“Yeah. Maybe you’re right.” Now Eleni was laughing out loud. “There’s nothing like being a teacher who gets arrested for acting like a teenager.”
“See? You understand my concern.”
“So maybe we should go inside then,” Eleni suggested.
He didn’t say anything. Instead he opened the driver’s door of his truck and began to step out onto the sidewalk. Turning, he offered her his hand. “Since I already dragged you almost all the way across the seat, allow me to help you the rest of the way out of the vehicle.”
“Why, thank you!”
How could one person be so much fun? It was almost as if every single second with Orion was suspended in time. It was just the two of them making jokes and talking. Their shared history allowed them to banter back and forth without losing track of the conversation simply because it was always as though they were on the same page.
Orion held her hand as they started toward her front door. She hadn’t left the porch light on. She hadn’t actually expected to be gone this long so there were pools of inky shadow collecting near her front door as the time inched past five o’clock and darkness fell on Dallas.
Eleni lifted Orion’s hand above her head and twirled around and around like a dancer as they headed up the walkway. She was laughing when she noticed that she had a visitor.
It was like ice water thrown in her face. Eleni stopped moving so quickly that Orion nearly mowed her down. She grabbed both of his hands and stared at the man rising from the little chair she kept on her porch for warm summer evenings.
A shout caught in Eleni’s throat. What was he doing here? Mateo Canjillon’s baleful glare was focused on Orion as though he were wondering the same thing. Eleni squeezed Orion’s hands and tried to find her voice. It was gone, lost in the dry throat and cottony tongue filling her mouth.
“Eleni, we need to talk.” Mateo looked pointedly at Orion. “Alone. You owe me an explanation.”
Whoa! Eleni suddenly felt as though she had gone from having no words to having so many that she could not get them all out at once. Behind her, Orion was not saying anything. Eleni appreciated that. She was so grateful for the man who would let her take the lead when this was so obviously her issue to deal with. And yet she could feel the strength of Orion’s support behind her as if he had infused her with some of his supernatural strength.
“I cannot imagine why you think that we need to talk,” Eleni began. She and Orion were perhaps half a dozen steps from her porch. Mateo Canjillon was standing between the two of them and her front door like a human barricade with his fists clenched at his sides. “I cannot think why I would agree to a private conversation either,” Eleni added. “You show up unannounced and uninvited. Don’t you think that’s a little bit of a creepy stalker sort of thing to do?”
“Creepy stalker?” He looked utterly taken aback. “What are you talking about? I’ve come here in good faith because I don’t understand how you could just turn me down flat after everything that we’ve shared.”
“Everything that we’ve shared?” Eleni was dumbfounded. She could not imagine what the man thought that they had shared. “You’re kidding, right? Like, you’re actually confused or something about what dating is and what it means. We’ve had half a dozen conversations, Mr. Canjillon!”
“Mateo,” he said quickly. “You always call me Mateo.”
Eleni wanted to slap him. “Because we’re colleagues! Apparently I need to make sure that the whole world knows to keep their distance from you lest you get the wrong idea and propose! I’m not interested. I’m engaged! And you’re going to stand there and insult my fiancé by acting as though we have something going on when we don’t?”
“Your fiancé.” Canjillon growled the words. “The man is a player! Don’t you get it?”
Eleni felt Orion stirring behind her. She could not imagine that he was going to be willing to just let this go for much longer. She gave his hands a squeeze to beg for patience. Smearing Mateo Canjillon on the driveway would only result in one of those calls to the police that they’d both been joking about avoiding.
“So what you’re suggesting,” Eleni mused more to herself than to Canjillon. “Is that there’s no way a man like Orion King could be interested in a woman like me. Right?”
“Right. Wait. What?” Canjillon held up his hands. “That’s not what I said!”
