by AJ Merlin
The use of my name rocketed me back down to my sneakers, and I blinked as the bloodlust drained out of my body. Now that I was thinking clearly, I didn’t need to turn to know who held me against them, arm around my neck so I didn’t go after the bear shifter again.
I opened my mouth, hesitating, only to lick my lips and parting my lips again to mutter, “Guess I know why you have shifter-grade handcuffs now. Huh, Roman?”
Chapter Twelve
The shifter sighed, face pressed against my hair as I relaxed in his grip. “If I had my preference, I would’ve preferred you didn’t find out like this,” he admitted. “Think you can stop trying to break my arm now?”
I released my grip instantly, shame washing over me as I looked at my hands that were stained with his blood. His arm was purpling, bruises in the shape of my hands forming on his fair skin.
Nice job, Alek. What a way to meet again.
Still, my embarrassment at hurting him didn’t damper my frustration enough for me to forget about the bear shifter.
“He was going to hurt her,” I told Roman. “Besides, he started it.”
Roman shifted so he could meet my eyes flatly. “He started it?” The man repeated. “That’s your defense?”
Immediately my hackles were back up, even though the other two were pulling the bear shifter away. “Do I need a defense?”
“Yeah, you do.” He unclipped the cuffs from his belt and shook them in front of my face.
“You are not putting those on me.”
“Pretty sure they’re going on you one way or another. Question is, would you like to go with me nicely, or am I going to have to put you on the ground to get you in these?”
I hated that my first instinct was to tell him to put me on the ground, and was glad that I could keep those words from coming out of my mouth.
“Did he get cuffed?” I nodded towards where the bear shifter and the other woman had disappeared.
Roman hesitated.
“No. He didn’t. Seriously, Roman? You didn’t see what he was about to do–“
“You’re right,” the man agreed, his blue eyes finding mine imploringly. “I didn’t. All I saw was you on top of him, half-shifted, about to tear his throat out. That’s all I have to go off of.” He reached into my pocket without asking, digging out my phone and pocketing it.
Irritation and something like fear burned my chest. I’d certainly never been in trouble with any enforcers before, and knew that the law enforcement of shifters was a lot less black and white than human policemen.
What could I say to get him to let me go?
“I…” My trepidation must have shown in my face. Roman’s gaze softened and his grip loosened slightly on my arm.
“If you fight me at all, they’re going on,” he informed me, tugging my elbow as he walked towards the mouth of the alley.
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? Would I get a phone call? And what in the world was I going to say to explain this to Noah?
“Yeah, like I said,” a familiar voice caught my attention and I looked up to see the two women who regularly harassed Noah standing next to the other male enforcer.
One of them had her arms crossed over her chest and the other was scowling.
I hesitated and Roman did as well, pausing near one of the SUVs that were parked at the curb.
“We saw him with that other woman earlier,” the blonde was saying. “Saw him hit her, too.”
Were they talking about the bear shifter and the crying woman?
“He’s done it before,” her companion said, casting me a confused but curious look. “What’d she do?”
The man looked up at me, eyes going from my face to Roman’s. “You know her?”
“She lives down a few blocks. He go after her too?” she snorted. “Guess it’s no surprise. Guy’s an ass.”
“They’ve…seen him hurt people before?” I murmured, chancing a look up at Roman.
“Guess so,” he shrugged, leading me away from them and to the second SUV with an open back door.
“Why didn’t they stop him? Or at least tell someone?”
When Roman gestured for me to get in, I did so with only a bit of hesitation.
Immediately I regretted it. The SUV was outfitted professionally, with black seats, a radio, and a heavy iron screen between me and the front seats.
“He’s an alpha,” Roman reminded me, hand on the door. “And he’s a grizzly bear.” His tone had changed from admonishing to concerned. “Alek, he could’ve killed you. You should’ve–“
“Walked away?” I asked, my wide eyes finding his again. “Watched him hurt her, like those two did?”
“You could’ve called someone. Like us.”
“Enforcers like you don’t come to neighborhoods like this,” I argued, voice regaining some of my anger from before. “Get real–“
“Well I’m here, aren’t I?”
I hated that I didn’t have an argument for that.
“Maybe if you’d stuck around at Sadie’s, I could’ve told you what I did for a living, and maybe even given you my number.”
Ouch.
“It wasn’t personal,” I mumbled.
“Oh? Sure seemed that way.” He glanced away, then sighed. “This isn’t the time for that. Is there anyone you want me to call?”
“Call?” I parroted. Shit. This was really happening.
Nausea rose in my stomach and irrationally I considered kicking the other door open-if it wasn’t locked-and sprinting down the street.
Roman sighed, shifting when my fear tinted the air between us bitterly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No. You’re going to take me away in a black SUV to some unknown location that probably follows the whims of whatever clan holds the most sway today. Then maybe you’ll, what, throw me in some dark cell while taking the side of an alpha who apparently abuses omegas for the sheer fact that he is, in fact, an alpha.”
