Her Panther Protector [The Protectors 5] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Doris O'Connor

  Before he could say anything, Jennifer’s laugh made his gut churn.

  “Oh, come on now, Sasha, no need to be shy in front of the little human. Did he not tell you we’re together?” She pursed her lips and stabbed her index finger into Sasha’s chest.

  “The fuck we are, Jennifer.” The woman had the good grace to pale slightly when his voice came out distorted as his beast took over, but then her own animal rose and she waved a clawed hand in front of Macey.

  Macey swatted that hand away and looked between the two of them. Her gaze sought his, and whatever she saw in there must have reassured her, because when Jennifer tried to pull the neckline of Macey’s shirt to one side, she shoved the panther.

  “Don’t you dare touch me. It seems Sasha doesn’t agree with this assessment of yours, so to throw your earlier words back at you, take your hands off what’s mine.”

  A murmur of surprise went through the watching crowd, and Sasha’s chest tightened with the rush of possessiveness that swamped him right now. She might have only said that because Jennifer pissed her off, but it was still music to his ears. What’s more, it calmed his volatile animal considerably, and while it remained on high alert to step in and defend his mate, for now it was content to sit back and see what would happen.

  Besides, the two women were now engaged in a staring match, and pride at his feisty little mate filled him anew. Jennifer might be a good head taller than Macey, and a shifter to boot, but if he was to place a bet right now, it would be on Macey. Hands balled into fists, she bounced on the balls of her feet.

  “Ah, you poor, deluded little human bitch. He might have said that, but if he meant it, he would have bitten you already, and I can’t see any bites, so—”

  “Not where you can see them, anyway,” Macey interrupted the other woman with a small smile, and Jennifer snarled, while Sasha was hard-pressed to hide his grin. Mrs. H had no such issues, he saw. The grin playing around her lips got wider by the second, and a few of the others bystanders smirked, too.

  “Oh, you think you’re clever, do you?” Jennifer looked Macey up and down as though she was something she found on the bottom of her shoe as she stepped closer to her, and Sasha would have intervened, had it not been for the headshake from Mrs. H.

  “He’s only with you to get to his son. The minute he’s got him, you’re fucking history, human.”

  A brief sliver of uncertainty showed in Macey’s eyes at those venomous words, and then she pushed back her shoulders, and sniffed the air in a rather exaggerated manner.

  “Really? That’s the best you can come up with? I thought I smelled shite, but maybe that’s just your usual stench. Forgot to clean yourself when you last used the litterbox, did you? Go piss in your own backyard, you daft cow.” Jennifer’s head yanked back as though Macey had slapped her, but his girl wasn’t done yet. “He can see his son anytime he wants. He doesn’t have to pretend to want me to do that, not that this is any of your business, so be a good kitty, and go back and play with your scratching post, or whatever it is you do besides licking your own ass.”

  The female panther’s outraged roar shook the ground as she advanced on Macey, and Sasha’s muscles curled in readiness to intervene, but he needn’t have worried.

  “How dare you talk to me like that. You, a puny little human. I could slice you in half without even trying.”

  Macey gave an exasperated eye-roll and stomped her foot, an action that made Jennifer’s air of superiority increase even more, and Sasha shook his head as his eyes locked with Mrs. H, who also looked ready to intervene on Macey’s behalf. Really, attitudes like that did not belong in Middle Brook. The community on the whole had worked too hard to ensure a sense of unity between all shifters, and humans, whether they were aware of the shifters among them or not.

  He didn’t hear the rest of Jennifer’s garbled ramblings, as her beast took over, but he heard Macey all right.

  “Fuck this.”

  With a swing to rival any cage fighter, his girl’s fist connected squarely with Jennifer’s temple, and the over-confident shifter went down like a sack of potatoes and stayed there, knocked out cold by one little outraged human.

  “Ouch, that hurt.”

  Macey’s wail, and the way she held her hand, meant that Sasha was on her in seconds. Stepping over the limp body of his former lover, he picked his girl up and carried her across to a waiting Mrs. H. A smattering of applause greeted them, and Mrs. H smiled and gestured for Sasha to take Macey inside.

