Hunting Season

by Kate Rudolph

  The shower turned on, and she could imagine what Owen looked like all naked under the hot spray. But she wasn't going to. He was her employee. That was creepy. There was a power dynamic that couldn't be avoided.

  And that was a steaming pile of bullshit excuses that Stasia was certain would dissolve the next time she laid eyes on him.

  But with Owen in the shower, it meant she could sneak downstairs without the risk of seeing him.

  That was good. If he could be her invisible shadow for the next week, that would be absolutely fucking peachy. Her life was spinning out of control and so were her hormones, and she needed to get control of something.

  Dinner. Dinner was something she could control.

  She felt like a prisoner in her own house when she paused at the door to her bedroom and listened carefully to make sure the water was still running. It was. She hoped Owen liked long showers. She wouldn't even begrudge him the hot water.

  Had she really touched him like that?

  Had they really almost kissed?

  Stasia couldn't put it out of her mind, and she kept flexing her hand involuntarily, as if that would make the memory of his body go away.

  There were plenty of stories of women she knew getting tangled up in affairs with their bodyguards. It wasn't exactly unheard of. But it felt so stereotypical. Poor little rich girl gets threatened. Big, strong, sexy man swoops in to protect her. They fall into bed together and end up with a bunch of messy emotions.

  No thanks.

  She ate some leftovers and tried to put Owen out of her mind, even as it occurred to her that she would need to feed the man. She pulled a pad of Post-Its out of a drawer and stuck one on the fridge after instructing Owen to eat anything he wanted.

  Host duties taken care of, she sat at her small kitchen table and contemplated what to do for the rest of the week. She had two more volunteer shifts at the clinic scheduled, but she couldn't bring her bullshit there. She tapped out an email to her supervisor and let her know she wasn't coming in this week.

  There. Schedule cleared.

  How sad was that?

  Luna already expected not to see her and she couldn't think of any other friends she needed to call. And what about her siblings? They barely saw each other as it was. The only one she saw with any regularity, other than AR, was Emerald, but her younger sister was probably in some far flung city living it up right now.

  Stasia cleaned up after herself and listened, satisfied that the water was still running. She could sneak back upstairs.

  She hated that she was hiding, and she regretted promising not to run away again. But she had to be a big girl and deal with it. He was staying in her house; that meant they would see each other.

  Stasia took some deep breaths to steady herself. A little bit of lust was nothing. Seriously. She just had to put thoughts of Owen aside and deal with it.

  But as she walked up the steps, she realized the water had stopped running. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter. He was in the bathroom, she didn't need to see him.

  The bathroom door was open.

  Owen stood in front of the mirror, towel hanging precariously around his hips.

  Stasia stopped in her tracks. She didn't mean to. She knew the right thing to do was to keep moving. But no power in the universe could have forced her forward at that moment.

  Rivulets of water dripped from his dark hair and traced a path over his muscles and the light dusting of hair on his glistening chest. Her tongue curled up in her mouth, straining and desperate to lick that water up.

  Owen turned and caught her staring, his mouth pulling up into a wolfish grin. Had his teeth always been that sharp? And when had his eyes turned yellow? Weren't they brown?

  She was so far away that she shouldn't have been able to see his eyes, but that didn't matter at the moment. Stasia felt trapped, prey stunned by a predator, with no chance of escape. It was crazy. Intense. Too much.

  "Enjoy the view?" Owen asked. He used a hand towel to wipe at his chest, and Stasia had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from reacting. Heat coiled deep within her and she wanted to get close, wanted Owen to soothe the ache he was causing.

  She needed to take control of this situation. She wasn't going to jump Owen's bones, and it would be easier to hold true to that vow if she wasn't looking at him. "Can't you keep the door closed?" Seriously? That was her brilliant response?

  Owen chuckled darkly, and it felt like a caress against her most private places. If he could do that with a sound, she was terrified to think of what he could do if he got his hands on her.

