Ready to Bear

by Ivy Sinclair

  His feet had slowed on his approach as he gathered his thoughts. That was the only reason that his ears picked up the faintest whisper over the din of the crowd around him.

  “Please help me…”

  His head whipped around toward the alley. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he had heard a voice. It was a woman’s voice. He stepped into the alley. His nose went up into the air, and he sniffed. There was the faintest aroma of perfume and something else. His nose wrinkled. Billy knew that undertone well. Blood.

  He would have called out, but he didn’t want to alert whoever was in the alley that he was there. Most men would have wished for a gun, but Billy was confident in his hand to hand skills in a way most other men were not. He was a policeman. More than that, he was the sheriff in a place where shifters ran wild on more than one occasion. He didn’t scare easily.

  Billy slid his back against the stone wall of the alley as he moved further inside. Now that he was away from the hustle and bustle of the sidewalk, his ears detected other noises that he would have otherwise missed. It was the sound of a scuffle.

  “Just stay still!” A man growled. It caused the hair on the back of Billy’s neck to rise, and he had to stifle his own growl at the menace the words held. “It makes it a lot worse when you fight back.”

  “Dammit, Kurt! She bit me!” Then the sound of a hard slap rang out in the air, and Billy heard a low yelp. “You bitch! You’re going to pay for that.”

  If there was one thing that brought his temper immediately to the surface, it was violence against women. These boys were going to get what was coming to them, along with anything else he had to give. Billy moved in closer until he could see the shadows in the darkened corner of the alley just behind a dumpster.

  He could see the movement of pale, bare feet struggling against the hulking shadows above them. In his mind’s eye, all he could see was red. Billy charged, a loud snarl ripping through his lungs.

  He hit the man pushing himself between the woman’s legs head on and toppled him over. He felt the impact of someone else hitting him, but he twisted and swung low as he propelled the man up over his head. He hurled a fist into the jaw of the man beneath him and was rewarded with the satisfying sound of bones cracking. A knife clattered to the ground, and Billy grabbed it into his fist.

  Another howl mingled with his, and that was when Billy realized it wasn’t two ordinary men that he had engaged. These were shifters. He hauled the other man to his feet even as he used his body to block the advance of the smaller man. His nostrils were laced with the offending smell of alcohol. Billy could feel the man’s bones rearranging themselves within his fists as he started to transform.

  “If you shift, I’ll make sure that knife blade is between your eyes in less than ten seconds,” he said in a low rumble. “I’m that fast.”

  He met the eyes of the man who had until this point remained faceless. It was a rather ordinary face, although the man’s nose was enlarged. Clearly, he was a drinker. “That goes for you too, peckerhead.” He addressed the smaller man behind him.

  “You’re getting your nose all up in business that ain’t yours,” the older man said. “You’ll regret it.”

  “I doubt that,” Billy said with a sneer. “Pretty sure that girl isn’t here by her own accord. You’re lucky if I don’t kill you and put you out of your miserable existence.”

  “You think it’d be that easy, huh?” the man replied. Billy could see that the smaller man was dancing back and forth on his feet. Clearly, the man in his grasp was the guy with the brains.

  Billy knew that part of the man’s bluster was because he was a shifter. Billy let his nose elongate ever so slightly. He saw the man’s eyes widen, and that was when he sank a hard fist into the man’s stomach.

  The man bent over, and Billy brought up his knee to connect with the man’s jaw, and he broke it again. Shifters might have extraordinary healing powers, but if you splintered bone to high hell, it took quite a bit longer to heal. And it was extraordinarily painful, which served Billy just fine.

  “That’s enough!” There was a voice behind them then. Billy looked back over his shoulder. He saw a man that he knew from the pictures he had been studying. Eric Carmichael had arrived. There were two hulking forms flanking him, probably bouncers from the club.