  She stiffened in his arms when she saw Kenny bound up, and Sasha smiled at his boy.

  “Hey, there, buddy. Don’t look so worried. Macey will be right as rain in a second.” Kenny didn’t look convinced, and when Macey struggled in Sasha’s arms, he reluctantly put her on her feet.

  “Mama Macey hurt?” Kenny’s voice wobbled, and he looked on the verge of tears. A far too extreme reaction to seeing his aunt hold her hand, for sure, but with his advanced shifter senses he, too, would be picking up on the amount of pain that Macey was in. If Sasha had to hazard a guess, he’d say Macey had broken her knuckles, or at the very least severely bruised them.

  “It’s okay, it’s nothing, babe. Don’t look so worried.” Macey gave him an awkward one-armed hug, and Kenny sniffed and clung to her.

  “Don’t go away like Mama?” he asked, and Sasha held his breath as he got a clear mental image of his son’s terror as he tried to wake up his mother. Mrs. H, too, must have gotten that, because she paled and put her hand on Kenny’s head while murmuring to herself.

  More images bombarded Sasha. Kenny hiding under a bed, while listening to his mother screams. The dull thud of fists hitting flesh, and a man’s boots. Cowboy boots, the tip lined with silver, as they paced in front of Kenny’s bed, and then disappeared. A man in a suit, his face in the shadows, holding a wad of cash, and his large hand stuffing a packet into something. A soft toy of some sort, and too many jumbled images of Kenny’s mother to make sense of.

  As abruptly as the images started, they dissipated and Mrs. H’s chanting stopped. She took a step back and almost fell onto the seat of the chair, her breathing uneven and her complexion as white as the wall behind her.

  She offered Sasha a weak smile when he came to her aid, and shooed him away.

  “I’m fine, just need a moment, and then I’ll heal Macey’s hand. That was quite something you did out there, my dear. I wouldn’t advise you make a habit out of taking on outraged shifters, but I must say, I enjoyed that silly cat’s downfall. She’s been making too much of a nuisance of herself lately.”

  “Who has, and what the hell is going on here?”

  Ronan Bernhard’s deep growl shook the small café, and Macey hugged a now-sleeping Kenny to herself and backed away from them all.

  “I’d like to know that, too. What did you do to Kenny?” Macey asked.

  * * * *

  Macey’s hand hurt like the fucking bitch, but she was far too worried about Kenny right now to take any notice of that. The impossibly tall and muscled guy who’d just walked in the door narrowed his eyes, sniffed the air, and then smiled. It lit up his harsh features and Macey’s stomach did a little flip. She recognized him from the picture in the paper. This was Ronan Bernhard, the bear shifter who ran this place. At least he looked less likely to want to kill her than he had a minute ago.

  “You must be Macey and Kenny.” He winked at her, and Sasha growled low in his throat.

  “Keep your fur on, pussy cat.” The bear shifter laughed, when Sasha looked ready to punch him. “I got an SOS from the duck shifters, claiming all hell was breaking loose in the village square, so I came to investigate. I should have known they were exaggerating. They tend to do that, after all.” He turned his head to stare at a rotund-looking man stood at the back. The man blanched and, murmuring something under his breath, waddled out of the café.

  Oh. My.

  Sasha had said that Middle Brook held all kinds of shifters, but ducks, really?

  Ke
nny chose that moment to give a little snore, and it brought her attention back to her nephew.

  “What have you done to him, you witch?” she asked, and she didn’t miss the way Ronan’s eyebrows shot up, presumably at the way she was addressing the village elder.

  “Kitten, that is no way to speak to Mrs. H.” Sasha’s rebuke, especially offered in that deceptively quiet drawl of his, stung, but her need to know Kenny was all right overshadowed her need to please Sasha. And really, where had that come from? They’d had one night, for fuck’s sake. That didn’t give him rights over her, and her insides might be cramping at the mere thought of displeasing him, but it was nothing a hot water bottle wouldn’t cure.

