Woman of Midnight (Wardens of Midnight)

by Helen Scott

  Her apartment was tiny and more of a studio than a one bedroom. A kitchenette was on one side of the larger part of the space, and a TV and DVD player were on the other, while a couch acted as a barrier between the kitchen and the living space. The bedroom was only separated by some free-standing cupboards, as though the landlord couldn’t quite be bothered to build a wall there.

  His bear was anxious about the small space, but he pushed that to the side. Right now, his primary concern needed to be making sure Harper was okay. He doubted that she’d ever been exposed to magic like that before. His desire to protect her was becoming overwhelming, and it didn’t help that her scent was everywhere. There was nowhere he could go to escape it without leaving the apartment, and his bear wasn’t about to let him do that.

  A noise made him turn from where he was standing.

  Harper’s eyes were blinking slowly, confusion drawing her eyebrows together.

  “Hey, there, sleepyhead,” Domino said, trying not to startle her too much.

  She gasped as her eyes landed on him, and her mouth formed words, but no sound came out.

  “Let me get you some water.”

  He turned back around to the kitchenette and opened the glass-fronted cabinet that held tumblers and mugs, grabbing one and filling it with water from the tap. The glass was cool against his warm palm as he took it to her. The woman made his blood hot and his skin prickle with desire. He’d never take advantage of her in such a state, but being in her apartment, surrounded by all her things, and practically swimming through her scent meant that his body was on overdrive.

  She took the glass from him and sipped the liquid, wetting her subtly pink lips. A moment later, the question he’d been dreading popped out of her mouth. “What the hell happened?”

  “It’s complicated. What do you remember?”

  “I’m not sure. Everything was so weird and crazy, as if the world lost its damn mind.”

  He really didn’t want to out the shifter community if he didn’t have to, so he said, “Well, just rest for a moment. You were out for a while. Can I get you anything?”

  “I feel fine. Just a little hungry. There are some crackers in the cupboard next to the one you got the glass from.”

  He smiled and happily went off to retrieve the desired snack. Feeding her was a dangerous thing for him to do, and yet there was an immense pleasure growing inside him at the thought of it. Bringing food to a woman, helping her get ready, tending to her needs? Those were all actions of a shifter engaged in the mating dance. Not that he was, but he’d seen men so head over heels that they were washing their mate’s hair or painting their toenails or going out to get them the specific snack they craved. He’d never been one of them, and probably never would be, but he didn’t want to communicate the wrong thing to his bear.

  When he arrived back at her bedside, she was gaping at him as if he was an alien.

  “What? Why are you looking at me as if I’ve grown another head?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Nic, maybe because the back, and now I see the front, of your T-shirt is soaked in blood.” She paused for a moment and nibbled on a cracker. They were supposed to taste like garden vegetable, but he could tell from where he was sitting that there were no real vegetables in them. She opened her mouth as though to speak, only to close it again and repeat the action. Finally, the words came out. “You were . . . a bear.” She gasped as though more of the memory had come back to her. “That guy stabbed you a bunch.”

  He paused, waiting to see if she had more to say, but her cracker-holding hand just hung halfway between the box and her mouth while she stared at him. When she didn’t continue, he sighed and said, “That did happen. You probably don’t know this, but there are magical creatures who exist in the world. I happen to be one of them. I’m a bear shifter . . .” He trailed off, waiting to see how she reacted.

  “But black bears aren’t that big.”

  It was the absolute last thing he’d expected her to say. She was right, though. It was true for pretty much any type of shifter; at least, any of the ones he’d met. He was a few feet taller than the average black bear, and probably heavier too. “You’re right,” was all he said.

  “This can’t be real. You seriously expect me to believe you can turn into a bear? You’re just fucking with me. Just tell me what really happened. Was it lasers? Some kind of projection? I don’t care. I can take a good prank, but just tell me how you did it.”

  “I can turn into a bear, Lola. No prank. No lasers. No projectors. Nothing. Just me and my bear.”

  She blinked at the use of her middle name before barreling onward. “So you can change into a bear, what, at will? Or is it a full-moon thing like a werewolf?” She scoffed, clearly still not believing him.

  “At will. There have been stories for centuries of creatures bound by the moon, but I’ve never met one, and to be honest, I think they are just myths. Just do me a favor and be careful who you call a were. Some shifters are very sensitive to it.”

  “Right.” She took a bite of her cracker and stared at him, chewing thoughtfully. “So change. If you want me to believe you, prove it.”

  “It’s not that simple. I could hurt you. My bear is used to being in the wild, to having land to roam, not being in an apartment.”

  “It didn’t hurt me before. It protected me.”

  Domino remembered some of that. Memories of the time he’d spent as the animal were funny things. Sometimes he remembered every second. Other times, as soon as the bear was free, it turned into a black hole and he didn’t remember anything until his human form took hold once again. The bear usually only shared what it either wanted him to know or thought he should know, which meant most of the time, he was blessedly spared the memory of the bear’s kills.

  “What if I just do a partial shift?” He was one of the few shifters, or at least bear shifters, who could partially shift. His talent was his hands. He could turn them into the massive paws with the thick black claws that came with them. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant process, but he’d used it to get himself out of a bind here and there.

