Reaper Awakened (Hellsgate # 2) - Mina Carter Page 0,2

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“Do you want to unleash a super werewolf on the town? We can’t deal with normal werewolves. How are we going to deal with something that’s packing more supernatural power?” John demanded, his grip tightening.

Shitshitshit.

Bile rose, and Troy closed his eyes for a second. John was right. He didn’t know how whatever Laney was would react to a lycan bite. All he knew was that she wasn’t human. Other than that, he didn’t know what the hell she was. She’d danced around the subject whenever he’d asked, and he hadn’t wanted to push, not wanting to ruin what they had.

But no intel was just as bad as crap intel. Both got people dead. Fast.

“Find her,” John urged, pushing him towards the door. “I’ll deal with this. Find her And put her down if you need to. It won’t be Laney anymore; you know that. The kindest thing you can do is put her out of her misery. We’re cops, Troy. Protect and serve, no matter what our feelings are on the matter.”

Troy’s grip firmed on the gun. He nodded, turning toward the door. He had to find out, and God damn his soul… he might have to kill the woman he was sure he was falling in love with.

* * *

The journey through town was short and sweet, but Troy didn’t see any of it. He’d defaulted to his training, heading back to her motel room. If she wasn’t there, he’d cycle through all the places she’d been seen and go from there. He was sure that no mortal police department would get a read on her if she didn’t want them to. Not with the way she could disappear like that or appear to be someone else. He wasn’t sure why he could see her, and from the surprise on her face when she’d explained it, she didn’t know why he could either.

The Shade is the place between life and death.

Her words came back to him. She’d said that witches walked the barriers between the worlds, and he knew there was a wrong side of the Shade, presumably death. But she’d also said that she’d been half in the Shade when he got the weird double versions of her.

“What the fuck are you, sweetheart?” he murmured, swinging his car into the parking lot of the motel. His breath punched out of his lungs in relief. A bike was outside an open door. His eyes widened as he pulled up to park. He’d never liked bikes much, he’d had too many friends killed by them, and this monster radiated danger, a murderous aura surrounding it.

He threw his car into park and killed the engine, out of the vehicle in a heartbeat. Skirting the big bike, he cast it a glance. Not parked neatly, it was sideways onto the door as if the rider had slid to a stop in a hurry. There were no keys in the ignition. On his quick pass, too eager to get inside, he couldn’t even see an ignition. It must be an electronic ignition.

Gun in hand, he shouldered the door open.

“Laney? Laney, are you in there? I’m coming in, sweetheart.”

He shouldn’t have given the warning; he knew that. She’d been bitten. He should have gone in hard and fast, ready to put her down. He couldn’t. Kicking himself for his idiocy, he stepped through the door, expecting to get taken off his feet any moment by a feral version of his girlfriend before she tore his throat out.

That thought stopped him dead just inside the doorway. The room was empty. Still. His mind wasn’t. Was Laney his girlfriend? Could he call her that when they’d never had that conversation? And where the fuck was she?

He cast a look around the room, gaze landing on the trail of clothes across the room. It led to the bathroom, her weapons belt right there outside the door. She was still here.

The sound of water made him frown, and he padded across the room on silent feet. Was she taking a bath? That made sense since she’d been covered in blood. He’d have wanted it off his skin as soon as possible as well.

He reached the doorway of the bathroom and froze. The scene within was not the one he’d expected. His mind had conjured up images of Laney in the shower, skin pink from where she’d scrubbed werewolf blood from her body. But she wasn’t, pink that was. Not from scrubbing or