  "Do you need to shower?" he asked. He tilted his head back, as if inviting her into the bathroom with him, inviting her to join him in the shower.

  "I have my own." And she had to cling to that. She wasn't going to do anything with Owen. He was in her house to protect her, not get in her pants. She wasn't going to cross that line. It wasn't fair to him.

  No matter how much her body was screaming at her to act.

  "I'd be happy to help." The wolfish grin got even more predatory. It would have scared her if it wasn't so sexy. "It's my job to keep you safe."

  Somehow his reminder was the bucket of ice she needed, even if the reminders she'd been thinking to herself did nothing. Owen was her bodyguard. He was doing his job. His job was not to be her gigolo.

  "There's food in the kitchen," she muttered before scampering to her room.

  She hated that she kept running from him, but she was afraid to find out what would happen the moment she stopped.

  Chapter Nine

  Owen breathed deep as he watched Stasia walk away. The need to chase her pounded in his heart, and he had to grip his towel tight to keep from taking off, as if that was strong enough to root him in place.

  His wolf wanted to tear out of his skin and tackle her, take her, claim her until she understood that she was his. And he didn't know how to deal with that. Since when did his wolf care about the women he wanted?

  Mate.

  The word was rough, not quite human, and it definitely didn't sound like Owen. He wasn't sure if he’d said it out loud or in his mind, but it rattled around, a concept too big for him to ignore. He'd tried to do research on werewolves, but his options were limited. Still, Owen had come across the word before. Was it real? Was it possible?

  If his wolf had anything to say about it, it was. But Owen wasn't convinced his "wolf" was anything more than his imagination trying to deal with something outside of his normal. He was an easy going guy. He didn't get possessive, especially not for a princess who he was only going to be around for a week.

  And what kind of stunt was that? Preening in front of her in just a towel? Throwing out sexual comments like he had a right? She could fire him for that and he would deserve it.

  He had to get control.

  Owen slammed the door and winced at the sound it made against the old wood of her house. He wasn't supposed to have super strength, but he was beginning to think he knew exactly jack shit about what it meant to be a werewolf.

  He gripped the edges of the porcelain vanity and breathed deep, trying to center himself. He raised his head up and looked in the mirror.

  His eyes were wolfish, shifted to a golden tone far different from his normal brown. Owen squeezed his eyes shut and looked again, as if that would banish it. But no, they were still gold. He opened his mouth to check his teeth. Were they extra sharp? He wasn't sure.

  And that was another problem. Wolf and man were binary states. He was a man. He was a wolf. There wasn't an in between, except for in the moments of the shift. One of the first things he and his fellow wolves had tried to do when they first shifted was summon claws like they were comic book characters.

  It hadn't worked. All Owen got for his efforts was a headache.

  Maybe they'd started too big.

  But Owen didn't want claws now. He closed his eyes once more and concentrated on his humanity. He breathed deep and thought human thoughts: thumbs, beer,
church. No wolf had ever been dragged to Sunday School.

  It worked. When he opened his eyes they were a reassuring brown once more, and his teeth looked like teeth.

  Crisis averted, Owen dried off as quickly as possible, doing his best to ignore his cock. He had to. His job depended on it.

  And possibly his humanity.

  Did he need to apologize to Stasia?

  Owen wasn't sure what she would want, and he didn't want to make things worse. She'd almost kissed him in the library, he was certain of it.

  Or maybe that was his wolf seeing things he wanted to see.

  He'd play it by ear. And he'd behave. No more funny business.

  Of course, his resolve was tested the moment he stepped out of the bathroom. His wolf tugged him towards Stasia's closed door, but Owen resisted, fighting against the force until he was safely ensconced in his own bedroom.

  It wasn't much: a queen bed, a wardrobe, and a small window that looked out onto the park. Way more peaceful than anything in his apartment. He could barely hear any noise from the city. He could almost pretend he was back on Gibson's farm.

