A Shifter's Bodyguard (Pale Moonlight Book 5) Page 2

  She inhaled fire with each breath but refused to let go. She wouldn’t be the first one to quit. Warm blood oozed between her lips and over her muzzle. John Todd jerked underneath her and finally went still. She hung on even longer, working her jaws back and forth for maximum impact.

  Fatigue weighed on her. What was she doing? He wasn’t fighting her anymore. He wasn’t moving, but his heart still beat. A crack of thunder startled her and she released. Staggering off him, she slipped and slid on the porch. Whether it was slick from blood or rain, she didn’t know.

  When her teeth had been buried in his neck, she’d been ready to kill him. Many would say she should have killed him, but the thought made her gag on the metallic taste in her mouth. There was another way of dealing with him. There had to be. The Raymores were all about to get their way, she couldn’t be just like them.

  And yet, he’d heal eventually, and he wouldn’t quit coming for her. His other brothers might not have cared to show, but they would come as a pack when they learned how she’d hurt him.

  Fear hammered at her mind. They’d come for her. Just like Roman stomping through the house, the strikes of his boots marring the floor, they’d tear through her house and destroy all she’d worked for.

  A strangled noise came from her. She couldn’t take them all. She couldn’t deal with this unconscious male. Nor could she move and finish her kill by chewing his head off.

  Her old self took over. Run.

  She swung her head toward the dark woods. Woods so much like that night. Were the others out there? Were they waiting to corner her?

  Her mind spun over her options and stuck on how badly she wanted to call for help. Shifting as she charged inside, she tripped as she raced toward her phone. Somehow she managed to dial Demke. She was on autopilot.

  When he answered, she gasped, “I’ve been attacked.”

  Alarmed, but calm, he asked, “Are you at your house?”

  “Yes, and I don’t know if there are more coming.”

  “Get to a safe place. I’m sending help.”

  Help. She had help.

  Everyone will know you’re weak. Everyone will find out what happened with Roman. Everyone will know that you didn’t have the guts to finish off John Todd. Everyone will know that you’re a fake, that you’re just scared. Always scared.

  She gulped in air and tossed her phone away. Shivering like she was lost in a snowstorm, she hesitated. She didn’t want to be that female again, but she was. The more her body shook, the more she relied on previous experience.

  Hide. Get to a safe place.

  Pushing her hair out of her face with a shaky hand, she glanced around. A dark place. A place where he wouldn’t find her. But he always found her. Closets, bathrooms, stairwells, he always found her.

  Her cellar. Her precious cellar, where she’d be surrounded by her passion. Racing downstairs on rubbery legs, she kept expecting to hear heavy footsteps from behind her. A peal of thunder and she missed two steps, catching herself on the railing.

  Once her feet hit the carpet of her basement, she went straight for the cellar. It didn’t have a lock. Shit. It didn’t have a lock and John Todd wasn’t dead.

  The pistol. Her eyes filled with tears. No. No. Her gaze strayed to the stairs. Damn! She darted to the spare bedroom next door and headed straight for the closet that held the little rectangular box she’d wanted to forget existed but couldn’t live without.

  Flipping the lid off, she closed her bloody hand around the cold handle. It was shaking. Holding the gun away from her, she rushed back to her cellar and closed the door. Complete darkness descended. Sinking onto her ass in the farthest corner, she half-heartedly pointed the gun in the direction of the door and tried not to vomit the taste of John Todd out of her mouth.

  And she waited.

  His damn phone kept going off. Harrison Wallace glared at the shiny surface of the bar counter. His twin Malcolm was in the dark corner opposite the pool table, making out with a hot blond who had legs for miles. The shifter female must’ve agreed to be with both of them, otherwise Malcolm would’ve moved on to a new target.

  Needing his brother to pick up their fun for the night should dent his ego but it didn’t. Harrison knew he wasn’t much fun to be around, just like he knew that a female would only be with him because Malcolm had charmed the pants off her first.