  Billy shoved the man to the ground. He ignored Eric and instead turned his attention to the woman. He knelt down beside her and was stunned to see yet another familiar face. But the woman’s expression told him that she was terrified. He grasped her elbow, and she didn’t fight him as he pulled her to her feet. He could see that her face was smudged with dirt. She was shivering, but Billy didn’t guess it was from any chill in the air.

  “Thea? Are you all right?” Eric stepped forward, but Billy put his hand up.

  “Give her a minute. How about you focus on the dumbasses who were trying to rape a woman on your doorstep?” Billy was beyond being polite. The woman, Thea, stared up at him without a flicker of recognition in her eyes. He had seen the same expression countless times. She was in shock.

  The bouncers were already collecting the two men, and Billy barely heard the whispered voices between Eric and the two of them. ‘No police’ was mentioned several times in the brief exchange.

  “You need to file a report. These assholes need to be charged,” Billy said. He cupped Thea’s chin and brought her eyes up to his. “You’re okay. It’s all right. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  “My shoe…” Her voice was thready and faint as it trailed off.

  “Are you all right?” Eric pushed his way forward around Billy’s hand. Billy stepped in front of her and pushed on the man’s chest.

  “I said, give her a minute,” Billy growled.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are? That’s my sister,” Eric snarled back.

  There was another part of the puzzle that clicked into place. Billy knew that Eric had a stepsister from his father’s third marriage. Pictures of her had proved to be elusive as she didn’t seem to enjoy the limelight the way that the rest of her family did.

  “Your sister was just the victim of an attack,” Billy said, pulling out his authority voice. Now that he knew the score, he was back in his element. He had used the voice on countless occasions with hysterical family members. “You need to take a step back and take a beat. I’m a police officer. I know what needs to be done here better than you do.”

  “You’re a bit out of your jurisdiction, don’t you think, Sheriff?” Eric replied with a snide smirk.

  Another puzzle piece clicked into place. “You had a tail on me. That’s how you got here so fast.”

  “It’s part of my job to know when we get company from Greyelf in Copper City,” Eric said without any sort of apologetic tone.

  “Maybe if you spent more time focusing on your own city instead of the people visiting it, you’d be able to avoid shit like this,” Billy said. He turned away from Eric then. He addressed Thea again but made his tone much gentler. “Are you okay to walk? We’re going to get you out of this alley.”

  She nodded slowly. He saw fat tears well up in her eyes and begin their slow trails down her cheeks. That was a good sign. She was starting to come around.

  “You got a back door to your place?” He looked over his shoulder at Eric. He would have preferred to take Thea somewhere besides a noisy dance club, anywhere else, but he was afraid that she was going to faint on him.

  Eric’s jaw worked as if he was chewing rocks, but he nodded briskly. He cocked his head back toward the sidewalk. “There’s a door just around the corner that leads to the offices above the club. We can go in there.”

  “Good,” Billy nodded. He gently put his arm around Thea’s shoulders. As she took her first wobbly step, he realized the meaning of the strange words she had muttered earlier. He looked down at her feet for confirmation. “Your shoes. Did you break one of the heels of your shoes?”

  She looked up at him and nodded gratefully. It
was if the effort of forming a full sentence was difficult. Her eyes were luminescent in the dim shadows of the alley, and Billy found that he wanted to strangle the men who had tried to hurt her. He handed the knife he’d picked up to one of the bouncers. Then he bent his legs slightly and swept her up into his arms.

  She weighed next to nothing, and he felt a slight contraction in his lungs when she slung an arm around his neck and buried her face in his chest. He saw the frustrated look on Eric’s face, but he didn’t give a shit.

  “Lead the way,” he said.

  He followed Eric out of the alley. He ignored the sound of half-voiced yelps of pain that they left behind them. He knew that the men should have gone to the police, but at the same time he heard Lukas’s voice in his head.

  “This is clan business.”

  There were unspoken rules whether anyone was willing to admit it or not. There were certain things that humans wouldn’t understand that made perfect sense in the animal kingdom. One of those things was taking care of your own and adhering to a strict code of ‘eye for an eye’. Billy was fairly certain that the men who had attacked Thea wouldn’t suffer a simple death for their offense. That would be far too easy. No, instead they would be made to suffer.

