Alpha Shifter Protectors: Paranormal Romance Collection

by Keri Hudson

  Paul walked back to the clearing, already anticipating seeing Lisa’s lovely face, kissing those soft lips, feeling her strong but supple body beneath him, around him. Paul’s body was exploding with long pent-up excitement, and it filled him with chemical excitement. She was sweet and loving, she was drop-dead gorgeous, and she seemed to feel about Paul the way he felt about her. She was a miracle, too good to be true.

  Paul stepped up to the hideaway’s lone entrance, hoping to find her sitting by the pond, reaching out to him to join her.

  But he didn’t; he didn’t see her anywhere.

  “Lisa? Lisa?” No answer came back, and Paul’s heart began to pound in his chest. “Lisa?” Still no answer. He looked around, checking the cave, stepping out into the surrounding area and calling her name again.

  But she was gone, and Paul’s mind scrambled to imagine some reasonable explanation. She would not have just wandered off, Paul was instantly certain of that. And with Matthew unaccounted for and Lisa unguarded, a terrible possibility suggested itself. Palms sweating, mouth dry, Paul hurried toward the compound, hoping against hope that what he was imagining hadn’t happened, that he was wrong, that she was safe.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Paul rushed back to the compound, hoping Lisa had gone there herself, perhaps in an effort to smooth things over and reunite Paul with his family. That’s something she would do, he reassured himself. She’s so caring of others, wants us all to get along. She’ll make such a good wife, such a good mother.

  Pigs snorted in the bushes, and Paul knew they could sense his growing concern, his new vulnerability. Paul wondered in a terrified instant if the pigs hadn’t gotten her, but there’d been no blood, no trace of a struggle. And he’d heard no screams, and Paul knew such an attack would create a scream they could probably have heard all the way back in the United States.

  That was reassuring, but not much.

  What about the octopi? he wondered. If they can come up onto land to fight me, isn’t it possible that they could venture further from the water? They are intelligent, and they’d clearly adopted the hatred of shifters that all normalo alphas shared. But… can they survive that long away from the water? If they can, we might be looking at a whole new threat to our survival here. I was lucky enough to kill the one, and I don’t doubt we could kill more, especially with a combined effort. But we’re only five, and there could be hundreds of those giants out there. If they can survive on land and have a will and a mind to attack us, our lives here could be over.

  That was when another terrifying thought stabbed Paul’s brain. Could one of them have come up and snatched Lisa to drag her back into the sea? One of those slimy bastards might have made it in and out of the hideaway without leaving the same traces a sounder of wild hogs would, no blood either. The octopus strangled or suffocated or drowned its prey, and poor Lisa would be no different.

  Paul’s heart beat faster just to imagine the love of his life being sneaked up upon, those creatures able to disguise themselves to blend into the surroundings. One could have sprung upon her from out of nowhere, wrapping those lethal tentacles around her kicking legs, pinning her arms, even wrapping over her face to silence her screams and snuff out her living breath.

  She could be fighting for her life even now, it struck Paul, while I’m running in the opposite direction!

  Paul turned and ran back toward the south beach. But he’d lost valuable minutes. He was plagued by the thought that his foolishness and a suspicion of his own family might have made the difference between life and death for an innocent young woman, and one Paul loved more than his own life.

  He ran faster, pushing through the palm and koa trees, jumping over rocks and fallen eucalyptus to get to the south beach.

  I can still get to her, he told himself. She’s strong, a fighter, she’d hold out and hold on, and that could make all the difference.

  Paul ran faster, almost certain he was going to find her reaching out to him, just before being dragged to her doom. He arrived at the south beach and scanned the area and all seemed well. There was no disruption of the sand, though that wasn’t proof of anything. It could have dragged her over the rocks, holding her tight with two tentacles or even one, moving easily back into the water with the other six or seven of those long, menacing tentacles.

  There was nothing more Paul could do on that beach, and his brain shot quickly back to other possibilities. The compound, Paul told himself, they’re holding her there, protecting Matthew and stealing my angel from me!

