Kodiak Moment: An Alpha Werebear Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Arcadia Knights Book 2)

by Olivia Gayle

  The last few words held such pain that Aidan wanted to cry. He laid his head beside hers so they were cheek to cheek, willing away his own protective instincts and need to make it all right, and just focus on comforting his clearly heartbroken mate.

  Ever sniffled, wiping her nose and eyes with her wrist. “And, um, Anna says hello. Said to give everyone a big hug for her, and tell you she hopes to come down sometime in the next few weeks to visit.”

  “Mom and Derek will like that.” Anna Landry was Aidan’s half-sister and worked at Haven helping the helpless. She was also a resident there, running from a mate-match that she didn’t approve of. “I’m assuming there’ll be no hug for Julian Murphy?”

  Ever snorted, sounding a bit more like her normal self. “She wouldn’t believe me when I told her he’d been instrumental in helping save Sonya and defeat Hendrix’s men, and that he’d been deputized to help watch over the town. Said that couldn’t be the same person, so I told her that people change and maybe she should try meeting him again.”

  “Well, he’s still an arrogant son of a gun, so she’s probably right about him not changing. And I’d rather keep my little sister as far away from that asshole as possible, so don’t be putting any thoughts in her head about redeemed mates.”

  “Ugh, you are such a butthead.” She smacked his thigh. “If you didn't’ trust him, then why’d you deputize him?”

  “It isn’t that I don’t trust him to keep the town in line. More along the lines that he’s still not good enough for my sister.”

  “Hm.” Ever turned in his arms, putting her arms around his neck as she straddled his hips. “So, you’re just playing at being the protective older brother?”

  “Not playing, I am over-protective. Just ask Anna.” He caught her around the waist with one arm, pulling her flush against him. Her eyes widened at his sudden action, and she chewed on the inside of one cheek as her gaze dropped to linger on his lips. He peered up at her placidly as she settled over him, his arousal pressing hard against her belly. “But I have other things in mind tonight than talking about siblings in our bedroom.”

  “Oh, yes. Quite.” His mate’s eyes had already begun to discolor, bleeding over into her animal colors, and Aidan grinned. He wondered if he’d ever get enough of her, and sincerely hoped it wouldn’t happen.

  Then her lips closed over his, and all rational thought fled his head.

  Chapter 15

  “What really happened with this Hendrix guy?”

  Abby was making slow, lazy circles with her fingers around Logan’s nipples, so she felt it immediately when he tensed up. She thought about dropping the subject, but curiosity was riding her so she kept quiet instead, giving him the chance to either tell her or not.

  It was obviously a sore subject, one Abby had watched him dance around anytime somebody else asked. In hindsight, she wasn’t even sure if she should be asking - it was nosy to pry, especially when he didn’t want to talk about it. But the words were out, and Abby wanted to know why he wouldn’t tell anybody about his old partner.

  The silence stretched, Logan’s body not relaxing, and Abby felt bad for bringing up the obviously sore subject. They’d been enjoying one another’s company, recovering from yet another lovemaking session, when she’d spoken. Now she regretted saying anything at all, and pulled away from him in disappointment at inadvertently hurting him.

  Only to have him grab her retreating hand and pull her halfway across his body. His arm went under her back and around her waist, holding her in place.

  “Don’t move, I’m thinking.”

  Abby subsided a bit, realizing she’d been pushing at his surprise move. She took a deep breath, inhaling all the myriad of scents that made up her mate.

  Her mate. What was sometimes difficult to say aloud wasn’t so hard for her to think. It felt right, even if the words tasted strange on her tongue.

  His jaw was just above her head, and she tilted up to nuzzle his neck. The twitch of his hands told her that Logan wasn’t as unaffected as he might have seemed, and she laid a small kiss against the hollow behind his jaw.

  Logan took in a long steady breath, then slowly let it out. “He was my best friend, my partner for decades, and I had to kill him.”

