The Protector

by Desconhecido(a)

  Cole looked around the clearing. Blair was still in town, and it was getting very late. “I need to make sure Blair gets home ok. I have a shitload of work to do still.”

  Michael leaned against the tree. “I will get a hold of Cassie, and see if anyone is free to sit with her.”

  Chapter Ten

  Blair flipped through a book she found in Cole’s office. Part of her wondered why Cole was talking to Lucas. She could not understand why Cole and Michael acted as if Lucas had done nothing wrong. Michael hid it better than Cole because of Cassie, but at the end of the day, Lucas still murdered Cassie's best friend.

  It didn’t matter to Blair if Lucas had mixed her up with the psycho that killed his mate, Allie, and the baby. He’d still murdered an innocent woman. She felt Michael should have banished him for good, not left him free to make another mistake and kill someone else.

  Caleb walked into the office. “Hey, they got a scent trail for that missing kid. Cole is busy right now with getting the girl’s statement and dealing with her family. I can see you home so you don’t have to sit around here all night.”

  Blair smiled. “Great.” She hoped Cole was getting over his distrust of Caleb. The man was a town hero by bringing in a nice business, which would not only bring some shopping to their town, but attract other shifters to shop there instead of going into Colorado Springs or Denver. Cole always looked at Caleb as if he was up to something though. Blair knew Cole’s “I don’t trust you” look.

  Caleb was respectful to everyone, helped out with the town, and was building a business that would keep them secure financially for years to come. What was not to love?

  “Ok. Is the little girl all right? She wasn’t hurt or anything, was she?” she asked while putting the book back.

  “Oh no, everything is great. They found the girl, and she is going to be fine. Cole is talking with the family, and that FBI agent that came to help.”

  “Oh?” Blair wondered why Cole didn’t just call her himself, but Cole was the sheriff, and the Kelach of the cholan. There would be times he was just too busy to stop and call her.

  Caleb held the door open for her. “I am sure he will get in touch with you soon.”

  Blair walked down the sidewalk towards the parking lot where Caleb parked his black Mercedes. He held the door open for her and made sure she clicked her seatbelt before closing the door.

  Blair smiled, again wondering why Cole had such a problem with Caleb. He was always the perfect gentleman, just like Cole and Michael, and he made sure female shifters were always home safely.

  Caleb got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Blair looked around at the luxurious interior of the car. It was so much nicer than her Buick or Cole’s pickup truck. She guessed this was what being a contractor got a guy.

  “Thank you for taking me home,” Blair told Caleb as they drove out of town.

  Caleb looked at her. “My pleasure. I could not live with myself if something happened to you.”

  Blair gave a short, humorless laugh. “A few weeks ago I would have told you this is a very safe area.”

  Caleb stared at the road. “I do not think the trouble will last long. Once the others accept the changes, things will settle down.”

  “What?” Blair asked. She looked out her passenger side window and screamed as a truck with its lights off came out of a gravel drive and rammed into the car. The impact forced the air from Blair’s lungs, and she felt like the world exploded. Glass shattered around her, as she felt her head impact the side of the door. Someone rammed the car several times with the pickup truck. It wasn't just an accident. Someone was attacking them.

  The truck’s engine went to idle, and she heard the door open.

  “Caleb, get out. Caleb, we have to move, someone is coming. Caleb!” Blair screamed frantically, but nothing roused him. Was he dead? She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed 911, and hearing Stephanie’s voice answer, she tried to get her hysterical sobs under control. “Please help me, we’ve been attacked. I think Caleb is hurt.”

  “Who is this? Where are you?”

  The door opened, and a huge man in a ski mask grabbed her phone and threw it. “Get out.”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Blair cried shakily.

  “Get the fuck out of the car, now!”

  Blair looked around frantically for any kind of help. “My friend is hurt. Please call an ambulance for him.” He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her hard, but the seatbelt held her in place. Blair let out a pain filled scream and tried to grab his hands.

