Alpha Guardians Series - The Complete Collection: 650+ Pages Of Sizzling, Fast-Paced Bear and Dragon Shifter Romance

by Vivian Wood

  Whatever, Echo had caught him checking out her ass yesterday. Though Echo didn’t consider herself to be the hottest thing on the planet, considering that she had enough curves for three or four skinnier girls, it was obvious that Rhys found her plenty interesting.

  Just another part of the conversation they needed to have. And they needed to have it soon, because they’d come close to locking lips two more times since Echo’s arrival at the Manor. She wanted to explore the chemistry between them, more than she’d ever wanted to test things with any other guy, but she needed to know…

  Something. She wasn’t really sure what, which was even more frustrating.

  Rhys walked her into the main house and upstairs, leaving her in his living area while he headed off to shower. Echo sifted through some of the papers on the table in his library, surprised to find that he had a number of books and scrolls referencing the Three Lights.

  Apparently Rhys was much more serious about her situation than she’d given him credit for. She flipped through what he had on the table, quickly becoming engrossed in what she found.

  “Anythin' good?”

  Echo turned as Rhys’s thick brogue rang out, making gooseflesh break out over her arms. She turned to find him in the doorway, and he was wearing even less than he had been back in the gym.

  He was all but naked, a thick navy blue towel wrapped low about his hips, his tanned skin and chestnut hair still damp. He’d trimmed his beard close but the reddish tone of it was still apparent. His eyes sparkled with mischief, and Echo realized that he knew exactly what effect he was having on her.

  “Why is this happening?” Echo blurted out, her eyes dropping to his chest, then his abs, then at the way the towel clung to his… hips…

  Before she realized it, she’d abandoned the research and moved closer to Rhys, soaking in his muscular perfection.

  “Why is what happenin', lass?” he asked, raising a brow. He did that, Echo now realized, the brow and the nickname, when he wanted to provoke her.

  She licked her lips as she worked on an answer.

  “This… this pull between us,” she said, blushing. “I’ve never felt this with anyone, and we haven’t even… done anything.”

  Rhys’s smile turned wicked at her euphemism.

  “Fucked, do ye mean?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Echo said, feeling her blush spread to her neck and chest. That word on his lips, with that accent, it was just unfair.

  “Hold that thought,” Rhys said, retreating.

  Echo groaned and dropped onto one of the couches, unsatisfied in the extreme. Rhys reappeared in less than a minute, wearing a tight white t-shirt and jeans that fit him like a glove.

  “I don’t think it’s right to talk about this in just a towel,” he admitted with a shrug. He sat down next to her, close enough that they were almost touching.

  “So there is something to talk about, then,” Echo surmised, scanning his face.

  “Aye. I thought yE might know, but perhaps it’s not the same for witches.”

  Echo shook her head.

  “I’ve never heard of… whatever this is,” she said.

  Rhys took a minute with his answer, reaching out to run two fingers down her shoulder and arm, making her shiver.

  “We’re fated for one another, Echo.”

  Echo’s gaze snapped up to his.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  “Fated. Like, meant to be, written in the stars.”

  “I— I know what fated means. It’s the other part I don’t get,” she said, her brow hunching.

  “We’re mates, lass. There’s just one person for each shifter, ye see, and you’re it for me.”

  Echo took a breath, parsing his words.

  “Is there just one person for me, then? Because I’ve had boyfriends, you know.”

  Rhys’s gaze hardened for a moment, but he shook his head.

  “It’s alright if there have been others, for either of us. We couldn’t know we were fated until we laid eyes on each other. It’s sort of…” he started, then trailed off.

  “Love at first sight?” Echo said with a skeptical glance.

  “Aye. You’ll see,” he said. His thumb skimmed her collarbone, calloused from so much sword practice, and Echo felt her nipples harden.

  “So we’re… attracted to each other,” Echo said, trying to get to the bottom of it. “Maybe meant to connect. What else?”

  Rhys was focused on stroking her collarbone in slow, rhythmic motions.

