by Lynn Howard
He didn’t even know if she had a family. Of course, she had parents, but were they still alive? Did she have siblings? He knew she was single; there hadn’t been any scents or hints of a male in the house. Just that familiar yet different scent that clung to the furniture and walls.
Once everyone was safe and settled into the SUV and on their way, Brax leaned forward to look past Amy.
“You shouldn’t have been out here,” he said to her.
Campbell leaned forward and frowned. “Why? Because I’m a woman? Or because I’m hu…small.” She caught herself before referring to herself as human with Amy sitting beside her.
For someone who hated Shifters so much, she sure was intent on keeping their existence a secret.
“Because you got hurt. Last night,” he said, pointing a finger at the spot where her pants covered. It had to hurt with each movement, even if there was a bandage covering it.
“It’s fine,” she said again, leaning back and trying to close Brax out.
Didn’t work. Brax had never been one to be ignored. Especially not when it was a person he cared about who was putting herself at risk.
“We’re not done talking about this,” Brax said, sitting back and shaking his head when Mason glanced at him in the rearview.
They took Amy to where she asked to be dropped off, keeping the conversation as light and casual as possible to avoid slipping anything that she could use later if she did decide to call the cops. He wouldn’t blame her if she did, he just really hoped she didn’t. There was nothing the cops could do about these kinds of predators. The humans would be nothing against Shifters. It was up to the Ravenwood Pride and others of their kind to end the rogues.
The human traffickers were the human cops’ problems.
The second Amy was out of the car and Mason was driving away from her quaint suburban house, Brax scooted closer to Campbell and attempted to examine her leg.
“I said it’s fine,” Campbell said, pushing his hands away.
“Do you know who attacked you last night?” Aron asked from the front seat, lowering his vanity mirror to look at Campbell.
She shook her head. “Shifter. That’s all I know.”
“How many?”
Campbell bared a brief glance at Brax before answering. “Two.”
“Where are they now?”
“Well. One of them was dead when I left. So, either his buddy dragged him home after I put a bullet between his eyes or he’s still laying in the woods.” She shrugged up her narrow shoulders.
“Do you often come up against more than one at a time?” Aron asked in his best business Alpha tone.
Campbell raised her shoulders up and gave a what-do-you-think look to Aron.
All Brax could do was stare at Campbell in both fear and total respect. This woman really was a bad ass.
Mason nodded his head with a grin.
Aron looked impressed. He gave her a short nod and flipped the visor back up. He was done interrogating Campbell.
Good.
For some reason, the more the Alpha spoke to her, the more Brax’s panther grew uneasy in his head. Which didn’t make sense. Aron was neither flirting with nor threatening her. He was merely gathering information for their own missions.
“Where do you want to go, Camp?” Mason asked from the driver’s seat. His shortening of her name irritated Brax’s panther, too.
What the hell was going on with his animal? These men were no threat to Campbell or Brax’s love life. Or the dream of a love life, anyway.
He was determined to get her to see how awesome he was so they could live happily ever after.
“Home,” Campbell replied. She sounded tired. And she was leaning her head against the rest, watching the scenery pass through the window beside her.
“Where is –”
“Next door to Janie’s,” Brax answered, cutting Mason off.
Campbell’s head rolled to look at him and she stared at him for a few seconds. Then a tiny smile appeared on those pretty lips and she rolled her eyes as she looked away.
“Next door to Janie’s,” she said, repeating Brax’s words with a small shake of her head. “How long have you known her?” she asked, finally lifting her head to look at Brax.
“What’s it been now? Six months?” Brax asked the guys up front.
“Close to it,” Aron answered.
Campbell watched Brax as she chewed the inside of her cheek. “She said you saved her.”
Brax dipped his head once, the smile falling off his face. That day had been awesome and terrible. They’d tortured the poor woman until they’d almost broken her spirit. But they hadn’t successfully sexually assaulted her or sold her off before the panthers tracked her down to some shitty shack deep in the woods of Keokuk, Mo, back before they’d returned home to hunt the rogues here.
“How?”
“Same way you saved Amy. Only we got to her after she’d been transported a few times. We found her up North,” Aron answered, glancing over his shoulder instead of turning in his seat.
“Where are you guys from? How many places have you tracked these bastards down?”
“We’re from here. In Cedar Hill. About twenty minutes south of where you live. But we’ve found them in six states so far. They’re worldwide,” Brax answered.
She nodded, her eyes moving to the side as if she were in thought. “That’s what I figured.”
“What about you?” Aron asked.
“What about me what?”
“Where are you from? Why are you risking your life and your freedom to track them down?” Aron asked.
Her shoulders raised slightly and dropped. “St. Louis originally. I moved here after…I’m trying to stop other families from going through what I’m sure Janie did. I know I can’t stop them all, but at least I can slow them down.”
She’d stopped herself from saying something. What? She’d moved to the area after what? She’d told Brax she’d lost someone to Shifters, to what she thought were traffickers. Who? And did it have something to do with the scent he’d picked up in her apartment?
