Cora pulled me into her arms, and I hugged her back as our auras mixed and my breathing slowed. She gave me a minute to center before telling me, “I’ll help you kick ass if anything happens to her — but it won’t be necessary because we’re going to keep her safe.”
Several minutes later, I stepped away and asked, “Shouldn’t Bran be here by now?”
“He went behind the house to speak to the new human bodyguard.”
“I have a human bodyguard?”
She nodded, and my brows went into my forehead.
“He replaced the man who brought you home.” She’d walked into the backyard while I made egg salad, but hadn’t told me about a guard change. “He smells human,” she continued, “but he puts off a vibe that makes him seem dangerous.” She shrugged. “The control room sent a picture of who’d be coming. It matches.”
When Bran finally rang my doorbell, I let him in and walked him through the house to the family room.
“Can I offer you some water?”
Normally, I offer guests something to drink, and his smile told me he knew I’d been specific with my offer to be clear I wasn’t offering my blood. I rolled my eyes and returned his smile, but we needed to get down to business, so I asked, “What do we need to know?”
“There’s someone I only hire when things are bad. He’s not the nicest guy, but he’s good, and so far he’s kept me alive when I’ve needed his services. I’ve brought him in on this for two reasons, one of them is to keep the other side from hiring him.”
“You said two reasons?”
“The second is because he’s so good at what he does. I’ll explain the situation and let him tell me where his services can best be utilized. His goal will be to keep you alive. He may tell me he needs to bodyguard you, or he may tell me he needs to go find a particular Celrau and kill him or her. Or them.” He sighed. “If he wants to bodyguard you, you’re going to have to put up with him. He won’t talk much — don’t try to engage him in conversation. Just let him do his job.”
I looked at Cora, hoping for more, and she rolled her eyes. “Not all bodyguards like to talk to the people they’re protecting. We usually put friendly bodyguards on you, but it sounds like you’re about to get one who’s nonverbal. You were uncomfortable with the guy who drove you home because he wouldn’t talk to you. You’ll be uncomfortable with this guy too.”
And one of the reasons Bran was utilizing him was to keep the other side from hiring him. “So this guy just does what he’s paid to do? It has nothing to do with right or wrong — only the highest bidder? How do you know he hasn’t been paid by the other side to kill me or kidnap me, and accepting this job just gets him close enough to do it?”
“He takes pride in taking care of the people who pay him — it isn’t his style to double-cross an employer.” At my doubtful look, Bran said, “You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”
“What’s his name?”
“He goes by Ryan, though I doubt it’s his real name.”
“Okay. So what’s the plan?”
“I’m taking you and Smokey to my house. Lauren can come with us or go to her grandparents. Your choice. If she stays, we’ll put someone in the front and back of your parents’ house, they’ll be tailed when they travel, and we’ll have someone at the theater.”
I didn’t know if she’d be safer around me, or safer away from me, but I also needed to keep things as normal for her as I could. It was a crap shoot either way. “She does better with routine, so she’ll be happier with my parents. I need to pack. How long will I be gone?”
“Pack for a week. It may be shorter or longer, but we can always send Cora for more clothes. Also, since tomorrow’s a short day at work for you anyway, do you think you can make arrangements to not go in?”
I was only scheduled to see three patients the next day, and none were critical. It wasn’t ideal, but I could do it without feeling too guilty.
“Yeah, I’ll call them while I’m upstairs. Taking off Tuesday isn’t an option though. We need to figure out how to keep me and my patients safe while they’re in my office.”
Chapter 7
“When will Ryan be here?” Bran had settled me in at his house, but I was out-of-sorts. Uncomfortable. Prickly.
Ryan had followed us to be sure we made it without issue, but had left to ‘handle some things,’ so I still hadn’t met him.
Bran was parked in front of his monstrously huge television playing a first-person shooter game with one of his personal guards. “You never know with him, but I doubt he’ll be long.”
Nathan looked like he wanted to say something, so I helped him along. “There’s something else?”