  And maybe Gibson was exactly who he needed. Owen pulled out his phone and dialed.

  "Is something wrong?" Gibson barked out as soon as the call connected.

  Owen scrunched his brow. "Wrong? Why?" He needed advice, he called Gibson, that was how this thing worked. Gibson was his… boss. They shied away from the other word all the werewolf fiction used.

  "You already checked in."

  "That was a few hours ago. I'm calling to let you know that we worked out a rotation with the surveillance team and the client has agreed to the surveillance for one week." Now that he was talking, he wondered if he really needed to talk about the rest of it. He'd had a moment of crazy. It happened to everyone. Really, he was feeling fine now.

  But Gibson had some magic power to sense when Owen was avoiding things. "I know all that. What's going on, Myers?"

  It felt weird to bring it up. Gibson was like the dad of their little group, and Owen had never talked to his parents about sex. They were a good Catholic family. They ignored that shit until it blew up in their faces, just like God intended. He was pretty sure his parents still thought he was a virgin.

  But Gibson hasn't his dad. He had to tell him. "My wolf feels weird." They all reported strange werewolf bullshit to Gibson when it happened.

  "Your wolf? What does that mean?" There wasn't any judgment, just confusion.

  "You know what I mean, man. The hairy dude inside of me. Four legs. Howls at the moon." Owen realized he might have been talking loud enough for Stasia to hear and lowered his voice. He did not want his ma—his client to overhear this conversation.

  "You think of it as a separate entity?" He could imagine Gibson noting this whole thing down on a clipboard like Owen was a fascinating specimen.

  "Not usually. But today it's really feeling like it. Is that normal?" He hoped Gibson had answers. It wasn't like the major had more werewolfing experience than the rest of them, but sometimes it felt like it. He had that kind of presence.

  Gibson huffed out a laugh. "We're werewolves. We left normal behind a long time ago."

  "There's something about…" He didn't want to say Stasia's name. His wolf wanted to guard her viciously and keep anyone from her. She was his. But he'd only known her for a day. What if Gibson could explain what was going on? What if he could fix it?

  "About what?"

  He had to say it. She was his client. Gibson was his boss. And he wasn't going to lie to him. "The client. Stasia… um… Dr. Nichols." They didn't generally get on a first name basis with their clients, and Owen hoped his slip up wasn't that noticeable.

  Apparently it wasn't. Sometimes it paid off to be a bit too cheery and informal. "What about her?"

  How was he supposed to explain it? He couldn't even explain it to himself, and he was sitting in his own brain. "My wolf… I… She's very attractive."

  "She's not the first hot woman you've needed to protect. Is this something else?" There was something in Gibson's voice that made Owen leery, like Gibson knew something Owen didn't and he hadn't told. For some reason.

  "I don't know." He tried to think back to his other clients, but everyone paled in comparison to Stasia. They might as well have never existed.

  "Do you need to be taken off of this detail?"

  His wolf flared to life inside of him at the thought. Give up Stasia? Never. "No," he snarled.

  "Myers," Gibson warned, a bit of his own wolf's rumble coming through.

  It was enough to make Owen take a breath. "I'm okay. I promise." He'd never snarled at Gibson—or anyone—before, especially not in human form. That had to be bad. What was so special about Stasia? Why couldn't he control himself?

  Gibson took him at his word. "Contact me if anything changes. We need to keep track of what our wolves are doing. We're the only werewolves in the universe. There isn't a rulebook for this."

  That was true. Teen Wolf hadn't done much to teach Owen about what it meant to be wolfy. Gibson disconnected, and Owen realized he'd been so caught up in his emotions about Stasia that he forgot to say anything about Hill.

  Fuck.

  He considered calling Gibson back, but stopped himself. He had no proof that Hill had been there that night. All he had was half a memory and a sense of foreboding. With his wolf going haywire, he didn't want to give Gibson more cause for worry.

  Were they the only werewolves in existence?

