Free Raphael | Parish by Alexandra Ivy, Laura Wright

her tracks. “Go.”
    Waiting until she’d disappeared into the thick foliage, Raphael slowly turned, concentrating on the human male he could sense hiding behind the narrow trunk of a tupelo tree.
    “Come out of the shadows and face me like a man, you spineless coward,” he taunted, oddly unnerved by the pharmaceutical barrier that separated him from his cat.
    Although he couldn’t shift while away from his homelands—well, until Ashe had crashed into his life—he was always in touch with his inner animal.
    To be cut off from that connection was like missing a limb.
    Someone was going to pay.
    In blood.
    That someone stepped from behind the tree, revealing an average-sized man dressed in camo fatigues, with his hair buzzed in a military cut.
    Not that Raphael believed for a second the stranger was a part of the armed services.
    He’d secretly traveled the globe to meet with world leaders. He easily recognized the crisp movements and precise bearing that marked a trained soldier.
    This yokel was a bully who’d been given a gun and the illusion of power.
    “I don’t fear an animal,” the man mocked, his square face and beady eyes revealing a confidence that came from his mistaken belief that the gun he clutched in his fingers gave him the upper hand.
    “Good.” Raphael moved forward, a taunting smile curving his lips. “Then let’s do this thing.”
    G.I. Joe Wannabe frowned, glancing over Raphael’s shoulder. “Where’s the female?”
    Raphael prowled steadily forward. The idiot didn’t even realize his danger.
    “Why?”
    “She has to die.”
    Raphael halted, a ball of dread lodged in the pit of his stomach.
    It was one thing to suspect the strangers were after Ashe, and another to have it confirmed.
    He battled back the red haze that demanded blood and tearing flesh and crunching bones.
    Before he ripped the bastard apart he needed information.
    “Because she carries my child?”
    “Because she carries the magic.”
    “Magic?” He frowned, baffled by the unexpected words. “What magic?”
    The man narrowed his gaze, belatedly realizing he’d given away more than he intended.
    “I’ll find her.” He lifted the gun. “But first I intend to rid the world of an abomination.”
    He squeezed the trigger at the same instant that Raphael leaped forward.
    It shouldn’t have been a contest.
    Raphael was bigger, stronger, and infinitely better trained.
    But whatever drug was coursing through his body had done more than put his cat to sleep. His movements were awkward, lethargic.
    He slammed into the bastard even as the bullet sliced through his upper shoulder. Pain seared through him, but wrapping his arms around the man, Raphael drove him into the ground, landing on top of him.
    He knocked aside the gun, wrapping his fingers around the man’s thick throat.
    “Who sent you to kill Ashe?”
    The man laughed, the fetid stench of ‘wrongness’ intensifying.
    “This is bigger than you,” he choked out, his eyes simmering with the madness of a true fanatic. “This is bigger than all of us.”
    Raphael tightened his grip, battling back the growing weakness that threatened his survival.
    “Tell me who sent you, dammit,” he roared.
    Without warning the man jerked his upper body off the ground, smashing his forehead into Raphael’s with enough force to make him see stars.
    Giving a shake of his head, Raphael suddenly found himself being rolled onto his back, the man holding him down as he reached for the gun that lay a few feet away.
    Oh…hell.
    Raphael wanted answers, but the combination of the unknown poison and the blood loss from his wound was taking its toll.
    If he didn’t kill the man quickly, he was the one who was going to end up in a soggy grave.
    Clearing his double vision, Raphael bared his teeth. He was going to rip off the man’s head and feed it to the gators.
    The satisfying thought had barely formed in his mind when he caught a familiar scent and his heart forgot how to