  Paul turned and ran back into the forested area of the island, a straight line back toward the compound through the trail they’d forged from years of travel.

  Paul ran up and into the compound, Ruth meeting him with a vague confusion. “Paul?”

  “Where is she?”

  Ruth shrugged. “Your new friend? I don’t know. What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t find her, Ruth! I left her at the hideaway before coming here, and when I got back, she was gone.”

  Ruth seemed to give it some thought. “Maybe she went to collect fruit or something?”

  “Oh, stop it, Ruth! She hardly knows the island at all, she just got here! She wouldn’t just go wandering around. She knows about the pigs and the octopus.”

  “The octopus?”

  “She was attacked by one,” Paul explained. “Big, huge, came right up onto the rocks.” Ruth seemed to absorb that frightening truth. She knew as well as the rest of the Landrys about how normalo alphas felt about shifters, and this was a new development in a war to the death. “I don’t think that happened, though,” Paul went on. “I think she’s here.”

  “She’s not, Paul! What are you saying, that we kidnapped her from you?”

  Paul didn’t like the sound of it, but it was hard to deny or contest. “Where are the others?”

  “What’s going on here?” James stepped out of the forest with Peter.

  Paul pointed an angry finger. “Give her back!”

  Peter asked, “What? Paul, what are you—?”

  But that was all the time Paul would give him. “Don’t you lie to me,” Paul said. “You’ve got her squirreled away somewhere. The bathing pond, is that where she is?”

  Peter shook his head. “No, that’s where we were, though. Paul, what’s going on?”

  “She’s gone missing,” James said, “that’s what’s going on.”

  “She didn’t wander off,” Paul said, “she wouldn’t do that. And an octopus didn’t get her either.”

  Peter repeated, “An octopus?”

  “Big one came up on the beach, but I don’t think it’s that.”

  “Hope not,” was all Peter could say.

  Paul looked around, the clearest answer taking the form of a question. “Where’s Matthew?”

  Ruth said, “I told you, he went fishing.”

  “Not on the south beach,” Paul said. “I’ve been there and back along our trail.”

  “Might have gone hunting,” James suggested, “to bring down a hog.”

  That was a possibility, Paul realized, but it did not explain Lisa’s sudden disappearance. But there were other questions. If Matthew had taken Lisa and he hadn’t brought her back to the compound, where could he have taken her?

  “We have to find them,” Paul said, “we have to find both of them, right now!”

  James and Peter shared a worried glance, and that worried Paul even more. The two older Landrys shared a nod, Ruth taking a single step forward. The Landrys were united once again; where Lisa van Kamp’s miraculous appearance on their island had threatened to tear them apart, it was bringing them together in a common cause. And while Paul was glad to be side by side with his father and siblings once more, it was cold comfort when he considered what they were up against. If Matthew had indeed made off with Lisa, her life and her virtue were in terrible danger and every member of the Landry family knew it. She was more than just a valuable breeder, she was the love of Paul’s life. His father and s
iblings knew it, and they were ready to fight with him instead of against him. That gave Paul a crucial edge, but he knew it still might not be enough.

  And there were other questions they didn’t have time to consider. But Paul couldn’t help but wonder if a big constrictor or other predator might have found its way onto the island and taken her. But it didn’t click in his brain, and the thought that Matthew had taken Lisa remained in the fore of his consciousness. Just to think of the horror she was enduring was maddening.

  Paul tore off his leather and shifted, his human body giving way to his mammoth lupine self, senses suddenly sharper, strength tremendous, and attention fixed on a righteous kill. Paul looked over to see that his family had already shifted. His father was big, his thick fur graying, Ruth’s body more lean and lithe. Peter’s build wasn’t far off Paul’s. Their years of fraternity held them together, a pair of killers in a pack of killers.