  Despite his usual hard bent toward upholding the letter of the law, Billy was glad about that. He would talk to Eric privately just to make sure that the punishment fit the crime. Men who raised a hand against women or children deserved the worst of the worst.

  Thea hadn’t moved or made a sound since he picked her up. He was worried that the attack had affected her far more deeply than he realized. He couldn’t let her retreat into herself for fear that they wouldn’t be able to draw her out again, not that he could blame her for her coping reaction.

  “Bet you didn’t expect to see me again so soon,” he whispered close to her ear. He didn’t want Eric to overhear him.

  Her eyes slid back up to his, and that was when he saw her eyes widen in surprise. “It’s you,” she said in a practically non-existent whisper.

  “William,” he said. He hoped to distract her from whatever dark place her thoughts had taken her. “My name is William, but you can call me Billy, and you’re Thea.”

  “Philips,” she said. “Thea Philips.” It was as if adding the distinction of her surname was important to her. Clearly, she didn’t want to try trading on the Carmichael family connection. He thought that was interesting and refreshing.

  “Billy Miller,” he said as he smiled softly down at her. They had made their way into a doorway and proceeded up a narrow set of stairs. Billy could hear the music from the club vibrating through the walls. Although it wasn’t the kind of situation he had anticipated running into, he was grateful that he didn’t have to step foot inside the club. It would have been too much for his senses to handle, and he needed to stay sharp.

  “The sheriff,” Thea said slowly, bringing his attention back to her. They arrived at the top of the stairs. Eric unlocked the heavy steel door in front of them and slid it open. The building housing the club had the appearance of an old warehouse.

  “There’s a couch right over there,” he said gruffly, pointing across the room.

  Billy noticed that the room was like every city loft that he had ever been in. The exterior walls were made from stone, and the furniture seemed to all be made out of shiny hard metal. There were nothing but hard angles and harsh light everywhere. It was the exact opposite of the kind of world where he felt comfortable.

  He saw the leather couch Eric indicated sitting against the far wall, and he headed in that direction. As he settled Thea onto it, if felt as if she clung to him. He didn’t move away. His heartbeat was surely noticeable to her, and he felt warm as he allowed himself to cradle her against his chest for just a few moments beyond appropriate.

  “Perhaps someone would be willing to tell me exactly what the fuck just happened out there now?” Eric said, interrupting his thoughts.

  Immediately, Thea’s grip sprung free, and she slid away from him. Billy regretted the loss of her warmth against him. He took a deep breath and stood. He didn’t flinch under Eric’s hard gaze.

  If there was one thing that Billy knew how to do better than anything else, it was stand up to an alpha.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thea was in shock. She still couldn’t quite process what had happened since she first heard the gravelly voice of the man behind her in the alley. She had been attacked and dragged back into the alley against her will. If the man standing in front of her hadn’t come when he did….she felt hard shudders wrack her body.

  The fog in her mind over what had almost happened finally started to clear. She swung her legs out, and her feet hit the floor. The cool surface brought her around the rest of the way. She wasn’t going to crumble under the weight of the emotions swirling through her body. She found sure footing in facts.

  “I came to get Alex,” she said. Her throat felt hoarse as if she had been screaming for hours. In fact, she had given herself over to that violence, willingly or not, with little more than a whimper. She hated herself for that. She should have fought back harder, although the sting in her jaw reminded her that the situation could have ended much worse.

  “What are you even doing here in the city?” Eric’s gaze zeroed in on her. “You weren’t supposed to get back until tomorrow.”

  “I changed my flight,” she said. She felt bone-weary. “I sent Alex a text this morning. He has school tomorrow, Eric.”

  “Wait, wait,” Eric said. “What does Alex have to do with what just happened out there?”

