Page 19 of Robb

The answer was obvious: a backlog of trams stretched as far as the eye could see. And now they were trapped here, like sitting ducks.

He was aware of Tahnee jiggling her leg, the obvious nerves behind the motion at odds with the indifferent expression on her face.

Comfort our mate, the dingo demanded, fixing him with a furious stare. What use are you, if you can’t even do that?

Robb wasn’t used to providing comfort of any kind, and he certainly wasn’t used to the intricacies of the mate bond. He’d spent decades suppressing it, pushing it down as far inside him as it could possibly go.

Now, with difficulty, he tried to send a feeling of reassurance across the bond to Tahnee. He watched as her hunched shoulders fell ever so slightly, and felt the rapid tap-top-tap of her foot slow down to an occasional twitch of the leg.

It was… nice, to be able to do that for her. He wondered if she knew the wave of reassurance had come from him. That, he supposed, was the other side of the equation: if he’d had to spend years ignoring the mate bond, then presumably she had had to as well.

He wondered how she’d dealt with it, all those years – or if she’d had to deal with it at all.

Maybe it just didn’t mean as much to her as it did to him.

Or maybe he was just being cruel now, as an outlet for how powerless he felt.

I could probably use some reassuring vibes myself, he thought, peering out the window yet again, before looking out the other side of the tram. He was pretty sure he was being paranoid at this point, but he hadn’t gotten where he’d gotten in life without a healthy dose of suspicion.

And…

“Oh, shit,” he muttered.

Tahnee snapped to attention.

“Where is she?” she whispered.

Robb jerked his head. “Over there by the noodle place. No, not that noodle place.” He sighed impatiently. “Not that one, either. That other one.”

“I see her,” Tahnee said. “She’s coming this way.”

Robb didn’t need to be told that, since he was already very, very aware.

The woman was approaching the tram, and any moment now she was going to be in range to sense their presence as shifters.

“Maybe we should get off, make a run for it,” Tahnee murmured.

Robb nodded, his jaw tense, and he pulled the cord.

The doors didn’t open.

Tahnee stuck her head next to the driver’s window. “Sorry, but could we please get off? We got on the wrong tram.”

“Sorry, love, we’ll be departing soon,” said the driver, not sounding sorry at all. “Can’t let you off now. Too dangerous.” The implied not that you seem to care about acting dangerously around trams hung heavy in the air.

“Shit,” Tahnee hissed, and Robb had to agree. It wasn’t like they couldn’t force their way out if they had to, but it would attract way too much attention.

He watched, spellbound, as the woman stalked along the edge of the footpath, her eyes roaming about, not missing a single detail. Despite her appearance, she was clearly highly trained and dangerous.

The woman’s head tilted slightly – before turning in the direction of the tram. Despite the fact that he ducked down behind a bemused passenger, he was certain that she’d spotted him. He could feel it.

“Fuuuuuck,” Tahnee breathed.

Robb’s dingo bared its teeth. He wasn’t sure if he could shift again just yet, but he had a feeling that the dingo would try to brute force it anyway if things got any worse – whether or not it was a good idea for an overprotective dingo to suddenly appear on a crowded tram.

If they had to break out through the window and make a run for it, that was what they would do. Robb refused to put all the people on this tram at risk.

He placed his hand on Tahnee’s shoulder, trying to send her the message Get ready to break out of here, and she nodded, her expression grim, eyes never leaving the woman.