“It is actually. You just phrased it as if you were trying to make it Orion’s fault.” She shook her head. “Not interested, Mr. Canjillon. Please leave. I don’t want to talk to you. I’m worried enough about having to see you at the school after break is over. It’s awkward enough. Can’t you just back off so that it isn’t impossible?”
There was a pause and for thirty seconds Eleni thought that her words had achieved the desired result. Then, without warning, Mateo Canjillon charged at Orion and Eleni as though he were a bull suddenly unleashed upon a big red flag. Eleni was pushed aside in the resulting collision.
It was almost as though Eleni had been sent flying into the front yard as the knees of her slacks skidded across the brown grass. She wound up on hands and knees with her face pretty much planted in the dirt. Struggling to find her bearings, Eleni was aware of the grunting noises coming from her driveway.
There was a short walkway from the driveway to the front door. Mateo was trying to shove Orion toward the driveway and his truck. Mateo had his arms wrapped in a bear hug around Orion’s waist. He struggled to lift Orion off the ground. The muscles in his arms bulged. He grunted and groaned and panted and finally grabbed hold of Orion’s wrists as though he were intending to twist them into pretzels.
Eleni’s heart thumped wildly in her chest as she realized that Orion was really not trying. It was almost as though he were doing his best to try and not hurt the other man. How strong were these King brothers? It was daunting to imagine that a guy like Mateo Canjillon who prided himself on his over-muscled physique could be utterly ineffective against someone like Orion who never appeared to work out at all.
“Stop!” Eleni shouted suddenly. She struggled to her feet. Her knees and the palms of her hands were sore. That didn’t matter. “Stop it, Canjillon! Stop it!”
It was almost as though Eleni’s shouts caused Orion to make an abrupt decision to end the confrontation. He pivoted to the right and allowed Mateo Canjillon to half slide past him. Then he grabbed hold of Mateo’s arms as though he were nothing more than a child. Mateo grunted in surprise as he was suddenly locked with his arms behind his back. Orion twisted the hold tighter until he was frog marching Canjillon down the driveway. There was no car or anything down at the curb. There had been no warning that Canjillon was here. Had the guy walked or taken a cab?
“Eleni!” Canjillon yelled over his shoulder as he was awkwardly shoved down to the bottom of the driveway. “Eleni, you have no idea what you’re doing! This guy will discard you like yesterday’s goods! If you stay with him, he’s going to ruin you! Ruin you!”
At the bottom of the driveway Orion propelled Canjillon into the road as though he were ejecting him from a club or something. Mateo Canjillon spun wildly, his arms cartwheeling as he struggled to keep his balance. All at once the man skidded to a halt in the center of the road as his entire body toppled over and hit the pavement like a ton of bricks.
Canjillon landed on his face and did not move. Finally he was blissfully silent. Then Orion turned and walked back up the driveway to where Eleni was standing, still shaking, at the juncture of the walkway.
“Let’s go inside,” Orion told Eleni.
She wrapped her arms around Orion and exhaled a breath. It was over. It was done. Orion was fine. They could go inside and pick up where they had left off. And they would be able to do that for the rest of their lives because they were together and that was what mattered.
“I love you,” Orion whispered to Eleni as she unlocked her front door. “I love you. I love you.”
Eleni stepped into her home and let the front door
close behind them. She locked the deadbolt and then turned to put her arms around Orion. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him until everything seemed as though it were going to be okay. Maybe if she just stayed like this it would be.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mateo Canjillon was going to be a problem. There was no doubt in Orion’s mind that this was true. The man had some pretty serious personal issues when it came to Eleni. Thoughts of what could happen and what might happen and what should happen kept Orion awake long into the night.
December twenty-sixth. There were three days until the court hearing that would determine the fate of King Security Solutions and all of the assets attached to the company. That loomed in front of Orion like a brick wall and yet his mind kept returning to the problem of Mateo Canjillon. His mother and Alaina Ariosa could wait. They certainly weren’t going anywhere. They weren’t really a threat. At least not in the physical sense. And right now Orion was more concerned with what was going to happen when Mateo Canjillon felt the need to reassert his male dominance. If he attempted to hurt Eleni to somehow punish her for what had happened, Orion was going to rip his arms and legs off as though he were nothing more than an ant.