  It might be easier if it had been fun in the beginning. Had he ever had fun? Sex felt good, there was no doubt about that, but he was starting to miss a connection, a meaning that was about more than getting off. He knew better than anyone that there’d never be a connection for him.

  A mate was no longer written in the stars for him.

  All these years later, his lack of a mate was becoming more noticeable as several of his fellow Guardians settled down with their mates to be sickeningly happy. Their pack was hours south, in West Creek. The West Creek Guardians. But he and Malcolm had offered to drive up and help the Synod’s Guardians with the government’s transition—which, to be honest, was as transitioned as it’d get—and then they’d never left. But the few Guardians who worked for the Synod were blissfully young, and if fate didn’t hate him, they wouldn’t find their mates and get all sloppy eyed for many years yet.

  He wanted the same for Malcolm, but his mating ship had sailed, too. Still, could Malcolm find someone one day? It was possible to mate without being destined to be together. But it wouldn’t happen with Harrison’s morose ass weighing Malcolm down.

  He should go over there. He should want to go over to Malcolm and the blond and get the night started. But look at that, his phone was ringing.

  Suddenly grateful for the interruption, he looked at the screen. What the hell was Demke calling him for? He and Malcolm sometimes did more than odd jobs for the Synod’s members, but they were rarely called when they were off-duty.

  Before joining the West Creek pack, he and Malcolm had grown up only a half hour away. Tame Peaks was a small colony, but it was the closest one to the Synod and essentially a “government town,” as the humans would say. Once upon a time, their father had been part of the shifter government. The former shifter government.

  Those who whined for the good old days didn’t complain as much when the sons of a former Lycan Council member arrived on their doorstep on behalf of the Synod and ordered them to change their ways. Especially since their father was wasting away in jail.

  Wasting away. Harrison snorted as he picked the phone up off the bar top. Father was biding his time in prison like it was a five-star hotel. The twins had their dad’s blessing to help the Synod, and it was nice to work close to home, even if they weren’t a close family. The Synod benefited because the people viewed the twins as a bridge between the old government and the new.

  Only one ring left before it’d go to his automated voicemail. Harrison answered but he hadn’t even said hello when Demke’s voice cut in. “Get to Sylva’s. She’s in trouble. One attacker for sure. She doesn’t know how many others.”

  “Got it.” Harrison flicked his phone off as he pivoted off the barstool. Sylva. In trouble. “We gotta go,” he called in Malcolm’s direction as he headed for the door.

  Malcolm wrenched his lips off the blond and frowned over his shoulder. All it took was one glance at Harrison’s face to know how serious the situation was. Without a word to the female, he pushed away. She shrugged and grabbed a pool cue. She’d have no trouble finding another partner.

  “What’s going on?” his brother asked as they rushed out of the bar. The rain had let up and the storm was passing.

  “Demke called. Sylva’s been attacked and she’s still in trouble.”

  His twin jerked his head over to peer at him. “And he called us? Sylva hates us.”

  He nodded as they both climbed into Malcolm’s navy-blue, four-door pickup. Technically, the truck was both of theirs, but he was content to let Malcolm take the lead in most everything. Besides, they did everything together—eating, fighting, fucking.
Everything.

  Nights like tonight, Harrison wished he were more like his brother. Malcolm could have a relationship with anyone he wanted; he didn’t have to share. But neither one had met anyone special, someone who made them feel as if things could be…different.

  Malcolm kept talking as he stomped on the gas. They fishtailed out of the parking lot. “I mean, hell, of course we’ll help her. But I feel like we’re gonna scare her worse, charging onto her property.” Malcolm rubbed a hand over his beard as he maneuvered through town toward the highway that would take them to Sylva’s. They’d never been out there, but part of their job was protection, and knowing where all the Synod members lived was their duty.

  “Demke must have known we’d be in town.” They had a reputation. When they were off duty, they were off duty. Their lively personal lives seemed to be the talk of Synod headquarters.

