Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(31)

But when she reached the group, he wasn’t there. And there was no way a man his and Tighe’s size could easily hide. She took off around the corner, but could see no sign of him, so she kept running. By the time she was three-quarters of the way around the apartment complex, her lungs felt like they’d been rubbed raw with gravel.

She doubled over, coughing, desperately trying to catch her breath. She’d lost him. How in the world had she lost a man who had to be over six-six? Did he go back inside? Or was he long gone by now?

Pushing herself to keep going, she rounded the corner to find the street clogging with fire trucks, police cars, and two SWAT vans.

The gang’s all here.

Except Tighe’s twin had almost certainly escaped. Tighe was the only one they’d get. But he had to be apprehended. They had to figure out who he was, who he worked for, and what he knew.

She knew that, accepted it. She was an FBI agent, first and foremost. Her loyalty was to the Bureau alone.

But she couldn’t help feeling the sick guilt of betrayal.

Tighe raced down the smoky hallway, alive with the screech of smoke alarms, to apartment 431. Inserting the key, he pushed open the door to the sound of a child’s coughing and crying.

“Come, little one,” he called softly in a voice he’d once reserved for Amalie alone. “I’ll take you to your mother.”

A small shape flew across the floor to him and he swept her into his arms. Not Amalie. Black hair, not blond. Dark skin, not pale. Not Amalie.

But as her small arms wrapped around his neck he was swamped by memories of sweetness and loss. Not in six hundred years had he held a child in his arms.

Cradling the small, coughing body against him, he ran for the stairs as pain that he’d thought long buried swept over him in a blinding torrent.

He barely noticed the stairwell flying past until he heard a woman’s glad cry echoing from below.

“Jensie! Baby!”

The little girl stirred in his arms and began to cry. “Momma.” Her cry dissolved into a fit of coughing.

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. So sorry.” The woman had stopped halfway down the final flight of stairs.

“Get outside!” Tighe called to her. “We’re right behind you.”

Through the front windows of the apartment building, Tighe could see the flashing lights of fire trucks, yet the firefighters had yet to race into the building. What was taking them so damn long? What if there were others trapped like this child had been?

Thunder. Since when did he care what happened to humans?

The hobbling woman finally reached the lobby and made her way to the front door, Tighe and the child close behind her. The moment they were outside, the woman held out her arms. Tighe had to force himself to release the little girl, but he did, allowing her to dive into her mother’s arms.

“Thank you.” The woman’s eyes shone with tears. “You’re an angel.”

Tighe nodded, uncomfortable with the praise and still reeling from the barrage of raw, painful memories.

Tighe. Look out!

Hawke’s voice sounded in his head at the same instant his warrior’s instincts caught the quick, furtive movements and the glint of metal.

“Freeze! FBI!”

The child had distracted him. He’d walked right into a trap. A trap set, no doubt, by a woman with dark fathomless eyes.

Six armed SWAT members ran at him from both sides.

“Hands in the air!”

Behind the men, he saw her. Delaney stood, watching him, her jaw set, a plea in her eyes. To what? Forgive her? Give up? Like hell.

The last thing he could afford to do was get trapped by human law enforcement. He turned and ran back into the smoky building as two shots rang out behind him. One hit him in the thigh. The other went straight through his heart.

Jesus. He’d survive it. If he could get to a healer…in time.

He stumbled down the hall and fell through the first open doorway, shifting into his tiger. No. He couldn’t remain a tiger.

Hawke. I’m heart-shot.

Where are you?

First-floor apartment. Second or third on the right. Not sure. Fading fast, buddy.

We’ll get you. Hang on.

Using what strength he could gather, he managed to change his form once more, to that of a house cat. He lay there, his feline eyes glazed, his chest on fire from the gunshot, yet aching in an entirely different way.

Amalie’s tear-streaked face faded to be replaced by the face of another female, a woman with hard warrior’s eyes. She’d slept in his lap and said she was beginning to trust him, yet clearly she never really had. He’d known it. He’d been a fool to turn his back on her.

She’d won this battle, but the war between them was far from over.

If he lived long enough to fight another day.

Delaney clutched her chest as she watched the blood bloom on Tighe’s retreating back, right at the level of his heart.

Blast it. Blast it.

He shouldn’t have run!

Blast it, Tighe.

“Was he the one?” Phil asked, coming to stand beside her.

“He wasn’t the killer, but the brother. The killer may still be inside, though he’s probably long gone.”

“We’ve got the building surrounded. The fire will flush him soon enough if he’s still in there. As soon as we haul the brother out, we’re letting the fire department in, or they’ll never get the blaze contained.”