RANGER

by Samantha Leal

  She was embarrassed to admit where she lived, but it was what she had to do to make it on her own. She had never had anybody to rely on, and being in Stonybrooke’s worst part of town was still better than being out on the streets. She had to work harder than most other people to achieve the same things, but she had managed to do it and she would continue to work her ass off until she achieved her goals, whether groups of stupid shifter boys wanted to harass her or not.

  When class was over on time that day, Valerie felt relieved. Usually, if it ran late, she would have to literally run to the bus station to get over to the little record store she worked at so she wasn’t late. It was the best of her three jobs, and if she was late one more time, she would be fired.

  “Hi, Randall.”

  Randall nodded at her from the cash register and Val hurried to the back, eager to clock in and get to work. There was a new shipment of records for her to stock and alphabetize, so she was soon swamped with work and all thoughts of her day were pushed out of her head.

  “Check it out,” Randall said, nodding his head toward the window when Val came out from stocking the shelves.

  Standing across the street was the tall shifter man who ran the Shifter Fit store. He was standing behind a supply truck, lifting huge boxes and walking them into the store; his broad muscles rippling and shining in the sunlight.

  “You’re shameless, Randall,” Val said, shaking her head at him.

  Randall grinned and shrugged. “There’s a reason I work here.”

  “Awful,” Val laughed. Still, she couldn’t help but allow her eyes to linger a few moments longer on the man’s flawless form as he moved tirelessly to unload the truck single-handedly, carrying box after box of material from the truck and into the store.

  “I know I wouldn’t have a chance anyway. He’s still totally in love with his dead wife.”

  “How do you know these things?” Val asked, finally tearing her eyes from the scene and studying Randall in disbelief.

  “I pay attention,” Randall said with a wink.

  Val rolled her eyes and went back to work. It must be awful to live your life too consumed by a lost love to have any interest in anyone else. She couldn’t help but feel horrible for the man, whether he was the owner of a semi-successful business or not. He had to feel so lonely. Maybe she would make him a batch of cookies or something sometime, just to give him something good to think about.

  But soon, Valerie was consumed, once again, by her work and thoughts of the handsome, lonely man were gone from her mind. She had to do what she could to survive, even if that meant filing records as quickly as she could so she could get to her job at the gas station in time. She had been on her feet since five o’clock that morning, and she was really looking forward to being able to lay down.

  She had quite a while before that could happen though, so she busied herself, hoping that if she finished early, she could sit in the back and get a head start on her homework. She was going to make something of herself, no matter what anybody else said about her. Valerie would do whatever it took to succeed.

  3.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Gabe’s voice echoed off the walls of his storefront, reaching his own ears in a sharp burst of anger. The place was a mess. Glass was shattered on the ground, and his shelves had been rifled through. Boxes of hand grips and stop watches were strewn about on the floor and the scent of shifters was heavy in the air. He couldn’t tell who exactly they were, but there had been a group of them.

  Gabe’s wolf was soon on their scent and he followed his nose through the store, taking inventory and confused by the fact that there was very little missing. The intruders had made themselves at home in the store, making their way from the cash register, through the aisles, and down into the basement.

  “If there’s anybody down here, you better pray to your gods I don’t find you!” Gabe growled.

  The wolf led the way as he followed their scent trail, his agitation mounting as he made his way through the crowded basement. Whoever had invaded had even poked around down past the stock and descended all the way down to the sub-basement of the building.

  Gabe’s growl vibrated in his throat as he checked to make sure nothing much was out of place. He stepped through the small, narrow doorway that led to an ancient looking set of stone steps and hurried down them, grabbing the flashlight from the landing and throwing the beam around. The scent of the intruders was strongest here; they must have spent most of their time down there. It had probably just been a bunch of stupid kids looking for somewhere to get high, but that didn’t excuse the behavior.

  Gabe was furious, but the wolf began to relax when he realized that whoever had broken into the store had probably just been doing it for some kind of a thrill. Teenagers were always talking themselves into stupid stunts to prove to their friends they were worthy of being an alpha. And Gabe knew that as soon as he smelled the scents of whoever had done it, he would be able to pinpoint them and make them pay.

  He sighed heavily, taking one last look around the basement before heading upstairs and jogging across the street.

  “How can we help you?”

  Gabe glared at the man who spoke, a young guy with a nametag that read, “Randall”. He didn’t much like the guy. He could hear the things Randall said about him; checking him out in broad daylight. It made him uncomfortable, so Gabe turned to glare at the woman beside Randall. He nearly began to speak, but he hesitated, dazed by her innocent beauty. Gabe blinked hard and then looked back at Randall.

  “You guys are here all day, right?”

  Randall nodded, his lips pursed in an annoying, playful smile.

  “Somebody broke into my store. Did you see who it was?”

  “Oh my God…” the girl said, her voice a smooth, silky whisper in Gabe’s ears. He gritted his teeth and refused to look again at her, afraid of what might pop into his head.

  “We didn’t see anything,” Randall said. “But I wish I had. Are you offering rewards?”

  “My reward is that I don’t kick your ass for withholding information from me,” Gabe growled, peering down into Randall’s face. Randall’s smile widened and suddenly, the girl beside him had slipped in between them, standing with her back pressed against the counter and her hands resting gently on Gabe’s shoulders.

  “He doesn’t mean anything by it,” the girl said quickly, her golden blonde hair falling in front of her face as she laughed nervously. “Please, if we could help you, we would.”

