by Tami Lund
Her eyes widened some more, but finally, she slowly nodded.
“Good. Now, get dressed, do whatever you need to do. I’m going to go downstairs and explain everything to the guys. Then I’ll bring you down to meet them, okay?” When she nodded again, he pulled her into his arms, hugging her fiercely.
“We’re going to be okay, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’m going to protect you.”
* * * *
He supposed it was lucky Matt knew him so well, and knew probably before he even realized it how much he’d come to care for Rachel. It helped that Matt liked her, although grudgingly. Her insistence on helping the Bears, people she didn’t even know, had certainly played a role in that grudging respect.
When Josh grimly informed his closest friends that Rachel was upstairs and that he suspected Pantera had attacked her because of her connection to him, Matt had been nearly as up in arms as he was. Cal and Brendon—Jeremy had stayed on Pantera’s tail—stepped up and swore to help in any way possible, after witnessing Matt’s reaction. Even after Josh confided that she was human, it didn’t deter their fierce determination to protect her.
He did, however, omit the fact that he’d mated with her. As loyal as they were, he knew damn well that particular fact would not sit well with any of them, even Matt.
When he went upstairs to retrieve Rachel, she was dressed in a pale blue shirt with lace at the neckline and a pair of khaki capris. Her hair was blown straight and draped around her shoulders in an elegant curtain. She’d put on makeup, enough to accentuate her pretty blue eyes and lush rosebud lips. A thin scarf, artfully tied around her neck to hide the bruising, was the final touch.
“You’re too damn attractive in that outfit,” he said with a growl. “Put on something else.”
She laughed at his inadvertent compliment. “Oh, stop it. What are you worried about? I bet none of those guys is as handsome as you.” Her voice still croaked slightly when she spoke.
He wondered if she still felt the same after meeting the other three shifters. The look on her face indicated she was impressed despite her words to the contrary. He fought the very real urge to grab her, tuck her under his arm, and not let any of the other guys touch her. Brendon’s appreciative look at her legs made him want to challenge one of his best childhood friends. He knew jealousy was a trait that ran extra deep within shifters, but he’d honestly not experienced it until this moment. And with his best friends, no less. He was more than a little off-kilter.
“Happy to be of service,” Brendon said, grinning like a goddamned fool. He reached out his arm, as if inviting Rachel to shake, and when she did the same, he stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace instead. Josh growled a warning.
“Dude, he’s going to blow his fucking top,” Matt said, speaking to Brendon, who chuckled and released Josh’s woman. Josh immediately tucked her under his arm and held her closely by his side, while he issued orders that she was to be watched round the clock, no exceptions.
“Even when she’s alone in your bed?” Brendon asked, clearly looking to get his ass kicked.
“When she’s in my bed, she won’t be alone,” Josh snapped back.
“What about our other assignment?” Cal asked.
“There are four of you. And I’ll be with Rachel in the evenings and at night. You should be able to split your time between her and—the other assignment.”
Cal nodded. Brendon gave him a mock salute. Matt nodded as well. And Josh blew out a relieved breath. Rachel would be safe.
And Pantera would pay for what he’d done to her.
*
Unfortunately, what seemed fairly sensible on the eve of a vicious attack proved to be highly uncomfortable when actually put into motion. On Monday, when Rachel showed up at work with her bodyguard in tow, the executive director looked half disapproving and half tempted to flirt with the rough-around-the-edges Cal Vyper. While he made himself as comfortable as possible on the small couch in the lobby, Mary dragged Rachel back to her office.
“That guy can’t just sit in our lobby all day, Rachel.” She cast furtive glances at the door. “Why is he here, anyway?”
Rachel fidgeted and recited what Josh had instructed her to say. “I saw something I wasn’t supposed to. A drug deal.” It wasn’t dissimilar to the story she’d concocted to convince Josh to let her move in with him, at Pantera’s bidding. “My, ah, boyfriend, is worried for my safety. He’s like a bodyguard, I guess.”
