Hunting Season

by Kate Rudolph

  But it was only a small part, and she didn't give in that easy. "It's doctor." She'd worked long and hard for that degree and she wasn't about to let anybody forget about it.

  "Dr. Nichols," he corrected. "Please let me in."

  "No." This was ridiculous. She was yelling at a bodyguard through her own closed door like she needed to bargain to make him go away. He wasn't getting into the room without forcing his way in, and if he tried he would be fired before he could get past the first lock.

  Her father had some nerve. She'd allowed the detail to follow her because it seemed logical. But she did not need a bulldog watching her every step. Who did this guy think he was?

  And what kind of bodyguard looked like he had walked right off a runway somewhere?

  He was almost a full head taller than her, definitely a couple inches over six feet. He had short dark hair and soulful brown eyes lined with just enough laugh lines to make him look sweet and gentle… and oh so sexy. He had the kind of even tan that only came naturally, and even though he was covered from head to toe, she could tell there were muscles rippling just below the surface. He wasn't the kind of guy she normally found herself attracted to.

  Mostly because he was the kind of guy that only existed in pornographic fantasies.

  There were plenty of hot doctors around, and hot lawyers, and hot stockbrokers, and hot baristas. But none of them held a candle to this Owen guy.

  It was too bad she had to ruin his life. Okay, that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. She just wanted to get him fired, she didn't care about the rest of his life.

  She wasn't going to let him come in to boss her around and babysit her.

  She didn't need it.

  She didn't want it.

  She wasn't going to have it.

  He knocked on the door again, but he didn't say anything this time. Stasia stared at the white wood for a long moment before pushing off and heading deeper into her condo. Let him stew. She didn't owe him anything. Eventually he would realize that she wasn't listening.

  And luckily she didn’t have a neighbor, so even if he decided to wait outside her front door all day no one would be there to question his presence. She didn't really care if the neighbors started to gossip, but she had decades of media training that made her shy away from the spotlight unless she was using it to her advantage.

  No one could break into her apartment to kidnap her if he was standing right outside the door.

  She hated that she even thought it. She hated that a small part of her wanted to let him inside to take care of all of her problems and guard her until whatever problem her father had caused in her life was fixed by her father's money.

  But she'd learned a long time ago that letting her father dictate any aspect of her life led to him dictating every aspect.

  It started small, logical. Someone tried to kidnap her so he offered personal protection. If they couldn't catch the guy, he would say she should move into his penthouse since it was more secure than her building. Was that true? Sure. But she'd sacrifice a lot of personal security to stay out from under her father's thumb.

  She didn't have a job at the hospital anymore, and he had plenty of contacts who would be happy to hire her. And just like that, she would be wrapped up in a web of favors and responsibilities that she could never escape.

  She knew who her father was. He didn't love like a normal person. Some thought he was completely incapable of the emotion, but she knew it was more complex than that. To him, love was transactional. None of his wives had ever lived up to the concept, and she and her nine siblings fell in and out of favor depending on his moods and their usefulness. Well, maybe the baby got a pass. For now.

  In another life, he would have been a king or a lord, dictating his will and whims out on the world. He didn't have a title, but he still used his wealth in the exact same way.

  She was free of him now, more or less. And she couldn't let this be another setback. It had taken nearly two years to climb her way out of the last setback that put her in her father's clutches. She didn't want to start all over again.

  Even if starting over was exactly what she was doing right now. But at least it had nothing to do with her father.

  She picked her phone up from the kitchen counter and tried her father's number. She wasn't surprised when he didn't pick up and she was immediately forwarded to his assistant's answering service. She hung up before leaving a message. If he wanted to talk he would have picked up.

  Then she tried AR. If her father couldn't be reached, her oldest brother was almost as good. He was their father's right-hand man and heir. He did the family dirty work.

  But AR didn't answer either.

  Stasia cursed and set the phone back down. She hated the games her family played. No doubt her father and AR were busy. They would be able to give her a dozen convenient and logical reasons why they couldn't answer her calls.

  But in reality, they weren't answering because they thought if they ignored her for long enough she would give up and accept that Owen was going to be her shadow until they decided she was safe.

  Safe.

  She didn't think she could ever truly be safe as long as she was the daughter of Armand Selby. And short of time travel, there wasn't a way to untie that knot.

  Owen knocked on the door again, an unwelcome reminder of all of the control that her father tried to wield over her.

  She ignored him and instead consulted the calendar app on her phone to see what she had to do today. She'd been trying to keep herself busy in the couple weeks since she had left her previous job and she was happy to see that she had a volunteer shift coming up.

  She eyed the window in her sitting room that looked out over Gramercy Park. If her apartment was just a few stories lower, she would have been happy to sneak out and lose the guard dog. But she had stopped playing games with security details when she was a teenager. She was a thirty-four-year-old adult woman now.

  If she didn't want to be followed, she would just have to lose him the old-fashioned way.

  Chapter Five

  Owen pressed his fingers against the door. Solid. Mahogany? Maybe. Definitely fancy and hard. Nothing he could bust down. Not that he would. That would give exactly the opposite impression that he wanted to give to Stasia.

