Blackblood Bear (A Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (The Agency Book 2) by Amelia Jade Page A

landed in a garbage dumpster, the blows on the way down slowing him just enough that the bags of trash had cushioned his fall. Something was still broken in his ribs, and if he didn’t miss his guess, the warmth seeping down his face and across his shoulders wasn’t liquid from the garbage, but blood pouring from his head.
    Still, he was alive.
    Above him, metal clanged as the two Agents raced down the fire escape after him, not content to just let him be.
    Justin snarled. He was angry. It wasn’t often that someone got the best of him. Even Jared, arguably the best on their team, was hard-pressed to beat him, though he did so more often than not. For some punk-ass Agency shithead to do this to him was unacceptable.
    Rolling over, he hauled himself up and out of the garbage bin.
    “Justin?”
    He froze at the voice. Twisting his head, he saw several hundred feet down that the alley he had fallen into was the dry cleaner. Standing between there and him was a beautiful figure with greenish-blue eyes and a beautiful face, staring at him in shock.
    “Go!” he shouted, his legs wobbly as he worked to stand. “Get out of here!”
    A tremble ran through the ground as the Agents jumped, landing in the alley behind him.
    “So she does know you,” one of them said. “I thought so.”
    Justin swung around, holding the sudden surging roar of anger from his bear in check. “We don’t have to do this,” he said slowly, backing away from them, ensuring he put himself between the Agents and Shay.
    The Agents exchanged confused glances. “Do what?” one of them asked, his voice muffled as always by the black masks they wore. This pair even had sunglasses still in place after the chase, preventing Justin from even seeing their eyes.
    “Fight,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to kill you.”
    The duo chuckled. “In case you haven’t noticed, freak, you’re a little outnumbered.”
    Justin stood up straight. “Freak? You’re the ones with things you weren’t born to. At least what I have is natural.”
    One of them snorted. “Natural? There’s nothing natural about what you do. You’re an abomination, a mutation that needs to be eradicated. We are the future.”
    The Sentinel rolled his eyes, still backing away.
    “Justin, what’s going on?”
    He froze. That was Shay’s voice, but it was much closer than before.
    “Why are you still here?” he asked. “You need to run away.”
    “I don’t want to leave you,” she said firmly.
    He growled. “I can’t protect you if you’re here.”
    The Agents laughed. “You can’t protect her anyway,” the one on the left said.
    Then they charged.
    No. Don’t make me do this in front of her!
    Shay didn’t need to see this, to be a witness to what was about to happen. What must she already think of him? Would she even talk to him again if he gave her a first-hand view of the world he lived in?
    The decision was taken from him as one of the Agents tried to dodge past Justin and make a grab for Shay. The lack of training, at least in comparison to him, showed there, as he should have waited an extra heartbeat or two for his partner to engage the Sentinel. But he didn’t, and so Justin hit the overeager attacker in the side, his punch breaking ribs as he drove it up and into the attacker’s side. The unexpected blow sent the Agent tumbling.
    Justin finished his move, completing a spin so that he was back facing the first shifter, doing so just in time to receive a fist to his face. The big man fell to one knee, dazed but far from out of the fight. His legs flexed and he drove his shoulder into the Agent’s stomach. The powerful muscles in his tree trunk-like limbs exploded upward with force, and he lifted the Agent from his feet before slamming him hard to the ground, catching the Agent completely unawares with the move.
    For just a moment, both Agents were out of the fight. He turned to Shay, who was only a few dozen feet behind now, looking at him in horror.
    “Get