  Harrison had never understood it. It wasn’t like it was a hobby that they were good at. It was just sex. A lot of it, granted, but they were shifters. Unmated shifters. Shifters who had each lost their chance with a fated mate, though no one else knew that. Well, their parents knew, but Father wasn’t talking about anything more than Final Four scores, and Maw wanted everyone to leave her the hell alone.

  “You think she’s scared of us?” Harrison didn’t care for Sylva and her high-and-mighty attitude, but the last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

  Malcolm waved his hand. “She hides it well, but yeah, probably. Don’t get me wrong, she doesn’t like us either. But I think it stems from fear and not true hate.”

  That would explain why she never came to their self-defense and marksmanship courses. Of all the shifters who should’ve attended, she was at the top of the list. But it didn’t matter how many times he or Malcolm bugged the rest of the Synod leaders about it, she didn’t show. Maybe she knew how to defend herself. Or maybe she really fucking hated them.

  “Has Dr. Phil called to request your unique insight on the female mind?” Harrison didn’t mean to be flippant. How had his twin been able to deduce that much about her when to him she was nothing but a petite cloud of mystery? Mystery and vexation. The way she looked at him, it was the way people had viewed him his whole life: the less desirable brother.

  “No, but I sent him a message that I’m around whenever he needs me.”

  Leave it to Malcolm to remain unruffled. Harrison reached into the backseat of the pickup and dug out their weapons. When he turned back around in his seat, he had their duffel bag full of goodies.

  He handed a shoulder holster to his twin. Malcolm shrugged into it without swerving off the road. Harrison stashed his own knives in the tops of his boots and slipped on another shoulder holster. Like Malcolm’s, it held both a blade and a gun.

  Malcolm pushed their speed a few notches faster than was safe, but the wet roads still held him back. His brother shouldn’t let that slow him. Harrison’s urge to get to Sylva’s side was inexplicable, other than that he’d never failed a mission. Only once, but since then, never.

  As he stared out the windshield, trees flew past the pickup. A cloud of dust whipped up behind them, but that didn’t stop his twin from lowering the window an inch. He didn’t have to ask why. There might be more shifters around and they might not be friendly. Any scent he and his twin could detect would help them determine who or what was after her or if there were more attackers lying in wait.

  He didn’t pick up on anything unusual. Pine, birds that were native to the area, and maybe a bear or two, but they gave shifters a wide berth.

  “ETA two minutes,” Malcolm said. That matched Harrison’s own estimate.

  A smell hit him. Male and sour, like milk that had been left out in the sun too long.

  “Don’t know that one,” Malcolm murmured.

  The threat against Sylva wasn’t coming from anyone they had ever been in contact with. The shifter could’ve been hired out, or maybe it was a personal attack. He recalled the first time he’d seen her in her prison cell. So small. Curled in on herself. Distrustful of everyone and everything. He’d heard her story and couldn’t believe that she had killed her abusive mate.

  She’d blossomed once she was appointed to the Synod. Strong and outspoken, she was untouchable and the biggest supporter of shifter rights, fighting to insert the Synod’s presence into the most isolated colonies. With her, the Synod had a conscience that advocated for compromise and nonviolent solutions. Sometimes, she took her role too far, as if she wanted to make violence obsolete.

  Did she subconsciously hold his role in freeing her against him? He’d seen her at her weakest and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, forget it. The way she couldn’t seem to tolerate being in the same room as him or his brother, combined with her uncompromising leadership, was Sylva 2.0.

  He’d seen her unravel some of the strongest males with nothing but words. Then she’d turned around and placed a Band-Aid on a young’s skinned knee. She’d almost smiled. And Harrison had waited breathlessly for it to happen.

  Then her gaze had flicked up at him and her typical hardness had returned.

  Her little cottage came into view. “Cute” was not a word he’d have ever associated with Sylva. Strong, stolid, businesslike. Those words and all their synonyms related to her. Her appearance was sleek, sophisticated, but not cute like her house.

  Malcolm skidded the pickup to a stop between the house and the garage. There was no point in parking farther back and sneaking up on the house. Sylva had already sent out an SOS.

