by Ramona Gray
Adrenaline sparked through his veins and his lion surged forward, his strength and his adrenaline dumping into Cooper’s system as well. His muscles bunching, he leaped for the balcony and caught the bars, grunting when his shins banged painfully against the cement base. He hauled himself up and over the railing, landing with a soft thud on the floor. He stayed low and peered through the glass doors. Landon’s bedroom was dark and while he had a view of the door, it was shut, preventing him from seeing into the hallway.
Praying that Landon hadn’t decided to upgrade the security system on the doors, he took the tension wrench and pick hook from the leather pouch and picked open the lock. Holding his breath, his blood pounding and his lion growling continuously, he turned the handle and pulled. It opened and when no alarm blared, he released his breath and stepped into the room.
His blood froze and his lion snarled with anger and fear when he heard the roar of the cheetah followed by his mate’s scream.
* * *
“Hurry the fuck up!” Xander snarled at them.
When Anna flinched and dropped the clothes she was holding, Daisy bent and scooped them up, placing them in the small suitcase on the bed. “I don’t think you have all of your toiletries, Anna. Let’s check the bathroom again and -”
“No!” Xander growled. “She has enough of her shit. Let’s go, Anna.”
Anna closed the suitcase and Daisy zipped it shut as slowly as she dared. She tried to think of another excuse to delay as Xander paced restlessly in front of the door.
“Let’s double check that you have everything you need.” She started to unzip the suitcase, crying out when Xander roared so loudly that her ears rang. Anna started to cry, and Daisy pulled her closer, stroking Anna’s hair with a trembling hand.
“It’ll be okay, honey. Don’t cry.”
She wished she sounded like she believed it. Wished she didn’t sound like she was on the verge of crying herself. Her fear was creeping back in, slow and insidious like a dark bruise blossoming on skin.
You didn’t really think I was gone, did you? You’re going to die today. Xander is going to take Anna but first, he’ll slit your throat and you’ll bleed out like Josh did.
Her limbs were freezing up and her surety that Cooper would save them was starting to fade. Black spots swam in her vision. She’d been holding her breath for so long she was starting to feel dizzy. She tried to relax her body, tried to force air in and out of her lungs, but it was impossible. She was going to die and -
Be brave, my mate.
Cooper’s voice in her head was steady and calm. She released her breath in a harsh rush and sucked in another one as Xander stalked toward them.
“You’ve got enough of your goddamn shit, I said!”
Anna flinched against her. Daisy tightened her grip on the young girl’s trembling body as Xander spat a curse and ran his hand through his hair.
“I don’t mean to yell at you, sweetie. Okay? But you have to do what I say. A good mate does as she’s told, right?”
“Right,” Anna whispered.
“Okay, good.” Xander caressed her hair before smiling at her. “It’s time to go, my love. Leave your phone on the bed.”
“I need my phone,” Anna said.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Xander said. “Let’s go, Anna.”
Anna tossed her phone on the bed and reached for the suitcase.
“I’ll carry it downstairs for you,” Daisy said and grabbed it before Anna could pick it up. Holding it in her right hand, she followed Anna out into the hallway. As they walked toward the stairs, Xander right behind them, Daisy glanced at Anna’s pale face before tightening her grip on the suitcase.
Cooper wasn’t here and as much as she wanted to believe he would be outside waiting for Xander, she couldn’t count on it. And if Xander left with Anna, they’d never find her again. She couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t let that happen.
Her body beginning to shake from a combination of adrenaline and fear, she pulled Anna’s suitcase in front of her and whipped around. She charged at Xander, using the suitcase like a battering ram against his midsection as she plowed into him.
“Anna, run!” she screamed as Xander tripped over his feet and fell backward. Her momentum carried her down with him and she landed on him with a hard thud.
“Run!” she screamed again. “Anna, go, goddammit!”
Anna ran for the stairs as Xander roared in anger and tossed Daisy off of him like she was a sack of flour. He scrambled into a standing position. Daisy popped to her feet, jumping onto his back and wrapping her arms around his neck.