  “Unfasten the seatbelt or I will rip your hair out. Then drag your ass out and make it quick.”

  “Ok, I am doing it. Stop pulling.” Blair’s hands shook as she tried to find the seatbelt in the dark and through her blurred vision from the tears. She heard the click, and the seatbelt retracted.

  He yanked from the car and slammed hard onto the ground. Blair cried out, hoping she made enough noise that someone would hear her. She hoped there were cholan still around, and as their hearing was more sensitive than the typical shifter’s, screaming for help would attract their attention.

  He landed hard on her back, knocking the breath out of her lungs. Blair gasped several times, while he yanked her arms painfully behind her. Blair struggled to get her breath while he wrapped rough twine around her arms and wrists. Blair let out painful cries while she gasped for air. He shifted his weight on her, allowing her to take a full breath. She used the chance to take a deep breath and scream, “Help me!”

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch,” the man said in a snarling tone. Blair drew in a breath for another scream when his fist impacted the side of her face. Lights flashed behind her eyes, and the pain that exploded from the impact took her breath away. She screamed again, but this time in pain, instead of a way to attract attention. “If you scream again, I will make it hurt far more next time, you stupid bitch.”

  Blair felt herself hyperventilating, and she became lightheaded. Her arms were so far behind her back that there was no way she could shift to free herself. Even if she did, her bones would break instead of shifting. The thought of the pain she would be in when all her bones fractured made her fight harder to get free, but she was trapped.

  She felt a heart wrenching sob tear through her chest. Would Cole be the one who found her when he was done with her? She cried harder imagining Cole crying over her cold, lifeless body.

  Just as they repaired their fractured bond and mated, she would be ripped away from him. She had to get back to Cole alive. Damaged was better than gone.

  “Please don’t hurt me. I will do whatever you want.” Blair heard her voice quivering with emotion.

  “You’re going to do whatever I want anyways, bitch.” He finally got off of her and pulled her up to stand. Blair was sobbing incoherently by the time he jerked her to her feet.

  “Stupid whore.” He leered at her breasts. “You are going to ride my cock before I put you out of your misery though.”

  Blair shook her head frantically, while screaming again. There was no reason to try to save herself by following his instructions as he was going to rape and murder her. Cole would find her and go mad with grief, like Lucas, maybe even go feral. He may even go so far into madness that Michael would need to kill him. Shifters who went completely insane with no chance of ever recovering sanity were taken care of like that. It was far better that way, than to chain them to a cot for the rest of their lives.

  Feral shifters were worse than wild animals that went mad. They still had intelligence to track prey, but madness and blood-thirst made them dangerous predators.

  Blair let out a scream, terror giving her extra volume. Not for her own life, but imagining Cole going insane, trapped in a cage, then Michael forced to stop his heart.

  “I told you to shut the fuck up!” her attacker yelled and punched her hard, knocking her to the ground.

  Stunned and in pain, Blair only whimpered as her mouth filled with blood.

>   He leaned over her. “Scream like that again, and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.” He jerked her back up again.

  Blair stumbled along as he walked her deeper into the woods. While she tried to keep on her feet as he made his way through the forest, she thought of other ways to escape.

  Maybe if she could fake her death, he would leave her alive. She could leave a trail for Cole and the other cholan to follow. She saw her blood dripping and knew they would be able to scent her, so she dragged her feet so they could have something they could see as well.

  She had no way of knowing how long they walked, but her legs were burning and shaking from the steep uphill grade before he pushed her hard, making her stumble.

  “This here is good enough.” He threw her to the ground. He took off his ski mask and slapped the side of his face. “Fucking bugs, they should not be allowed to live up here.”

  Blair instantly recognized him as the private investigator, Josh Hamen. She’d had a creepy feeling about him when he was in the office, and now her plans to try to remain calm vanished. Panic and the will to live took over, and she rolled over and pushed herself up to her feet. She ran as soon as she was on her feet, not knowing or caring which direction she ran as long as she could get away from him.

