Primal Passions(5)

“I shot that one in the stomach. Even if he’s not dead yet, he’ll bleed out before too long,” Jacyn babbled, his eyes going from fearful to the glassy look one gets when they’re shutting down. “If he does survive, then he’ll die from secondary infection. The first one you hit with your sword, you cut him in a major artery. I think he’s already bled to death. As for the second—”

“Snap out of it!” Logan growled as he pointed to one of the Ravens. “Does it look like he’s out for the count?”

The Raven Jacyn had shot stumbled to his feet. The blood continued to pump out of the wound and drip to the floor. The bright red drops making loud smacking sounds as they hit the ground. “Ouch.” The Raven grinned, his teeth bloodstained. “The kitty stung me a bit.”

“No! No! No!” Jacyn shook his head, his eyes so wide with fear they looked ready to bug out of his head. To his credit, he didn’t drop the gun in shock. Instead, he leveled it on the Raven again. “There is no way you should be talking, let alone standing.”

Before the Raven could respond, Logan pulled out a throwing dagger and launched it, burying it up to the hilt in the Raven’s throat.

The male let out a gurgled protest as he brought his hands up to claw at the weapon.

“It’s time to leave,” Logan ordered.

This time Jacyn obeyed, running at a breakneck pace as he followed Logan out of the remains of the store. A burst of gunfire behind them told him one or more of the other Ravens were up and kicking again.

They ran to the parking lot and Logan reached out to grab Jacyn before the paramedic tried to take off. Just as his fingers were closing around the male’s wrist, half a dozen dark shadows came from the sky. Larger than their regular animal counterparts, Raven shifters were the size of a large dog and they were ten times as mean. They swooped down and just before their claws touched the ground, they shifted to human form.

“This is not happening,” Jacyn stammered under his breath.

His eyes were wide and wild and Logan knew he’d lost him.

“I’m just stuck in one of my crazy nightmares again.”

Logan brought up his sword to fight back, but several of the Ravens shot at once. They aimed all of the guns at him and not Jacyn, so it was Logan who took a couple of hits. His body jerked from side to side before he felt his legs give out from under him. He landed face down on the hard, cracked asphalt.

The sounds of Jacyn’s yells hit Logan’s ears and he craned his head up enough to see three Ravens lift the paramedic off the ground. Even though he fought and cussed for all he was worth, they still managed to get him over to the ambulance. The Glock he had been holding was a few feet from Logan on the ground.

Logan snarled, outraged, the jaguar in him fighting to get out. A strange surge of protectiveness that he’d never felt toward another went through him. It took every bit of self-control he possessed not to give into instinct and shift right then. He fought it since he was out in public. It would be damn hard to explain a huge jungle cat walking down the streets, even in LA.

The Ravens were shoving Jacyn into the back of the ambulance, one of them pausing long enough to give Logan the finger. Then another loud snarl came, only this time it came from inside the ambulance. The vehicle shook back and forth and the sounds of screams and yells echoed through the night. There was another snarl—the sound of the unmistakable pitch of a jaguar. The eyes of the bird-flipping Raven were so huge they nearly bugged out from his pale face before he jumped into the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors closed.

“Not a good time to have your first shift, Jacyn,” Logan muttered under his breath as he watched the ambulance race away. He tried to get back up so he could chase it, but his knees gave out and he landed heavily on his ass. To make things even better for his crap hole of a day, it started to rain. Hard.

“Fuck!” he yelled. A sense of panic hit him at the thought of his jaguar being at the mercy of their enemies.

My jaguar? Now where in the hell did that thought come from? He’s a mission, nothing more. Cocking his head to the side, he picked up the distinct sound of sirens coming. Lots of them. And from the sounds of it, company wasn’t far off, with him being right in the middle of a warzone and carrying some weapons that would never be legal in this country.

Biting his bottom lip to keep from crying out, he managed to get to his feet. It was hard going and hurt like hell, but he somehow staggered back to the abandoned house that he’d been hiding beside earlier. If anyone in the surrounding houses saw him, they didn’t offer to help. But then again in this neighborhood, they all tended to duck for cover and stay away from the windows when they heard gunfire.