Julio started to speak, but the man forestalled him. "The name's Casey. Zach Casey. I don't really give a damn which of you wins this family spat, but Julio says if he wins it, I get my girlfriend back. Thanks for finding her."
Pablo looked him up and down in impatience. Another person who couldn't cut their losses. Elizabeth Chapman, or Rachel Sullivan, whatever you wanted to call her, had left this S.O.B. six years ago. Move on, already.
Julio had his hand on his holster. "You were the dumb-ass to come out here, bro," he said to Pablo. "All I had to do was have one of Zach's crew call you and tell you I was running your feral in the fights, and you came charging out here to stop me. So let's talk."
"Yeah, let's," Pablo said. "Somewhere a little more private."
"Fine by me." Julio nodded at one of his crew. "Take his gun."
The guy stepped forward. Pablo didn't move, but he didn't have to. His own men got in front of him, ready for a fire fight.
Julio didn't look as afraid as he should have. "If you come fight for me," he said to Pablo's men, "I'll let you work for me on the same terms as you did for Pablo. If not, I'll shoot you alongside him. You're outnumbered. You want to die tonight?"
Pablo knew full well that most of his crew worked for him for money. There was some friendship, sure; but in the long run, they worked for Pablo because he paid them well. What surprised him was not that two of the men immediately went over to join Julio and Zach, but that two of them stayed.
Julio finally drew his gun. "All right. Let's go under the trees."
"Wait." Pablo lifted his hands. "No, you two get out of here," he said to the men who'd remained with him. "There's no reason for you to die for me."
They hesitated, assessing the situation. "Go on," Pablo repeated.
The men in his crew were, in the end, practical. They gave Pablo apologetic nods and walked away toward the cars.
"I'll pick them up later," Julio said, motioning with the gun again. "I can't believe you're surrendering to me."
Pablo's brain spun with escape scenarios even as he let one of the men take his gun and started walking where Julio indicated. "You're my brother. I'm hoping I can talk some sense into you."
"Only if you can talk fast on your knees with my bullet in the back of your skull."
Ay, Julio, I predict that you'll regret every one of those words.
They stepped under the thick trees that grew so well in Texas hill country, the branches blotting out stars, moon, and lights around the big barn. Darkness made for terrific cover, and no one had been smart enough to bring a flashlight.
Pablo felt something brush past him, sensed a whuff of breath and the warmth of fur. The skin between his shoulder blades prickled again, every instinct telling him to drop and get out of the way.
He took a few more steps, threw himself flat on the ground, and rolled away through mud. He came to a stop on his back and saw something leap over him, wildcat limbs flowing through the darkness. The thug the wildcat landed on screamed, his weapon discharging, bullets flying. Someone grunted, hit.
Pablo heard Julio cursing, men shouting. More dark shapes solidified from the trees, sparks igniting in the darkness. Collars. Shifters.
The fight was swift and ugly. By the time Pablo scrambled to his feet, all of Julio's guys and Zach's were down, many of them unconscious. Julio was screaming, hanging from the arms of the tall Shifter with all the body art. Now that the guy was naked, Pablo saw that he was well and truly inked.
Julio tried to twist around and shoot Spike, but the Shifter called Dylan materialized from the shadows, took the gun out of Julio's grasp, and crushed it into scrap metal.
Pablo brushed off his clothes. His suit was thick with mud, and he'd have a bitch of a dry-cleaning bill. "What the hell?"
Spike's teeth flashed in the darkness. "Nate said you looked like you could use a hand," he said in perfect Spanish. "Or two, or ten."
"Thanks." Pablo said it briskly, because he knew that Shifter help wouldn't come cheap. He was a long way in their power now. They'd been right about this territory being theirs. Just because no humans realized it didn't make it true.
"Did you stop the fight?" Pablo asked Dylan.
Spike answered, switching back to English. "Can't stop it. Rules."
"Don't be an idiot," Pablo said. "That feral's insane. He's never lost, and you'll have to pry him off the other Shifter's dead body. He has a strong instinct to kill."
Dylan dropped the pieces of Julio's gun onto the grass. "Sean's on it." He faded away so noiselessly that Pablo lost sight of him after the man had taken two steps.