“A bodyguard?” Mary looked as if she would like Cal to guard her body. “I can’t imagine that’s good for our image.”
“He gets bored easily,” Rachel said, recalling what Cal had told her on the ride to work. “If you have manual labor that needs to be done, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind helping.”
“How it is you’ve come to hang around with such…attractive men, all of a sudden?”
If you only knew… Rachel shrugged. “Luck of the draw, I guess.”
“Those clothes he’s wearing are expensive. He comes from money.” Mary was in her position for a reason. She could scent money a mile away.
“He does all right.”
“I wonder if he’d consider donating to our program.”
“How about you just give him some heavy lifting tasks for now?”
Mary put Cal to work. She decided she wanted to reorganize her office, so he obligingly moved the furniture. Then she decided the ancient files piled into boxes on high shelves in the back storage room should be purged, so she had Cal pull all the heavy paper-filled boxes off the top shelves and dump them into the recycle bin. It didn’t escape Rachel’s notice that Mary stood slightly behind him the entire time, with her gaze fixated on his ass.
When it was time to lock up the office at the end of the day, Cal rolled his shoulders and blew out a breath. “I thought this was going to be an easy gig,” he said as he led her out to the truck they’d driven in to work.
Rachel smiled. “Sorry about that. The office is comprised entirely of women, so Mary rarely has an opportunity to take advantage of brute strength.”
Cal flashed her a charming grin. “It’s okay. I’m missing my workouts doing this job, so you’re forgiven.”
When they walked into the house, laughing and joking like old friends, Josh stormed into the foyer, throwing Cal a murderous glare, while sweeping her into his arms and dragging her upstairs into the bedroom suite they now shared.
“What the hell is going on between you two?” he demanded once the door was closed.
Rachel blithely stripped out of her work clothes and pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She noticed Josh’s eyes dilated until they were almost entirely black.
“What do you expect, Josh? We’re stuck together for eight hours a day. Being friendly is better than hating each other, isn’t it?”
Josh ran a hand through his hair. “I think I’d rather you hate him.”
She laughed and sidled up to rub herself against him. “I missed you all day.” She kissed his chin. “And I promise, no matter how good-looking my bodyguards are, I only have eyes for you.”
“You think they’re good-looking?”
“I think you are hot,” she whispered as she slid her hands around to cup his backside.
She wasn’t the least bit surprised when they ended up on the bed, naked and coupling, breathlessly racing toward that ultimate finish line. When it was over, they lay side-by-side on their backs, hearts racing, panting heavily.
“Now that’s a hell of a reassurance,” Josh commented.
Rachel propped her head on her hand. “You aren’t really jealous, are you?” she asked, totally sincerely.
He trailed his finger along the bruising on her neck. “Yes, but I know it’s unfounded. It’s just part of my nature. I hope you can live with it.”
She shrugged. “It’s kind of cute. As long as you don’t ever believe I would cheat on you.”
He rolled over on top of her, pressing her into the comforter. “I know you wouldn’t,�
� he said, just as sincerely. He cupped her face with his hands, threading his fingers in her hair. “You’re mine. No one else can have you.”
Rachel lifted her face, grabbed his head, and pulled him in for a deeply passionate kiss. Why-oh-why did his Neanderthal alpha male attitude turn her on so?
Chapter 15
“She’s under his protection.”
Kent Pantera did not look at the man who stood on the other side of his desk, giving a report he did not want to hear. He kept his gaze on the computer screen perched on his desk, and the picture displayed there.
A picture of Rachel Whitaker. It was at the Bears’ home, after the fire, and Rachel was surrounded by a gaggle of humans, all helping cleanup the aftermath of the fire. It would have been an otherwise utterly unimpressive picture, if he had not recognized the petite human woman with red hair.
What the hell was she doing, helping with cleanup after a fire at a shifter’s home? This wasn’t exactly keeping Josh Tigre occupied, as he had instructed her to do. Granted, he supposed the woman had to work—although clearly she had a lousy job, considering the state of her living arrangements—but outside of work, she ought to be gluing herself to Tigre’s side. Or on her knees in front of him. Keeping him occupied, as Kent commanded her to do.
