Diaries of an Urban Panther Read Online Free PDF

shaking liquid. “You’re wandering through life. You live alone and nowhere for very long. No family, few close friends. Something is missing and you can’t figure out.”
    “You’ve got it wrong,” I protested. “I live alone because I want to live alone. I’ve got no family because they died in a car accident. I just moved here because I broke up with my boyfriend and I don’t have millions of friends because I work seventy hours a week. Not because I was created. And nothing’s missing. I’ve got my job, my house. And there is not an ounce of magic in my blood.”
    My overzealous rebuttal didn’t stop his explanation. “Your potential is lying dormant until the time is right. It’s all part of being fated for a specific purpose. Just like I have a specific purpose.”
    My jaw had clenched into a tight knot, but I managed out, “And what would that be?”
    “To find people.”
    “And shoot things with guns?”
    He shrugged. “Happens. Mostly it means I’m on the sidelines watching.”
    His sentence, though simple, was all too familiar. The life on the sidelines. Watching other peoples’ adventures. Watching other people get the promotions and the happy endings. Watching as you’re stuck in a holding pattern.
    I took a moment to sip on my coffee and think. God, what’s so wrong with me that I can’t attract a normal stalker who wants to just have his way with me and leave me in little pieces for the city to pick up. I get a self-help guru with prophesies.
    Why wasn’t I running? Why wasn’t I taking the hot coffee in my hands and throwing it in his face? Because the truth of it hummed through me. Vibrated along my skin and warmed me like a blanket. He spoke in familiar words of familiar worlds that I’d been surrounded with my whole life.
    “So, if I choose to believe that I’m a . . . “ I couldn’t even say the word. It was too absurd. “Was getting attacked in the back alley part of the fated destiny or whatever?”
    He looked down at his coffee and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
    “Well if you were sent to watch over me, what were you watching for?”
    “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me much.”
    “Well who sent you?”
    “Can’t tell you yet.”
    “What the hell? Give me something. This is my life we are talking about here.”
    Frustrated, I stood and he matched my position with a speed that blurred his form. It was just like the movies, like when vampires sped across the room to capture their victims. I froze in place as he stepped closer to me. My heart pounded, rattling my ribcage, as he looked down at me.
    “I will never hurt you,” he said softly, tenderly almost as he reached out to take the hot coffee from my hand. “I was just sent to keep you safe.”
    “Bang up job, Garrett. If I’m infected, won’t you kill me like you killed that thing in the alley?”
    He paused. It was a chilly pause that cooled the air in the room, cooled my fevered skin.
    “If we get you help, no,” he said in a low voice, looking away from me, taking a step back.
    He didn’t have to say the other part of the answer. If I didn’t get help, he might not have a choice. I forced myself to swallow even though my mouth was bone dry.
    “So there’s help?” I squeaked.
    He gave me a small smile and a nod. “There’s a woman in Waxahachie, another shifter, who’s already volunteered to help.”
    “Help how?” The vision of some creepy blood cleansing rite in the middle of a field under a full moon jumped into my head. I need to stop watching my own movies.
    “She was the prima of the Pride here in Dallas but moved away to be a Shala to anyone who needs it.”
    I shook my head. “There were too many new words in the sentence to make it intelligible.”
    He chuckled. “You’ve got an interesting way of putting things, Miss Jordan.”
    “It’s a gift.”

 
    Chapter Three
     
    G arrett put his car in park across the street from my house. It was an older