"Pablo." Julio's bravado was gone, and now he sounded like he was crying. "Man, I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was doing--"
"Save it," Pablo said. "I felt sorry for you when Mamita died, but now I think I've spoiled you rotten. We got a lot to talk about." He was looking around as he spoke. "Where's Casey?"
Not there. Pablo accounted for the fallen, but Zach Casey wasn't with them. "He's gone after the woman," Pablo said in disgust. "Stupid waste of time."
"He wants to kill her," Julio said. "He told me he'd help me if I took him to the girl. He's going to do her and then kill her."
Dios , would this night ever end?
Spike at last set Julio on his feet. "Well, then," he said, another grin showing all his teeth, "we'd better get down there and stop him."
* * *
The fight had grown bloody. Elizabeth watched, her throat tight with fear, as the wolf tore into Ronan, and Ronan tore into him in return. Blood coated the wolf's fur and lay black against Ronan's. Ronan's Collar sizzled and sparked, but he wouldn't stop fighting.
Eventually, though, the pain would overcome his adrenaline, and Ronan would collapse. When he did that, the wolf, unhampered by a Collar, would kill him.
Elizabeth had been aware of Spike, Dylan, and Sean retreating from the ring and disappearing into the crowd. But she couldn't worry about where they'd gone. She kept her gaze on Ronan and the fight that might take him away from her.
No, no, no, a voice inside her wailed. Don't lose him. Don't. Lose. Him.
She had to stop this fight. But how could she? The four big Shifters Julio had brought in as refs were surrounding the ring, and the fifth ref watched them warily. Elizabeth wasn't foolish enough to think she could jump in there between two raging Shifters trying to tear each other apart and hold up her hands for them to cease. Sure, they'd stop instantly.
The refs would grab her and throw her out before she could even reach them. The four Shifters weren't letting anyone or anything interfere with this bout.
Ronan had the wolf under him. He drew back his paw, ready to knock him out, but the wolf suddenly wasn't there. Ronan's swing kept going, and Ronan, tired, fell.
The wolf pounced on him, mouth open, claws ripping. Ronan rolled onto his back and grabbed the wolf in a deadly embrace, but the wolf was too strong, too fast. He ripped at Ronan's belly, Ronan bleeding from a dozen wounds at once.
Ronan roared his pain, his Collar white-hot. The wolf latched his jaw around Ronan's throat and bit down. Blood sprayed, and Elizabeth screamed.
She ran for the ring, damn the rules and damn the refs. At the same time, the one referee who hadn't come with Julio jumped in and tried to break up the fight. The other four grabbed him and nearly threw him out of the ring.
"What the hell are you doing?" the first ref yelled at them. "We have to stop it. The bear's done!"
"The bear goes down," one of the other refs growled. "It's done when he's dead."
"That's not what we . . ."
The four refs closed ranks and blocked the fifth from the ring. He swung around, boiling with fury, and took off into the crowd. Going for help, maybe, but would it come soon enough?
Elizabeth jumped up onto the circle of cinder blocks. The things had simply been laid on the ground, unattached, and they wobbled.
"Ronan!" she shouted, waving her arms to keep her balance. "Ronan, hang on!"
<
br /> Ronan wasn't giving up. He was fighting on, but his struggles were weakening, while the wolf held on, jaw locked around Ronan's throat. If the wolf managed to tear Ronan's jugular, Ronan would die.
Because of her. If he hadn't been shopping in her store that night, Ronan wouldn't be here now, fighting to the death to keep Elizabeth alive.
She had to stop this.
"Ronan!" Elizabeth screamed. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "I accept the mate-claim!"
She wasn't sure what she expected--for him to suddenly burst upward, throw the wolf to the ground, shift, and sweep Elizabeth into his arms? She couldn't be certain he'd even heard her. In any event, Ronan was too busy fighting to respond.
But Elizabeth needed to tell him, in case. Ronan was one of the good ones.
"Ronan!" she shouted. "I love you!"
Love you . . .
Elizabeth put her hands on top of her head as she watched him, the man she realized she loved, die.
* * *
Ronan felt the tingle of it through the agony of his Collar and the crazed biting of the wolf. He heard Elizabeth's voice, though he couldn't make out the words through the fog in his brain.