Humans. A bunch of worthless creatures. Couldn’t follow a simple damn instruction.
“What makes you say that?” Kent finally asked his subordinate. Jeremy Katscal had become a terribly handy pawn in Kent’s attempt to knock Josh Tigre out of the role of pack master. He was one of Josh’s inner circle, one of the few the pack master trusted implicitly. But Kent knew nearly everyone had a price, and after carefully watching Josh’s four closest friends, he’d determined Katscal was the weakest link.
As usual, he had been right. While Jeremy’s salary put a fairly large dent in his payroll budget each week, the money had thus far been well spent.
Giving Jeremy the task of luring the human woman into a room at Josh’s hotel several weeks ago had been pure genius on Kent’s part. Jeremy had been whiny about Kent interrupting pre-coitus, but he’d gotten over it.
“Talked to Cal. He’s pissed you lost his tail, but the way.”
Kent scowled. If Jeremy hadn’t given him the heads’ up, he might not have realized Tigre put on a tail on him in the first place. The trackers in this pack were damned good. That would come in handy when Kent was in charge. In the meantime, it was a hell of an irritant.
“Anyway, Josh called them all together, determined you were a threat to her, so now she has twenty-four-hour protection.”
Kent finally looked at the other shifter, standing at parade rest on the other side of the desk. “Why does he think I’m a threat to the human?” he asked mildly.
“Josh went to her place. Picked up your scent.” Jeremy shrugged. “I guess somebody beat her up recently and Josh thinks it was you.”
He’d been afraid of Josh picking up his scent in Rachel’s apartment. It was one of the reasons he’d rarely gone there over the course of the last few weeks. Besides, she’d been doing a decent enough job of keeping Josh occupied that he hadn’t needed to remind her. The most recent visit had been stupid, because he’d been angry that his last plan had backfired. Having the human police breathing down his neck had not been the outcome he’d intended when he’d instructed that idiot Billy What’s-His-Name how to install a faulty light socket.
“That human fire inspector is a spitfire,” Jeremy said. “She told Matt and Josh that she’d dug into your past, found some things that were—what did Matt call it? Questionable.” Jeremy looked as if he didn’t really care what was in Kent’s past, but then again, Kent paid him a lot of money not to care.
“Did she now?” Kent mused. The fire inspector. He remembered her from the scene of the destruction. She’d questioned the Bears endlessly, and when they told her his company did some electrical work on their home, she’d immediately turned to him with an accusatory gaze. He’d wanted to slash her throat, but had refrained, for decorum’s sake.
He’d expected that idiot human he’d hired, Billy Guido, to do as he was told. He’d paid Billy well and then frightened the living daylights out of him to ensure he took the fall for what had of course been Kent’s plan. But the human had sung like a damned canary when the authorities put the pressure on, and Kent had been forced to slip into his jail cell disguised as a rat and kill the bastard before he did any more damage with his loose lips.
Burning the home of Tigre’s parents’ best friends, and then coming to the rescue in lieu of Josh had been what was supposed to have happened. He had meant for the Bears to lean on him, to question why their pack master wasn’t there in their time of need. He had planned to gently point out how unreachable and distant Josh had become over the last few weeks. If he had been able to convince the Bears that Josh was not doing his job, Kent knew the role of pack master would practically be in the bag. They had been Tigre’s parents’ closest friends, and having them on his side would have been a huge boon for Kent.
Instead, he was now the subject of a human police investigation, the Bears trusted him even less than they had before the fire, Josh’s damn human girlfriend was in charge of cleanup, and Josh hadn’t remotely taken a hit because of any of it.
Killing Billy Guido while he’d begged for mercy had been a very small outlet for a great deal of frustration.
It all came back to that damned human woman. Kent regarded Jeremy with an impassive gaze and thought about the steps he’d taken in his attempts to move into the role of pack master.