  His mind snagged on what Gibson said, and he had to wonder. They'd been turned into werewolves deliberately… for some reason. Presumably whoever had done the turning knew it would happen. So was that the first time? Or were there other groups of people running around thinking they were the only werewolves on the planet?

  And what if there were werewolves that weren't created by magic? None of the books and TV shows worked that way. Were werewolf bites contagious? They'd all wondered, but there was no ethical way to test it out.

  Focusing on the mysteries of his existence would drive him crazier than his desire for Stasia. But he needed answers about at least one of the mysteries of his life, or he feared his wolf would tear out of his skin and start looking for answers himself.

  Chapter Ten

  Stasia had to stop thinking about Owen in the sexy way. Her body was hornier than ever, and her mind kept concocting schemes to make it okay to have her way with him. She didn't do things like that. She didn't think things like that.

  And yet she'd woken up panting—twice!—while in the middle of dreaming about what Owen could do to her.

  That man looked like he had a wicked tongue and she wanted to find out if it was true.

  She had to forget about those dreams and lingual speculation. He was her employee, her bodyguard, even if she wasn't paying for him, and she wasn't going to take advantage. She wasn't sure how many times she had to tell herself that to make the resolve stick. Ten thousand? Maybe the number didn't exist.

  She was screwed.

  And not by Owen.

  She spent her morning doing her best to ignore him. The morning began with yoga and a healthy breakfast and ignoring that Owen was right down the hall. After breakfast she looked over some papers that her accountant had sent her regarding the month's charitable donations.

  And then she ran out of stuff to do.

  Stasia hated being bored. She thrived in the emergency room, the chaos of hurt and healing circling her. On a morning like this, she could kick herself for leaving her last hospital. It had sounded all noble, sacrificing her position rather than lose another doctor or some nurses to budget cuts.

  But she needed to figure out what to do next.

  Surely some other emergency room in the city needed a doctor. Not that she was going to apply when someone was trying to kidnap her. But it was time to start getting her name out there again.

  Even if she wasn't sure that was what she wanted to do with her life.

  That was the part a
bout quitting she didn't think of too much. Yes, she thrived in the chaos, but she hated hospital politics. Sacrificing her job to save another person's paycheck hadn't been an entirely selfless act.

  But what were her other options? Private practice? Another humanitarian trip? Med school had not prepared her for this career crisis.

  Or maybe she had ignored any help there was to offer. Her father had always called her too independent for her own good.

  Leaving her office meant seeing Owen, but thinking about the future of her career was enough to drive her crazy. She'd rather deal with the bodyguard at the moment.

  Her house was big by New York standards, but that didn't actually make it large. Every time she stepped out of a room, Owen was there. Sure, it was his job, but that didn't make it any less annoying.

  Why had she agreed to this?

  She tidied up for a little while. Normally she had someone come in and clean once a week, but that was another thing that had needed to be canceled once she was in danger. She trusted the service she hired, but it was such an obvious infiltration point that she'd canceled this week's service before Owen even showed up. She wasn't completely oblivious to the trouble that was following her.

  But Stasia was already relatively neat, and there wasn't much to tidy. And Owen was right there.

  She gave up. There was no ignoring him, and she couldn't make tasks appear out of thin air. She turned to Owen, who was sitting on one of the library couches. "Want to watch something?" She picked up the remote and pressed the button to open the cabinet where her TV was discreetly tucked away.

  He jerked in surprise at her acknowledgement. "I thought you were coming in here to read."

  Stasia felt strangely defensive. "I watch TV. I'm a normal person."

  Owen tilted his head to the side and gave her an assessing look. "I've never met a normal person like you before.”

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Stasia sat down on the other side of the couch. She didn't want to sit next to him if he was going to be mean, but she did want to look at the screen.

  He flicked his items off on his fingers. "Billionaire dad. Nine half-siblings. Actual career despite being a rich girl. Humanitarian mission. Should I keep going?"