Hit List(39)

“All I can tell you is that you carry the strain. I’ve never smelled a weretiger that smelled of four different colors, so I can’t tell you why you don’t have three shapes to go with it, but I can tell you it’s there.”

“You think that George sensed it, too, and when he had a chance to kill Ethan and not get caught, he took it,” Edward said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“If that’s true,” Ethan said, “then I’m dead. They are the greatest warriors, greatest assassins and spies that ever lived. I am so dead.”

He seemed oddly calm about it.

Edward and I exchanged a glance. I saw the slight frown of disapproval around his eyes, which let me know he wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but that he wasn’t going to say no, because he wasn’t sure it was a bad idea either.

“Then you stay with us, with me.”

Ethan raised eyebrows at that. “How does that keep me safe?”

Edward and I looked at him.

Ethan smiled, quick and surprised. “Are you saying that the two of you are better than all of us?”

I shrugged, not always the most comfortable thing in the shoulder holster. It made me have to resettle the straps with a shoulder movement that looked like what it was, adjusting a strap on a holster that wasn’t quite comfy.

“I think it’s more that Ted and I trust each other more than we trust a bunch of men we don’t know.”

“What she said.”

“You’re human,” Ethan said. “You saw what just one of these people did to a hallway full of weretigers. They’re trained guards, Anita.”

“They’re not as well trained as you are,” I said.

He shrugged, and had to do his own version of resettling the straps; without his own marshal Windbreaker it was very obvious. “The other guards wouldn’t agree with you.”

“You held your own with George. Hand to hand with him armed with a gun and a blade, and you kept him at bay.”

“He was toying with me, Anita. He was keeping me enough in the fight so my body was blocking your shot.”

“When did you figure that out?” I asked.

“When he had an opening for the knife and didn’t take it.”

“If you hadn’t sacrificed your arm to his knife and thrown yourself backward, I’d have never been able to shoot him.”

Edward motioned at the bandage on Ethan’s arm. “So you let him cut you, knowing it was a silver blade, and threw yourself back onto the floor so Anita could shoot him?”

Ethan nodded.

Edward gave a small smile. “You trusted her to shoot him before he could fall on you and finish you.”

Ethan nodded again.

Edward studied the other man. “You trusted that George was more worried about Anita shooting him than about killing you?”

“Yes,” Ethan said, and he was frowning now.

“Why?” Edward asked.

“Why what?”

“Why would you trust Anita that much? You’d just met her.”

Ethan frowned. He seemed to think about it for a moment or two. “Her reputation, and the fact that one of the greatest fighters to ever walk the face of the earth was that worried about her. He was that convinced that she would not only shoot him, but kill him. He was way more worried about her than me.”

“So you trusted that the bad guy had researched Anita, and if he was scared of her, then you’d trust her to be scary?”

Ethan thought about that for another moment or two. Then he nodded. “I guess so.”

“You decided all that in the middle of a fight,” Edward said.

“While healing a wound in his side,” I said.

Edward looked at me. “What?”

“When the bad guy made Alex go crazy with rage, he shoved Ethan into the machinery.”

“I got that,” Edward said.

“Did you also get that one of the broken pipes got shoved through Ethan’s side?”

Edward raised eyebrows just a little at that. “No.”

“He dragged himself off the pipe while I was trying to calm Alex.”

“Dragged himself off the pipe?” Edward said.

“Yep.”

Edward looked back at Ethan, and it was a considering look. He finally gave a small nod. “That’ll do.”

I smiled, because I knew what that meant.

Ethan frowned at both of us. “What’ll do?”

“You,” I said.

He frowned harder. “What?”

“You’ve passed inspection,” I said.

Ethan looked at Edward. “His inspection?”

“Our inspection,” Edward said.

He looked from one to the other of us. “You guys have worked together a long time.”

We glanced at each other and then back to Ethan. We both said, “Yes.”