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For the past hour, Jaz moved around loading the bus tub and passing by each table often. There was no point in trying to hide once she’d been made as a shifter.
But she had an exit strategy if she needed one.
With each deep breath, she forced her heartbeat to slow down and remain steady, all the while sneaking glances at the two jackal shifters in the corner.
Thea moseyed up to their table.
They broke out big smiles for her.
She dipped down close, showing off her cleavage and smiling in a flirty way.
Well, damn. Did that woman have no sense of safety? Hadn’t she said she was running from an alpha who ruled her fox pack? She continued flirting and chatting. What was taking her so long to get a drink order from the jackal shifters?
When Thea finally left the table, she sashayed away to the bar where she ordered two beers, pronto. She shoved a twenty in her bra and used money from her cash roll to pay ten dollars for the two drinks.
They’d given her a ten-dollar tip for the beers.
Jaz couldn’t get to Thea yet, not without drawing unwanted attention. She kept watch as the woman delivered drinks to three tables, including the one with the two shifters. This time, Thea wrote up an order Jaz assumed to be food.
Jaz stood with her back to the room, watching the two men and Thea via a mirror behind the bar.
The male shifters clearly liked what they saw in Thea as she walked away.
Could those be shifters just passing through or were they involved in the kidnappings?
Or did they work for SCIS, which had a team of jackals?
As was her luck, the last question held the greatest possibility. If so, they could be cozying up to Thea to find out more on Jaz or force Thea to help them capture Jaz.
The humans didn’t pay any attention to the scar she’d covered, and she’d never allowed anyone to photograph her once she left Alaska. Humans paid little attention to what she hid beneath a bandage.
But shifters hunting the Golden Kodiak wolf, whose human form had a long identifiable scar on her face, would key in on the bandage immediately.
She had to talk to Thea. Alone.
Loading the dishwasher fell to Jaz as well as bussing tables. She hurried to set up the next load, but not start the machine yet. When she returned to the dining room, Thea dropped off a meal for a four top, then returned to the kitchen.
Jaz bussed again quickly.
The jackal shifters paid her no mind, which could be a positive sign if they were not SCIS, or just a ploy, if they were.
Or Jaz had been on the run so long she couldn’t think past her paranoia.
She followed Thea to the kitchen where the waitress stuck a new food ticket into place for the cooks.
“I need your help, Thea,” Jaz said and walked away to the dishwasher area.
Striding up to Jaz, Thea hissed, “What do you want? I’m in a hurry.”
Jaz loaded the last few dishes and started the industrial dishwasher.
Thea flinched at the noise, but it would cover their conversation.
Jaz didn’t care if she sounded sharp. “Why are you playing up to those two shifters? Aren’t you worried about being found?”
Thea’s cheeks pinked with embarrassment and her lips bunched in anger. “I was at first. That’s why I went right over to figure out if they were hunting me. No point in running around in fear. The minute I walked up, the tall, really hot guy showed me his ID and said he loved my profile. He’s with TCC,” she said, bursting with excitement.
“TCC?” Jaz asked, confused.
“Where have you been living?” Thea snapped. “TCC is Timber Casting Corporation. They discovered Cateline, the first female shifter in a movie. You should be happy for me.”
Oh, yes. Jaz had heard about that. Could those two be for real? Time to switch gears and prove Tarski wrong by keeping Thea as an ally.
Jaz smiled and forced enthusiasm into her voice. “Really? Wow, you think they’ll consider you?”
Standing up straight with a hand on her hip, Thea lifted her chin with confidence and ego firmly in place. “Yes. In fact, they’d like me to read for them, but they don’t want anyone to know they’re here. I said no problem. That you and I didn’t want anyone to know we’re shifters either.”
Jaz didn’t need Thea including her in any of her conversations, but she’d deal with that later.
Now that Jaz had sounded supportive, Thea couldn’t contain her excitement. “They’re not just hot but loaded.”
Nodding, Jaz said, “I saw the twenty they gave you.”
“That’s nothing. I told them I needed a few days to be able to afford something nice for the reading and the tall one gave me a hundred. Is that cool or what?”
Jaz wanted to say that was suspicious, but Thea ran off at the mouth too much. “Good for you, Thea. Wish we had more like those two in our world.” Not really. Jaz had never met a jackal that could be trusted.
“You got that right.”
Jaz couldn’t help cautioning her again, since she had no way to watch the woman twenty-four-seven. “But aren’t you still worried about being found, especially if you get a part in a show or movie?”
“Not if that happens,” Thea replied confidently. “I’ll have enough money to protect myself and won’t need a mate.” With a sly look in her eyes and smug grin, she added, “But that tall one, Josh, is interested in me. I can tell. I know men.”
Jaz had her doubts about how much Thea thought she knew. “Just be careful with those shifters. Axe murderers are charmers, too.”
That wiped away Thea’s joy. “I’m twenty-two and a fox shifter. I don’t need the same lecture my parents spewed constantly. Envy is unattractive and you need all the help you can get.”
“Thea! Order up.”
“I need to get that,” Thea snapped at her and spun around, sashaying toward the kitchen.