  Abby pulled back, staring up at his stony face. He wouldn’t look at her, so she just kissed his jaw again and waited for him to continue.

  “To understand, you have to know what my job was, what it was I did for years.” He glanced down, capturing Abby’s gaze. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  Suddenly she wasn’t, but it was too late to back out now. He must have seen her resolve because he looked away again, as if not wanting to see her reaction. “My brother, Warren, is an Enforcer. The older word is sipahi, a soldier, but in modern times that meaning faded away. Basically, we are the police of the Shifter world, charged with keeping our race as a whole safe from threats.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Abby said, peering up at Logan and willing him to look at her again. “You’re brother’s a Sheriff, so obviously you’ve adopted some human ways.”

  But he shook his head. “This supersedes that, and is much more…” He trailed off, then finally looked down at her. “We go after those within our community who’ve broken the rules and need to be punished.”

  Abby perched herself on one elbow, still not quite understanding. “So kind of like the Shifter FBI?”

  “No. We’re the ones called in to permanently remove any problems.”

  Logan was looking at her, as if willing her to understand, but she still didn’t see what was so bad. “So,” she said carefully, “when someone was particularly bad, you swooped in and…”

  “Executed them. Yes.”

  Okay, that hadn’t been what she’d expected. “Wait, what?”

  Logan’s eye twitched, the only sign of his wince, but the rest of his face was stoic. “It was our job to judge those who’d made serious errors, like killing humans or other Shifters, and carry out sentences.”

  Abby was quiet for a moment, digesting that, then frowned. “Well, okay, so you were the guy, or one of the guys at least, who made sure the really bad guys were caught and punished.”

  “Yes…and no.” There was a slight pause, as if he was loathe to tell her more. “The laws for revealing oneself to the human population was once a great deal stricter than it is now. ”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you killed people based on mistakes? Everyone goofs up sometime or another, but it’s not always a killing offense.”

  “Judgments came on a case by case basis, but an Enforcer’s job was to see to the good of the community, not one person.” He cleared his throat. “May I continue?”

  Abby wanted to know more about these judgments and what exactly constituted a killing offense, but acknowledged that perhaps then wasn’t the best time. A million questions on how they stayed secret, especially in today’s world, tumbled through her mind, but Logan might not be the person to ask.

  After all, he’d been hiding out in the frozen north for three decades; a lot of things changed since he’d left civilization.

  “We’d been sent on an assignment to determine whether the death of a human woman was caused by a shifter. She’d been seen flirting with a werepanther, and someone claimed the panther’s mate had killed the woman in a fit of rage. The mate had hidden her away, and we had to track the both of them down. Both of them had sympathizers within the Shifter crowd who repeatedly approached us on their behalf, begging for leniency, but wouldn’t help us find them.

  “The first time Hendrix struck one of the witnesses, I put it down to his frustration. He was immediately sorry, unsure what had come over him.” Logan looked at Abby. “We were polar opposites, Hendrix and I. He was the genial one, the kind to charm his way in and out of situations. I was the silent backup, willing and able to finish whatever he started, and that combo worked well for us.

  “So it was a bit unnerving to see him lose his temper. Then he did it
again, in a much more…spectacular fashion. Nearly ripped a man’s arm off for not cooperating with us. One minute he was smiling and questioning the shifter, the next he’d attacked and nearly quartered the man.

  “After that, I requested we be pulled from that particular case. Hendrix was shaken by his actions, and knew he needed to be judged.” He took a deep breath. “Working that particular job for a long time can…break a person. I’d seen it before in others, but never first hand like that. Both he and I had spent decades on that job, but I thought that, since he had his mate, he could handle the strain.”

  “What about you?”

  Logan looked down at Abby’s inquisitive face. “What about me, what?”

  The question seemed genuine, so she didn’t take any offense to it. “How were you doing, handling the less savory parts of the job?”