  “It’s quite all right, Sasha. She’s just worried about the boy, and with good reason.” Mrs. H’s words did nothing to reassure Macey. “Besides, she is right. I am old and I am a witch. Ten out of ten for your powers of observation there, my dear. However…” The old lady stood up and Macey swallowed hard as her eyes turned to steel. Pinned in place, Macey couldn’t move, could barely breathe under the force of her regard. “If you’re implying that I would do anything to harm the boy, then I do take offense at that.”

  Deprived of oxygen, Macey’s eyesight dimmed and she desperately tried to move, dimly aware of both Ronan and Sasha’s worried expressions as they stepped toward the old woman.

  “Mrs. H…”

  The hold on Macey lessened, and she drew a much-needed breath into her lungs and sank back into Sasha’s embrace as he stepped up behind her and engulfed both her and Kenny in a bear hug that made breathing difficult again. The sudden pain in her hand made her cry out, and she would have dropped Kenny, had Sasha not been there supporting her. Mrs. H was chanting again, words in an ancient-sounding language that Macey didn’t understand. Gasping for air, she tried to breathe through the waves of pain, and then as quickly as it had started, the pain stopped, and Macey frowned at her hand.

  The swollen knuckles looked normal and she could wriggle her fingers without pain. When she looked over at Mrs. H, the old lady smiled and inclined her head, her good humor seemingly restored.

  “Did you just…?”

  “Heal you hand?” Mrs. H asked. “Yes, I did. I also took away Kenny’s bad memories. He should be able to sleep without nightmares now. That poor boy has seen things no child ever should.” Mrs. H got up and grasped Macey’s chin. “No need to thank me, my dear, and no, you do not want to know what he’s endured. Some things are best left in the past. Tell me this, however. Has he got a favorite toy?”

  Macey couldn’t quite get her voice to work, especially with Sasha’s panther growling in her ear. Lordy me, he sounded furious. What on earth was going on?

  “Fuck, the teddy? I couldn’t see it properly, but fuck.”

  Sasha released her, and dumped her on the chair Mrs. H had just vacated.

  “I need to make a trip to Glasgow and clear house, it seems.”

  “Let’s not be too hasty on that, dear boy,” Mrs. H said. “I’m pretty sure they’re on their way here, so you’ll be far better served keeping your contrary human and your boy under close guard.”

  Both Ronan and Sasha’s animals roared at that, and before Macey could even blink, Ronan was on the phone, issuing orders. Sasha hung onto his every word, and Macey just stared at Mrs. H.

  “Is someone going to explain what in god’s name is going on?”

  Sasha stopped his incessant pacing and crouched low in front of her, and the intensity in his gaze took her breath away.

  “In a nutshell,” he said, and grasped her hand, “you were right. Kenny did witness your sister’s murder.” He smiled grimly at her sharp intake of breath. “My guess is she was murdered for whatever is stuffed inside Kenny’s teddy. I only got glimpses of what Mrs. H got out of Kenny’s memories, but at a guess, and considering her method of death, it’s somehow drug-related. We need to get you back to your place, get whatever is in Kenny’s toy, and then you’re coming home with me, where I can look—”

  “No.” Her sharp retort cut off his words and the expression on Sasha’s face would have been comical in any other circumstances.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, least of all to your place. How on earth would I explain that to Kenny? And besides, who’s to say there won’t be more of your ex-lovers trying to make a claim on you? Kenny has been through enough. I won’t stop you from seeing him. He’s your son after all, but you and me…not gonna happen, mate.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  How Sasha stopped his beast from pouncing on her and biting her there and then, to force the bond between them, he would never know, as the bottom dropped out of his world at Macey’s quiet yet forceful statement.

  She meant every word she said, of that he had no doubt, and if that fucking Jennifer had been near him right now, he’d have ripped her throat out for messing things up between them.

  “Kitten, what she said is not—”

  “Spare me, and don’t call me that. Not now.” Macey put out her hand to interrupt him, and he would have forced the issue had Kenny not chosen that moment to wake up. Sasha forced a smile on his face instead and ruffled his boy’s hair.

  “Hey there, kiddo, back with us?”

  “Sasha!” Kenny grinned and stuck his little arms up for a pick-up, and after a moment’s hesitation, Macey let him go. Sasha hoisted his little guy up high, and swallowed hard past that lump of emotion lodged in his throat, especially when he saw the way Macey’s bottom lip trembled and she blinked away tears.