  “Everything. There will never be another for either of us, lass. Once we consummate the bond and I mark you—”

  “Mark me? Like… with your teeth?”

  “Aye,” Rhys said, his gaze drifting up to pin Echo in place. “I hear it’s quite pleasurable for both parties.”

  Echo couldn’t think of a decent response to that.

  “Then it’s the two of us, forever,” Rhys finished.

  To Echo’s surprise, he didn’t take advantage of her momentary inability to respond to move closer. He pulled back instead, moving around the table to pluck a crumbling scroll off the table.

  He glanced up and pulled an apologetic face. “I know it’s a lot all at once. We dinnae have to go fast, lass.”

  Just the twang on the word lass had Echo all worked up, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell Rhys otherwise. He was intimidating to her, so smart and sexy and wise. Echo was a local girl who worked in a crappy retail Voodoo shop that catered to tourists. She couldn’t control her own magic, and she was more than a little fucked in the head from her childhood. The idea that she and Rhys had somehow been cosmically paired was almost comical.

  Not that her traitorous body had any idea that connecting with Rhys was an impossible thing; no, her hormones were flying like a sixteen year old at junior prom. Part of Echo suspected that Rhys knew exactly how turned on she was, and simply chose not to exploit or mention it.

  Echo just shook her head. Thankfully Rhys let the matter drop, turning to the research he’d dug up on the Three Lights. There were mentions here an there, most in the last twenty years or so. What interested Echo more were the three mentions in much older texts, one of them written almost two hundred years before Echo’s birth.

  Was this more fated cosmic crap? Why was the universe out to screw with her this week? Until a few days ago, she’d never had so much as a flicker of trouble from the Kith world. Today, she was being hunted by world-ending-wannabes and courted by a massive, overly attractive werebear.

  What gives?

  “There’s a story behind all of this,” Echo sighed after Rhys told her what little he knew. “It’s a family thing, I guess.”

  Rhys’s brows shot up.

  “You already knew you were the First Light?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” Echo said, grabbing a chair and settling into it. Rhys sat across from her, and Echo could feel his gaze on her as she twined her fingers in her lap, trying to decide how much to reveal.

  “Echo, just tell me,” Rhys chided.

  “Well… you know that I’m a witch.”

  Rhys nodded, his expression patient. Echo continued, “Well, I’m also a medium. I see spirits.”

  She paused to let that sink in, but Rhys was unfazed.

  “So you were informed about the Three Lights sometime in the past,” Rhys guessed.

  “Not too distant, actually. My mother appeared a few days ago, and she told me a few pieces of the story.”

  Echo quickly filled him in on the conversation, and Rhys seemed perplexed.

  “Why didn’t you dig deeper? Surely your mother would have told you more if you’d asked,” he said.

  “We never… our relationship wasn’t good when she was alive. And I was so young when she died, only six. I never really got to know her, I guess,” Echo explained with a defensive shrug.

  Rhys reached out and trapped her fingers against the table, lacing them with his own.

  “I’m sorry, lass. I didn’t know.
Has your mother not visited you often, then?” he asked, his voice warm with concern.

  “No. That was the first… the only time,” Echo said, her voice wavering.

  Rhys’s eyes tightened a fraction, but he didn’t delve into Echo’s past.

  “Did your mother tell you anything else?” he asked.

  “Just that I’ve made myself a target. Until Pere Mal gets what he wants, I’m a danger to anyone who hides me. And if he gets me, he’ll use me to find two other women. There’s no winning,” Echo said, her shoulders drooping.

  “Well,” Rhys began, his tone cautious, “She’s right about one part. We can’t let Pere Mal get you. That’s more for my sake than anything else, though.”

  His gentle joke pulled a half-smile from Echo, and she gave him an appreciative glance.

  “You won’t like my mother’s last bit of advice, then. She told me to stay away from you, that I would end up sacrificing myself for you.”

  Echo couldn’t miss the black cloud that passed over Rhys’s face, but he merely gave her fingers a squeeze and released her.

  “Have you used a scrying mirror before?” Rhys asked, changing the subject.