  He didn’t immediately answer, and Abby settled further against his side as he mulled in silence. That was something she’d learned quickly with Logan, he thought before he spoke, when he spoke at all. Patience was a virtue she’d happily learn with him, so she laid her cheek against one thick bicep and waited, lazily tracing the lines of ink across his arm and chest.

  Finally, after several minutes of silence, he spoke. “I needed to retire. It was something Hendrix and I had discussed before; the strain of the assignments were changing me. Killing…it no longer held any emotion for me. I’d become a robot, one that did their job when pointed at a target and still slept at night. Only Hendrix knew, and he did everything in his power to keep me afloat and out of trouble.”

  Logan shook his head. “Looking back, it wasn’t fair. I’d given him my leash and put him in charge of where I went. He was there for me, but I never took note of his own decline, of his own problems, until it was too late.

  “We’d found the couple holed up at a relative’s apartment, situated in the middle of a human neighborhood. They’d chosen that location deliberately, thinking the close presence of humans would make us think twice about doing anything.

  “The woman was contrite, knew what she did was wrong and was willing to pay the consequences. Her mate was also, but pleaded with us for leniency, that they’d disappear for a generation where there were no humans. I knew what the law required, but Hendrix recommended leniency. We argued over it outside - it wasn’t often we disagreed as to judgments - but he had me nearly convinced when…”

  Logan frowned, trailing off. “I’m still not sure what happened. My entire body went stiff, and I remember convulsing and falling to the ground. I thought one of the people inside had used an electrical stun gun, but I’m not sure. Whatever it was caused me to black out for I don’t know how long, except that when I woke up, everyone was dead.”

  “Everyone? The woman and her husband?”

  He shook his head again. “No, I mean everyone. I could smell the death on all sides of me, shifter and human alike, and Hendrix was nowhere to be found.”

  Abby’s eyes widened in shock. “Oh my God, wait, I think I’ve heard about this. Was this in Texas, at the Islewood Apartment complex?”

  Logan blinked slowly, the only sign of his surprise. “Yes?”

  “Holy shit,” she breathed, staring dumbfounded at Logan. “I always thought that was an urban legend, although Snopes listed it as a fact. I remembered reading the Wikipedia page about it once but…that really happened?”

  Logan seemed confused by her words, and she realized belatedly he probably didn’t understand half of what she was saying. But he nodded anyway. “It’s true, although I don’t know how your media spun everything.”

  “It’s called the Islewood Massacre; twenty-three people torn to pieces inside their apartments. No suspects, no video, no witnesses. To this day it’s still a mystery what happened.” Abby blinked at him owlishly. “I can’t believe you were there. That’s just…”

  “Just, what,” he asked when she trailed off, but Abby just shook her head. It was too strange for her to think about right then.

  “What happened with Hendrix?”

  “He was still there, downstairs in the last apartment. When I burst in, he was trying to resuscitate a woman whose throat had been cut. He was covered in blood and crying as if his heart was broken.” A muscle twitched in Logan’s cheek. “He begged me to kill him, to end his pain, and I…did. Made damned sure he was dead too, although I didn’t take his head like we’re supposed to do. But I broke his neck, caved in his skull, and drained him of blood in the bathtub.”

  Abby flinched at the brutal finality of his words, but didn’t move from his side. She’d asked for this, best to see it through to the bitter end.

  “Afterwards, I called Warren and told him what happened. Told him to bring everybody, because this one was bad. Then…I just walked away.”

  “Wait, you just up and left? Wouldn’t they think you were guilty?”

  “I didn’t care anymore.” Logan seemed to struggle finding the right words. “Hendrix was my best friend, and I’d had to… Anyway, I walked away, turned into a bear as soon as I hit cover, and didn’t change back for a long time. Warren said that they never found Hendrix’s body, but I know he was dead, and by my hand. Those people might have also lived if I’d been more alert, stronger.”