Too soon, Mason was pulling the SUV in front of Campbell’s mobile home. She climbed out without any farewells or thank yous.
Nope. He wasn’t done with this conversation.
Daxon was standing on the sidewalk and handed her the keys as she passed.
“I’m going to help her up the stairs and inside,” Brax said as he pushed his own door open.
“Don’t stay too long. I need a beer, a shower, and some sleep,” Mason said around a yawn.
“Hey!” Brax called out as he jogged to catch up to the obviously limping Campbell. “Let me help you inside,” he said.
“I’m fine, Brax. Thanks for the help tonight, but I can get into my house on my own.”
“Dude. You look like you’d rather crawl than walk. Let me help. I can take Polo out to piss for you.”
She tried to hold back her smile, even pressed her lips into a tight line, but she lost the battle. “Fine. But you’ll probably have to pick up his poo again.”
Brax shrugged, but didn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to push his luck.
He followed her to her place as she painfully trudged up each step. Once they were inside, Brax couldn’t take it anymore. This bone deep need to take care of the woman his animal had claimed was overriding everything else in his brain. Including self-preservation. There was a good chance when he did what he wanted to do, Campbell was going to cold cock him.
Bending, he slipped one arm under her knees and one behind her back, scooping her into his arms so fast she squeaked in surprise, and carried her up the rest of the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” she said, pushing at his chest.
“Better stop or I’ll drop you,” he said with a grin.
“Stop grinning.”
Brax sucked his lips into his mouth, but the smile was still there. No way he could hide it. He was officially holding Campbell in his arms, ag
ainst his chest, and she’d yet to punch him in the face or try to stab or shoot him.
“You have to let me down so I can unlock the door.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Brax lowered her to her feet and waited as she opened her door.
Polo sat in the foyer waiting for his owner.
“You want to go outside, boy?” Brax asked him. The dog’s mouth opened and his tongue lolled out in answer. “See? He likes me.”
As Brax hooked on the leash Campbell handed him, he smiled as she lowered as much as her leg would allow and lavished her pet with love.
“Nah. He simply has to pee.”
She once again tried and failed to hide her smile. She was definitely teasing him. He wasn’t imagining shit.
Hell…yes!
Chapter Five
Campbell once again caught herself flirting with Brax. But, honestly, after what she’d seen and how he and his friends had treated Amy, she was having a hard time seeing him as anything other than a man. A good man. He hadn’t even bothered to turn into one of those big panthers when he’d come racing to the fight scene.
He’d come racing to help her. She’d heard him scream her name, but she’d been too busy battling the assholes trying to sneak off with scared little Amy to respond. The girl couldn’t be more than eighteen.
The fuckers had zero morals.
Brax returned with Polo and jiggled the bag full of her furry baby’s droppings.
“Ew! You could’ve put it in the trashcan outside!” she said, crinkling her nose as she pointed toward the kitchen where the trashcan was.
His grin was firmly in place as he carried the bag and deposited it into the bin before returning to take off Polo’s leash.
“He likes me but was a little unsure of the guys,” he said, jerking his head in the direction where the SUV was parked.
“Oh. I’m sure he hated them. And I’m sure your friends aren’t real happy you’re still in here while they wait out there.”
“Eh,” he said with a shrug. “I’m sure I’ll get a crap ton of ball busting when I get in the car.”
He shuffled his feet as he took slow steps toward the door. And Campbell found she didn’t want him to leave.
Why? What had changed in the few weeks since she’d first met him? What was it about this man that made her insides all gooey and her lower half warm?
“Thanks again for the help,” she said as she kept her ass glued to the couch cushion.
Honestly, she was worried if she rose and went near him, she’d want him to kiss her. Or she’d kiss him. Something she should not want. Something she shouldn’t even be thinking about.
“Promise me something,” he said, moving closer.
“What?” she said with a frown. She was too good at keeping promises. She wouldn’t agree to anything until she knew what he wanted.
“Please don’t go out there again until you’re fully healed up. You can take a break. We’re out there almost every single night. It’s not worth it. Not worth your life. Besides, if you get killed, who can I flirt with when I come to see Janie?”
“Is that what you’re doing? Flirting?” she asked as she looked up at him through her lashes.
Campbell! What are you doing? she screamed in her head. But dammit, she couldn’t stop herself.
Brax’s eyes dropped to her lips then back up. “What would you say if I was?”
“What would you say if I thought you were cute?”
Campbell had quite a few opinions of Brax. She thought he was confident and funny. Flirty. Strong and heroic.
But shy wasn’t one of them.
So when his cheeks flushed a light pink, Campbell added another adjective for the animal man standing in her living room: Endearing.
“What if, when I check on Janie, I were to stop by here?”
Campbell kept her lips shut.
“Can I have your number?”
She sighed as if put upon by his request. “I guess it’s only fair since I have yours.”
His brows shot up and he fumbled as he pulled his phone from his back pocket. As she rattled off her number, Brax’s big thumbs moved over the screen of his phone. When it rang, she held it up and showed him her screen.
