The sun was peeking above the horizon. Rays of orange and red and pink.
“Tor,” Ryder called out.
Tor jogged, meeting the wolf at the bottom of the stairs.
“Did you see anything last night?”
“They drove by once. I think the lights kept them back. Liam left the lights on in the bar. And you had lights on in the apartment too. I could see you guys moving around up there.”
Ryder nodded, pleased. “Good. I wanted them to know she wasn’t alone. I tried to get Liam to go home and get some rest, but he refused. Said he would sleep in the office before her left that poor girl again. He feels responsible for what happened to her in the parking lot.”
“He shouldn’t have let her go out.”
“Tor, she admitted to not telling him.”
“He should have been watching better. He knew she’d been threatened already.”
“No one thought it would be this bad, Tor. Even Liam had no way of knowing they would lay hands on her. What they did is a serious offense in this world.”
“Which means they are very dangerous,” Tor said, crossing his arms over his chest.
The door to the front of the bar opened and slammed back. Liam walked around the corner with a scowl on his face that would’ve made little children scream in terror. He had a pistol strapped to his side, under his left arm.
“No need to chew on this like a pack of old women. We all know what to do if those bastards show their faces again.” Liam leaned against the wall next to Ryder.
Tor grit his teeth but nodded.
“You’re cooking today.” He met Tor’s gaze. It wasn’t a question. “Extra guns are in the pantry. Top shelf. Both of you should be carrying.”
Tor opened his mouth to protest. He didn’t want the job anymore. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t live, working with her every day. If her husband ever showed up in the flesh, his beast might lose it completely. He shifted from foot to foot and looked at the ground.
“You have a problem with that, son?” Liam said, his tone filled with annoyance. Like the thought of someone not following an order he’d given was unconceivable.
“No,” Tor answered. “I’ll be there.” Dammit all to hell—as Naomi would say.
“Go home and get a shower. Both of you.”
He and Ryder shook their heads at the same time. “We need more people on rotation if we are going to be leaving her at all. They drove by again last night. Tor saw them,” Ryder said. “This isn’t going to go away.”
“Course not,” Liam said, his voice grinding like rocks under a dump truck tire. “Those idiots are going to keep coming until they can’t. And then that damn Hollister asshole will send more. He’s been trying to get his claws into Mystery for a decade or more. Dawn is an outsider. He’s expecting to be able to break her.”
The door opened at the top of the stairs. Ava stepped out. “Ryder, get Knox. Katherine can spare him, and we need the extra body here right now.”
“How the hell did you hear what we were talking about?” Liam asked.
Ava flashed him a teasing grin. “I have really good ears.” She looked down at her mate again and tapped her foot on the wooden landing. “Call him. He’ll do what you ask.”
Ryder grimaced. “I’m not so sure. He was the—” He cut himself off and glanced at Liam.
“He was what?” Liam said, impatience tightening his face. “If he’ll help. Get him here and any of the others in your strange little group of giants.”
Ryder pulled a phone from his jeans pocket. “I’ll get him.” He walked away from Tor with a nod and disappeared into the trees on the other side of the parking lot.
Liam snorted and crossed his big arms over his barrel chest. “Why doesn’t he just drive?”
Ava spoke up before Tor could. “He doesn’t know how to drive yet. We’re working on it.”
“I’ve seen you drive Ms. Ava. He doesn’t have a prayer if you’re his teacher.”
She barked out a laugh and disappeared back into the apartment, leaving Tor with the bartender who thought he was in charge.
Liam turned his attention back to Tor. “I know you and your friends were the reason Tara got back home safely. I also know that one of yours is now attached at her hip. And you appear to be doing the same with Dawn. I just want you to know. This is a stand your ground state. If they come onto the property…” He paused.
Tor nodded. He knew what Liam was saying. “Don’t worry. If I catch them, it will be their end.” He swallowed down the growl of his beast and held back the flash of magick that wanted to rise to the surface. The last thing he needed to deal with was another non-mated human who knew the Reylean’s secret.
Knox
Dalmeck.
Knox rolled over in bed and held out the small black device Katherine had insisted he keep with him. It was a magick he still didn’t understand, but he liked that they could communicate across distance. Though the noises the thing made were very irritating to his wolf.
“Shuarra,” he said. “It’s Ryder.”
Katherine took the phone and looked at the text. Ryder: Headed to your place. Tor and I need help. The new owner of The Watering Hole was attacked. She’s Tor’s mate.
“Well, frack. Those bastards are going after her too.” His mate’s eyes flashed with magick.
“You think it’s the same men who asked you to sell the community center?” Knox’s wolf stirred and a growl rumbled from deep in his chest. It’d taken everything in his being not to follow those men from the MCC and dispose of them quietly and violently.
They’d been forceful and rude and physically threatening.
Katherine’s wolf was perfectly capable of protecting her, but Knox had nearly lost her a few months ago and he wasn’t about to let anything near her that might injure her. He wouldn’t be able to survive without her. He’d lost everything else. His family. His brother. His pack. His whole world had gone up in flames.
Katherine was his life now. Plus, if he let anything happen to her, Harrison—her neighbor-slash-stand-in-father—would skin him alive.