  “A few times, with Tee-Elle,” Echo said.

  “Gabriel’s already working on this, but I think it might help if you scried for her, since you know her so well. He doesn’t have active memories to call upon, which can help a lot.”

  They worked through the morning and into the afternoon, stopping briefly to eat the refreshments that Duverjay brought up. Echo tried scrying, but it seemed that wherever her aunt was being held, the place was too well hidden.

  They turned instead to researching Pere Mal, trying to learn where he might keep a valuable asset like Tee-Elle. The whole time they worked, Echo was hyper aware of every time her skin brushed Rhys’s, every time their hands touched, every time his gaze seared her. Once, she caught herself licking her lips as she studied his mouth.

  “Don’t you think?” Rhys prompted, touching her shoulder and making her jump.

  “What?” Echo looked up, flushing. Rhys seemed to be trying not to smile, a deep dimple flashing in his cheek as he gave her a knowing look.

  “His ancestral home in Algiers Point,” Rhys repeated, drawing her attention back to the city map spread across the table. “If the sources we’ve seen are right, he likely has a home there still. Or maybe he’s got Tee-Elle in one of these warehouses outside the city near Gentilly. You know New Orleans better than I do, what do you think?”

  “Oh. Uh, right,” Echo said. “Algiers Point is a pretty nice neighborhood. I can’t imagine someone not noticing a house where Pere Mal keeps hostages. Gentilly is more likely, in some areas there are less cops and more abandoned buildings.”

  “I’ll let Aeric and Gabriel know. We can focus our search there while we formulate a plan of attack,” Rhys said.

  An hour later, Echo and Rhys were tapped out for the day.

  “I can’t look at another line of tiny Latin text or my eyes will go crossed,” Rhys said, setting aside the dusty book he’d been studying.

  Echo plunked down a scroll with a nod.

  “I feel the same. I’m getting hungry, too.”

  “I usually take my meals with Aeric and Gabriel, but they’ll both be working or patrolling tonight, I think,” Rhys said, looking thoughtful. “How about I have Duverjay bring up something for dinner and we just…”

  He stopped, seeming unable to finish the sentence. Echo realized that Rhys was searching for a the right term, and coming up empty. Though his speech was perfect, almost overly proper at times, she could sense that he still struggled with slang.

  “Hang out?” she suggested with a smirk.

  “Right, yeah,” Rhys said, rolling his eyes.

  Rhys pulled out his cell phone and sent off a series of texts, presumably ordering dinner from Duverjay.

  “Do they not hang out in Scotland?” Echo asked when he’d finished.

  “Not in the mid-seventeen-hundreds, not so much,” Rhys said.

  Echo’s breath caught in her chest.

  “Excuse me?” she demanded, startled by his words. “Are you making a joke?”

  Rhys seemed to realize that he’d blundered, and he had the presence of mind to look a little abashed.

  “Ah. Yeah, I was going to get around to telling you all that,” he said. He jumped up and busied himself with pulling down a projector screen from the ceiling across from the couches.

  “Uhh… when, exactly, were you planning to tell me you’re… what, a time traveling werebear?” Echo asked with a snort, crossing her arms. “Unbelievable luck I have.”

  Rhys shot her a guilty look.

  “I wasn’t really sure how to tell you. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  Echo mulled over his words for a moment.

  “I guess you should start by actually telling me your story, not just dropping that bomb on me,” she said.

  Rhys caught her hand and pulled her to the couch. Echo settled in beside him, but not too close. Rhys did funny things to her brain when he touched her, and she needed a clear head for this.

  “It started when I was fourteen, and I began to shift to my bear form,” he told her. “My ma died young, and so it was just me, my father, and my brother. I’m the oldest son.”

  Echo broke her own rule immediately, reaching out and lacing her fingers with his, giving him a quiet bit of encouragement. Rhys traced soft circles against her palm with his thumb as he spoke. lulling her.

