bedroom.
The four men who had tried to abduct her earlier were back. Even as fear kicked in and her heart rate soared, she took a moment to notice all over again the weirdness of their similarity to each other. She had fought them; she knew they weren’t in disguise. They didn’t just look alike. They were identical. Were they quadruplets? Clones? She swallowed hard. Was it possible that they weren’t human?
Unsure where that last thought had come from, she snaked out a hand for the cell phone on her bedside table. Khan was going to need help after all.
“Don’t call security.” Khan’s voice was like a whiplash. He was half-turned away from her, but he must have seen the movement out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve got this.”
One of the men was already bleeding hard from a cut across his cheek. Did Khan have a knife? Sarange couldn’t see anything in his hand. She remembered when Khan had burst into the house earlier. Marco had tried to stop him from seeing her and had suffered scratches to his face as a result. The wound on this intruder’s face was too deep to have been caused by fingernails...
She slid from the bed, trying to scour the room for something she could use as a weapon while also keeping her eyes on Khan. The four men began to circle Khan, their manner predatory. She didn’t like the matching smiles on their faces. It looked too much like they were snarling.
One of the men lunged and Khan was on him in a blur of movement, fighting like a wild animal. He didn’t adopt a conventional style. Feet, fists, teeth and nails all went into the attack. His opponent went down fast under the onslaught.
The other intruders joined in, leaping on Khan. As incredible as it seemed, he kept going without pause. Swinging, slashing, powering into them. It was like watching a giant beast taking on a group of lesser creatures.
But something was happening. As if acting on an unseen signal, the four men were changing. It was swift and subtle. One second their human bodies were being tossed around by Khan as they attempted to bring him down onto the expensive cream-and-rose rug. The next, their facial features had elongated. In place of a nose, they each had a snout. Instead of a mouth, they had huge jaws with sharp snapping teeth. Their limbs stretched, becoming lithe and muscular. As they shook off the remains of their clothing, Sarange saw thick brown fur covering their bodies. A new scent pervaded the air. Like animal fur and carrion, it reminded her that she wasn’t dreaming.
Wolves? Sarange shook her head in an attempt to clear it. These were no ordinary wolves. There are four werewolves in my bedroom.
As if in confirmation of that thought, one of them threw back his head and gave a single, triumphant howl.
Even as she tried to process why four werewolves had come for her and tried to abduct her, Sarange’s thoughts were on Khan. This took the danger to a whole new level. He might have been able to fight four men—although that must have taken some kind of superhuman strength—but this? Four sets of lethal canines trying to rip out his throat? Four sets of claws aimed at his belly?
Khan didn’t seem concerned. On the contrary, he was smiling as he faced the werewolf pack.
And...oh, my goodness. This can’t be happening.
Yet somehow she knew it was going to happen. The transformation was over in the blink of an eye. Khan’s clothing burst apart. Beneath the remaining shreds there was brilliant orange fur slashed across with diagonal stripes, each as thick, black and straight as a hand-drawn charcoal line. In his place, a giant tiger reared on its hind legs, lips drawn back in a snarl that revealed white fangs almost as wide as Sarange’s wrist.
The attitude of the werewolves changed in an instant from aggression to fear. Whimpering, they abased themselves, pressing their bellies into the floor and flattening their ears.
Khan dropped onto all fours. Even by the dim light provided by the moon and the lamp, Sarange could see the ripple of pure muscle beneath his thick pelt. And why am I noticing his muscles when there is a tiger in my bedroom? A tiger in place of the man who had his arm around me minutes ago?
The sound that filled the room was a soft, echoing rumble of pure menace. Originating in the depths of the tiger’s deep chest, it shook every part of Sarange’s body, even though she knew it wasn’t intended for her.
How do I know that? How do I know he’s not going to turn on me once he’s finished with those werewolves?
The answer was simple. He was Khan. And he was hers.
At the sound of the tiger’s growl, the wolves scrambled into action. Heading for the open doors, they couldn’t scramble over the balcony rail fast enough. Khan followed them, his movements deceptive. That big body appeared to barely expend any energy, but he covered the space between him and the werewolves in double time, staying just behind them.
As Khan sprang from the balcony, Sarange ran to see what was going on. From her vantage point, she watched as the security lights below, triggered by movement, came on. The alarm remained silent, and she guessed the intruders must have disabled it and the security cameras before they broke in.
Below her, the elegant patio resembled a scene from a movie, as four werewolves crouched behind deck furniture to avoid the prowling tiger. Eventually, they broke free and headed across the lawn toward the pool. Khan was after them in a bound. The last view Sarange had was when he caught up with them on the extreme edge of her property.
With a shaky exhale, she turned on the lights and sat on the bed, waiting for his return. Because he would return. And when he did, he had some explaining to do.
Khan knew the werewolves wouldn’t be able to outrun him. He’d never come across another shifter that could match him for speed. The problem was, once the werewolves leaped over the perimeter wall surrounding Sarange’s property, they did exactly what he expected them to. They split up and ran in four different directions.
Wolf instincts. He could never understand it. They would sacrifice one for the sake of the pack.
Khan’s inner tiger was prompting him to kill, but his human senses were urging caution. He could catch one of the werewolves, but forcing the guy to shift back and start talking? That needed privacy and time. And a tiger in the heart of Beverly Hills didn’t have the luxury of either of those things. He faced a choice. Risk bringing chaos and carnage into the heart of the human world, or let the werewolves go.
The two halves of his psyche went to war. While his tiger was pushing him to hunt and kill, his human was arguing for restraint. Because he was in tiger form, it would be easy to go with the voice of his inner animal. His tiger instincts were strong, but he fought them. Reluctantly. Now was not the time. This was definitely not the place.
The werewolves had been given a powerful warning. They knew what they were dealing with. They would be back—tenacity was one of wolves’ strongest traits—but Khan would be ready for them.
With a feeling of resignation—a tiger always knew when to give up the hunt—he turned back toward Sarange’s house. He should shift back before he was seen. That way, his only problem would be that he was a naked man in the heart of Beverly Hills. That, and the fact that he needed to talk to Sarange about what she had just witnessed. He had hoped to ease her in gently to his shifter status. The werewolves had taken that opportunity away from him.
Shifting