  His twin killed the engine and they each got out. They could strip down and shift but he had a feeling he’d need his hands more than his claws.

  The smell of rain and blood smacked him in the face. On the porch a dark form twitched. The shifter he had smelled. He exchanged a glance with Malcolm and flowed up the covered porch, taking each of the three stairs slowly.

  Malcolm swept around the back. His brother would look for any more threats and search for Sylva outside. Harrison would neutralize this piece of shit on the porch and search inside. He couldn’t smell another shifter in the vicinity, except for Sylva. Fear. So much fear.

  He checked over the male. The guy wasn’t going anywhere with this throat half ripped out. The porch was wet from rain, but dark with blood. Good. Harrison didn’t care what this guy’s reason for being on Sylva’s porch was, he’d gotten what he deserved. The healing would take hours, but as much as Harrison wanted to finish the job and slice the rest of the head away from the body, it would be better to let the shifter heal and question him later. And he still had to find Sylva.

  Stepping into the house, her scent swamped him. It was different than when she was at headquarters, softer, more…feminine. Even in the dark he could tell the place was cozy, comfortable. Homey. Definitely not what he’d expected.

  He wiped off his boots before starting his search. As he swept through the ground floor, making as little sound as possible, he tried to reconcile this tidy little home with the stern female he knew. It was like two different people.

  She wasn’t on the ground floor. Her fear was the strongest by the entryway. He went back to the front door and eyed the stairs going down. She would’ve sought a place where she could defend herself, or at the very least feel safer. As he descended, he knew he was on the right track. Her terror clogged the basement. This wasn’t an area she normally spent much of her time in. Her cozy scent wasn’t as strong, and there wasn’t as much care taken with the decorating. The basement was more like the Sylva he knew. Unadorned and functional.

  At the base of the stairs, he tuned in to all of his senses. He couldn’t hear whimpering or crying; he could only smell her. She was down here, but where?

  There was one closed door in the entire space and fear congealed around it like the blood outside.

  He was in the middle of stretching his hand out to grasp the knob when he paused. Sylva had just ripped out the throat of her assailant. It wasn’t a good idea to go barging into her safe room.

&nb
sp; Dropping his hand, he cleared his throat. “Sylva, it’s me. Harrison.” He winced. That might make her want to stay in the room.

  A moment of silence went by. Could she hear him? He was trying to figure out what to do when a faint noise reached his ears. A whimper? Which form was she in?

  “Sylva?” The need to get to her pounded at him, but he kept his tone light and steady. “Can I come in?”

  A choking sound and a sniffle, but no response. Was he making progress?

  Fuck, this wasn’t what he normally dealt with. He was the muscle, Malcolm was the smile. He should’ve let his twin take the inside. Even as that thought passed through his mind, he wanted to snarl at it.

  Gentle. Be soothing. She scares easy. How easy the change came back to him. “Sylva. I’m going to open the door. I’ll do it real slow, and if you want me to stop, just say so.”

  He hadn’t heard himself talk like that in… He knew exactly how long. Since before he’d demanded Gloria stay the fuck out of his head so he could concentrate. He squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t needed to be close to her to know how much he’d hurt her.

  Shoving those thoughts away, he inched the door open. “It’s me, Harrison,” he repeated. A range of smells assaulted him, from tangy to metallic, but it was hers that stood out. So scared. And shame was unmistakable. “I’m going to step inside and I’ll have my hands where you can see them.” He was talking low, like he would around a baby he didn’t want to wake up.

  A shaky inhale. “H-Harrison.” Good. He wasn’t facing a terrified wolf.

  “Yes.” He didn’t advance, but waited, his intuition telling him that if he moved too fast he’d lose all the ground he’d made.

  Blood was smeared across her face and down her slender neck. It was the first time he’d ever seen her anything less than put together. Silky black strands were stuck in the dried blood along her cheeks and plastered to her forehead. Her arms were hugged around her knees and she was nude. In her hands was an old six-shooter—pointed at him.