  “My brother and I were only a year apart, and we used to buck at one another a lot. My father gave us each a choice, take a tutor and expand our minds, or go out in the lists every day and learn the business of war.” Rhys smiled, perhaps recalling a fond memory. “I chose battle, of course. My brother chose books. When I reached maturity at nineteen, I left my home and went to fight for the King.”

  “What’s the name of your town?” Echo asked.

  “Tighnabruaich,” Rhys said.

  Echo actually giggled at the unpronounceable word.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “That’s the most Scottish name I’ve ever heard.”

  “Aye,” Rhys agreed, dipping his head to hide a fond smile. “Tis a very Scottish place.”

  “So what happened that brought you here? Or now, I should say?”

  Rhys’s smile faded.

  “My father and brother both died suddenly, mysterious causes. The neighboring laird was greedy, and he took advantage of the lapse in leadership. He wanted to annex Tighnabruaich into his holdings.”

  “And you were still gone?” Echo asked.

  “Aye. Adventuring, as I thought of it. Flirting with women and filling my coffers with gold, all while my clan suffered terribly.”

  Echo winced at the bitter anger in his tone.

  “You didn’t know,” she said.

  “I never should have left. By the time I rode back, Tighnabruaich was in shambles. There were hardly enough men left to protect the women and bairns. We had to pack what we could and run like cowards. It didn’t… I couldn’t save them.”

  Echo’s eyes widened, her heart fluttering.

  “They died?” she gasped.

  “Not quite. They would have, but for the witch.” Rhys caught Echo’s confused look and nodded. “Mere Marie. She offered me the devil’s bargain.”

  “She saved your clan?” Echo asked.

  “Aye, and me brother along with it. I could not turn from the deal.”

  “What exactly did she get in return?” Echo asked, biting her lip.

  “My loyalty and service, until such time as…” Rhys paused, as if something had suddenly occurred to him. He let out a rumble of laughter and shook his head. “No wonder she was so rude to you. She’s going to to lose me as soon as I mark you.”

  “I don’t understand,” Echo said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Not to worry. We’ve got a bit of time before we come to that, I should think,” Rhys said.

  There was
a knock at the door, and Duverjay entered with a large serving tray.

  “Thank you, Duverjay, you can leave it on the table,” Rhys said.

  Duverjay did as commanded, shooting Rhys and Echo a curious look, then the butler departed.

  “Should we eat at the table?” Echo asked, peering at the silver-lidded dishes that Duverjay had brought.

  “Actually, I have a better idea,” Rhys said, an unexpected grin lighting his face. “Hold on.”

  He vanished to his bedroom again, returning with a huge plush blanket. He spread it out on the floor in front of the sofas, then gave Echo a questioning glance.

  “Picnic style, huh?” Echo asked with a grin. “Very romantic.”

  Rhys gave her a smile that Echo’s favorite English Literature professor would have called ‘downright gallant’, and her heart fluttered a little. If she had to be cosmically fated for someone, she supposed at least it was someone who looked at her like that.

  Echo nearly rolled her eyes at herself as Rhys went to get the dinner tray. A few flirtatious smiles and a lot of sexual frustration didn’t mean she should just roll over and agree to this fated mate thing. Hell, she still didn’t even think she believed in any of it.

  “Here,” Rhys said, picking up a remote and turning on the projector. A vast list of movie and television choices came up on the screen, and then he turned the remote over to Echo. “Your choice, since I’m so romantic.”

  They settled down on the blanket and Rhys uncovered the dishes. Echo’s mouth instantly began to water when she saw that Duverjay had delivered two perfectly seared filet mignons, plus sautéed mushrooms and grilled asparagus.

  “Ah, I think we’re missing an important component,” Rhys said. “Pick out something to watch, and I’ll be right back.”

  He left the living room and headed out to the landing, presumably going downstairs. Echo flipped through the movies in his queue, surprised to see that had a wildly varying selection. Though there were a lot of recent action flicks, he also had the Harry Potter films on his list, along with a number of older classics.

  Rhys reappeared with two huge wine glasses and a bottle of red wine, looking pleased with himself.

  “Please tell me you like wine,” he said as he settled in next to her.