  She shrugged, as though it didn’t matter since she didn’t believe him, anyway.

  As he called his bear forth, he hoped she didn’t flip out. The energy surged as though it wanted to be around Harper, but he pulled what he liked to think of as a gate down in his mind, allowing just the smallest trickle of energy through and directing it toward his hands. He heard the bones begin to pop and realign themselves as thick black fur sprang up and a mystical wind blew away the flakes of his humanity over the area of his hands. His long black claws extended from what he knew were his fingernails, and he flexed them under Harper’s stunned gaze.

  The box of crackers was forgotten, and the one in her hand slipped from her grasp, falling onto the comforter underneath, while her eyes remained peeled and fixed on the paws he held up in front of her.

  “That . . . it can’t be . . .” She stuttered her responses.

  He was surprised when she extended a hand and touched the thick fur. It was tentative at first, but when he didn’t pull away, she grew bolder, her fingers sliding under his paw to the thick, rough pads underneath, and eventually coming around to the sharp claws that hung, ready to attack should the need arise. Not that he would attack her, but being able to partially shift did allow him to use his paws to attack others when threatened.

  Her hands came up and felt the edges where the fur disappeared into skin. He assumed she was trying to find something to indicate that he’d somehow pulled gloves on or done something to trick her. Her breath came out in a whoosh. “Oh. My. God.”

  Domino pulled the energy back, watching as the fur seemed to fall away from his skin, the claws retracted, and the bones in his fingers reworked themselves into a human shape. A partial change like that was slow and hard because he could only allow the tiniest bit of energy through. A full change was easy and almost instantaneous since he just let the energy wash over him, like jumping i
nto a pool or lake. One second he was dry; the next, he was wet. It worked the same way. Finally, when everything was back to looking human, he said, “Believe me now?”

  She nodded, dumbfounded by what she had just witnessed.

  “Are you going to freak out?” he asked cautiously.

  “I don’t think so,” she said as she ate another cracker, still not realizing that there was one on the comforter in front of her. He reached out and picked it up, hissing slightly at the pulling sensation in his side, before popping it into his own mouth. It was flavorful, salty, and herby, but it also tasted of chemicals as so much premade human food did to him. “So, are you okay? I mean, the dude stabbed you. With a dagger. Who does that?”

  “I’m okay. I just need to clean up soon so I can bandage the wounds.” He smiled at her, trying not to say that he didn’t want to leave, but couldn’t stay and tend to the wounds himself, either.

  Before he knew it, she was up and out of bed, heading to the small door to the left of the bedroom area. When she returned, she was carrying a small black bag.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said. Her voice remained calm for the most part, but the flush that crept up her neck to her cheeks told him everything he needed to know. She was just as attracted to him as he was to her. Without questioning her, he removed the blood-soaked piece of clothing and carefully dropped it onto the floor where there was no rug or bedding to stain, just the faux hardwood panels.

  She sat just behind him on the bed, and he heard the small gasp as she looked at the injury. The idea of her tending to his wounds was almost more than he could take. His bear wanted to rub up against her and let her know exactly what he thought of the idea. It was when she touched his skin that he knew he was lost. Her soft skin warmed his where it connected through her tentative touch. It almost felt like she was stroking him, her fingertips brushing through his fur, going with the grain, and it felt good. Too good. He groaned in pleasure at the sensation.

  Chapter 6

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Harper gasped at the sound that rumbled out from him.

  “That wasn’t a sound of pain, Lola.” His voice was throaty and made her body tingle in anticipation, while she was sure a blush stained her cheeks.

  Warmth radiated off him as she stumbled over in her head how to reply, so she just fell silent. The fairly deep gash was on his shoulder, but she didn’t think it would need stitches. She stood and went to grab a towel from the bathroom so that he didn’t bleed all over the bed. When she came back, he was watching her with hooded eyes. It made her feel like a young girl, which she certainly was not, but she hadn’t been looked at like that in years. As she sat back down behind him, right on the corner of the bed, she tucked the towel into the waistband of his jeans. Her fingers skimmed the dimples just above his butt, and her heart fluttered in her chest. The expanse of tawny skin in front of her was breathtaking. He wasn’t sculpted, but he was definitely muscular. She got up on one knee to better reach the wound. She could feel the muscles flexing under his skin as her hands moved. The black ink of his tattoo that swirled around in all kinds of different shapes on his shoulder fascinated her. She wanted to trace the shapes all the way down his arm to where they ended just below his elbow. Tattoos had always fascinated her, but this one was different. The shapes all seemed to move together in a way that reminded her of nature in its rawest form.

  “This might hurt,” she warned.

  “I’ll be fine, Lola. Don’t you worry about me.”

  She would never admit it, but she was starting to like the way he used her middle name. No one else had ever called her that, and it made it feel special somehow. Sure, her mother had used it when she was angry, but that was really the only time she’d heard it, except for in school occasionally. As she picked up the bottle of saline solution and a few gauze pads, she hesitated. What was she doing? If he was a shifter, who knew what his body needed? She might end up hurting him more, so she said, “I’m going to spray some saline solution into the wound and try to clear it of blood so I can make sure it’s clean before I bandage you up. Okay?”

