Valentina watched as the woman in the video who was sitting with her back to Elijah casually dropped something in his drink while she flagged down the bartender. Nothing seemed to happen to the drink—it didn’t change color or bubble or anything like that—but she did notice that Elijah’s movements became more exaggerated, even on the grainy black and white video. His whole body seemed completely relaxed, which was the polar opposite to the body perched next to her on the desk. Every muscle in his body stood out in sharp relief through the thin fabric of his T-shirt.

She had kissed him.

What was she thinking? Oh yeah, that the strange, vicious yet dead eyes of the Reaper downstairs were creepy as all hell, and now he knew she was a shifter and what she looked like, not to mention what Elijah looked like. It wouldn’t be too hard to track either of them down, if he wanted to. She wanted to punch something. Going down there without any kind of mask or disguise was risky and careless. It seemed as if ever since Elijah had come into her life, her brain was too busy thinking about getting into his pants and not so much on the important things, like protecting herself and her pack from a Reaper.

A few minutes later, and the footage showed the woman who had spiked Elijah’s drink walking with him out of the bathroom area. His arm was thrown over her shoulder, and she held the hand that sat just above her breast and was leaning to the side as if she was supporting him with her own body. They moved awkwardly through the crowd, and when they got close to the door, a man took him off her hands. She pulled a phone from her pocket and watched the group where Elijah had been sitting. Once she saw one of his friends check their phone, she exited the building.

The security footage that showed the front door caught the edge of a white-paneled van waiting on the street just outside. Both the man and the woman helped get Elijah into the van before hopping in with him. The door slid shut, and the van drove away. They watched in silence for a few minutes after that, but it was clear nothing else was happening and that was all they were going to get.

“So, what now?” Elijah asked through gritted teeth.

“Well—” Valentina’s response was cut off when the door to the office banged open.

They both spun, only to find the Reaper running at them full tilt from the doorway. Elijah pushed off, and Valentina wanted to scream at him to stop, to get out of the way and let her handle it, but the man’s claws were already out, and when he slammed into the wall of muscle that was the Reaper, they both went down.

She rushed around the desk, her jaguar pushing at her skin, demanding to be part of the fight. A voice in the back of her mind warned her not to risk it. If the Reaper knew what kinds of animals he was dealing with, he might have a little something extra to hurt a cat or a bear or whatever. Rule number one drilled into her by her mother was to always keep her animal safe. If she did, her cat would do the same. There was nothing more dangerous than a smart Reaper who knew exactly what he or she was hunting.

Elijah’s howl of pain drew her gaze to where a patch of red was seeping through his T-shirt. Before she could stop him or say anything, his panther suddenly took over, the sleek black fur masking the wound the Reaper had given him.

“Cat, huh?” the Reaper said as he got to his feet. “You, too?” he asked, looking at Valentina.

Her brain was blank, more focused on Elijah than on the question the Reaper had asked. He hadn’t gone on the offensive when the panther emerged, which surprised her. She looked at his stance and positioning and realized that he was protecting her. The glint of silver in the Reaper’s hand drew her attention away and stoked the flames of her anger. Where the hell had he gotten a weapon? Had the guard missed it? Or had the Reaper killed the guard and taken the weapon from his lifeless body? Her brain was flooded with questions while her body urged her to shift.

The Reaper began tossing the blade from hand to hand as he looked for a way to either attack or get around the panther. Valentina knew that either they needed to move around him so that at least one of them could get out, or they needed to attack. They were leaving when he was either unconscious or dead, not before. With a flick of his wrist, the blade flew through the air and lodged itself in Valentina’s shoulder before she could react.

She roared in pain as the silver and wolfsbane burned her both inside and out. The jaguar within couldn’t wait anymore and forced itself out, expelling the knife during the shift. She heard the metal clang onto the floor as it hit milliseconds before her paws did. The carpet was itchy on the pads of her paws, and the whole room smelled wrong, full of cleaner and sweat, fear and anger. A vicious roar ripped out of her throat, and she could almost hear the windows at the front of the building rattling from the force of the noise. It was a scream in her own ears, and she saw Elijah hunker down closer to the floor while the Reaper visibly flinched and seemed to be questioning his decisions.