While avoiding Thea, Jaz watched the jackals and the time clock for the next two hours.
With the bar closing soon, the crowd slowed down. Thea would be sent home before Susie, a sweet middle-aged mom, since Thea had come in first to work.
She might meet those shifters afterwards.
Jaz couldn’t blow this cover when those men might only be two high rolling shifters for real just out slumming. She’d kept her tables bussed-up so she could stay out front as much as possible.
The bartender called over to her, “We’re slow as shit, Janet. You might as well go eat and get back. Things often pick up in the last half hour.”
Jaz didn’t want Thea to leave without Jaz being able to follow. Answering to her phony name, Jaz suggested, “You want me to wait until after the bouncer eats?” Said bouncer carried all his weight around the middle and sat on a chair scanning his mobile phone.
The bartender said, “No, I’ll send him soon, too.”
Jaz glanced around then hurried to the kitchen where the ill-tempered cook slapped a greasy hamburger with fries on a plate he shoved in her direction. He didn’t like hearing that people missed Fanny and took his irritation out on everyone who dealt with him.
Jaz dug around the kitchen prep area looking for coleslaw to put on her hamburger. She smothered her burger with it.
Cook noticed and complained, “What’re you eating that for? My burgers are the best. That shits been there all day.”
She doubted the coleslaw had spoiled yet, but she liked that he might think so. “I like it this way.” She took her food to a two-top table kept in the kitchen where the help could eat out of view of the patrons.
She started eating slowly. When she had the hamburger half-eaten, the bouncer walked in.
Jaz grabbed her throat and abandoned the burger. She leaned over and fell to the floor, then pushed up on her knees, choking.
The bouncer ran over to help.
Jaz wheezed out, “I’m sick ... can’t ... breathe.”
Cook came around, waddling toward her. “Her own fault. She added shit to her burger. My cooking is good. Told her that coleslaw had been out a while.”
Bouncer argued, “Why didn’t you get rid of it?”
“Wasn’t that old,” the cook shouted.
“Then why is she sick?”
Jaz made awful sounds and pushed a finger down her throat when no one was looking.
Bartender ran into the kitchen. “Who’s making that disgusting noise?”
Jaz threw up on the floor.
“Oh, hell. Get her outside,” the bartender yelled at the bouncer. Then she turned on the cook. “What’d you put in that burger?”
“Not a damn thing! She added bad crap to it. Stupid woman. Nothing wrong with what I cook. My food is damn good.”
When Jaz stumbled outside with a glass of water she swiped on the way, she heard the whole conversation. She wanted to laugh when the bartender quipped, “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it good.”
The cook cursed and yelled, banging something that sounded like his big meat cleaver against the stainless-steel counters.
Jaz threw up the rest and staggered to her feet. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth and washed away the bad taste with the water. Her words croaked out of her raw throat. “Tell the bartender I still feel sick. Clock me out. I can’t go back in there and smell food.”
Sighing and grumbling in the same breath, the bouncer went back inside.
Jaz waited until she heard him repeat her words, but instead he started complaining. “Dammit. Now we don’t even have someone to bus or clean up this garbage. I said you shouldn’t have let Thea off early.”
Thea had left?
Tossing the plastic cup down, Jaz took off around the end of the building, quietly working her way to the front. A rain shower from earlier had soaked the ground, which helped soften her steps. At the corner of the building, she could still hear those three going at it in the kitchen. The bartender had made last call already and the place would close in another ten minutes. They’d survive.
Thea might not.
She peeked around.
A hundred feet away, Thea walked between the two jackal shifters as they crossed from the parking lot and kept going. Her laughter bubbled up every few minutes. Whatever they said had her impressed.
Jaz followed the trio. She walked past cars parked closer and a large space of empty spots she’d bet had not been full at the time those two showed up.
Wouldn’t two high rollers have parked closer and avoided getting their boots dirty?
As Jaz closed the distance, Thea grumbled, “Why’d you park out here?”
“Don’t want to scratch my Maserati.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
Jaz rolled her eyes. That only made sense to a desperate woman drunk on the idea of being a movie star with lots of money.
Thea watched her footing with each step. “It’s just so muddy. I don’t want to get my shoes dirty.”
Mr. Tall and Hot jackal smoothly said, “I’ll buy you a new pair of Manolo Blahniks.”
Thea sighed a sickeningly sweet sound. “What a way to make a girl feel special.”
Jaz had heard about the expensive heels, but dressy shoes had never been part of her wardrobe. She preferred comfort and footwear she could easily kick off to shift.
The tall shifter’s sidekick said, “You have no idea just how special you are. We have big plans for you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Thea asked with coy interest.
“Sure. You’re gonna make us a lot of money.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Thea agreed. “You never gave me your name.”
“Tyrone.”
Thea cooed, “I like it.”
Once the group left the lighted parking lot, darkness closed in around them, but wolf and fox shifters had great night vision.
Tarski said, All wrong. This is bad.
Jaz agreed, but she couldn’t leave Thea or jump in too early only to find out there were more than two jackals.
Those were not Hollywood moguls.
They were supernatural predators.
When a white van came into view, they were all out of visual range of the bar where Jaz could hear cars leaving in the distance.