Eleni was still sleeping when Orion slipped out of the bed. It was early still. And dark. Very dark. When Orion looked outside he could not make out any sort of moon or stars. There were only streetlights illuminating the side yard of Eleni’s quiet little house. Still Orion could not help but feel that they were being watched and he knew exactly who to credit with that uncomfortable sensation.
Orion was not one of the King brothers who was particularly comfortable in his wolf skin. At least not in the way that Zane or Jason tended to be. But right now there was no doubt in Orion’s mind what he needed to do. It was time for the Bigfoot Wolf to put in an appearance. And of course Orion was going to have to apologize to Zane for ridiculing both the concept and the moniker the next time he saw his brother. Maybe.
The shift wasn’t uncomfortable. Even though Orion didn’t change as often as Gemini or his other brothers, his body knew exactly what was needed. He felt his nose begin to elongate. His ears became triangular and stood up from his quickly changing head. His limbs lengthened, his body seemed to fold in half. He felt the hair sprouting from every pore and then all at once he was standing in the hallway of Eleni’s home on all fours.
Trotting toward the front of the house, Orion looked out the big picture window and attempted to use his preternatural vision to see who or what was out there waiting. Nothing. And yet his instincts were clamoring that there was more going on than what he could see in the yard. There was someone out there. Someone waiting.
The side door of Eleni’s house was located in the kitchen. The door led to the back yard and the porch. It did not take long for Orion to use his teeth and claws to carefully unlock the door and turn the knob. It amused him to think that people did not credit their dogs with this ability. If the dogs had cared to learn or cared what was on the other side of something, they were easily equipped to do something about it.
As soon as Orion was in the backyard, he let the door click closed behind him. Dropping to his belly right there on the patio, he let his nose sort through everything all at once. Damp grass, overcast sky, the scent of someone’s garbage in the alley between the houses, and even the smell of a copse of bushes that were in dire need of fertilizing. And then all at once Orion caught a hint of something else.
He stood up. The smell was unmistakable. It was acrid and strangely detestable. There was fear mingled with the sweat of body odor and garlic. It was almost as though the person carrying that scent were struggling hard to be more than he had ever been meant to be.
Mateo Canjillon. That was the source of the odor. There was no doubt in Orion’s mind about it. He only had to follow that smell to the source in order to find his quarry. And that meant it was time to leave the backyard for the front because it was immediately obvious that Mateo Canjillon was still lurking out by the street for some reason.
Orion’s wolf form was enormous. It was almost nothing for him to leap over the paltry gate separating the backyard from the front. Trotting toward the yard and the street beyond, Orion kept to the shadows. As he searched the yard with his nose from several yards away, Orion realized exactly why his brothers preferred this form for intimidating vandals and seeking out those who had pissed them off.
It could not have been more obvious that Mateo Canjillon was hiding on the backside of Eleni’s car had there been a lighted sign blinking above the man’s head. Orion wondered what the man was thinking. Did he honestly think he was being sly here?
But when Orion slunk through the shadows toward the car, he realized that the lump of something at the edge of the driveway tucked behind the car was not actually a human. It reeked. That much was true. But as Orion nosed the pile of what appeared to be waterproof camping blankets, he discovered that Mateo Canjillon was not there right now. Not anymore.
The scent was fresh! Orion turned in a quick circle to try and get his bearings, but the pile of blankets had apparently been the man’s hiding spot for several hours and the scent was so pervasively strong that it was almost more than Orion could set aside. He lashed his tail from side to side in irritation.
“Hey, doggie. You looking for me?”