“Yep.”
“I’m not leaving you. What if they come back?”
“They won’t. I’m a townie. They know I’ll never sell. Hollister has offered me money before. And he offered Mama P money before me when she used to run the Community Center. But this new owner is a girl and she’s an outsider. He’s going to come at her hard.”
“I’m telling Harrison to come over after his deliveries.”
His mate laughed and nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” She handed the phone back to him and snuggled closer to his side. “You know he’ll be here in just a few minutes.”
“Do we have long enough to—” A heavy knock at the front door ended his sentence. Dalmeck. “He must’ve run here.”
Katherine giggled and slipped from his arms, grabbing a fluffy robe from a hook on the wall.
Her bare skin shone in the early morning light peeking through the curtains. Her long hair fell in silky dark waves down her back. He wanted nothing more than to ignore Ryder’s knocking and pull his mate back into his bed where she belonged and make her scream his name until she couldn’t breathe.
“I’m going to take a quick shower. You go talk logistics with Ryder.” She wrapped her beautiful naked body in the robe and disappeared out of the bedroom.
Dalmeck.
“It’s too early, Ryder,” Knox shouted. He climbed from the warm bed, pulled on some pants and stalked down the hallway to the front room of the house. “You made my mate leave my bed.”
He opened the door. A wide grin split the wolf’s face. “I slept on a stranger’s couch last night and didn’t get to hold my mate at all.”
“So, you want me to share that same fate with you?” Knox said, trying to keep the annoyance high in his voice.
Ryder held out his hand and Knox grasped his wrist in a common Reylean manner. They leaned forward and touched foreheads for a moment.
&n
bsp; “We need more eyes. More teeth. They almost killed her last night. Liam says they’ll try again,” Ryder said, his voice dark and thick with determination.
“Come inside,” Knox said and released Ryder’s wrist. He stepped back and gestured for the wolf to enter the home he shared with his mate Katherine. “Katherine said much to the same vein. She said this man has tried to buy property in Mystery before and has failed.”
“Tor hasn’t said anything, but this woman—Dawn. I believe she is his fated match.”
“Tor is friendly with everyone,” Knox said. “How can you be sure if he hasn’t said?”
“Trust me. It’s obvious when you see them together. It is not the same thing. Not what my mate calls harmless flirting. He threatened me if I touched her last night,” said Ryder.
Knox raised his eyebrows at that comment. If the tiger was threatening anyone, this woman was definitely his mate. Tor was loyal to Col, to the Tribe, but he had been working hard to build a bridge between the Tribe and the remaining wolves. He wouldn’t threaten anyone without good reason or instinct insisting upon it.
“What do you need me to do?”
“The bar needs more security. And we need to rotate at night so that she’s not ever left alone. They drove by at least once last night. Tor watched the whole night. He’s going to be exhausted soon and I’m not sure how to get him to take a break.”
Knox nodded. “I will help in any way I can. What about Liam?”
“He told me to find help.”
Knox narrowed his eyes. “He doesn’t know what we are?”
Ryder shook his head. “No but I think he’s suspicious that we are what the women call ex-military or special forces. He lumped us all together. We are newcomers to the town this year. Trusted for the most part, but still new.”
“Katherine said our family names are distinct and uncommon.”
Ryder nodded. “Ava has been told the same. Something about a sore thumb.”
Knox shrugged. He didn’t understand that comparison. “I’ll help. When do you need me there?”
“Now if you can manage it. I need to help Liam get the bar ready to open at noon. Tor is supposed to cook. Ava has to work the lunch shift at Lily’s. She’ll be across the street, but that leaves Dawn upstairs by herself.”
“I’ll be there. Give me a few minutes to make sure Katherine is situated for the day. I’ll meet you over there and you can introduce me to the tiger’s mate,” Knox said and opened the door again for Ryder to leave.
The wolf left quickly. Knox stepped out on to the porch and watched Ryder cross the street and turn a corner before disappearing into trees. He glanced back and forth, studying the parked cars. The neighbors’ homes.
Knox closed the door and walked down the porch steps and cut across the yard to Harrison’s house. He knocked on the man’s door and waited. The truck was in the driveway, so he hadn’t left to start deliveries yet from the airport—the only way Mystery got mail from outside town.
“Who’s at my door at this ungodly hour?” A rough gravelly voice boomed from behind the door. “You’d better be bleeding or—” He stopped when he saw Knox. “Kat okay?”
Harrison was the only person Knox had met who Katherine let call her Kat. Of course the man was practically her father, so that probably was the reason behind it.
“She’s fine. There’s men in town sent from someone named Hollister. He’s trying to—”
Harrison’s face twisted into a grimace. “Damn piranha’s been trying to buy anything he can get his dirty mugs on in Mystery for a decade. What’d he do?”
“He sent men. They offered Katherine money for the Community Center. They were not polite.”
“Did you eat them?” Harrison dead-panned.
Knox couldn’t help but smile. Harrison was one of the few humans that knew what a Reylean really was. “I considered it.”
“Did Kat eat them?” Again, with the straight face. Like eating people was normal.