  He could barely hear her walking around inside the condo. The sound of her footsteps was mostly drowned out by his own beating heart, but at least he knew she was safe and sound where she was supposed to be. He'd have to figure out another way inside.

  It wasn't like he was going to hold her prisoner. Though his mind did briefly flash on a pair of fuzzy handcuffs he'd once been chained to a bed with. Would she be into that?

  Definitely not something he would ask. He wasn't that stupid.

  If he couldn't get inside the condo and he couldn't get her to agree to protection, his presence was useless. But Owen didn't panic. Sometimes clients got cold feet when their guards showed up. It made the whole thing more real. He'd probably be freaked out too.

  Though he doubted there were many baddies out there who could take down a freaking werewolf.

  The princess wasn't who he’d expected. He wasn't easy to stare down and ignore, and she'd done it like it was nothing. Definitely not some precious flower.

  He wanted to test her boundaries. Wanted to see if he could make that sour face of hers crack a smile. And he wanted to taste her lips more than he wanted his next breath. The attraction wasn't fading, even as the minutes passed and she kept ignoring him.

  His wolf didn't like that.

  He and his wolf needed to have a talk. He couldn't deal with a split personality in the middle of a job.

  He pulled out his phone and called Gibson. It was embarrassing to have the door slammed in his face, but he still needed to report it to his boss.

  Gibson answered on the first ring. "You all set?" Owen could hear road noise in the background of the call and assumed the boss was coming back to the city.

  "Negative
. Client wouldn't let me in." He traced his finger up and down a patch of the door as if that would magically open it.

  The major didn't like that. "What?"

  Owen let out a frustrated breath. "Seems like a family squabble. I'm working on it."

  "Do you need me to call the brother?"

  Owen considered it, but dismissed it. "Give me a bit more time. I'll let you know." He didn't want to call in reinforcements just yet. Maybe he could get the princess to deal with him.

  "Affirmative." Gibson hung up without bothering with any pleasantries. He had more jobs to manage and wouldn't bother Owen until the next report.

  He was about to put his phone in his pocket when it vibrated with an incoming call. "This is Myers."

  "Peters with Selby Security." He didn't know the man, but the company was obvious.

  "You're on the surveillance team?" What was wrong? Hostile in the area? Had they detained the attempted kidnappers? Owen forced himself not to hound the man for answers; clearly he was calling for a reason.

  "Yes. Confirming Ms. Selby's exit."

  "It's doctor." The correction came automatically and then his brain caught up. "Wait. What? What exit?"

  "We have eyes on her out the back exit. Where are you?" asked Peters.

  Not good. Not good. Not good.

  It was a rookie move to let the client slip out the back like a teenager breaking curfew, and he hoped it didn't get her killed. "Fuck. Hold. I'm coming."

  "Shall we detain?" Peters was all professionalism, which was good because Owen was ready to beat himself bloody for his stupidity.

  "No. Keep eyes on her." He didn't want her hating him or the security detail even more. There was time to fix this.

  If he hurried.

  He sprinted down the stairs and towards the back of the building. Of course, Stasia was already gone. She had a few minutes on him, but that wouldn't be a problem. No doubt Mr. Peters had eyes on her, but Owen wanted to find her himself.

  His wolfish instincts hummed.

  Going out the back was clever, if juvenile. And he hadn't expected it. Dr. Nichols kept messing with his expectations and he'd need to reassess.

  Her street wasn't crowded, but it was still New York. Scents and people swirled all around him, and Owen had to concentrate to figure out where to go. He didn't see her at first and he had no idea where she was going. But it was only a matter of time.

  There!

  She was standing at a stoplight and making no attempt to hide her identity. She had to know the surveillance team could see her, and he hoped that was on purpose. She didn't want him, that didn't make her suicidal.

  He hung back but didn't care about staying out of sight. She'd see him if she looked over her shoulder, but there wasn't anything he could do about that short of shifting into his other form, and that would certainly attract more attention than it was worth.

  She ducked into a coffee shop, giving Owen the opportunity to throw his own watery coffee into a nearby trashcan. He didn't follow her inside. At this point he was curious to see what she was going to do. There were plenty of eyes on her, and he had no reason to believe that the people targeting her would physically harm her. He was going to let this play out.

  She had to know he was following her. She sipped her coffee as they walked a few more blocks, then dumped it in a garbage can.

  Was this whole thing a simple coffee run?

  No.

  She took the stairs down into the subway and Owen followed, closing some of the distance between them. He didn't want her getting on a train without him.

  What the fuck was she thinking? No way would the surveillance team be able to keep up.

  He hoped they were tracking her phone.

  The train was already there and not too crowded. There must have been a lull in the commute, or they were lucky. Stasia took a seat.

  Owen sat next to her.

  "Looks like you're not as much of an idiot as you look," she said as she situated her purse on her lap.

  "Hey!" That stung a bit. Owen wasn't dumb. He just didn't think things through all the time.

  Stasia glared at him.

  That glare did things and Owen needed to look away, or he definitely wouldn’t be thinking things through. "We need to work together."

  "You seem to be doing just fine." She was determined to make him beg.

