Outfoxed: The Protectors Quick Bites, #5

By Keira Blackwood and Eva Knight

Fight or flight, she'll choose flight every time. 

Ravens are supposed to be intelligent, secretive, and high in creep-factor. Not to mention the whole loving shiny objects thing. 

Madison didn't get my PhD based on physical prowess. She can't speak much for the rest. 

She likes quiet. She likes order. She likes everything he's not. 

But when he runs into the darkness, she follows. She can't turn away.

Maybe she's lost her mind. Or maybe finding your mate means sometimes you can't turn tail and fly away. For love, you have to fight. 

 

 

Quick Bites—stand alone stories you can devour in a flash. Expect short, steamy shifter romance, edge-of-your-seat action, scorching love scenes, and a happily ever after.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paramour Press
• Release date: Apr 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393276470

Book preview

Introduction

Quick Bites—stand alone stories you can devour in a flash. Expect short, steamy shifter romance, edge-of-your-seat action, scorching love scenes, and a happily ever after.

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Chapter One

Madison

Immaculate, orderly, predictable—I liked my lab the way I liked my men. Or at least that was the dream. In reality, my dating life was non-existent, and a loathsome brown bear had completely wrecked the tranquility I worked so hard to maintain in my lab.

After two minutes of sharing my space with Neil, I was more than ready to see him leave. After being forced to tolerate the obnoxious slob for two weeks, my patience was worn so thin it was transparent.

Neil was big, rough, and took up too much space. He disrespected the system I kept in my lab by leaving equipment out long after he was finished using it. He piled beakers in the sink without cleaning them. He left crumbs from his lunch on the floor and countertops. I wished he’d return to his own lab in Tribunal Facility 6, halfway across the country, or just leave. Anywhere but here would be flippin’ fantastic.

But we were no closer to figuring out the purpose of this relic than we were when we’d started. And we were tasked to work together until we had a definitive answer.

All the tests show it’s not hazardous. Neil opened the containment box.

I, not wanting to risk my face melting off, backed the heck up.

Scared? His expression contorted in a wicked grin, like he actually enjoyed my discomfort.

We don’t know that it’s safe. We have no idea what the stone is capable of. Hand on the door, I kept my gaze locked on the clear box. Inside, the gray stone did appear unassuming. It was unusually flat and had perfectly round edges. We hadn’t been able to translate the runes on the surface, or determine which elements composed the stone. It didn’t belong on the periodic table, that was for sure. And it definitely shouldn’t come out of its box.

If it was harmful, we’d have seen some sort of effect on Jerry. Neil shook his head at me.

Jerry’s a rat. Not the same as—

Neil put on a glove and hovered his hand over the top of the containment box. I had to get out of here. I turned the handle and rushed out, shutting the door behind me.

Neil shot me a disapproving glare through the glass wall. Pussy. His grumbled insult carried through the speaker.

Practical and non-suicidal were more apt, but he could think what he wanted. He reached his hand in, and his rubber glove made contact. I flinched.

You’re not even going to watch? he asked.

I looked up at him. He held the stone in his hand, only the thin layer of rubber between his skin and the object. So far, no explosions, no melting, no screaming. Nothing.

Come back in. Neil approached the glass. It’s harmless. And you’re missing out on all kinds of data you could be collecting.

I can record your stupidity from here, thank you very much. I crossed my arms.

Suit yourself. He rolled the stone back and forth between his hands and traced the engraving with his thumb. "Sometimes you have to get in there and take a risk. One of us has to do it or we’ll both be stuck with each other forever. I don’t know about you, but give me excitement. Hell give me a garbage dump. I wish I was anywhere but stuck here with you."

Neil disappeared.

I blinked hard. I was staring right at his stupid face when he’d spoken, but he was just...gone. Poof.

Neil? I looked through the glass, all around the room. This had to be some kind of trick, right? He was hiding down on the...nope. He wasn’t on the floor. Also, he hadn’t exploded, so that was something. Better than the last relic I had identified.

But there on the white tile was the round gray disk.

Maybe it was a vaporizer of some sort. Or even a teleportation device. No, that should have activated on contact with Jerry the rat. Could it be bear shifter specific? I’d come across stranger things—a rod of invisibility, a ring that could force a shift, a universal language translator that only worked when held by a wolf shifter. The list of oddities that went through my lab was vast.

Whatever had happened to Neil, I couldn’t focus on him. My first priority had to be returning the artifact to its box.

I headed down the hall to the supply room and retrieved a grabber, the remote-controlled machine Neil should have been using to pick up the stone in the first place. It was a bulky box of a robot, with tank-like treads and a long tentacle arm on top. I’d just return the stone to the safety of its magic-proof container, deposit it into storage, and then I could figure out what had happened to that jerk Neil. Was it wrong to think of him negatively now that he was invisible, teleported away, or even dead? No, the possibilities didn’t make him less of a jerk. But no matter how much I didn’t care for him as a person, I still hoped he wasn’t dead.

The grabber was an extension of myself, and the robot arm gently, tentatively lifted the stone from the floor. The grabber didn’t vaporize, so being held by a living being could be required for activation. Or not. There was no obvious cause for the activation that had led Neil to disappear. It could have been random occurrence, a timer of sorts, or some other possibility I hadn’t yet determined. Whatever the reason the stone had activated before, it wasn’t doing the same now—so far, so good.

I pressed forward on the remote and the grabber moved to the case. I directed the claw down until it hovered just above the bottom of the case, then eased the metal fingers open. When nothing happened, I fully released the stone and moved the grabber away. Success!

Feeling confident my lab was once again safe, I opened the door and stepped inside. As the door clicked shut, a thought crossed through my