As she leaped into the air, the man’s eyes widened. She sailed over Elijah and landed directly in front of the Reaper, her lips peeling back from her fangs as she showed him exactly what a true blood alpha looked like. She was bigger than a regular jaguar, and in her humble opinion, her coat was more beautiful. Plus, her fangs were longer and she was able to stay in control through the whole shift if she wanted to. In that moment, she wanted to let her human mind fade away, to become solely cat, an alpha who had a packmate and her territory threatened. She knew it wouldn’t go well if she did, though. Cleaning up a dead body was different from glossing over the events and telling a few servers that the police were handling it.

She moved closer and closer to him. The saliva dripping off her fangs was no doubt terrifying, but he seemed to be gaining his composure, and she couldn’t have that. Valentina lunged forward, raising up onto her hind legs, and though she had wanted to stay in control, it seemed her cat had other ideas. Her claws scraped down the man’s torso, leaving ribbons of blood in their wake.

Elijah snarled behind her, and she backed down from flat out killing the man, which she could have done quite easily since her attack had apparently shocked him. It made her wonder how long he had been a Reaper.

When she saw his hand go behind his back, she lunged again. This time, her claws weren’t out to do damage, not that they still wouldn’t hurt him, but she wouldn’t dig them in. All she wanted to do was get him on the floor again. Once he was there, she knew they could take him, knock him out somehow and be on their way. She hadn’t counted on the blade suddenly protruding from the toe of his boot. He kicked up and caught the side of her hip, slicing through her fur and the skin underneath so her blood scented the air.

Elijah was next to her then, pushing her back with his shoulder before he jumped and landed on all four feet on the man’s torso, bringing him to the ground once more. Valentina bit his leg, feeling the bone crush between her teeth and the hot coppery blood coat her tongue. His blood burned her mouth, making her cough and choke. The pale green eyes of Elijah’s panther found her own, and she could see the question in them.

If they were mated, he would be able to sense that she wasn’t in mortal danger, and that he should avoid spilling the Reaper’s blood with his teeth. If they were mated? What kind of thought was that to be having when they were in the middle of defending themselves from an attacker?

While they had been distracted, the man had pulled another knife from somewhere. It was like he was full of tiny compartments, and each one contained a weapon. Before she could alert Elijah, who was still watching her, the man sliced the knife across his side. A roar of agony filled the air, and her jaguar roared in response, locking her out as it dove for the man’s neck. Her jaw closed around the soft, pliable skin of his throat and squeezed. She felt him stab her with the knife, but her jaguar was almost completely out of her control. It was only because she was fighting tooth and nail to stop her from crushing the man’s windpipe that he wasn’t dead already.

A wide black head appeared in her line of vision on the other side of her almost-kill. Her cat’s first instinct was to protect its kill, like it would in the wild, but this wasn’t the wild. This was a meeting room, and she was a human. She slowly forced her cat to back down and release the man’s throat, thinking that was what Elijah wanted her to do.

As soon as her head was far enough away, his paw flashed in front of her vision and blood sprayed over them both as he slashed the Reaper’s throat. A gurgle sounded from his throat, making her stomach turn. Everything about today had gone sideways, and now, seeing the amount of blood covering the carpet, she would need to call the cleaners again for their services, not just to let them know that one of their own was dead or missing.

They both sat there for a moment, staring at each other, and then Valentina turned and walked to the top of the stairs, scenting the air coming up from the basement area. The coppery sweet smell of blood quickly wound its way into her nose, followed by the sour stench of death, and she knew that the guard wasn’t missing at all. It had been a silly hope, but one she had clung to while they were fighting the Reaper.

She turned back to see Elijah still standing over the body. This was probably the first time he’d experienced death in such a way, and the first time he’d been the cause. It wasn’t the first time for her; hell, it wasn’t even the twentieth. He was strong, and she knew he would adapt, but part of her cried over the innocence he had just lost. She padded back over to him, carefully moving around the body, and nudged at him with her nose until he began to move.

When they got to the front doors, she pushed herself up so she could scrape the lock with her claws until it turned. As soon as it did, the doors gave way and a blast of fresh air hit them both, cleaning the blood and death from their nostrils.

She growled quietly at Elijah as he turned toward the car, and motioned with her head that she wanted to go a different way. Reluctantly, he followed. After what he had just experienced, she needed to show him the joy of being a shifter, of feeling one with the animal that lived within each of them as they ran, so she took off, looking over her shoulder at first to make sure he was following.

Elijah didn’t miss a beat. He was on the path she laid down, right behind her. Their paws pounded over the cement and tarmac until they reached lush green grass, and the two of them dove headfirst into the trees.