  But this was Owen's job and he wasn't playing. "I don't think you're taking this seriously. You were almost kidnapped."

  Her eyes flicked to him and then away, unimpressed. "They failed. My father is looking into it. What more can I do?"

  "Take a cab?" That had to be obvious. There were only a few passengers in this car with them, but there could have been a hundred, any one of whom could have meant Stasia harm.

  She snorted. "And let my would be kidnappers car jack me? No, thanks."

  He wasn't sure the subway was safer than a cab, but at least she'd considered it. Owen would count that as a win, though he wasn't sure what game they were playing or how it was scored.

  "Where are we headed now?" He was at her side. They could start over. No reason to call this morning a loss just yet.

  But Stasia wasn't about to play along. "I don't know where you're going."

  "I'm your shadow."

  She shifted in her seat to face him, arms crossed and face hard. "I'm not stupid. I'll be vigilant. I neither need nor want you. So go back to my father and tell him that."

  "That's not how this works."

  "That's exactly how this works."

  The train screeched to a halt and Stasia jumped up from her seat. Owen had to scramble to follow, and it seemed like their time for conversation was over. He didn't recognize the neighborhood they were in, but it was a world away from the glittering richness of Gramercy Park.

  Definitely not the kind of place a spoiled rich girl would hang out.

  Unless she was getting drugs.

  He hoped she wasn't getting drugs.

  She wasn't. Not unless St. Agnes Charity Health Clinic was some kind of front. She got to the front door and stopped quickly enough that Owen almost bumped into her.

  "Patients have a right to privacy. I can't stop you from sitting in the waiting area, I suppose. But you step one foot out of line and I'm calling the cops."

  She opened the door and let it fall closed right in his face.

  Again.

  Owen needed to stop letting her do that.

  Chapter Six

  Stasia punched the keys of the computer harder than necessary as she looked up the chart for her next patient. The volunteer clinic couldn't schedule her for enough hours due to their own internal rules so she wanted to make every minute count.

  What she didn't want to be thinking about was the sexy, frustrating bodyguard who was probably sitting in the waiting room right now.

  "Rough night?" Luna Sparks was a nurse at the clinic and Stasia's friend. Her stark black hair and tattoos didn't really fit in with the vibe of the Catholic charity clinic, but she was an amazing nurse and no one wanted to make her upset.

  Stasia wasn't sure how they'd become friends. She wasn't good at talking to people, but Luna had slipped through her defenses like it was nothing. Even so, she didn't want to bring her stupid, rich girl bullshit into the clinic. She wanted to pretend she was normal, and that meant ignoring the attempted kidnapping and definitely ignoring Owen.

  "Something like that." Stasia kept scanning the file, as if that would be enough to make Luna go away.

  She smiled, showing big, bright white teeth rimmed by dark red lips. "Who's that guy you walked in with? He's yummy."

  "And what would your girlfriend say about that?" Stasia barely glanced up as she shot off the rejoinder. This was proof Luna was her friend. She knew next to nothing about the other people who worked at the clinic. But she knew Luna's girlfriend's name, Gerry, that she was a Gemini with a Cancer rising sign, whatever that meant, and that Luna and Gerry were co-parenting a bearded dragon named Newt.
>
  Luna just laughed. "He's yummy. We both have eyes. Do I need to give you the pansexuality lecture again?"

  "Please don't." There had been a PowerPoint involved. Stasia now understood more about Luna's sexual orientation than she did about her own, and she really didn't want to sit through another talk.

  "So?" Luna pressed.

  "Just ignore him and hope he goes away." That was what Stasia planned to do. She knew it was childish to leave her house like she had, but she wanted to scream at the way Owen had been sprung on her. She hadn't agreed, and she wasn't going to just put up with her family's high handedness.

  "Did a stray follow you home?" Luna peered around a corner as if that would allow her to look through the plexiglass window that looked out into the waiting area. It wouldn't, the angle was all wrong, but Stasia wasn't about to stop her.

  "Something like that." Thankfully, Stasia was done looking at the file and could escape the conversation to go see her patient and discuss the weird sores he was getting on his feet.

  One patient led to the next, and by the end of her four hour shift, Stasia was starting to feel like she could use a break. She'd happily keep checking on people all day, but she was only scheduled for four hours anyway.

  She washed her hands and combed her fingers through her hair to try and make it look a little tamer before retying it in a low bun. "Is he still out there?" she asked Luna, who was entering her own information into the computer.

  "Like I have time to check," she said with a nod at the computer, and Stasia was sympathetic. Everything needed to be logged, and it could take up way more time than expected. "There's something I wanted to mention."

  "Yeah?" Luna sounded serious and that had Stasia's attention.

  The nurse looked around surreptitiously like she was planning something, and Stasia's heart rate skyrocketed as she feared her friend was in on the kidnapping plot. Then she spoke, and Stasia wanted to smack herself for thinking that everything was about herself. "I'm applying for a new position."

  "Oh. That's… great." But her tone belied her words. Stasia was great under pressure, but not always great with change. It was why her entire life was a bit stalled at the moment. And she liked Luna. She didn't want to break in a whole new nurse, or lose a friend.