I could almost see the lion in him when he sighed. “Don’t challenge him. Don’t try to prove to him you can take care of yourself. We’ll do some sparring and some target practice with him around because I know you’ll want him to know what you can do — but don’t in any way challenge him directly.”
“Can you tell me what he is?” I didn’t figure they could, but I asked anyway. Cora thought he’d smelled human, but I figured he had to be supernatural if he was protecting me from Celrau.
“As far as we know, he seems human. He’s ex-government, but not ex-military. If Aaron knows what he did for the government, he isn’t saying, and he usually tells me that sort of thing.”
I was intrigued. “How old is he?”
“Hard to tell,” Bran answered. “I’d guess between thirty and thirty-five, but let’s move on. Sophia and Aaron will be bringing Josh to us in a few hours.”
“You’re setting Josh and me up as bait.”
“Extremely well-guarded bait, but yeah,” said Nathan. “Logistically, it makes sense to keep the two of you together for this.”
“Not complaining. I want time to get to know him.”
“You know he might be the enemy,” Nathan kept his voice soft, but it hit me in the solar plexus. I’d known, but had put it to the back of my mind. I wanted to like my cousin, wanted to form a relationship with him.
“I don’t want to treat him like the enemy.”
“I know, but be careful about the information he gets. They’ve fucked with his head. He could be a Trojan horse.”
Ryan arrived before Josh, and the mystery bodyguard wore dark blue jeans, hiking boots, and a dark green t-shirt with a lightweight navy jacket. He looked completely ordinary — someone you’d never notice. Probably six feet tall or maybe an inch shorter, hair somewhere between sandy blond and light brown, with brown eyes. Nothing about him stood out, except for how ordinary he looked. If witnesses were to describe him, half would probably say he had brown hair and the other half would say it was blond — if they could even remember him enough to be able to talk about his hair.
Bran gave an almost formal introduction. “Ryan, I’d like to introduce you to Kirsten. Kirsten, this is Ryan.”
Ryan gave a single nod in acknowledgment, but his gaze made my spine tingle and I went cold as my gut tightened into a ball. His eyes weren’t right. Smokey moved in front of me, so he felt it too.
People say vampires have no soul, but I’m convinced the Lugat and Strigorii do have souls. I’m not so sure about the Celrau, nor was I certain this human had one.
If he was human, then something had damaged this man’s psyche. I didn’t want him anywhere near me, but before I could say anything, Bran launched into a discussion of the danger Josh and I faced from the Celrau, and how if they attacked, it was likely they’d do so with a large contingent to try to overwhelm us with numbers.
Ryan looked at me with his dead, dead eyes and said, “If I’m to protect you then you must do as I say without question. Can you do that?”
I started to bristle at him when Nathan spoke from behind me, “Kirsten, he’s right. You do what I say because you trust me to know what I’m talking about. There isn’t time for you and Ryan to build up any kind of trust, so you’re just going to have to bite your tongue and follow instructions.
But first, let’s go work out a bit. He needs to know what you’re capable of in case your skills could come in handy in a crisis.”
Nathan stepped to my side and told Ryan, “If you’d like to come with us to Bran’s workout area, I’ll spar with her so you can get an idea of who you’re keeping safe.”
I turned and was almost to the doorway when Ryan barked, “Kirsten, stop.”
I stopped and — without turning around to look at him — said, “You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to say please. I’m not a dog who heels on command.”
He was beside me by this point. “You don’t walk first. We’ll have people ahead of us and I’ll usually be a short distance behind you. I’ll walk beside you to the gym now. Later, I’ll explain the basics of how I’ll want you to move amongst your guards.”
I didn’t answer. In part because I wasn’t sure what to say, but mostly because his eyes were still freaking me the fuck out.
He glanced at Bran and looked back to me. “We either work together so I can keep you safe, or I leave. Bran says we can’t lock you up, and without that option — I can’t keep someone safe who doesn’t want to be protected.”