Jaz noticed the change in Thea from happy pheromones to a zing of anxiety. The woman stopped walking. “You’re in a van? Where’s your sexy ride?”
Mr. Tall and Hot, the one she’d called Josh, laughed, then grabbed her by the back of her neck and lifted her off the ground with one hand. She might be a woman, but she was also a shifter. He handled her as if she weighed no more than a human. Jackals were strong but come on. That was no grizzly bear shifter, which meant he could be juicing, probably Jugo Loco.
Thea clutched at his arms, making gurgling sounds and yanking to get away. She kicked her feet, slinging her shoes off in the process.
Tyrone said, “I’ll get the door, Josh,” then he stepped to the rear of the van.
Claws shot from Thea’s fingers and toes.
Josh pulled something from his pocket and jabbed Thea’s neck. Had to be a tranquilizer. She stopped shifting and fighting. Her arms fell slack and her garbled words ended on a whimper.
Jaz raced forward.
Two steps away, Josh jerked his head around.
She plowed into him at full speed, almost knocking herself out cold.
When he tossed Thea aside, she went sprawling onto the ground, face slapping mud. She didn’t move.
Jaz came up to her feet fast. So did Josh who dove at her.
She jumped away with the intention of leaping on his back when he fell.
The short shifter blindsided her first as he shifted into a jackal. He made a high screeching noise.
Jaz blasted an elbow into his head. Damn, that hurt, but his head snapped to the side. Hurt him, too.
She yanked the shirt over her head and shoved her pants off, calling up the change as she did.
Tyrone’s jackal came at her again, jaws turned to bite her throat. She fell backward and kicked him in the chest with her feet as he dropped down on her.
That sent him airborne for ten feet.
The jackal slammed into Josh still in human form. Josh had the driver’s door open and reached for something inside the door panel.
Fully shifted, Jaz’s wolf lunged at Josh as he pulled a pistol with a suppressor from the van.
Tarski locked her jaws on his wrist and crunched bone, sending the bullet off course. It hit his door panel and ricocheted back.
The titanium bullet struck Tarski in the shoulder, but her wolf held firm in spite of the burning pain.
Josh screamed and kicked Tarski in the face, breaking bone. The Tyrone jackal clamped Tarski’s hind leg in his jaws, dragging her backward.
Her wolf released Josh. His crushed wrist fell loose from his arm and hung by a piece of tendon.
Tarski whined. Nose bones hurt, but Jaz’s tough wolf rounded on Tyrone. She latched onto his ear and ripped it off.
The jackal released her, shaking his head and whining.
The van engine revved.
Tarski limped back a step, looking around for Josh. He slammed the door with his good hand and mud flew as he took off.
Where was Thea?
Still lying face down in the mud.
Was she suffocating?
When the van stopped fifty feet away, the Tyrone jackal spun around and went for Thea. He latched onto her arm and started dragging her.
In spite of broken bones, Tarski went after the jackal before he could get away with the comatose woman.
This time, Tarski had had enough and called up their energy.
When Tyrone’s animal dropped the woman’s arm and came at Tarski, Jaz’s wolf ran at the jackal. Injured, but powered up now, Tarski drove him into a barrel roll. Without any hesitation, she jumped on the jackal, ripping the animal apart. A front leg went flying to the side.
The van raced away.
Tarski clamped her jaws over the jackal’s throat and tore it free. She spit it out and howled in victory.
Jaz waited as her wolf healed her hind leg enough to put weight on it. She licked at her sore nose, which mended a little, but her wolf needed raw meat and rest. While Tarski did her best to patch up their body, Jaz commended her wolf on a fair fight and killing the jackal quickly.
Tarski said, Jackal too stupid to live.
Jaz smiled inside. Tarski had nothing for idiots.
Need bath, Tarski added.
Jaz promised, We will clean up soon.
When she shifted back to human form, Jaz limped to her clothes and dressed. She’d popped buttons on her shirt, so she had to tie the tails in front at her waist. Her shoulder burned and slowed their healing, but maybe it had passed through. Still, if Jaz pulled on their energy right now, she’d just waste the effort until she got the residual titanium out.
Digging that out would be tough based on the position where it stopped.
She hobbled over to Thea and rolled her over on her back. The woman coughed.
Jaz propped her hands on her knees, swamped with relief. Thea was alive! And breathing. Jaz checked her pulse. Strong. The woman would survive just fine and might not be so quick to behave like a star-struck teenage girl.
Glancing around, Jaz found her cosmetic bandage on the ground from when she’d shifted.
She touched her cheek out of reflex. She had to get a bandage back on her face pronto. That one was too wet to re-attach. First, she’d get Thea up and to her car. Maybe she had a first aid kit. She gave the bandage another look.
It might stick.
She took a step in that direction to find out for sure.
An odd blast of happiness rolled through her from Tarski who said, Wolf back.
Jaz looked up quickly and spun to search around her.
Adrian stood there.
Her heart leaped with joy for all of two seconds.
He stared at her with anger churning in his dark eyes. His hands fisted at his sides.
Why was he here? Now?
She could think of only one reason and bet it had to do with the law enforcement group he worked with.