Roman didn’t respond right away. He leaned on the door, eyes on mine. “Are you done?”
“For the moment.”
“You’ve got…an overactive imagination. While I am going to take you to an unknown-to you-location, I’m not going to do the rest of that. And today’s whims are the Ahlleron’s clan’s, as they were yesterday and as they will be tomorrow.”
Maybe Hades would come bail me out of shifter-jail if Noah asked him nicely. It didn’t surprise me that Roman threw their name around casually, when they made the law in Atlanta.
Of course all the enforcers obeyed them.
“I need to call my roommate,” I murmured finally.
“We’ll get it taken care of at the compound.” Roman moved back, then hesitated again. “I wish all that fear wasn’t directed at me,” he admitted.
“Yeah,” I sighed, trying to appear aloof as I settled back into the seat with a nonchalance I most certainly did not feel. “Me too, Roman.”
As the SUV pulled up to a tidy, square building with a new brick exterior and glass doors, I tried not to let myself tremble in my seat.
It could have been worse, right? Sure I was basically under arrest with no bail-out funds. And yeah, they were more than likely going to take the side of an alpha over my own, thanks to the way shifter politics regarding hierarchy worked, but surely it could have been worse.
Roman hadn’t been in the SUV with me-thank God, frankly, because I wouldn’t have known what to do with that emotional minefield-and when the door to the backseat opened, he was not the enforcer standing there.
Instead, the woman I recognized from the night at Sadie’s peered down at me, eyes slightly narrowed.
“He didn’t cuff you,” she observed, and mutely I reached my arms out to her, expecting her to rectify his oversight. “No, no.” She waved a hand at me dismissively and stepped back so I could get out. “I suppose I should, but I’m not very afraid of a fearful omega right outside the office.”
The office loomed beside me, suddenly much more imposing no
w that I stood in the parking lot and mere feet from the heavy duty glass doors framed in shiny silver metal.
While I’d known when I started following the bear-shifter that I was absolutely going to regret sticking my nose where it didn’t belong…I hadn’t expected to regret it this much.
“Did someone call my roommate?” I asked in a rush, just as the woman opened her mouth to speak. “And that woman-is she all right? Is someone with her.”
“I don’t think anyone has called him, but we’ll get it taken care of..” She considered my other question, then spoke again. “She’s fine. She was being checked out, but is fine. Make sure you give all the necessary information to the desk attendant.”
Checked in. Like this was some kind of voluntary hotel stay.
The woman cleared her throat, shifting her weight as my heart sounded the alarm in my chest. No doubt she could scent my fear and I doubted it was very pleasant for the alpha.
Not that I had much room to care about her and Roman and my current predicament.
“Come on.” The taller woman gripped my arm gently, steering me through the glass doors of the enforcer’s office. It hadn’t escaped me that we were far from downtown, and the only buildings around here looked like little offices themselves.
Nor had it escaped me that there was a fence around this place. I wondered how they kept rampaging shifters from breaking out, since a normal fence would mean very little to us.
Once inside, the woman took me past the front entry, behind a long counter and past nondescript white floors and walls. The place felt sterile, like they worked very hard to keep it as bland and unassuming as possible.
A woman at a desk glanced up at me, her nostrils flared, but I looked away.
Were all of the enforcers alphas? Or was I just unlucky enough that the ones working were also the ones that were the most in tune with any omega’s emotions or changes in their biology?
“Here. Sit.” The woman had led me down a side hallway and pointed at a flat metal bench against the wall.
I sat, her eyes on me the whole time, and finally glanced up at her when she didn’t move.
“Are you going to run? Or cause a scene?” she asked frankly.
“Not unless I come up with a better plan than ‘sprint for the door and hope no one notices,’” I answered sourly, before I could stop myself.
“I think a few people would notice,” she assured me. “And–“
“How dare you?” The roaring voice made me flinch and I turned to see the bear shifter being dragged into the room, spittle flecking his mouth and his hands cuffed at his lower back.
His eyes rolled wildly, teeth long fangs that curved out of his mouth.
Then those angry eyes landed on me.
“You,” he snarled. “This is all your fault.”
“Clearly,” I agreed. “Because no way it could be your fault, could it?”
The woman lifted a hand, a clear sign for me to stop talking.
But apparently, the damage was done. My words must have struck a very fragile nerve, because the man roared, the sound nowhere close to human.
The muscles of his upper arms bulged and he suddenly ripped them apart, the broken cuffs dangling from his wrists.
And not once did he look away from me.
“Shit,” the woman hissed, stalking forward towards him.
I got to my feet, stomach clenching as my own shift tickled at my skin. I sure as shit didn’t want to start a fight in shifter-jail but I also wasn’t going to sit here and get mauled by a bear.
The woman reached for him and missed, instead getting clocked by the very muscular arm of the shifter on his short trip in my direction.
Time seemed to slow down. My only advantage before had been catching him before he thought to shift, but he was already halfway there, now. There was nowhere for me to go, unless I learned to fly, and I had a feeling even one blow from his hand that now sported thick, black claws would be more than a little painful.
