Vixen (Dark Protectors #11.5) - Rebecca Zanetti Page 0,26
“I can smell the change in you. In you both.” He focused on Tabi. “How did you even know he was enhanced? I didn’t sense anything. Didn’t even know there were enhanced males around.”
She swallowed. “I couldn’t attack his mind, and he protected me from another attack.”
“So you just went and mated him?” Noah lowered his voice. “Are you nuts? There’s a reason we let enhanced human males die out.” He shifted his gaze to Evan. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Evan turned and started climbing the steps. “You two stay out here.”
Oh, she was not starting this matehood by taking orders. Tabi hustled after him. “Abby is not only my friend but my employee, and I am going to help her.” Even if she had to melt the minds of everyone inside.
Evan opened the door and leaned down, his gaze hot. “Don’t even think of attacking anybody. I will handle this. Got it?”
Man, he was bossy. She swept by him without answering, for the first time wondering what she’d gotten herself into. This time. “Hello.” She put every ounce of charm she owned into her smile at the lone uniformed officer behind the reception desk.
The man had to be in his early twenties with wiry blond hair and a smattering of freckles that went from his forehead down his scrawny neck. He gulped. “Hi. Um, hi. Can I, um, help you?” He sat straighter in his chair and put his narrow shoulders back.
She reached the desk and leaned over, tapping her nails on the wood. “Oh, I’m sure you can, Officer…Thomas.” She read his name and then focused on his eyes. “My friend was brought in here.”
He swallowed loudly. “Your friend?” The man sounded like he’d really like to be her friend, too.
“Yes,” she purred. “Abby Miller. Could I see her?”
The man turned red and breathed in. “Um, Abby Miller. Let me see. Um, I probably have a file here.”
Evan reached her side. “Jesus. Give the kid a break, would you?” He frowned at the officer. “Barry? The sheriff arrested somebody with a solid alibi, and her name is Abby Miller. I don’t want you to get in trouble, so sit here and talk to my girlfriend. I’ll be right back.”
Tabi’s head jerked. Girlfriend? He’d said the word with more than a hint of possessive warning to the officer. “I’m not the girlfriend type,” she retorted. She was a demon, for Pete’s sake.
Evan turned, pinning her with that unreal blue gaze. Was the blue rim around his iris darker than it had been before? His chest seemed broader, too. Although he’d been pretty damn muscled before the mating. “Oh, we’ll find the right term for you later, Tabitha. Right now, stay here.”
A threat and an order. She’d created a monster. So she smiled, lowering her chin, and gave him a full shot of charm. “No problem.” Then she winked at the furiously blushing cop. “Barry and I will just have a nice chat.”
Evan’s nostrils flared and he turned to stride past the desk to a wide wooden door, which he easily opened. Then he was gone.
Tabi lost the smile. Oh, that male had another think coming if he thought he was calling the shots. “Bye, Barry,” she said, turning toward the outside door.
“Wait,” Barry protested. “Evan said you should stay here and talk to me.”
She pushed open the door, smiling over her shoulder. “Evan should learn not to give orders.” Then she left the station and her new mate behind.
Jackass.
* * * *
Evan nodded at the few folks he liked and strode into the sheriff’s office, slamming the door with enough force to knock a framed painting of the sheriff and his pompous family off the wall. It fell to perch on one corner of the metal frame, teetering by a scratched file cabinet. Silence reigned outside the office, and it was telling that nobody tried to intervene. “I don’t think anybody likes you,” he observed, staring at the sheriff across his shiny desk.
The sheriff’s pudgy nostrils flared. “What the hell are you doing here? I fired you.” He stood, broad and beefy, with the window open to the quiet trees outside.
“You have one second to tell me where Abby Miller is before I call the press, Baker,” Evan said, leaning back against the door. “Not just the local press, either. Those big city reporters love a small town corruption story, now don’t they?” The place smelled like mothballs. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? “Where is she?”
Baker’s face turned a