of his car. A gun went off nearby, and her heart almost stopped. People shouted from several directions. Lachelle couldn’t see them from her position on the ground, but she heard people talking, regular citizens from the sound of it. Why didn’t these people take cover? She and her TO had stopped the driver on a residential road. All had been quiet until now.

Checkers burst out laughing. “It’s over, girl.”

“Who are you calling girl?” Lachelle scrambled for space and climb to her feet. Where the heck was the baton? It had gone flying when she fell.

“I’ve done my part,” Checkers said. “It was fun, but I’m not going to kill a cop, definitely not a woman.”

“Get up,” she demanded. “You’re under arrest.”

He laughed again. “I guess you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

He didn’t have to answer. With the sun hanging low on the horizon, light was fading. Men gathered, men with guns, dressed in camouflage like they were ready for war games in the middle of suburbia. Still, her TO hadn’t returned.

“All of you get back in your houses,” she called to the few citizens standing in doorways and in the middle of drives.

First she drew her gun and removed the safety and then she pressed the button on her shoulder radio. Things were about to get real. These weren’t regular thugs she was dealing with but men who had trained themselves to take out dragon shape shifters. They would have no trouble taking down a female rookie cop.

Patrick had destroyed the evidence of shifters, both on and offline. His work had allowed her to attend police academy and almost complete her field training over the last few months.

The hunters had faded into the background. She often wondered what happened to Skip since she hadn’t seen him since the incident in the restaurant. And now this? The hunters had horrible timing.

“Look, fellas, don’t do anything stupid or something you’ll regret. I’m a police officer.”

God, she sounded lame—and scared. She was scared because she was so new to this. She had never shot anyone, and it might come to that. Her stomach cramped as she tried to recall procedure. Backup was coming, but they wouldn’t arrive soon enough. Her TO was likely injured.

“Back off,” she emphasized.

“Dragon lover.” One of the men used the same term Checkers used. “We’ve got you now. You’re finally alone.”

During training she was always around a bunch of men and women. In her personal time, she spent every second with Gerard and with Patrick and his people. That must be why the hunters disappeared for a while. Patrick maintained a strong shifter presence in their city.

She cocked her gun and aimed at the man who spoke to her. If she took him down, the others might leave. “You need to understand that I’m within my rights to shoot you for a perceived threat. I don’t have to wait for you to start something. You got that? Final warning.”

Her heart raced, and bile filled her throat.

Too soon, too soon, too soon. I need more time before I deal with this kind of mess.

A roar split the air, the awful sound hurting her ears so badly she tried to cover her ears. All of the men did the same, and a few people screamed in fear, who were now peeking through windows instead of remaining outside.

She squinted at the darkening sky and spotted her dragon right away. Gerard was in full on beast mode, wings beating the air with a vengeance. She’d never seen him flying so fast or looking so fierce.

In the time she had gotten to know him, she learned the shifters could change their size when they transformed, apparently at will. Right then, Gerard looked like a dinosaur he was so huge. Of course, it could be her imagination. And one couldn’t blame her when the dragon started breathing fire.

Her knees gave and she sagged to the ground. The gun wavered in her hand, and it took monumental resolve not to drop it. This was Gerard, wasn’t it? Her lover, the man she had come to care about over the last few months?

Heat but not fire warmed her face. Chambers shouted in terror and scrambled around his car to the front. “No one said they could breathe fire!”

“No one told me either,” she quipped.

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