  “Whatever you want,” his voice rasped out as her fingers trailed over the skin, wiping away what she could of the blood.

  Harper took a deep breath and squirted some of the solution onto the wound, making sure it was being absorbed by the towel as it ran down his back. When the wound finally looked as clear as it was going to get, she looked at it, pressing ever so gently on either side to make sure there was nothing in there that could cause an infection. After she was satisfied that everything was clean, she opened the box of butterfly bandages and grabbed the tube of disinfecting ointment that would also speed healing. She applied the ointment to the bandage and placed one sticky side on either side of the wound, pulling it closed and keeping the two sides of the gash pressed up against one another.

  “Where’s your other cut?” she asked absentmindedly as she wiped up the remaining blood from his back and untucked the towel.

  “Here,” he said, lifting an arm.

  His voice almost made her jump. She’d been concentrating so hard on making sure she didn’t hurt him and that the wound was clean that she had almost forgotten he was a real live human being, or bear or shifter or whatever. The second stab wound was low on his abdomen, and she moved off the bed onto the floor so she could get a better look at it. As she tucked the towel back into his jeans, she began to repeat the same process. This time, there was something in the wound, though. It was gray and looked almost pebble-like.

  Harper looked up at him. “I’m going to have to use the tweezers to get something out before I can bandage you up.”

  “Um hum, whatever you need to do, Lola,” he said with that husky voice and hooded eyes.

  It was only then that she realized her face was only inches away from his crotch. Her cheeks flamed, and she looked away. God, how could she be so clueless? Trying to ignore her embarrassment, she reached for the tweezers and a disinfecting wipe before she placed the fingers of one hand on either side of the wound, trying to keep it as still as possible. The plastic tweezers had ridges to help grip on the ends, but that wasn’t especially helpful when the surface of whatever it was she was trying to grab was smooth.

  Domino grunted as she tried to get the tweezers under one side of the debris.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Do what you need to do.”

  She could feel the sharp edge that had embedded it in his skin, and as she moved the plastic around, she was finally able to get purchase. Slowly, without losing the small grip she had on the thing, she pulled it free of the wound. Blood gushed out behind it, which was to be expected with something like that. The thing fell from the tweezers as soon as it was free from the wound, and she grabbed some gauze pads and pressed them against the freshly bleeding area. As she held it there, she let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and risked glancing up at Domino.

  He was watching her, of course, with those deep brown eyes of his. This time, she didn’t look away, though. She stared right back. Something about cleaning his wounds and having him in her apartment made her feel closer to him, bolder even. When his tongue swept over his lower lip and he bit it, she almost lost her cool. Strike that. She did lose her cool. The reaction was slightly delayed, but then an altogether too familiar feeling of blush creeping up her neck was there, and she looked away.

  “I like your blush. It’s cute,” he said quietly, as though he was unsure of crossing a line.

  She didn’t look up at him, but she said, “It’s childish, makes me feel like a kid.”

  “Trust me, no one is going to mistake you for a kid, Lola.”

  There he was with that nickname again, making her stomach squirm and her body react in ways she’d thought she had lost forever. Ignoring the comment, she grabbed another piece of gauze bandage and some cloth tape. Once the gauze was in place, she taped the sides down and sat back.

  “You’re goin
g to have to be careful with that one,” she said, gesturing to his abdomen. For the first time, she looked at the rest of it. There was no six pack, not even the hint of it, but there was also no doubt about the muscle that resided just behind the skin. His flat, firm stomach was on full display as he leaned over to look at her handiwork. “You’ll need someone to help you with the butterfly bandages on your shoulder if you want to get them off without ripping the wound open again.”

  “I think I’ll come back to Nurse Lola, if that’s all right with you? I haven’t had someone pay so much attention to a wound in a long time.”

  She took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet, willing herself not to flush at the compliment. “Sure, if you want.” She took a step backward, and her foot landed on one of Daisy’s squeaky toys. Her heart broke for a moment that they still hadn’t found her. What if that weird guy who’d stabbed Domino had her?

  As though he’d read her thoughts, he reached out and took her hand gently in his. “Hey, we’ll find her, don’t worry. Bears have a very good sense of smell.”

  “Really? Is that how you were tracking her?”

  He nodded.

  “So, you’re not an eagle scout, after all?”

  “No, ma’am. But I can pretend if you want,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her suggestively.

  “That’s a weird fantasy you’ve got there, Nic.” She grinned at him and realized that she genuinely enjoyed talking to him, and the hand holding didn’t hurt, either.

  He laughed at her, and the sound made her toes curl. Her toes should not be curling. She had barely been fit to be out in public a few days ago, and now she was flirting with this guy she’d only just met. Was she flirting, though? She glanced down at their still-connected hands. This was definitely flirting to her. She wasn’t sure where to take the conversation, and her flirtation skills were pitiful to begin with, so after years of neglect, she felt even more awkward, so she said, “So, uh, we should get back out there and keep looking for Daisy, if you’re up for it.”