He had been watching Josh for months after the elder Tigres died, analyzing his habits, his decisions, his choices. When he showed signs of trying to choose a mate, Kent had thrust his own handpicked female shifters at the upstart pack master, figuring once they were mated, he would kill the bastard and then lay blame at the feet of the mate. But then Josh had turned his nose up at his own kind.
It had taken Kent a few months to figure out Josh had begun to discreetly hook up with human women instead. That was when his master plan began to formulate. The first time he’d noticed Rachel, he had been sitting in the lobby of the hotel, watching the guests as they came and went, searching for a human female to help with his plan. Rachel’s hair had been pulled back into a ponytail and she’d been wearing a pair of jeans and a basic T-shirt, an oversized bag slung over one shoulder. To him, she had appeared to be in a hurry to go somewhere, yet Kent had watched as a human male stopped her and, he presumed, hit on her. She had smiled, politely declined his offer, and rushed out of the lobby.
When he saw her again the next weekend, she had been dressed in a maid’s uniform. A quick check had confirmed she was an employee of the hotel. He observed her getting hit on four more times before he decided she was perfect for his plan.
Convincing Jeremy to try to hook up with her had been easy. Between the money Kent was throwing at him, and her beauty, he had been more than happy to fulfill that particular obligation.
Scaring the hell out of her was turning out to be the biggest of his challenges. She had too much goddamned will. If he didn’t hate humans so much, he’d probably acknowledge that she’d make a hell of a pack master’s mate.
Except shifters and humans didn’t mate. It wasn’t right. It didn’t work that way.
Memories from his childhood flooded his mind, unbidden and unwelcome. He scowled as he remembered his parents’ relationship, the distrust, the anger and resentment. He hadn’t understood it until he’d had a half-day at school one day, while his mother had been away visiting her parents, who were from a pack out East. He’d walked in on his father having sex with a human, in his parents’ bed. His father hadn’t even been sorry. Afterward, he had tried to explain to Kent, told him he and mate weren’t in love anymore, things changed, and since shifters didn’t believe in divorce, he’d turned to affairs with humans, since his mate wasn’t interested in him in that way. He had implied Kent’s mother was doing the same thing, wi
th a shifter from her former pack. Her frequent visits to her parents held a dual purpose.
Kent had refused to believe it of his mother, although in truth, if it had been true, well, at least she had been sleeping with a shifter. His father not only slept with humans, but he had admitted he was in love with the one Kent had caught him with.
That moment altered his life. It was wrong, his father’s dallying with another species, and Kent, always a bit of a control freak, had wanted to ensure his father’s crimes did not go unpunished. If Kent could become pack master, he could control these types of situations. He could create a rule, a pack law, one that stated no one was allowed to associate carnally with humans. Shifters only.
Kent had been twenty when he challenged Josh’s grandfather for the position of pack master. A tough little bastard, but stupid. He’d fought with his emotions, angry over his father’s infidelity, angry over the elder Tigre’s lackadaisical attitude toward humans, and he’d lost, badly.
Even when the pack master had granted him his life, Kent had resented it, his anger growing until it consumed his life. Everything became about figuring out how to be in charge, so he could control the pack, make the decisions, ensure no one interacted with humans, ever. Hell, if he had his way, they’d slip through those damn portals and move to the Land of the Fae. There sure as hell weren’t any humans in that world.
It was ironic, really, that Josh’s father had held Kent’s same viewpoint about humans. He’d started that shifter-only community center, of which Kent wholeheartedly approved. He’d taught the pack that humans were not equal, that they should only associate with them when necessary. And still, it wasn’t good enough for Kent. He needed to be in charge. Somewhere along the way, he’d convinced himself he deserved to be pack master.
It was his dream. His right.
Unfortunately, in his quest to destroy Josh while he was otherwise occupied with his human girlfriend, Kent learned that few shifters truly held his same stringent beliefs. They didn’t seem to think mingling with humans was such a bad thing. Many had younglings who were entering adolescence, attending human schools, dating human classmates. And their parents were perfectly fine with this. It infuriated Kent.