Hissing and snarling, he staggered back and slammed her into the wall. Pain radiated through her body and she cried out as he slammed her up against the wall again. Her head smashed into the wall with enough force to dent the drywall. Her head went woozy and her ears rang. She lost her grip, slithering down the wall and staring wide-eyed at Xander as she wavered on the edge of unconsciousness. He whirled to face her, his body swelling and a golden beard growing on his face.
“You fucking bitch!” he snarled, his eyes glowing with hellish light. “I am going to rip your fucking face off and -”
He grunted with surprise, staggering forward when Anna jumped onto his back. She raked her nails across his forehead, and he roared with pain as blood appeared in thin lines across his flesh.
“Stay away from her!” Anna shrieked.
She tried to gouge at his eyes. Xander roared again before reaching around and grabbing Anna’s hair. He pulled her off his body as she screamed in pain. He shook her roughly and threw her against the wall. She fell to the floor, landing face down with a horrible meaty thud and her thin body went limp.
“Anna? Sweetie?” Xander flipped her over. “Open your eyes, Anna. Open them!”
When she didn’t move, he screamed, a high-pitched wail that was half human and half animal before turning to face Daisy.
“You did this!” he screamed at her. “You made me hurt my mate!”
He roared in anger and Daisy screamed as he lifted her to her feet. He wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed, cutting off her air supply, as he raised his other hand. The nails were sharp claws and she stared in terror at them.
“I’m gonna tear you open,” he growled. “I’m gonna rip open your stomach and feast on your guts you stupid, little -”
The low growl made him freeze. His face paled and the terrible, bruising pressure around Daisy’s throat eased as Xander turned his head to stare at the massive lion standing in the hallway.
He released Daisy, a low whine slipping from his throat. The lion growled again and Xander took a step back from Daisy. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t -”
Cooper took a step toward him and Xander howled piercingly before shifting. He turned and took off down the hallway. Coughing and gasping in air, Daisy watched through watery eyes as Cooper crouched and then leaped. The cheetah shifter was moving incredibly quick, but the hallway wasn’t long enough for him to escape Cooper’s attack. She felt more than heard the thud when he landed on Xander’s back.
She closed her eyes, the sick feeling in her stomach deepening when Xander’s howling and snarling cut out and Cooper roared in triumph. The sudden silence in the hallway was broken only by her ragged breathing.
The lion’s head brushed against her shoulder, and his warm breath washed over her face. Keeping her eyes closed, she reached out and buried her fingers in his heavy mane as tears leaked down her cheeks.
The lion purred and his head bumped against hers before he backed away and she lost her grip on his mane.
“My mate.”
Cooper’s voice was quiet and low. Her eyelids fluttered open and she stared up at him.
“Cooper,” she rasped, forcing the words past her throbbing throat. “My mate.”
His face twisted. She gasped when he leaned down and lifted her to her feet. He hugged her hard, picking her up until her feet dangled. She buried her face
in his throat, kissing his warm skin as he purred to her.
“Are you all right, my mate?” he said.
“Yes. Is he dead?” She couldn’t look down the hallway, didn’t want to see his mangled body.
“He’s alive,” Cooper said.
She jerked in surprise and stared up at him. He brushed his mouth against hers as the wail of sirens filled the air. “For now. If we stop the bleeding. If we don’t…”
He shrugged in obvious disinterest as Daisy gasped, “Anna!”
She wiggled out of Cooper’s grip, relief flooding through her when she turned and saw Anna sitting up. Her hair was matted with blood, but she managed a small trembling smile. “I’m okay.”
“Don’t try and stand,” Cooper said. “Stay still until we can get paramedics here.”
Anna nodded and then said, “Dude, you might want to get some clothes on. If my dad comes home and sees you standing naked in the hallway, he’s totally gonna fire you.”