Finally, words came to me. “I’ll work with you because Bran says we need your expertise. I have a lot of respect for Bran and Nathan, and they both want you here. That doesn’t give you carte blanche to be rude though.” I paused long enough to figure out the nicest way to explain what I needed to say. “Look, it wasn’t so much the lack of please as your tone of voice — like you were giving an order to a dog you don’t like. That doesn’t work for me.”
He nodded his head once and began walking. I fell into step by his side and we made our way downstairs. I was pretty sure he was trying to intimidate me with his dead eyes, and I hoped I’d managed to keep him from knowing he’d scared me.
When we reached the workout area, I told Smokey to lie down in the corner and stay there, and I leaned in to tell him I’d be fine. I spent a few moments warming up and stretching, and met Nathan in what appeared to be a designated sparring area.
Nathan spoke so Ryan couldn’t hear him, though I knew the supernaturals in the room could. “I’ll just be defensive the first couple of minutes, so you can try to tear into me. Pretend I’m Ryan and you’ve been given the okay to beat the shit out of him. I’ll give you a few minutes of that and then I’ll throw in some offensive stuff.”
I levitated up so I was looking him in the eyes, and grinned as I told him, “Maybe it’ll be fun to try to beat the shit out of you without any need to pretend you’re him.”
He grinned back. “Give it your best shot, just no lasers, swords, or anything made of light. We’re sparring, not fighting.”
I nodded as I slowly floated back to the ground. The second my feet touched the mat, I faked a punch and while he was blocking it I kicked him in the groin — and used the kick to leverage myself into a back handspring to get away from him because I wasn’t sure he’d keep it at defensive for long with my first blow landing, well, there.
As I landed I realized I was right, and he was coming at me. I dove to the ground between his legs, grabbed his ankles, and levitated straight up, throwing him out and away from me as I rose. I threw him off the mat but he managed to land on his feet — he’s a lion, which is a form of cat, after all.
He stood still for a brief moment, smiling so I knew he was okay. Then he turned and walked to the wall and pulled down two quarterstaffs, both of which were padded — they’d still hurt, just not quite as badly as the bare wooden ones.
He tossed one my direction as he walked back, and I deftly caught it and went into a fighting stance. He leapt through the air, landed in front of me, and we went at it. My specialty is the quarterstaff and I can spar with the best of them. I figured he was holding back on speed, though he later told me he held back on strength by a lot, but gave me nearly all of his speed.
As the Amakhosi, the King of the Lions, he could easily bench press cars. He could probably bench press large RVs if he could get them balanced right.
I’ve seen video of Nathan and I sparring, and it looks like something choreographed for a movie. It’s completely spontaneous, with both of us acting and reacting millisecond by millisecond. We’re both forced to take incredibly fast evasive action, which means there are flips and jumps and dives and spins, and fancy twirls of the staffs from both of us as we barely avoid the other’s staff coming at us. When I spar with Nathan I become the fight — there’s nothing else, I’m completely focused.
When someone finally chimed the bell, Nathan and I flipped away from each other and stopped in a crouched pose to defend in case the other was still attacking. When we both realized the other had stopped, we stood straight and smiled at each other. I handed him my staff as we hugged, and he walked me back to the group with our arms around each other’s waist. I was desperately trying to catch my breath, but he wasn’t breathing hard at all.
Bran looked at Ryan. “As you can see, Kirsten has had martial arts training and has fast reflexes. But that isn’t all.”
Ryan met my gaze as he answered, “I’ve heard about what else she can do.” He looked at Bran. “If you’re trying to convince me she’s a bad-ass, why’d you bother hiring me?”
“Sometimes, I can be pretty oblivious to threats until they hit me on the head,” I told him, still trying to catch my breath but I wanted to be part of the conversation. “I occasionally sense trouble before the supernaturals smell or hear it, but other times I don’t know danger’s around until it hits me. I need someone who’s always aware of the surroundings, so I get a warning before I’m attacked. Also, the Celrau are starting to strike in larger numbers, which means we need larger numbers to defend against them. One bodyguard probably isn’t going to do it for a while.” I dropped my arm from around Nathan’s waist and stepped to the side, away from him. “And the last reason is that I’m human, and fragile, and I have a bunch of over-protective friends.”