“Sexy beast?” he asked, his pinched brows causing a tiny crease between them before it smoothed and a slow grin split his face. He turned his phone toward her.
Sexy Ninja.
“Ninja? Really?”
“That’s what I called you before I knew your name,” he admitted with an adorable shrug as if it made total sense.
He didn’t ask why she’d referred to him as a beast. To her, it was a play on words: He was a beast of a man and he had a literal beast living inside of him.
How did that work exactly? She hadn’t seen anyone turn into an animal yet, only encountered them as men or animals.
But there was an obvious difference even in their human forms. Humans’ eyes didn’t glow when they were pissed the way the Shifters’ did when Campbell ruined their plans and aimed guns at their heads.
Campbell opened her mouth to ask, then clacked it shut. Maybe she didn’t want to know. There was something churning between herself and Brax, something she couldn’t identify and didn’t understand. But if she knew all the intricacies of what he was, she might run the other way screaming.
Which she should be doing anyway.
Instead, she smiled demurely and dropped her eyes when Brax asked if he could call her.
“Yeah.”
“Yes, I can call you?” he asked, his brows going high again in surprise.
She nodded and again dropped her eyes. Campbell didn’t have a shy bone in her body, yet as she realized what was going on, that she was attracted to him almost, if not as much as he was her, she found herself at a lack of words.
Brax was different from any other man she’d ever dated. And not simply because he wasn’t human. There was this…energy he exuded that drew her in like a moth to a fucking flame.
When she looked up, there was a hint of glow coming from Brax’s insanely pretty eyes.
“Your eyes are glowing,” she whispered and once more had the urge to climb to her feet, cross the room, and press her lips to his.
He nodded and his tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip. Dammit. That did nothing to quell her desire to taste his kiss.
“You need rest. Please don’t go hunting until you’re healed. If you need anything, call me.” He started backing toward the door again. “You okay locking me out when I leave.”
The words made her feel too much like some damsel. “Yeah. I’ll be fine,” she said, lifting her chin and forcing away the thoughts of Brax staying, of him carrying her to her room and tearing her clothes from her body.
His hand on the knob, he glanced down at Polo who sat at Campbell’s feet. “Want me to come back in the morning to walk him?”
“Stop being so damn nice,” she said but was unable to keep the smile off her face.
“What can I say? I’m looking for any excuse to see you again.”
Campbell inhaled deeply and blew the air out in a rush. “Goodnight, Brax.”
His face softened but she could see the disappointment in those iridescent eyes. “Goodnight, Campbell.”
He stepped out and pulled the door shut. After about three minutes, his muffled voice came through the door.
“You going to lock it?”
Was he standing out there waiting for the tell-tale signs she’d gotten up to turn all the deadbolts in place?
With a smile and a shake of her head, she pushed to her feet and limped across the room. Between the ride home and sitting since she’d gotten inside, her leg was stiff and painful. She had to make sure to clean the wound again before going to bed. She did not want to run the risk of being one of those creatures.
As Campbell turned the locks into place, she leaned her forehead against the door and realized that, even though she was fully aware he was the same species as all those assholes, she was hav
ing a hard time seeing him as anything other than a big, sexy, kind man. He and his friends risked their own lives every night for women they didn’t know. Women they’d never met. And they checked on Janie regularly. How many other women did they make sure were getting by okay after they’d been taken from the traffickers?
Pushing away from the door when she heard Brax’s last goodnight come through the thin wood, Campbell slowly made her way to the bathroom. After cleaning the wound and rebandaging it, she stayed in her underwear and changed from the long-sleeved t-shirt she’d been wearing and pulled on a tank top for bed. She’d shower in the morning. She was too tired and in too much pain to bother with much else.
When she’d finally gotten comfortable and started to doze off, her phone chirped on her nightstand. She hadn’t checked in with her mom, so she figured it was her making sure Campbell was okay, even though it was earlier than she’d normally have gotten in anyway.
Nope. Sexy Beast was lit up on her screen.
“Hello?” she asked, not bothering to force her voice to sound normal.
“Did I wake you up?” Brax’s deep voice said over the line.
Rolling onto her back, she slid an arm under her head. “A little.”
“Sorry,” he said.
A few moments of silence made Campbell open her eyes. “Did you need something?” she asked.
“You said I could call.”
That made her smile in the dark. “I didn’t know you meant…” She lifted her head to look at the time on the digital clock. “Thirty minutes later.”
A breath of air blew across the phone as if he were sighing on the other end. “Guess I couldn’t wait to hear your voice again.”
“You’re so corny,” she said with an eye roll as she rolled onto her side again, this time facing Polo so she could run her hand down his warm fur.
“Or romantic,” he teased. Yet she could hear a hint of hope in his tone. “Did you need anything?”
“What? You going to bring me some ice cream?”
“What’s your favorite kind?”
She frowned as she held the phone to her ear. “Rocky Road.”
“I can bring you some if it’d make you feel better.”
“Sleep would make me feel better.”