Daisy started to laugh. It hurt her throat and her head, but she couldn’t stop. Anna joined in, the laughter spilling out of her slender body until she was holding her belly and groaning. “Stop making me laugh. Oh God, it hurts to laugh. It shouldn’t hurt to laugh.”
Still giggling, Daisy turned to Cooper. He was staring down at her and the love in his eyes made her heart knock against her ribcage. Her giggles died out and she cupped his face, rubbing her thumb along his cheekbone. “Thank you, my mate.”
He swallowed hard. His eyes were rimmed in red and his voice was husky when he said, “I love you, Daisy.”
“I love you too, Cooper.”
Epilogue
“Daisy? I’m back.” Cooper shut the front door and took off his boots.
“I’m in the bedroom,” she called.
He walked upstairs, the scent of clean laundry mixing with the scent of his mate. Daisy was sitting cross-legged on his bed – no, their bed – surrounded by a pile of clean laundry. She folded one of his t-shirts as he sat on the bed beside her and picked up a shirt to fold.
“Do you care if I do your laundry?” she said as she folded a pair of socks and added them to the pile of folded ones. “I had some to do and figured I’d do yours too.”
“No, I really appreciate it. Thank you.” He grinned at her and she laughed.
“What?”
“This is very… domestic of you,” he said.
She shrugged. “I like doing laundry. I find it relaxing.”
“Well, don’t feel like you have to do my laundry ever, but I appreciate that you did.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. “Should I have mentioned that I’m a bit on the boring side? Spending my Saturday afternoon doing laundry is not a rare occurrence for me.”
“Considering I was working on a Saturday afternoon, I can’t judge,” Cooper said.
“How did it go?”
“Fine. I knew the police would have more questions, so I wasn’t surprised when they asked me to come in. Things were a little chaotic on Thursday night.”
“Yeah,” Daisy said. Cooper studied the faint bruising on her throat. His lion was still pissed off that Cooper hadn’t allowed him to kill Xander, but he would get over it. His lion’s bloodlust for the cheetah who had hurt his mate had been high, but it didn’t justify killing Xander. The cheetah shifter had been running from him and killing a man trying to flee wasn’t Cooper’s style.
“How do you feel, my mate?” he said.
“Exactly the same way I feel every time you ask me that question. Which, by the way, I think we’re up to about seventy-eight times now.”
He laughed and handed her the folded shirt to add to the pile before grabbing a pair of shorts. “It hasn’t been that many times. It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours and I’m worried you’re having nightmares or -”
“I’m not. I’m,” she paused in thought, “good. I mean, I’m not great or anything, but considering what happened and that my worse fear almost came true, I’m surprisingly good. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” he said. “You were so brave, baby.” He purred to her and a soft smile crossed her face.
“You helped me to be brave. Just knowing that you think I’m brave made me feel that way even when I was terrified,” she said. “I talked to Anna this morning. Tabitha left the hospital this morning. She’s doing okay. She lives alone and doesn’t have any family in the city, so David hired a private nurse to live with her until her concussion symptoms end. Oh, and Anna’s mom arrived late last night. She really wants to meet both of us this week. I said we would love to have dinner.”
“Sure.” Cooper folded the last pair of shorts as Daisy slid off the bed and carried her clothes to the second dresser he’d brought in from the spare guest room. As she put them away, he piled his clothes at the end of the bed and grabbed his crochet from the bag on the floor next to the bed.
He started a new granny square as Daisy hung a couple of dresses in the closet. “Are you sure you don’t mind sharing your closet? I can keep using the spare room closet.”
“No,” he said. “This is your room now too.”
“You’re so sweet.” She hung a pair of dress pants next to the dresses and glanced at the square he was working on. “That’s looking good.”
“Thanks. Ten more to go and then I can start putting it together. Wes’s birthday is next month so I need to get the damn thing done.”
“Hey, do you think Wes and Eleanor were acting weird at Landon’s?”
He paused with his crochet hook stuck in the granny square. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. They both just seemed weird. I mean, I didn’t see Eleanor for very long before you made me go to the hospital, but something seemed off about her. Did Wes seem all right?”