  “If you or Alex had bothered to answer one of my ten phone calls, I wouldn’t be here,” Thea said.

  “What the fuck? This was my fault?” Eric’s voice raised in a signal that he was prepping for a fight.

  “Lower your voice,” Billy said. His voice was little more than a low rumble.

  Thea couldn’t believe it. The coincidence of seeing this man twice in the same day seemed extraordinary enough, especially now that she also knew who he was. She had been an idiot for not placing him earlier, but, of course, in all the photos where she’d seen him, he’d been in the background. The man standing in front of him always commanded everyone’s full attention. Lukas Kasper, alpha of the Greyelf Grizzly Clan. He was legendary already, and he’d only been the alpha for a little more than a year.

  Eric’s gaze zeroed back on Billy. “Look, jackass. You’re in my club right now, by my invitation. I’d toss you out on your ass right now if it wasn’t because…”

  “He saved my life,” Thea said. She was pleased that her voice was steadier than she expected. She got to her feet and found that she could stand. That was good. Billy put out a hand to steady her, but she stopped him. “I’m fine.” Thea wasn’t used to playing the part of the damsel in distress, and she wasn’t about to start now. “You should be thanking him instead of threatening him.”

  Eric looked as if he would rather eat a dead animal’s carcass. She wasn’t sure what she expected. Eric was a good guy, but he could let his emotions cloud his judgment. She wondered how many millions of dollars had slipped through his fingers because he had gotten personally worked up over some perceived slight in his business dealings. Of course, what was a couple of million to Eric anyway? Pocket change.

  She put her hand out to Billy. “Thank you.” It seemed woefully inadequate considering the circumstances.

  He stared at her outstretched hand. He took it slowly in both of his, and they were so big it was as if they swallowed her hand whole. Thea felt a rush of heat at his touch. “No thanks necessary. It’s part of my job.” She felt her insides melt a little bit at his words, and the intensity of the look in his eyes as they seemed to sweep over her from head to foot assessing her condition. She had just met him, and yet she felt his concern for her well-being. She imagined that made him good at his job.

  Eric snorted and rolled his eyes. “Now that you’ve done the world a continued service, Sheriff, maybe
you can tell me what you want so we can put your furry butt on a plane back to Greyelf in the morning.”

  “Eric!” Thea said. “You’re being rude.”

  “It’s okay,” Billy said. His eyes twinkled. He bowed his head towards hers. “I’m used to it.” He didn’t seem to care if Eric heard him or not. His eyes swung back to her stepbrother. “I was on my way here tonight because I’d like a word with you and your partners. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  “Kyle and Tony aren’t here,” Eric said.

  It floored Thea how difficult Eric was being given the circumstances. “If memory serves, right now Kyle and Tony are in the VIP lounge drinking a bottle of scotch and probably getting lap dances from some shifter groupies,” Thea said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m sure they can spare a few minutes for the sheriff.”

  Eric’s face settled into a thin frown. They stared at each other, but Thea refused to back down. Billy had saved her life. If all he wanted was to talk to her stepbrother and his partners, she’d make it happen. She at least owed him that, and so did Eric whether he liked it or not.

  “Fine,” Eric said finally. “Five minutes. We’ve got a lot of VIP guests here tonight. We don’t have time for this.”

  “Five minutes is fine,” Billy said with a bland smile.

  “Can you ask Sophie to bring me up a pair of the shoes from the back? She knows my size,” Thea asked as Eric headed toward the door that went to the club. The club employed a small number of go-go dancers that worked on particularly busy nights. Kyle, who ran the club, was particular about their outfits, and eventually found it was easier just to keep a selection of clothes on hand for them. “Oh, and Eric?” Her stepbrother stopped but didn’t turn around this time. “Alex is going home with me as soon as we’re done here. No arguments.”

  Eric gave a slight shake of his head, and then he left the room.

  She glanced over at Billy and found him giving her an appraising look. “Remind me to have you give me a few pointers on dealing with difficult alphas,” he said with a wry smile.