  Matthew would have to have known he was setting himself against the entire Landry clan, and he was about to get the fight of his life, and of Lisa’s life as well.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Paul and the other Landrys spread out. It wasn’t a big island, but it wasn’t so small that they could cover it together. Paul headed east, to the rockier side of the island. He’d been to the south beach and didn’t expect to find Matthew there, though it was true that he could be en route there even as Paul went off in another direction. But a choice had to be made, and Paul was confident that his family would not betray him as their cousin had done. Matthew had staked a claim against the entire family with a move on Lisa, if that was what had happened. It must have been made in desperation, and it was something Paul could understand all too well.

  He’d endured the same frustrations, housed the same angry instincts and welling energies and desires. It had been a miracle that Lisa was delivered to Paul the way she was, but for Matthew it surely seemed like a curse, another reminder that he was the cousin, one step removed from the bloodline. They’d always shown him all the same acceptance as one another, and they’d become close growing up on that island, but his festering resentment grew anyway and was ignited by the sweet and sexy Lisa van Kamp.

  Paul wasn’t sure he’d have felt differently if things had happened another way, but they hadn’t. Lisa was his woman, his mate, and he was going to kill Matthew or anybody or anything that tried to take her from him. His senses were crisp, heightened by his urgency. He moved with speed and stealth, weaving through the foliage. He knew he needed the advantage of surprise, and a loud and fast run would surely give him away. But he had no time to waste, everything in Paul telling him he’d been right—right about Lisa, right about Matthew.

  Paul climbed over the increasingly jagged rocks of that side of the island. He could smell Matthew even amidst the brine of the ocean. He could sense his nearness. The island dropped off to his left, the east, the forest not flourishing for several yards to the west. Paul climbed up to a rocky plateau of the rock formation, which both he and Matthew knew well. But there was one new feature—Lisa lay unconscious on the rock, on her back. Her breasts were rising and falling with an easy rhythm, telling Paul that she was still alive and probably unharmed. A bruise already rising on her otherwise milky right cheek told Paul how Matthew had subdued her quickly and quietly, with a swift human punch to the face.

  Paul approached her, the hairs on his back rising in a sharp ridge. Matthew attacked, a flash of power and momentum, teeth biting hard into Paul’s throat for a quick kill. Paul could sense the years of anger, the animal passion, the deadly combination of the two. Matthew shook his head to drive those fangs deeper, closer to Paul’s spine, his windpipe.

  But Paul’s strength was at a peak, and he spun around once to throw Matthew off of him. The wounds were deep but were already healing, a feature of their spectacular biology. Matthew was quick to pounce into another attack, snapping his long jaws, his red hide bristling.

  Paul met him and both lupes rose up on their hind legs. It was a clash of snapping jaws and swatting claws, each trying to get a deadly purchase on the other’s throat. Back and forth, the lupes growled and snapped and ducked and finally parted again. They each pulled back, circling one another.

  Lisa lay on the formation nearby, just a few feet below them. But Paul knew she wouldn’t be hurt, at least not until he was killed. And if he was, he was determined to take his cousin with him.

  Paul lunged and Matthew met him straight on again, just as Paul had expected. So he went low and bit into Matthew’s left front leg. Matthew bit down on the back of Paul’s neck, more vital but better protected.

  Crunch!

  Matthew yelped as his leg bone crushed in Paul’s jaws. But Matthew bit down again, this time his snout wrapping around Paul’s with terrific strength. He pinned Paul’s jaw shut, breath wheezing through his nostrils. Pain shot through Paul’s face, racing down his body and back up again. He growled, muffled, and tried to spin to throw Matthew again, but he failed and that was probably for the best. If he’d thrown Matthew, he might have pulled Paul’s face off in the doing.

  Instead Paul thrashed at Matthew’s eyes with his long, black claws, sharp and strong. Matthew pulled and flinched and growled, but didn’t let go.

  In the corner of his eye, Paul saw another giant octopus, crawling its way up the rocks. It was several yards off, but approaching Lisa and getting closer by the second. Paul knew he didn’t have any time to waste. He dug deeper into Matthew’s face until his eye finally broke open in his skull, fluid pouring down his chin. Only that was enough to make the enraged lupe let go of his face.