  Abby stayed quiet for a while, mulling his words over. People had died, probably more than she’d ever know. That should have been chilling, but all she could think about was the man beside her, and how he’d suffered in his own way. There was real pain there; she could see it, and while it felt mercenary and cold, she cared more about the man with her now than whatever might have happened in the past.

  Making her decision, she crawled on top of him so that she was straddling his hips. His hands immediately went to her thighs, fingers digging in as if afraid she would leave him.

  Fat chance, buddy. “Did it help? Being in bear form, I mean?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Stepping away and just surviving might have been enough to burn away the guilt.” He lifted up one hand above his face, turning it over back and forth. “It feels so strange to see this body, even now. Doesn’t feel natural.”

  “I don’t know,” Abby murmured, wriggling her hips across his groin and grinning as she felt him harden again. She didn’t like seeing him down like this, and was willing to cheat if it would distract him out of his thoughts. “Feels pretty natural to me.”

  He slid his hands up over her hips and sides, tilting his head back and gripping her backside as Abby leaned down to kiss him softly. “You want to know what I think?” she whispered against his lips.

  When he made a needy sound in reply, she nipped his lower lip. “I think that, if you hadn’t gone through all that, we might never have met, and that would have been a shame.”

  He seemed to mull that over for a moment, but Abby was done with thinking. She broke off their kiss, trailing her lips down his neck. Logan’s nails raked slow marks along her sides as she moved down his body, eager to remove the memories, if only for the moment, and to taste him one more time.

  Chapter 16

  A soft knock on the front door brought Logan immediately awake.

  He didn’t move a muscle, but between one heartbeat and the next his senses were on high alert. Still, it took him a second to orientate himself: he was in a soft bed, underneath a sturdy shelter, with his mate still asleep in his arms.

  And somebody was at the front door of his house.

  The trappings of civilization still felt new to him, so different from the wilderness of the last three decades. It occurred to Logan that he could choose to ignore it, and whoever it was might go away. His mate smelled and felt so good beside him, it was tempting to stay.

  Twice more that night, he’d woken her up to accept him. Both times she’d been obliging - indeed, quite pleased at his prowess - but now she lay fast asleep, trusting in him to keep her safe.

  Even as he beheld her, Abby moved slightly in her sleep, her naked backside rubbing against his groin. Just that quickly, he was rea
dy for her again.

  Three more knocks, this time louder. Logan’s lips pulled back into a snarl, quickly hidden when his mate stirred.

  “Is somebody at the door?”

  Her mumbled question made up Logan’s mind for him. “Yes,” he murmured, laying a soft kiss to her temple before extracting his arm from under her head. She mumbled again unintelligibly, then fell back into a deep sleep.

  Logan didn’t bother with clothing as he padded through the hallway to deal with the person at the door. No light came through the windows, so it was still before dawn. As he drew closer, he identified who it was from the scent, so wasn’t surprised when he opened the door to see Warren and Amelia standing outside. “What,” he said, almost daring them to drag out this meeting.

  Amelia’s eyes travelled down his body and stopped squarely at his groin. Her grin widened, and she elbowed her partner. “Hey, do certain, hm, traits run in the family?”

  Warren closed his eyes and rubbed his temple with one hand. “Is there any world where you’re not a pain in the ass?”

  “Nope!” She beamed up at her partner. “And now I totally want to see your junk, just for comparison’s sake.”

  Their time was up. Logan started to close the door, but fast as lightening Warren was there. “Ignore my partner. We’re starting the interrogation of our prisoner and I thought you’d like to be there.”

  That got Logan’s attention, and he nodded. “Let me tell my mate.”

  “And for heaven’s sake, man, put on some clothing.”

  Logan ignored Amelia’s sound of disappointment as he shut the door in their faces and headed back for his bedroom.

  It was very tempting to just get back in bed with Abby and forget about the people at his door, but he felt it necessary to be at this particular event. So, with some hesitation, he knelt down beside her and laid his hand on his mate’s shoulder, giving her a tiny shake.