  “Stupid cunt, get the fuck back here.”

  The rage Blair heard in Josh’s voice spurred her to run faster. She had to escape and live, for Cole. She had to warn him about Josh. The man was evil. She let out a scream when she heard footsteps and panting breaths behind her.

  “Help me, please someone help me.” She felt something hard hit her square in the back, knocking her to the ground. Her head impacted the ground, making her vision go black. She could feel, and hear, but she couldn’t see anything.

  “Stupid fucking bitch. I am going to make it hurt, for that shit you just pulled.”

  Blair wanted to fight him off of her, but she was too disoriented.

  “What are you doing here already?” Josh asked someone in the distance.

  “You can have her in just a moment. I need to make sure she remembers nothing that can give away my plans, stupid human. Why did you remove your mask? You were supposed to just attack her and leave the rest to me.”

  Blair knew that voice and struggled to open her eyes to see if her suspicion was correct. The betrayal cut her so deep she could barely breathe. If it was true, they all trusted him, and he was not what he appeared to be.

  “There was a fucking bug crawling on me,” Josh said in a defensive tone.

  Blair opened her eyes and saw a man standing over her. He wore a kabuki mask like she had seen in movies before, and as he lifted up his mask. Caleb was standing next to Josh, and they were talking as if they were friends as Caleb laughed at something Josh said.

  Blair wanted to scream, but her throat had closed off in shock and terror. She could only stare mutely at them. She ran every scenario through her head to try to figure out why Caleb would be here, with the man who kidnapped her. She couldn’t think of any.

  Caleb ran a hand over his forehead. “I was hoping you would make this quick. I need to get back and watch my daughter. She is about to marry that fucking Guardian. Now I have to deal with both of you.”

  “Aren’t fathers supposed to be happy about their daughter’s wedding?”

  “She doesn’t know me. If she did, she would kill me, especially if she knew my plans.”

  Her stomach churned with the realization that Caleb was the shifter betraying them. Oh Goddess, Caleb is Cassie’s father! Alarm bells rang in her head. Caleb had tried to kill Cassie to further his own evil agenda. Cassie thought she was safe in town, but she wasn’t.

  She had to warn Cassie and the others who her father was. She closed her eyes quickly, hoping he hadn’t seen her watching him. If he knew she had seen him, then he would kill her for sure.

  She had to tell Cole and Michael not to trust Caleb, but although Cole had his doubts about Caleb, she knew Michael trusted him, so they would not suspect him being her kidnapper and Cassie's father.

  Blair felt cold hands settle over her head and she tried to flinch away, but they held onto her skull tightly. “Sorry it has to be this way, Blair. I need Cole to trust me, and the best way to gain a man’s trust is to save his mate. His jealousy when he thought I was interested in you as a mate was rather cute. He will be so thankful that I saved you, he will fall right into my plans.”

  “What?” Blair asked before her words were cut off by a burning sensation growing in her head. She finally screamed as it became too much, and she tried to struggle away. She knew what Caleb was doing to her. He was erasing her memory, without being careful to make sure she was not experiencing the burning agony it could cause.

  When shifters who were strong enough to tamper memory were gentle, it felt intense, like someone else was in your head, and it was disorienting. When Michael had showed her what it felt like once, she had the worst case of vertigo. Michael had to hold her upright, since she had trouble knowing which way was up.

  Blair had witnessed Michael erasing a human’s memory before. A human man had broken into a shifter’s home thinking they were in bed, asleep. They were in bed, but not asleep. Tyler and Sharon Shelton were both mountain lion shifters, and because they were the same breed, they could shift while mating. The burglar walked in as they shifted from human to mountain lion.

