I wrapped one hand around the metal bar of one crutch. I might not be able to walk, but I’d built up enough muscle that I knew I could do some damage with it if I had to.
But I was relying on something else.
The fact that Rajesh Parikh was much bigger and meaner than either me or Mosby, wolf or no wolf.
Tigers, for the record, arehuge. Tiger shifters are huge-er.
There wasn’t even a fight, although several things, including me, ended up overturned on the floor.
Mosby lunged at Cabell and Hart, and Raj leaped out and flattened him with one gigantic paw, then closed massive jaws around Mosby’s throat.
The wolf immediately froze, whining.
“Good choice, dumbfuck,” Hart remarked, his tone completely casual, although it did not escape me that his gun was pointed at Mosby’s now-furry forehead.
“Holy shit,” was Cabell’s only comment.
Raj bared his teeth in a low growl.
“That, shithead, means that your pathetic ass is under arrest for attempting to assault a federal officer. Also your boss. Also Mays here. Oh, and the attempted murder of Elliot Crane.” He paused. “Anybody else I need to add to that list?”
14
Elliot Crane
Come see me today?
Seth Mays
If the doctor clears me to drive.
Hart busy?
Apparently when a local cop tries to eat your face, there is a lot of paperwork.
Imagine that.
When’s your doctor’s appointment?
As soon as they call me back.
I’m in the waiting room.
It wasanother twenty minutes before someone came in to check my knee, and fifteen after that I had a shiny—literally—new brace that actually let me bend my leg enough that I was given clearance to drive, especially because it was my left knee.
Not that I actually had a car.
Humbolt was helping me get the paperwork I needed from the Sheriff’s Department in order to file a claim on the FJ Cruiser as a total loss, which—in theory, anyway—would cover a replacement. Or part of one, anyway.
Humbolt had also joined forces with Gwen Walsh, Noah’s lawyer, to file a suit over the criminal destruction of property perpetrated by Deputy Mosby, who was currently under arrest and had been taken by Hart and Raj to the FBI’s Charlottesville offices. Walsh was also working on a motion to dismiss the charges against Noah based on police corruption of evidence and general incompetence. I really hoped it worked.
Hart had given me his keys when he’d left with Raj that morning, assuming I would be allowed to drive his precious Charger, with a dire warning that if his car got set on fire on the side of a highway, he was going to be really, really annoyed.
I used it to drive out to the house after texting Elliot that I was on my way.
I was looking forward to seeing him again. To updating him with all the satisfying details about Mosby’s ill-fated attempt to shift and attack… I wasn’t actually surewhohe was trying to attack. Me? Cabell? Hart? About the only thing that had been clear is that he wasn’t going after Raj, which meant he wasn’t entirely without brain cells.
I was thinking about Elliot, about what I wanted to say to him, the fact that I wanted to kiss him—well, I wanted to domorethan kiss him, but I was going to settle for that—and failed to notice that there were three people on the porch until I’d levered myself out of the driver’s seat with my crutches.