Not to mention, the two men behind him were still recovering from where he’d sent them sprawling when he’d pulled the cuffs apart.
When I blinked, the man had closed half the distance between us. Fur had started to sprout along his jaw, which was widening and lengthening into a bear’s heavy muzzle.
I backed up, knowing it wouldn’t do much good with the wall to my right and the heavy counter to my left. Still I growled in answer to his roars, my fangs apparent and my own claws present.
If he was going to kill me here, I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Another roar sounded through the room, echoing off of the walls and causing my adrenaline to shoot through the roof. The sound had come from over my shoulder, and wildly I wondered what the hell else I was going to have to defend myself from.
Until Roman lunged over the counter, putting himself between the half-shifted bear and me. He roared again, causing every submissive, omega instinct in my body to shriek the alarm.
I was a sucker for a good alpha-growl. But Roman’s roar was something else.
In someone else, someone I wasn’t so infatuated with and someone who wasn’t half the alpha he was, I would’ve laughed or ignored it. But when he called his challenge to the bear, I found it very hard to not appreciate him that much more.
The bear shifter, however, did not share my appreciation. He hesitated, I could see the flicker of indecision in his eyes, but didn’t stop his charge.
“Roman!” I shrieked, my brain doing the obvious math of their differences in size. The bear had at least an extra hundred pounds on Roman, not to mention a foot in height.
But when they came together, it wasn’t the enforcer who was bested.
Roman caught the man’s arm and struck his jaw with his other hand, causing a resounding CRACK to meet my ears.
I grimaced at the sound, just as the bear shifter’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the floor like a limp lasagna noodle.
Without missing a beat, Roman turned to face me. His blue eyes were bright, his canines fangs that caused him to have to part his mouth or bite into his lip. “Are you okay?” He asked, taking a step toward me as his own partial shift faded away.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled, unable to take my eyes off of him.
Why in the world was my body so convinced that this was the best time to grab him and kiss him to show him my appreciation for getting between me and the bear?
“Alek?” He pressed, striding into my personal bubble and standing close enough that his body nearly brushed mine. “Are you–“ He trailed off, surveying my features.
“That was kind of hot,” I couldn’t help but mumble, just loud enough for him to hear.
For a moment, Roman looked absolutely taken aback. Like he’d imagined all of the things I was going to say, and that hadn’t even crossed his mind.
He looked back at the bear, then glanced at me pointedly. “If I’d known all it would take to impress you was knocking out a bear twice my size, I would’ve done it sooner,” he said with a small, uncertain smile.
“If only you didn’t do it in shifter-jail and I wasn’t under arrest,” I added stupidly. As fantastic as it was to see him in brief action, my brain refused to move past my current situation long enough for me to think much more about the possibilities of Roman.
His smile vanished and Roman sighed. I hated to take away his good mood, but here we were.
“I’ll make sure to call your roommate,” he told me, already walking away from me and towards the other enforcers to haul the bear shifter to his feet.
Chapter Thirteen
“Is that your full name?” The man at the check-in desk asked, glancing around his laptop at me suspiciously.
I frowned, feeling the slightest bit of embarrassment. “No,” I said. “It’s Aleksandra Sawyer.” Not Alek, like everyone knew me as. I didn’t use Aleksandra, and had plans to never do so again.
“Age?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Oh, you’
re–“ he glanced at the screen, eyes narrowing so he could squint at the brightness. “You’re already in the system.”
I didn’t say anything, only leaned back in the uncomfortable armchair that I’d been brought to and told to sit until I was checked into the system.
Of course I’d known that he’d find me without much effort.
And I knew exactly what his eyes were fixed on as he read the screen, seemingly captivated by what my file said.
“This is you? Aleksandra Sawyer, twenty-four, born in Montgomery, Alabama?”
“Yeah. That’s me.” Silently I begged him to not go any further into it, and wasn’t sure why me committing a supposed crime today gave him any reason to dredge up my history.
“Lots of red tape in your file,” the enforcer commented.
“Is there?” I picked at the cheap laminate of the desk, eyes fixed on the spot. The only way I was going to have this conversation was if my life depended on it.
So far, it didn’t.
He read on, and I didn’t need to look at his face to know he was interested in my file.
“Is this really–“ he began, and I steeled myself for a question I would deflect.
“Is something wrong?” The woman who had become my unofficial chaperone came to stand behind me, frowning at the desk attendant.
“What?” he looked up, surprised. “No. She’s good to go. I was just reading…” he trailed off, shamefaced at being caught in his own personal curiosities.
“Is there something in her file that pertains to today?” the woman went on.
“Well…no.” He glanced at the screen again, then at me. “Just…maybe we should get the courts to open her file? Lots of it is sealed behind some pretty heavy red tape, is all.”
“Hmmm.” She looked down at me disapprovingly and I glanced up, my face carefully bland. “Alek, right?”
I nodded.
“Come on.” Without another word she turned on her heel, obviously expecting me to follow her.