Still dead eyes with no expression — not the smallest facial movement to betray a hint of his thoughts.
“You’ll have to trust my judgment,” he said. “If I’m sure we can handle a situation without your help then I’ll get you to safety or order you to a spot I feel is safe. If I think we need your skills, I’ll give you instructions. My orders are law, and not open for discussion or argument.”
I nodded. “Just one thing. If we have my daughter with us, her protection’s more important than mine. Don’t let her die to save me or you’ll have a mama bear full of grief to deal with. If you have to choose between keeping my daughter alive or me, protect her. She may be mad at you for letting me die, but she won’t try to kill you, and I very well may kill you in the heat of the moment if you let my daughter die while trying to save me.”
He looked at Bran as if for instruction, and Bran nodded. “Yeah, do what she says. Since Kirsten can fight for herself and Lauren can’t, when Lauren’s around she’s to be guarded as much or more than Kirsten.”
“That’s not what you hired me for. I don’t do kids.”
“I hired you to protect Kirsten, who happens to have a daughter. Lauren follows instructions well and isn’t an annoying brat, so it shouldn’t be a problem. If you insist on renegotiating, we’ll do it in private.”
I could see Ryan weighing his options. “Where’s the child now?”
“She’s a teenager, and she’s with her grandparents,” I told him. “They’re guarded by a trusted werewolf and a trusted Lugat. She has a leading role in a play at the Children’s Theater, and they’re taking her to practice and she’ll spend the night with them.” I left out the part about her grandfather carrying a forty-five on his hip pretty much everywhere he went. He might not kill a vampire, but he’d slow them down.
Ryan looked at Nathan. “Do you feel the child and grandparents are safe with these two guards?”
“We have more guards close, in case those two need assistance. We’re trying to keep things as normal for Lauren as we can.”
“I understand you’re bringing someone who may draw the Celrau to us?”
“And you’re being paid commensurate to the risk,” Bran told him, his voice sharp this time.
“Wait,” I said. “He’s protecting me, and not me and Josh?”
Bran closed his eyes, and Nathan put his hand on my back.
“No!” I told them as I stepped away from Nathan’s hand. “Josh and I are both human!”
“And he’s possibly the enemy,” Bran said.
I sighed. I had no idea how much Bran was paying Ryan, and I couldn’t demand he spend more money. I resolved to do what I could to protect Josh myself.
“Do you have a plan?” Nathan asked Ryan. “Will you be personally guarding Kirsten, or will you be looking for the Celrau who post a threat? If you stay, it’ll probably be best if our guest doesn’t know who you are. We’ve told him he can leave at any time, so we don’t want him to know anything he might take back to our enemies.”
“I’d like a few moments alone with Kirsten, please.”
Bran and Nathan looked at each other, and Nathan told Ryan, “Not a good idea.”
Ryan gave him dead-eyes, obviously expecting an explanation. Bran and Nathan looked at each other again, and Nathan finally said, “She’s an endearing smartass once you get to know her, but you don’t know her.” He sighed. “If you threaten her, she’ll defend herself and I’m not sure who’d come out alive.”
“You think I’m an endearing smartass?”
Nathan gave me a rare half-grin. “You’ve grown on me over time.”
I looked at Ryan but my words were for Nathan. “Everyone out so the scary guy and I can talk.”
Bran reached for my hand and kissed it on the way out, giving me a look that asked me to behave myself. I really didn’t get why they were so worried, but I decided to try to behave.
“If you hurt her, human, you’ll answer to me,” Nathan told Ryan on his way out. I looked at the floor in an attempt to stay out of their pissing match.
Of Humans and Monsters Page 7