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But here’s the thing about Jekylls.
Our Hydes aren’t the only ones people should fear.
A dark figure slams my back into the alley wall. “You thought you could kill one of us and we wouldn’t track you down, bitch?” Saints Cap Guy glares at me, his arm pinning me to the brick. “You’re going to wish you’d left us the fuck alone.”
Oh, so he’s another trader.
Good.
Twisted words from one of my favorite old tongues spills from my lips, amplifying what I’m about to do. Electricity tangles in my veins, and in my mind, Creepy starts to cackle.
Smoky mist rises around me, glowing as bright as the pink streaks in my hair. It reflects in the widening eyes of the trader and casts a savage neon-bubblegum light on his pockmarked skin.
I’ve always loved that color.
“Back off.” My command sends him stumbling backward. He trips and falls to the ground. My legs aren’t steady, and the drug is still fighting me hard, but while the world spins around me, I brace one hand on the wall and extend the other toward him. “Now d?—”
A gunshot cracks the air. Pain explodes through my thigh, shattering my concentration and sending me crashing to the ground. My hand grabs my leg on instinct, and blood squelches under my palm as my nerves scream.
Saints Cap Guy shoves away from the ground and stalks toward me, glaring down at where I lie on the filthy concrete. “You’re going to pay for that, bitch. Wounded or not, plenty of people will pay top dollar to chop up a Jekyll and Hyde.”
Oh, fuck that.
I let Creepy loose.
Chapter 4
Zeb
That didn’t go the way I planned.
Admittedly, my plan was more like a gobsmacked fantasy that even had Ghastly reeling, and it had only come into being in the three minutes since I caught sight of Mabel, which is not remotely the methodical and organized way by which I ordinarily like to do things.
But… dammit.
Keeping my expression politely confused, like any other guy who’d just seen a pretty girl inexplicably pull a runner, I turn a baffled look on Mabel’s friend, Tamira. With any luck, the shifter woman won’t detect a scent or flinch that might give away the fact my expression in no way reflects how I really feel.
Which is like I want to climb over the table, chase Mabel down, and wrap myself around her right this instant. I wouldn’t even need to let Ghastly out.
My Hyde snarls in protest inside my head, and absently, I send soothing feelings toward him while I try to come up with Plan B. Of course I would actually let him out. Eventually. When Mabel was ready. And when we were sure we could control ourselves.
Because of all of us here, Ghastly and I are the ones who could break her.
The thought makes my Hyde recoil. He’d sooner die than harm her.
But gods, he wants her now.
Beside me, a tiny quiver goes through Phineas, but otherwise he doesn’t move. It’s a testimony to the level of self-control he’s perfected, given that Beastly is probably staging a riot underneath his skin. He’s been quiet all day, ever since we discovered our quarry had already been killed, and for the first time, I wonder if Mabel is why.
Did she take care of the trader? Had Phineas smelled her there too?
I exhale slowly. With the need and longing rioting through me, I have no question she’s a Jekyll like us, which means she’s also got a Hyde. And if that side of her had been there, if she’d taken care of that bastard, it would explain a lot.
“Um, sorry,” Tamira says with a confused look toward where her friend has disappeared. “Not sure what that’s about.”
I shrug, chuckling and then wincing internally at how strained I sound. I have more control than this. Years of training from my parents, to say nothing of work and school and everything after that, have made my calm, cool mask practically second nature.
I don’t want any masks with Mabel.
