Then the clearing erupted into gunfire as every mercenary positioned throughout the wide semicircle opened fire on the huge beast.
But Dallas was fast, shockingly fast for something so big, and he jumped over them all, sailing through the air before landing with a thud right next to Mel.
Her mouth was hanging open, her heart racing.
And she’d never been happier in her entire life to see a giant tiger right next to her.
“No time. Hop on.” Dallas’s voice was lower, growlier, but still distinctly him as he positioned himself between her and the mercenaries. Thankfully, he’d caught them so off guard that they didn’t seem to know how to respond. And as he lowered himself so Mel could grab the thick fur at his neck and throw one leg onto his big back, the air disappeared beneath them as he leaped again, bullets whizzing past them as he ducked for cover amongst a row of black SUVs.
Two men whirled around on the huge tiger, and with a single swipe of his paw, they went flying away.
“You came. You’re… a tiger! It’s all real!” she said, pitch rising as the incredulity of the situation she was in continued to unfold.
“Take cover in one of these cars and lock yourself inside. I’ll keep them busy until help arrives.”
“Help?”
“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said, nuzzling her with his huge snout, his whiskers tickling her arms and hands. “Mate.”
“They’re trying to capture a basilisk so they can unleash it on a city,” Mel blurted out, wanting to enjoy the tender moment but knowing there wasn’t time.
Bullets flitted by and smacked the ground and the vehicles around them, but the cars seemed quite bulletproof, thankfully.
“I’ll try to stop them. I love you,” he said, the words warming her from the inside out.
“I love you too,” she replied, not able to hold back.
And with a final nod, Dallas leaped off the ground again, and she immediately ducked into the nearest, safest-looking car.
And watched while a lone, giant tiger jumped in to take on a veritable army of people.
If they failed, then the whole world would be in danger.
But all she could worry about was the love of her life, putting himself in the gravest danger imaginable right now.
Please be safe, Dallas.
22
Dallas couldn’t believe what was going on right now.
The Blackhearts, every last one of them based on the sheer scale of this operation, were out here in Texas.
And hoping to catch a basilisk?
How was that even possible?
Dallas was happy that Mel was safe. Right now, that was all that mattered to him and his tiger.
He raced around the outside edge of the long crescent as dozens of guns fired upon him. But as a tiger, he was quicker than pretty much any other shifter, and his paws kicked up huge clods of dirt as he moved at full speed, drawing their attention away from Mel while he planned his next move.
Far off, in the center of the clearing, he could see a dozen or so people tussling with a man who seemed to be dressed in rags and covered in dirt.
Was that the basilisk?
He couldn’t reach them, though, not with a hundred people between him and the clearing, so he focused instead on taking out his closest targets and keeping them busy.
He ducked left, slamming a black sedan and sending it rolling through a group of armed shifters. Then he charged, swiping at anyone and everything his claws could connect with, tearing through the mercenaries as they ducked and screamed.
A hail of shots slammed into his side, and Dallas ran before the rest of the Blackhearts nearby could get a clear shot. The bullets stung like hell, and he could feel their poisoned tips—which had been made to hinder shifting and affect his supernatural healing—sizzling against his skin.
As a child, he’d been exposed to loads of toxins, pushing him to the brink of death in order to make him resistant to anything made by man or shifter, so they didn’t hurt him nearly bad enough to stop his rampaging, furious tiger.
After coming here, disrupting the peace of this Texas wilderness with their schemes and daring to threaten his mate, it was time Dallas settled the score with the people who’d created him.
He heard dozens of heavy footsteps behind him and looked over his shoulder to see several big cougars chasing him, some of the mercenaries turning into their animal forms in order to chase him.
They were in for a big surprise, trying to take on a tiger.
He kicked up a spray of dust just as the cougars ran straight through it in their eagerness to catch Dallas. Then, with a turn of his long body, he whirled on them, slashing and tearing through them as they blindly tried to swipe at something that was there in one instant, then gone the next. He ignored a flash of pain as one cougar got a lucky hit on him across his back leg, then continued to smash and claw and bite as stray bullets from people taking cover behind cars hit their own cougar allies.
Dallas ran for it again as the cougars spun in every direction, trying to keep up with the larger, faster, stronger foe. But to Dallas’s dismay, he spotted a small group of more cars, all black, driving over the short hill that led toward Parson’s Creek, probably reinforcements.
Then there was a howl, and a flash of white fur crested over the hill, chasing the vehicles at full speed.
Reno.
The wolf, as big as the SUVs themselves, threw his shoulder into one of them, sending it crashing and rolling. Then, as men appeared in the windows to try and shoot the incredibly fast wolf shifter, he slashed one of the front tires, and it careened out of control.
The last, he ducked behind, biting down on the rear bumper and dragging it to a halt before tossing it aside as men