  Once loose, Paul pulled away. Matthew didn’t seem to have noticed the octopus, so fixed on a kill and caring not at all about the safety of his own hostage. But Paul cared, and that was the crucial advantage he needed to prevail.

  Paul and Matthew circled one another, snarling and sizing up the damage done to the other. Matthew was limping badly, but Paul could tell the bone was already healing. His eye was another matter. If it was completely destroyed, it would not heal. But Paul wasn’t interested in giving him time enough for them to discover which it would be.

  The octopus was writhing closer to Lisa, a shimmering, slithering creature with huge eyes, round and black.

  Paul knew time was running out. He charged Matthew again, both lupes rearing up on their hind legs as they jousted again, jaws snapping and paws swatting. Matthew landed a good shot on Paul’s right cheek, teeth coming lose. Another swipe from the other side almost took his nose right off his snout.

  But Paul inched forward, his cousin retreating under a blistering clash of clapping jaws and flashing teeth, biting and slashing until Matthew backed up as far he could. With another great lunge, Paul sent Matthew spilling over the side of the rocky cliff.

  Matthew yelped and bit down hard on Paul’s left front leg, teeth digging in. Matthew had to have learned from recent experience how painful such an injury could be. Paul felt certain he was about to find out. He bit into Matthew’s head, biting into one ear and tearing it free with a single snap of his head. But Matthew seemed possessed with a strength that surprised Paul, and he met it with more of his own. Paul bit down onto the back of Mathew’s neck, checking the octopus’ progress.

  Paul wasn’t surprised that they’d attracted the beast’s attention. It was their shifter presence that was bringing the big alpha males in, of every conceivable species. It wanted them, not her.

  And it was coming.

  But Matthew was blind to it, fixed only on his hatred for Paul, a lifetime of resentment and bitterness. The pain was explosive, but Paul knew he could take it just a few seconds more. His bone finally cracked under Matthew’s jaw, Paul crying out but standing his ground.

  The octopus grabbed Matthew’s hind legs, and Paul turned to see the look of surprise on Matthew’s battered face. Matthew spun, turning his attention on his unexpected attacker. He screamed in what Paul could only think was mortal terror as the octopus pulled him from h
is purchase on the rock. Matthew yelped and bit and snapped as the octopus spun him in its long, thick tentacle.

  Matthew bit at one tentacle and shook hard, managing to dislodge the writhing appendage. But another tentacle threw itself around Matthew and pulled him toward to the water. Matthew screamed and struggled as the beast pulled him down the rocks and finally into the water. Despite all of Matthew’s thrashing and struggling, he disappeared into the water with a frantic splash, the octopus itself leaving hardly any trace that it was ever there at all. Once they disappeared into the shallows and likely far below, Paul knew his cousin was dead.

  “Holy shit!” Paul turned to see two men in khaki pants and shirts, just drawing their pistols. One pointed at Lisa, still unconscious. “There she is!”

  But she didn’t hold their undivided attention too long. “Kill it,” the other said, “fucking kill it!”

  Bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang!

  Paul took every shot in his center mass—the side of the chest, the shoulder, the hip. The bullets went in, and his lupine resilience was already slowly pushing the bullets out, the holes quick to heal. But it would take some time, and if he shifted back into his human form, he would not survive the gunshots.

  Though Paul had no desire to hurt either man, the gunfire was coming in fast. A shot to the head, if it hit the brain, would require too much recovery time. His only defense was to attack. One reloaded and fired on Paul as he charged, the other turned and ran into the forest. Paul ducked his head down, taking the shots in the shoulders, the back of the neck, lucky to have his spine intact when he pounced on the man.

  Paul set his paw on the man’s chest and leaned over him, growling, saliva dripping. The man looked up, terrified, eyes and mouth open, quivering. He jutted, and Paul’s keen lupine instincts could hear his heart erupting from fear, a few last irregular beats making him quiver before he went still.