Knox shook his head. “I’m sure she considered it as well.”
“Dammit. What use are those beasts if you don’t let them out when you need them? Come on in. Why are you half-dressed and on my porch this early if you don’t need help hiding a body?” Harrison swung the door open further and Knox followed him into a sparsely decorated living space—one couch, one chair, one small end table, and one lamp.
“Trying to avoid having to hide bodies, actually.”
The older man snorted. “Fine. Take all the fun out of it. Coffee?”
“Thank you,” Knox said.
“Fill me in and tell me what you need.”
6
Dawn
Dawn splashed some water on her face and dried it with a towel. She turned her head sideways and picked through her matted bloody hair. She needed a shower like a camper who’d been wilderness hiking for a week in the jungle.
A quick knock on the door proceeded Ava’s voice. “I found a towel for you and a backpack full of clothes. Is that all you brought?”
“I have a suitcase in the back of my jeep,” Dawn said, opening the door a crack and taking the towel and the backpack. “This will be good for now though. Thanks.”
“I’ll go grab your suitcase and bring it up to the bedroom just so you have all your stuff.”
“Thank you.” Dawn leaned her forehead against the door and listened to Ava’s retreating footsteps. Then the door opened and closed. Tension built in her chest, tightening like a vice and threatened to choke her. She shouldn’t be this scared. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was coming.
A couple minutes later the door opened and closed again.
“Ava?” Dawn called out.
“Yep, just me. You need something else?”
Relief rushed over her at the female’s voice like a floral scented spring breeze.
Quit being ridiculous, Dawn. You’re fine.
“No, I’m fine. I was just—”
Ava’s footsteps approached the other side of the bathroom door. “I’m not going to leave you. Take your shower. Clean up. Try to relax just a little cause your butt is going right back into that bed, Connie’s orders.”
Dawn frowned. She’d argue that later. Bed was the last place she wanted to be.
The shower was scalding hot and amazing. It burned away some of the memory of last night. She couldn’t feel the man’s hands on her. Couldn’t smell his breath anymore. Today would be better.
She pulled on a pair of khaki shorts and a black tank top over her soft cotton Walmart underwear and bra. Brushed out her blonde hair and twisted it up into a small bun on top of her head. No make-up, no fuss. Plain Jane is what her mother use to call her, but she preferred the natural look.
Dawn opened the bathroom door and peeked out. Her head felt a hundred times better, but Connie had been right about the other bruises. Her poor body looked like it’d been through a paintball war where the rifles shot bricks instead of paintballs. She didn’t even remember being hit that many times, but the blue and black blotches all over her sang a different tune.
“Hey,” Ava said, her voice halting Dawn in her tracks. “Feel better?”
“Much. Thank you.” She continued toward the stairwell door that led down into the bar. Her shoes were just to the side of it and she could hear people down below moving things around getting ready for the day. She wanted to help. Wanted to be up doing something. She was terrible at being idle.
“Bedroom is that way,” Ava said, rising from the couch.
Damn the woman was tall. At least six-two and built like one of those acrobatic ninja warriors on that obstacle course TV show.
“I’m just going to go downstairs and see what’s going on.”
“No. You’re supposed to lay down and rest. Those men down there have it in hand.” Ava moved to stand in front of the stairwell door. “You are in no condition to be in a bar helping in any capacity and Connie will have your hide and mine if you don’t rest at least one day. And hon
ey, if you don’t put a sweater on or something to hide those battered up arms from the guys, they will lose their shit.”
Dawn’s shoulders sank in defeat. She’d never had a big sister, but that’s what Ava felt like right now. The big sister telling her what to do. It was nice and annoying at the same time.
She went to the bedroom and climbed into the large soft bed. At least her grandfather had opted for a decent mattress and bedding. Though, finding something with a bit more color would be pretty high on her list of things to do—if she stayed.
Her phone buzzed beside her. She answered with a soft, “Hello?”
“Ms. Mikkelson, this is Bentley. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve explored every option you have with the will. You cannot sell The Watering Hole unless you stay and work it for a year. If you choose not to stay for a year and work the bar, the bar will be donated to the town and run by an elected committee made up entirely of residents of Mystery.”
“Well, that’s just fantastic.”
“Just let me know if you decide to leave. Otherwise, welcome to Mystery.”
The lawyer hung up without giving her a chance to say another word. The man was too the point. She could appreciate that. Still, she’d hoped there would be more of a choice than stay or give up your fresh start.
She wanted this fresh start. Needed it.
Going back to her mother’s place was out of the question but finding a job here or in some other town in Alaska that would pay for a half-decent apartment would be tough. Cost of living was high here. But if she just stayed…she had an apartment and a business and people who could potentially help her get it back up and running well.
And there was Tor.
There was something there. At least she’d thought so.
But she’d been wrong before. She’d been completely wrong about her ex-husband. That relationship had been a disaster. Thankfully not a physical disaster, but Adam had a sharp tongue and he’d used it on her like a damn bullwhip.
All's Were That Ends Were: Soulmate Shifters World (Soulmate Shifters in Mystery, Alaska Book 6) Page 5