But he felt the magic. It wrapped around his heart and flowed through his limbs like heady wine.
The mate bond.
That sense of oneness with a true mate, which Ronan had never thought he'd feel--had started thinking himself fated never to feel it--threaded through his body and completed him. The click he'd felt when he'd first made the mate-claim now became music.
"Ronan!" he heard Elizabeth scream. "I love you!"
Like hell would he let himself die when the mate bond was filling him, while Elizabeth declared her love at the top of her voice in a barn full of Shifters.
She'd accepted the mate-claim in front of witnesses and given Ronan the greatest gift of his life. He had never heard the words, "I love you," from another being. Liking, respect, comradeship, even affection. But never love.
Elizabeth was the first. And he loved her back with intensity that shattered all pain.
Fuck this.
Ronan gathered the last of his strength, wrapped the mate bond around it, and roared with sudden power as he rose up to his full Kodiak bear height. He ripped the wolf from his bleeding throat, lifted the crazed beast in both paws, and threw him as hard as he could.
The Lupine flipped end over end, howling, to land in a crowd of frenzied Shifters. Ronan swung around, great paws moving, contacting with the Shifter refs who'd sprung into the ring to stop him. The crowd moved back, some cheering; others, who'd bet on the wolf, booing and shouting.
The fifth ref, backed by Dylan and Ellison, stepped up on the cinderblocks on the far side of the ring. "The fight belongs to the bear!" the ref shouted. "Ronan, of the Austin Shiftertown . . . Winner! "
Screams and cheers from the Austin Shifters. Elizabeth was doing a little victory dance on the cinderblocks, her feet nimble in her high heels.
Ronan shuddered as he landed on all fours, his Collar's sparks slowing but still hurting him. The mate bond, though--the mate bond was erasing the pain.
Before Ronan could reach Elizabeth, before he could shift and snatch her into his arms, a human male closed hands around Elizabeth's waist, lifted her from her feet, and started to drag her away.
Chapter Sixteen
Ronan barreled out of the ring after them. Elizabeth kicked and flailed, the man holding her in a practiced lock. He had a gun obviously in his holster--he must have gotten past the weapons check at the door.
Where the hell was Sean? Nowhere, though Dylan and Ellison had started charging to Elizabeth's rescue. Too late. The man got her out of the barn, Elizabeth still fighting him.
Ronan passed the unconscious feral Lupine surrounded by a circle of Shifters, firelight from one of the barrels flickering eerily over the scene. There Sean was, kneeling beside the wolf, a shiny new Collar dangling from his hand.
Ronan burst out into the night. He hurt--Goddess, he hurt--but he was not letting that bastard take Elizabeth away.
He came upon them suddenly in the darkness, Elizabeth fighting her way out of the man's grasp.
"Zach," Ronan heard Elizabeth say, and then Zach's body was spinning, flying to the ground, as Ronan's paw smacked him.
"Ronan, don't kill him," Elizabeth said in alarm.
Why the hell not?
The human part of Ronan's brain, a voice far in the background, reminded him that Shifters were executed for harming humans. The Shifter that was Ronan only saw someone threatening his mate, and that meant no mercy.
Zach took the split second of Ronan's thought process to get to his feet, blood on his face. He reached for his gun, found his holster inexplicably empty, and ran. Ronan roared and ran after him.
He heard others coming behind, Elizabeth's voice holding fear, Spike and Ellison trying to get Ronan to stop. Ronan only smelled his prey, the man who'd dared put his hands on Elizabeth, the man who'd caused her to live for years in terror. This man would die tonight for touching Elizabeth-- my mate --for daring to come anywhere near her.
Ronan caught up to Zach in a little clearing in the trees. Zach had no backup weapon, it seemed, because he'd grabbed a fallen branch and tried to use it as a club as Ronan came at him.
Ronan rose, rage and the mate bond giving him glorious strength. He roared his Kodiak bear fury, shifting as he came down to the terrified man.
Zach's face was pale in the moonlight as he faced a blood-streaked giant of a man with madness in his eyes. "Who the hell are you?" he croaked.
"Her bodyguard," Ronan said, and raised both fists to strike him down.