Orion spun on his haunches, but it was too late. The soft pea shooter sound of a twenty-two caliber handgun with a silencer on the barrel was both shockingly loud and disturbingly quiet in the darkness. Orion felt the bullet enter his right shoulder and stick there as if had hit a brick wall. The pain exploded through his body. He felt the warm stickiness of blood on his fur. He stumbled but did not go down. He could not. He had to stay upright and he had to find the bastard that had shot at him so he could rip his head off.
The net was utterly unexpected. Where in the hell had this come from?
“I intended to get that bastard King, but I suppose you’ll do.” Mateo Canjillon hauled back on the net and yanked Orion’s feet right out from underneath him. “You’re a damned big dog. That’s for sure. Maybe once you spend some time at the local animal shelter you won’t be quite so eager to protect your mistress.”
Well, wasn’t that an awkward kettle of fish. Shifting from wolf to human form in front of an uninitiated human wasn’t permitted for good reason. A man like Mateo Canjillon would have to be murdered in cold blood and buried in a field out at the ranch to keep him from trying to extort money in order to keep the King family secrets. That meant Orion had to bide his time. He had to wait. And that wasn’t good.
Bad Wolf. Bad. Bad.
The thoughts ran through Orion’s mind as he thought about the fact that he had made a huge mistake. Now he had to wait in order to fix it. But that didn’t mean he was going to make it any easier for Mateo Canjillon.
The overblown steroid user was struggling to get Orion’s body off the ground. He grunted beneath Orion’s weight as Orion pretended to pass out. The gym teacher finally managed to sling Orion’s body over his shoulder. He staggered beneath the weight and Orion was not shy about purposefully shifting himself in just the wrong direction at the wrong time.
“Dammit!” Mateo cursed as he struggled to get Orion’s body away from Eleni’s front yard. There was a truck waiting. Or rather there was an SUV waiting at the curb. “Open the doors,” Mateo whispered harshly to someone else inside the vehicle.
He had an accomplice? It seemed a bit unusual. Who would be here helping the guy and what had their original intention been? Had they actually been intending to kidnap Eleni?
“What the hell is this?” A man got out of the car and Orion caught a brief glimpse of a face and build in the green glow of the dash lights. “You said you were coming here to knock on a window so you could talk to Eleni. Why in the hell did you bring a net? Were you going to kidnap the girl?”
Mateo actually looked defensive. “I hadn’t decided!”
“And did I hear a gunshot? What the hell? You’re ins
ane. You know that? Remind me to never help you again!”
“The dog was guarding the property.” Mateo sounded as though this were a perfectly reasonable change of plan. “I had to get rid of him. We’ll come back for the woman later. Or even better, I’ll get her a new puppy or something and be the hero.”
“You’re an idiot.” The guy in the vehicle shook his head. That was when Orion recognized him as another teacher who had been at the staff holiday party just the other day. “She’s going to freak out and turn you into the cops. I told you that the woman wasn’t interested in you. Mateo, you’re my friend. I’m trying to help you out here. But I swear you’re losing your mind.”
Mateo shoved Orion into the back of the SUV. Then he closed the doors and Mateo heard him run around the vehicle. It wasn’t but a moment before he got into the front passenger seat.
“Where are we going now?” the driver demanded irritably.
Mateo did not hesitate. “The pound.”
“You’re just going to dump this dog at the pound? You realize it’s the size of a bear, right? Not only that, but there probably isn’t a night check-in.” The driver put the SUV in drive and they pulled away from the curb.
The men argued the entire way to the nearest animal control office. Orion’s shoulder was throbbing. He felt the flesh working and struggling to push the bullet out of his body even as it healed up around the wound. Shifters healed incredibly fast. That did not mean there was no pain. It hurt like hell. There was no way that he was going to sign up to get shot again no matter if he was in his wolf or human form. It gave him another wave of appreciation for what kind of force and the utter violence it would have taken in order to finish off his father Mac King.
“Here!” Mateo reached across the driver in order to point at a building. “It’s right here. There’s a light on. Let’s just dump him and run.”
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 115