  Tyler stopped as soon as he scented a human, and called Warren. They arrested the intruder, but before he went to the human jail, Michael erased his memory. The crook never screamed in pain, although he tried to get away, but Warren, who was still the Kelach at the time, was stronger than most, in his human form, because he was a bear shifter.

  Warren had held him down while Michael had spoken to them in a calm tone. Michael was the one left exhausted because it took a lot of a shifter’s energy to keep the process from being painful.

  Blair screamed as agony seared her head. Caleb was just ripping the memories out, without caring how much it hurt her. It felt like someone was digging their nails into her skull and piercing her brain with branding irons. She writhed in pain, and yanked on the twine that kept her hands behind her back. Blair screamed until her voice started to crack, but Caleb’s hands continued to hold her head in a torturous grip.

  Finally, the hands let go and a voice said, “It’s done. Don’t let her see your face again. She does and I will let those shifters kill you.” Blair could not make out the voice over her own hiccupping cries.

  “Can I get my piece of ass now?”

  The other man must have just nodded since large hands gripped her shirt. She felt tears gather in her eyes as he ripped her shirt off. She opened them, and someone in a black ski mask watching her. She struggled to remember who he was. Something important nagged at her. Her head hurt so damn bad, she could barely remember her own name.

  “Good, you’re coming around. I was worried you wouldn’t be the same after what that fucker did to you. I want you awake for every moment I fuck the life out of you. I am going to sell you after I am done fucking your brains out.”

  “Please, just let me go, I won’t say anything. I promise.” Blair’s voice was hoarse, and her words slurred as if she was heavily drugged. She wished she was, as then her head wouldn’t hurt so much.

  He stood over her, a foot planted on each side of her body. He took his hunting knife and bent over and sliced through the elastic of her bra, then sliced it into her chest. “No, you see, you saw my face. Even though I had my friend do his voodoo magic and tamper with your memory, I decided not to take the risk, no matter what the crazy asshole says about his abilities.

  "You see, there is this biker gang in Colorado Springs that is always looking for new girls. They will turn you into a cutie or a mamma. The gang likes finding pretty things like you off the street, but if they really like one of my girls, they buy her. They take her to their clubhouse for a gangbang. Most times they let the girls go, but you, I will make sure they whore you out t
o another gang when they are done with you. I do not believe you will survive long.”

  He crouched over her with one knee on the ground, and looked into her face. “So you can change into an animal huh? Well, I don’t envy you. This guy paying me to fuck you up is nuts. Total whack job, but whatever. Not my problem.”

  ****

  Blair took the shock silently. This guy was paid by someone. But who? She couldn’t remember and wanted to scream in frustration. It felt like it was right there, but she couldn’t remember.

  The man in the ski mask raised his knife over her and she knew this was it. He was going to kill her now, and she could not make herself lie down and take it.

  “Get off of me!” she screamed, as she kicked her feet as hard as she could, hoping to connect with his balls. It hurt to move, but she had to get away. She could not let her life end like this, just when things had turned around for her and Cole. She would fight, for him. She loved him, and he loved her.

  She kicked him as hard as she could, making him have to defend himself instead of stabbing her. He hovered over her, grunting every time her foot connected with his body.

  He bent over groaning, holding his balls. “Stupid fucking bitch.” His breath wheezed out of him. Blair kicked her feet again. She may be almost blind, but she would try her damnedest to get away.

  He fell over, and she thought she was getting a chance to get free when he slid his leg off of her. Instead, she could see through the mask, hatred filling his ice blue eyes as his grunts turned into a snarl.

  “Fuck you,” he said as he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed. No matter how hard Blair tried, she could not take a breath. She struggled, but his weight pinned her. She tried to force herself to be still and let him think she was dead, but her body had taken over in a fight to live.

  She kicked, and tried to buck him off of her. She felt the tingle of a shift, but her rib bones, which were the first to transform, could not move, so they cracked. She would have screamed in agony as her bones refused to go back to human bones and continued to crack under the pressure, but she had no air. Her vision faded.