In this excerpt from my paranormal romance Black Tiger Ash is hunting for the trail of poachers selling their booty to the Chinese medicine trade. He’s prowling an alley in Hong Kong when he is attacked.
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Missed, you bastard. But the intent was evident—he was here to kill. His eyes glittering, the attacker advanced, balanced and in control. Ash backed off. This fellow would know karate or something. Running feet approached from behind him. Ash leapt aside. A knife slashed through the space he’d occupied a split second before. The two men exchanged a surprised look then shifted to come at him from two angles.
“Let me at them. Let me kill.” He shoved the were-tiger away, fighting the urge to let it take over. One man lunged, a feint. But the other was fast. The knife sliced across his ribs.
The beast roared into his system. The darkness that was himself rose, expanded, snarled. He hardly had time to register the terror in his victim’s up-turned eyes before the slashing claws struck the side of the man’s head. Snarling, he bared his teeth, reached down for the man’s neck, the smell of fresh blood drawing him on. The other man ran, his footfalls echoing as he sprinted for the bright lights of Portland Street.
Check. Stop. Enough. Control. He hadn’t swapped completely and now he forced the raging beast back across the barrier, returned to his human self in the stinking lane, now spattered with dark spots of blood, panting for breath. The man lay on his back, eyes wide open, fear frozen on his dead face. The claws—his claws—had severed the carotid artery. The tiger inside him snarled. “You never let me do anything.“