“Honestly, everything was so chaotic, I didn’t notice anything.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He hadn’t noticed if Wes was off, but it had nothing to do with the general chaos and everything to do with Daisy. He’d been almost frantic to get her to the hospital, to make sure she was truly all right. Wes could have been walking around naked and singing opera for all he would have noticed.
Daisy grabbed his pile of t-shirts from the bed.
“I can put those away,” Cooper said.
“I don’t mind.” She opened the drawer and placed them neatly inside before returning and picking up the stack of his boxer briefs. “I think I’ll text Eleanor and see if she wants to have dinner this week. Just to check on her.”
“Whatever you want, my mate.” He’d split the yarn and he scowled and pulled out the stitch before grabbing the loop with the hook again.
“Cooper?”
“Hmm?” Christ, he’d split the yarn again. If he kept this up, he’d never be finished Wes’s blanket in time.
“Cooper, look at me.”
He glanced up, his stomach dropping when he saw the small velvet box in Daisy’s hand. Shit, why had he hidden it in his fucking underwear drawer? It was such a goddamn cliché.
Daisy’s cheeks were red, and he could smell her excitement and her nervousness.
“Is this what I think it is?”
He thought briefly of lying and his lion growled at him.
We do not lie to our mate!
He set his crochet on his lap. “Yes.”
She carried the box to the bed and sat down beside him, staring intently at him as she held the box in a tight fist. “When did you buy this?”
He tugged at the ball of yarn. “Uh, what does it matter?”
“When, Cooper?”
“Two weeks after you started working at the office.”
Her jaw dropped and she stared first at the box and then at him. “You’re kidding me?”
“No,” he said. “I know how that makes me sound, but I… my lion made me do it.”
“It was only your lion who wanted to buy me an engagement ring?”
“Shit,” he said. “No, it wasn’t only my goddamn lion.”
To his immense re
lief, a smile broke out on Daisy’s face. “I can’t believe you bought an engagement ring two weeks after meeting me. Wait,” a horrified look crossed her face, “it is for me, right?”
He bellowed laughter before dropping his crochet over the side of the bed and hauling her into his lap. “Of course it’s for you. Who else would it be for?”
“Well, I realized I was being pretty assumptive. When were you planning on asking me to marry you?” Daisy said.
He shrugged. “In six months or so.”
“Six months?” She looked a little annoyed.
“Three months?”
“Three,” she said. “You’re gonna wait three months to ask your mate to marry you? That seems… rude.”
He laughed and purred to her. “How about a week. I’ll take you out for a romantic dinner, we can go for a moonlit walk on the beach after dinner, and I’ll get down on one knee, quote a few romantic poems and then ask you to marry me.”
“That does sound very romantic.” She toyed with the box in her hand. “Or… you could straight up ask me right now and then we could spend the rest of the afternoon having hot and dirty sex.”
He grinned and took the box from her, popping it open so she could see the ring. “Will you marry me, Daisy?”
“Yes, Cooper, I will,” she said with a soft and sexy smile.
He slid the ring onto her finger, snapped the box shut and tossed it on the floor. “Now, about that hot and dirty sex…”
* * *
Please enjoy an excerpt from “Dark of Night”, Book Three in the Shadow Security Series.
“Dark of Night” will be available in 2021.
Dark of Night
Shadow Security Series, Book Three
Copyright © 2020 Elizabeth Kelly
Eleanor hung her damp towel on the hook. She smoothed her t-shirt, tugged self-consciously at her shorts, and ran her hand through her wet hair.
Stop stalling and just go out there already.
She stared at her chest. It was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra, but she’d be damned if she put one on to go to bed. She had to wear the torture device all day, she wasn’t wearing it all night too. Besides, the look of unease bordering on panic that crossed Wes’s face when the motel clerk confessed the room booking error, made it more than clear that he wouldn’t exactly be seducing her tonight. Hell, she’d be lucky if he didn’t decide to sleep in the car.