  The gust of wind ruffling everyone’s hair, as the front door to the café blew open and brought with it Eva in Dimitrius’s arms, made everyone turn toward them.

  “You called, boss,” Eva said, and dropped a kiss on her vampire’s lips as he slowly slid her down his front.

  “Something wrong with your bike, woman?” Sasha’s question held the irritated growl of his animal. Really, what was wrong with the eagle shifter, parading in here like this, and all loved up? He growled low in his throat when Eva looked all set to flip him the finger and changed it to a wave at the last minute when she spotted Kenny.

  “Keep your fur on, Sasha. Ronan said it was urgent, so here we are. And you must be Kenny?”

  She sashayed over to them and grinned at his wide-eyed boy while she held her hand out to a stunned-looking Macey. Fuck it, he should have kept her tied to the bed instead of suggesting this meet-up in the village. It would have avoided the confrontation with bitchy Jennifer and this complete and utter information overload his girl was being subjected to. And she damn well was his. He’d make sure of that, just as soon as he got her on her own.

  “Sorry about the entrance, but I wanted to get here quickly. I had to see this woman who’s got Sasha all tied up in knots. I’m Eva, and this handsome fellow is Dimitrius.”

  Macey accepted the proffered hand and fixed a smile on her face. The fact that it didn’t reach her eyes tore another hole in Sasha’s gut.

  “Macey, and I’m not sure I’ve got Sasha tied up in anything. He seems to have plenty of other women for that sort of thing, after all.”

  Eva whistled through her teeth, and Dimitrius grinned and gave a little bow.

  “Oh, touché, young lady.” The ancient vamp completely ignored Sasha’s warning growl and leaned against the window, for all intents and purposes completely disinterested in the proceedings. Macey threw him some worried glances until Ronan cleared his throat to get her attention.

  “Right, Leon is on his way, but it will take him a while, so this is what I suggest. Sasha, you and I will go to Macey’s cottage and retrieve the item we need.” He smiled at Kenny as he said that, and waved Sasha’s immediate protest away with a dismissive hand signal. “And that will give Macey and Kenny a chance to look around the nursery. Tina, my wife, is there right now, and perhaps Dimitrius can escort them there?”

  Macey visibly startled at that suggestion, and Sasha glared at Ronan, but the bear shifter ignored him and addressed Eva.r />
  “Aerial surveillance, please, Eva, while Mrs. H works on”—he glanced at Kenny again, and smiled—”the other issues. Will that be all right with you, Macey?” he asked.

  “It’s not fuc—I mean, it’s not all right with me.” Sasha put Kenny down, and he immediately scooted over to Macey and whispered something to her that he couldn’t quite catch. She glared at Sasha over Kenny’s head, no doubt even more pissed at him now for almost swearing in front of his son, and he suppressed a sigh and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

  “I didn’t ask you, Sasha. I asked Macey. We need to find the item quickly. As you know the house, I need you with me, not with them, and I think we can all agree that the cottage is not the best place for them to be right now. First place they’ll come looking, I dare say.”

  Sasha had to agree with Ronan’s assessment of the situation. Macey, of course, had plenty to say on the matter.

  “I’ve already told Sasha I’m not staying with him, and I’ll not be driven from my home, so I thank you for your concern, but—”

  “With all due respect, Macey, my first concern is yours and Kenny’s safety, and how to ensure that without using up all my available manpower,” Ronan interrupted Macey, and while she looked ready to argue, she glanced down at Kenny and held her tongue. He was clearly picking up on the tension in the room because he’d gone quiet and popped his thumb in his mouth, looking between the adults.

  “I’m not for one minute suggesting you move in with Sasha, but for now, I need you to stay away from the cottage.”

  Ronan’s tone brooked no argument, and while Macey’s lips thinned, she gave a curt nod.

  “Excellent, and I’m sure Kenny would love to have a play in the nursery play park?”

  Kenny visibly brightened at that suggestion. “Go park, and play?”

  “Yes, baby.” Macey seemed to have found her voice. “Remember I told you we were going to have a look around where you’ll be staying when Macey has to go to work?”