Her Wild Hero

He glanced at her hands, hoping to find a knife there and praying he was wrong about what she was. But she didn’t have any weapons. Unless you counted the wickedly sharp claws on each slender finger. And given the amount of blood in the room, those hands certainly qualified as weapons.

As if just realizing he was there, the woman lifted her head to look at him with glowing red eyes. She growled, baring her teeth and exposing some seriously long canines.

How the hell had a hybrid turned up in Tajikistan? More importantly, what the hell was he going to do with her?

“What the fuck is that thing?” the lieutenant asked hoarsely even as he raised his carbine and sighted in on the woman’s chest.

The woman growled again, louder this time, and crouched down on all fours, like she was getting ready to pounce on them.

Shit. Things were about to get ugly.

But instead of leaping at them, her eyes darted around, like she was looking for a way past them. Unfortunately, they were blocking her access to the doors and the windows, and she knew it. For some reason he couldn’t explain, Angelo suddenly didn’t see a hybrid monster like those he’d fought in Washington State and down in Costa Rica. He saw a woman who was scared as hell.

“Derek, get everyone outside and away from the building,” Angelo ordered softly, never taking his eyes off the woman. “We’re freaking her out.”

“Freaking her out.” Watson snorted. “Are you kidding me? She’s the one freaking me out.”

“Outside, LT,” Angelo ordered again, more firmly this time. “Trust me on this one.”

He knew the lieutenant wanted answers, but right now, he didn’t have time to give him any. Behind him, Derek was herding the officer toward the door.

“LT, remember when we told you that you’d be seeing some weird shit in the field that they never mentioned in school?” Derek asked. “Well, that weird shit just started. But trust Angelo. He knows what he’s doing. He’s dealt with these things before.”

Their voices faded as they moved outside.

The woman’s eyes followed Derek and Watson until they disappeared from sight, then slid to Angelo. He slowly lowered his weapon and carefully set it on the floor. Then he raised his hands and spoke softly in Tajik.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now. No one is going to hurt you.”

The red glow in her eyes flickered, then began to fade. Angelo let out the breath he’d been holding. Maybe he’d be able to get out of this situation without killing her. He couldn’t explain why that mattered to him all of a sudden. She was a hybrid and clearly out of control. Many might consider killing her to be a mercy, and the only sure way to keep her from killing again.

But from what he’d seen, the woman had a pretty good reason to attack those men. And more importantly, Angelo knew for a fact that not every hybrid was beyond reach. Tanner Howland from the Department of Covert Operations was one of those. Not only had the former Army Ranger learned how to control the rages that defined his kind, he’d learned to harness that rage to save a lot of people down in Costa Rica several months back. Angelo was pretty sure he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for that one particular hybrid. If Tanner could do it, who was he to say that this woman in front of him couldn’t get herself under control, too? She certainly seemed to be trying.

Angelo kept up his calm chatter, reassuring the woman that she was safe, and soon enough, her eyes turned to a normal, beautiful brown. There was still some anger there, but there was also confusion, maybe even hope.

Raised voices echoed outside, drowning out Angelo’s soft words. The villagers had worked up their courage and come looking for blood. The woman’s head snapped in that direction, and like a light switch being flipped, the veil of calmness that had descended on the female hybrid disappeared.

She tensed, and he watched her face as anger warred with what he could only describe as frustration mixed with honest-to-goodness fear. As each of those emotions appeared, her eyes changed from red to green to brown, over and over in a dizzying display like nothing he’d ever seen before.

But then, just as it seemed like she might have a chance, the internal struggle was over and the woman leaped at him.