There was a boom , an acrid smell of gunfire, and the hot scent of blood. Zack looked down in surprise at his right side, which now blossomed a large red stain. Zach touched the wound, then his eyes rolled back. His body collapsed into the mud, and he lay still.
Ronan roared in fury, his Collar sparking, as he swung to face Pablo Marquez, standing calmly by, a black nine-millimeter in his left hand, right wrist in a bandage.
"That was my kill," Ronan snarled. "Mine as mate."
Pablo tucked his gun into the holster under his coat. "No, my friend. I am a cold-blooded killer. You are not."
Ronan's mate-frenzied bloodlust made him want to rip into Pablo for interfering with his vengeance, but pain from his Collar, the heady feeling of the mate bond, and Ronan's own common sense stopped him. Better still was Elizabeth running into him, throwing her arms around him, no matter how bloody he was, and pulling him close. Distractedly he saw Pablo relieve her of the big pistol she seemed to have acquired, but he decided to worry about that detail later.
His Collar stopped sparking and winked out.
"Ronan, you stupid, stupid . . ." Elizabeth's words gave out, and she simply hung onto him.
Ronan gathered her against him. He didn't care that he was naked, her enemy dead at her feet, with other Shifters and a human looking on. This was his moment with Elizabeth, when the mate bond in him connected to the mate of his heart.
"I love you, Ronan," she was sobbing.
Ronan kissed her hair, nuzzling the red streaks in it that he adored. "Love you, Lizzie-girl," he said. "My mate."
* * *
Pablo also offered to dispose of the body. He gave Elizabeth an amused look as he checked over the Sig Elizabeth had lifted from Zach's holster in her struggle with him. "Remind me not to let you get close to me," he said as he unloaded the weapon and handed it to one of his seconds. "You have a gift. If you ever need a job . . ."
"No," Elizabeth said decidedly, and let Ronan lead her from the grisly scene. Julio Marquez was gone--who knew where, and Elizabeth didn't want to ask. She had no doubt that Pablo would gleefully claim that Zach Casey's territory was now his. He was not the kind of man who did favors without thought of personal gain.
By the time they reached the barn again, Ronan was staggering, and he collapsed at the same time Ellison broke out of the crowd
with a Shifter medic behind him.
Ronan was in incredible pain, Elizabeth saw. He'd lost a lot of blood, his body torn where the wolf had clawed and bitten him, his neck bruised and blackened from the Collar's abuse. He needed a hospital, but the Shifters weren't about to take him there.
The medic cleaned the wounds and then ordered Ronan to change back into a bear, a form in which he'd have more strength for healing. Ronan groaned as he shifted, and three Shifters had to help him climb into the bed of Ellison's pickup. Ronan looked for Elizabeth, his gaze betraying so much pain that she climbed into the truck with him.
Ellison and Spike lifted a blue tarp over the pickup's bed and began to tie it down.
"Hey!" Elizabeth called. "Suffocate us, why don't you?"
Ellison pulled a rope tight. "All loads in Austin have to be tarped, and he qualifies as a load. Besides, I don't want cops wondering why I'm driving around with an injured Kodiak in the back of my truck."
Elizabeth understood his point. They positioned the tarp so that Elizabeth and Ronan had plenty of airflow, their skill telling her they'd done this before.
The tented truck bed was warm in the night, Elizabeth cuddling against her bear. Elizabeth held on to Ronan as the pickup bumped down the long dirt track, Ronan grunting in pain every time the truck hit a rut on the washboard road.
Elizabeth held Ronan close and buried her face in his fur. He smelled of blood but also of warmth and himself. She'd fallen hard in love with him, but that was not so surprising, she thought as she stroked him. Ronan had helped her at every turn and never asked anything of her. He never did, from anyone.
She was quietly crying by the time Ellison pulled up at Ronan's house and shut off the engine. Rebecca came running out as Ellison untied the tarp, Cherie, Mabel, and Olaf following. Mabel pulled Elizabeth into an embrace while Rebecca helped Spike and Ellison get Ronan out of the truck. Rebecca instructed them to put him in the Den--there was a big bed there, she said, and they wouldn't have to try to get him upstairs.
Bodyguard (shifters unbound ) Page 14