Damn shifter senses.

“Your scent’s all over him, and even your shower can’t hide the fact that he’s been all over you.”

Az punched him. The shifter stumbled back and fell against the wall.

Jade grabbed Az’s arm. “Wait!” His muscles were rock hard beneath her touch. He started to shake her off. She just held him tighter. “Wait, Az.” Because the battle wasn’t just about her anymore.

I can’t let Brandt get Az.

“I want to hear what he has to say,” she told Az.

His jaw clenched and she knew he’d just prefer to beat the crap out of the guy. Tempting, but they needed to try another option first.

“Please,” she said, easing her hold so that she was stroking the tense muscles of Az’s arm. “Give him just a minute. If we don’t like what he says . . .”

Az inclined his head. “Then I’ll make him wish he’d never spoken.”

Sounded good to her. Jade glanced back at Tanner.

The shifter swallowed. “Brandt doesn’t realize you’ve been f**king yet,” he said as he pushed away from the wall, and Jade caught the hardening of Az’s jaw.

We haven’t, yet.

Temptation.

“But when he does, you know what Brandt will do.”

Brandt liked to play with his prey.

The cop’s head cocked to the side. “How much torture do you think you can stand?” He asked Az.

And Az smiled. “More than you can imagine.”

Tanner lifted up his shirt to reveal flesh that had been savaged. Long, twisting scars covered his stomach and swiped around to his back. With deep, old scars like that, he would’ve been injured long ago. Before his first change as a shifter.

He would have been just a child.

“Trust me, I can imagine a hell of a lot.” Tanner’s voice was a growl.

Unfortunately, she’d seen marks like that before. Brandt bore scars just like them. “You’re in Brandt’s pack.”

“No.” Tanner shook his head. “I was in the pack, until I was twelve years old, and I managed to get the hell away from Brandt and his old man.”

Because Brandt’s father had been the one to give Brandt the scars he carried. To prove I can handle any pain. Brandt’s voice whispered through her mind. He’d told her those words, the first time she’d seen the scars that marked his body.

Brandt’s bastard of a father had enjoyed torturing, and he’d passed that love on to his son.

“You understand,” Tanner said, staring at her with eyes that saw too much. “You know why I had to get away from them. I wasn’t gonna end up like those ass**les.”

Twisted. Broken.

Killers.

Jade lowered her gun.

Az frowned. “Just because he left, it doesn’t mean this guy isn’t like them.”

“I’m not. I got away from them,” Tanner said, anger roughening his voice. “And I stayed away. But then they came to my town—”

“Looking for me,” she finished. Brandt and his pack were based in northern Louisiana, but they’d headed down south to track her.

Tanner nodded. The badge on his uniform gleamed. “I almost had you in the Quarter. I was there when those bastards started firing at your . . . guardian.” His jaw tightened. “But I had to help the humans. I had to take care of them.”

“We didn’t need your help,” Az said. Right. Because he’d taken the bullets and kept on standing—and tossing around fire.

But Jade didn’t have the luxury of super strength. “What do you want?” She asked Tanner.

“I told you, I want to stop Dupre.”

But what was a cop’s definition of “stop”? “A cage isn’t going to hold him.” She tried to put it as delicately as she could. “You’re not going to be able to arrest the guy and—”

Tanner glanced down at his badge. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “I’m not looking to arrest him.” A pause. “I’m looking to kill Brandt Dupre, and any who follow him. The only way they’re gonna stop is if they can’t draw breath.”

A truth she knew too well.

“And you can help me,” he said. “We can work together, and we can kill the bastard.”

Been there, tried that. “He’s not exactly easy to kill.”

Az sent her a fast glance. “Anyone can die.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

“Look, we don’t have a lot of time to keep talking now.” Tanner swiped a hand down his face. The shifter was sweating. “About a dozen cops will be closing in on this place soon.”