Noah

“I’ll see you on Saturday then?”

“Of course,” she replied, tilting her head up to him and coming up on her toes as he bent over to kiss her goodbye, ensuring he did a thorough job of it.

“Good. I can’t wait.”

“Me neither. Thank you again for such a fun day. I haven’t been to the movies in forever.” She held a hand to her stomach. “Nor eaten that much popcorn and laughed so much.”

He just grinned, unable to say anything more, pleased beyond words to have made her so happy. It had taken a little questioning of Rachel to find something that she liked that he could surprise her with, but eventually he’d landed on the idea of a movie followed by a live comedy show. There was only the one in town, and he hadn’t expected much, but the performer had ended up being more than adequate.

“It’s been quite some time for me as well,” he said, kissing her one last time as he reached behind himself to open the door. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Can’t wait,” she said with a wink as he backed out of her unit.

Almost immediately the feeling hit him again, but he fought it aside, keeping his eyes trained on her. “Me neither. Goodbye.”

Angela gave him a tiny little wave and then slowly closed the door, keeping her eyes trained on him until the last moment when she shut it. There was a pause, and then the lock sounded from the inside.

Noah stood up and turned around, taking a deep, lung-filling breath as he paused warily, his eyes scanning everything within sight as he fought to keep his bear down. Now that Angela wasn’t around it wanted to come out. Not to play, but to destroy, to maim and kill, to annihilate whoever it was that had been watching them all day long.

He didn’t know if they were watching him, or if they were watching her, but he suspected it was the former. As a potential Cadian Intelligence agent, he was under suspicion by the original embassy guard. But he had also inadvertently revealed to the real agent that he had a woman in town. So it could be that the agent had followed him to learn more about her, and was going to pay her a visit when he left.

Noah had to find the watcher. Snow drifted down from the skies. It had slowly been picking up intensity all afternoon, but at a glacial rate. In another hour, perhaps, it might reach “storm” status, if it was lucky. For now it provided a helpful covering over the ground that he could use to trail anyone. If he could find them.

ENOUGH!

He snarled the mental command at his animal as it once more lunged for the surface, trying to take over. Noah couldn’t let it do such a thing. Shifting inside the town limits was extremely illegal, and could get him sent back to Cadia or worse, depending on what he did while in his bear form. Keeping himself under control was of the utmost importance at the moment, no matter how badly he needed to find the person watching him.

Moving forward, he decided to test whether the person was watching him, or Angela. He strode as calmly as possible down the gravel road that wound through the complex. With the onset of winter it was mostly covered in snow, but he could still feel stones crunching underfoot as his weight compacted the snow down.

The feeling vanished as he rounded the first corner, but it picked up again as he continued walking straight. Noah took a left and kept walking, heading toward the outskirts of the complex, as if he were headed back to the east part of town, to where the embassy was located. Again the sensation of being watched faltered, but picked back up.

I’ve got you now, he thought. They were tailing him, and that was a bad, bad idea. Noah was bigger and more ruthless than whoever it was that might be tailing him, and he was about to prove it. Nobody spied on him and got away with it. Cutting around what should have been his last corner, Noah sped ahead and ducked around to the right. He was now leaning against the wall of a building that faced the street he should have been crossing.

Now it became a waiting game.

He slowed his breathing and crouched down, trying his best to hide in the late afternoon shadows. His white shirt helped him blend in with the snow, and he hoped that the black of his pants and boots would be mistaken as shrubbery or something.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry. The sound came not from the pathway where he’d walked, but from above him. It wasn’t much. A shuffling of a foot that disrupted enough snow to come falling down in a pile three feet behind him. Noah looked up, going completely still.

Come on. Jump down already. You’re mine. I’m going to make you pay for—

Abruptly a face covered by white material and white ski-goggles peered over the ledge. It almost immediately latched on to him and then was gone, pulling back.

“Shit.” His follower must have realized Noah hadn’t gone into the park across the street. But now the chase was on. He exploded out of his crouch away from the building. Footsteps pounded on the roof above him and he followed them from the ground. The pair raced—one on the ground, one on the rooftops—as they headed for the next building.

As Noah watched, the unknown figure clad all in white leapt clear from one building to the next. Any doubt he may have had remaining that it wasn’t a shifter pursuing him went out the window in a flash.

He flexed his knees and used the gap between buildings as an opportunity to join the other shifter on the rooftop. He landed and slipped slightly as he sought grip. Once he found it he was off, bounding across the shingles, forcing himself to move faster than his opponent, closing the gap. Thirty feet separated them as they leapt from building to building. Then twenty-five. Twenty.

It was down to ten feet and Noah had just started his closing maneuver when they abruptly ran out of rooftop. This was the last building in line. The man in white, obviously prepared for just that situation, simply dropped over the edge. Noah, off balance and unaware, went over the edge as well, but in a flailing sort of motion that would have left him ridiculed by any who saw him.

He landed hard, rolling to his feet almost immediately and setting off in pursuit, but he’d lost precious ground, and now that they were back on more solid footing he couldn’t take more risks. His only hope was to run the man in white into the ground, or hope he made a mistake that Noah could take advantage of.

Snow flew up behind both men as they raced across the ground, across an open meadow, and then back toward the city itself. At one point the man in white simply lowered his head and bulled his way straight through a wood fence. Shards of wood flew into the air, showering Noah with the remains as he passed through the cloud. Angered now, he poured on the speed, attempting to close the gap.

Although his original plan had been to run his quarry into the ground if he couldn’t catch him, Noah slowly began to wonder if that would be a feasible plan. They kept up the running chase through the outskirts of the city, slowly working their way into the interior. More and more humans turned their heads as the two of them flew by, all but a blur to their unenhanced eyes.

Cars slammed on brakes and horns sounded with more regularity as the core of the sleepy little town was disrupted by their passage. Noah gritted his teeth but kept up the chase, unwilling to let up. Whoever it was, they had been following him all day, and he wasn’t about to let them get away with it.

Ahead the man in white put on a burst of speed and darted through an intersection. Noah lowered his head and went after him. It was only a sudden reflection of headlights on the falling snow that alerted him to his imminent danger. A mass of metal entered the intersection moments before him, and he snarled in anger, throwing on the brakes to stop himself before he collided with the cab of a tractor trailer.

His boot slipped on ice hidden underneath the snow and Noah whirled into a spin. The huge truck loomed closer and he knew he was going to hit it. He’d been going too fast, and now it was going to slam into him.

Not today, he growled to himself and flung his body to the side as the truck driver hammered on his horn. Noah flipped over onto his side, bounced once and then pushed himself into a hard roll that took him to the side, turning his forward momentum into a diagonal that sent him under the trailer. He came to a hard stop on his back, only to be greeted by the sight of the trailer’s rear wheels coming straight at his face.

“Shit,” he grunted and pulled himself clear of them with no more than a foot to spare.

Clear of danger, he took a moment to inhale sharply and exhale. That had been too close, even for his comfort. A quick glance at the street in front of him showed it to be empty of anything resembling the shifter he’d been after. He’d lost him.

“Fuck,” he said, cursing yet again. The bastard had somehow gotten the better of him.

Noah knew how he’d done it, too. He’d done everything to keep Noah’s attention on himself, focusing it narrower and narrower until he was no longer aware of his surroundings. Then he’d turned it on him so abruptly Noah had almost been caught in his deadly trap. Whoever he was, he was slippery, very good at evading pursuers. But he’d made a critical mistake, revealing just how good he was. Noah wouldn’t be followed again, he vowed, picking himself up from the ground and heading back to the embassy.

Mark my words, there will be another time. I will find you. You will lose.