  “Yeah, right,” Gabe growled, backing away so that the girl’s hands would fall from his shoulders. “I’m heartened by the news.”

  Randall laughed and Gabe glared once again at him. This time, the ice in his gaze wiped the smile right off the man’s face. The wolf was determined to advance, and he had half a mind to let it. But suddenly, the girl’s hand was in his face. She snapped her fingers, bringing his attention right back to her, and she smiled again; a look that made all her features, right down to the deep emerald green of her eyes, light up.

  “We’ll be sure to keep an eye out from now on,” she said apologetically. “We’ve just been really busy taking care of our latest shipment…”

  Gabe gazed down at her, his anger deflating despite himself, and he busied himself by reading the nametag pinned to her form-fitting blue button-up shirt.

  “Well, thank you for that, Valerie. Let me know if you see anything suspicious. My name’s Gabe. I own the shop across the street.”

  “Yeah, Shifter Fit,” she said with a brief nod and another warm smile. “We know.”

  Gabe turned his chin to the air, eyeing Randall darkly one last time before he pushed his way through the door. Whatever had just happened in there, he hadn’t gotten the results he was hoping for, that was for sure.

  But at least he had asked. There wasn’t any other buildings on the strip that might have noticed anything strange happening, so he was just going to have to try to clean up the mess that the intruders ha
d left and file a report with the Stonybrooke Police Department. The SBPD would take things from there.

  Gabe spent the rest of the day cleaning up the glass from the floor and taking a detailed inventory, knowing that if he left anything out, he would be screwed over once he tried to take care of things when he sent in an insurance claim. He wished, more than anything, he had someone to talk to about what had happened to the shop, but he was alone. His wife was gone.

  The thought of Molly made Gabe’s chest tighten, and he felt a twinge of guilt. He’d been seriously attracted to that girl across the street, but she was just a kid. Not only was it wrong but it was ridiculous. His heart would never belong to anyone but Molly, no matter what the insidious wolf within him wanted to say about it.

  4.

  “Well, holy shit, look who we found here!”

  Val cringed at the familiar sound of Ren’s voice, and the predictable cackle of the group of boys who had a tendency to accompany the shifter’s unwanted invitations for sex. Not only were they obnoxious but they pissed her off. Especially now that they had caught her crossing the road as she left the record store. If they knew where she worked, she knew she would never hear the end of the harassment.

  “I’m late,” Val said, trying to push past them. But it was as useless now as it always had been before, and she sighed in frustration when Ren stepped in front of her. She gritted her teeth as Ren’s friends made a tight wall that was impossible for her to push through.

  “What, you think you’re too good to say, ‘excuse me’ to us when you try to pass by?” Ren asked. Another round of cackles brought an agitated frown to her face, which only seemed to make them laugh harder.

  “She’s pissed,” someone gasped between their obnoxious laughter.

  “Not yet, but I will be if I lose this job because of you assholes!” Val snapped, trying again to push past the boys.

  “You know what they say, don’t you?” Ren said, again blocking her from leaving. “All work and no play makes you a frigid bitch!”

  “I don’t think that’s quite how the saying goes,” Val mumbled. “Now please, you guys, excuse me. I have to get to work.”

  “I don’t think you do,” Ren said, grabbing her shoulder and whipping Val around as she tried to walk away. “I think I have a better idea.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Val shouted. They had never gone this far on school grounds before, but now that they were out on the street, it seemed like they felt like they could get away with more. They couldn’t get kicked out of school for something they did out in public, right?

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Everybody froze at the sound of the deep, booming voice reverberating around them, followed by the slamming of the door of Shifter Fit and the sound of the bell ringing violently from the force of Gabe’s temper.

  “Don’t worry about it man,” Ren said, laughing lightly. “It isn’t any of your business.”

  “I don’t know who in the hell you think you are,” Gabe growled. “Or what language it is you dumb assholes speak, but I believe I heard the lady telling you to leave her the hell alone. Didn’t I?”

  Val was stunned by the ferocity etched in ever line of Gabe’s handsome face, and she hesitated before nodding. There was no point in denying it. Everybody already knew that’s exactly what she had been saying. It was their own fault for not letting her through…

  “Fuck off, old man,” Ren said, eliciting another round of cackles from the boys around him. “You don’t have any right to tell me what to do with her. She’s mine whether you like it or not.”

  “That’s funny, because it doesn’t seem like you have any kind of claim over her, now, do you?”

  “You’re really stuck in the past, you know,” Ren said, laughing and grabbing Val by the shoulders. He threw her between himself and Gabe, as if using her as a shield for his own protection, and then spoke to Gabe from over her shoulder. “This is the new century, bro. Things don’t work the way it used to back in the Stone Age.”

  Val flinched away when Gabe’s dark, mysterious eyes widened in fury, and she was almost convinced she was about to see a man shapeshift right in front of her for the first time. But Gabe was in his mid-forties. He had been around long enough to know better than to lose his temper over something like this. And yet, there was something wild about the look in his eyes. Something that made her wish she had stayed on the other side of the street when she was walking to the bus stop so she could have avoided the whole mess altogether.

  “If you don’t let her go right now, you’re going to regret it,” Gabe warned. “All of you.”

  His voice rumbled deeply enough that she could nearly feel its vibration right in her chest, and Val cried out involuntarily when Ren shoved her forward, nearly pushing her into Gabe’s chest.

  “I told you man, she’s ours. You don’t have the right.”

  “Then I claim her!” Gabe growled, his face dark with fury. “Now get your hands the hell off of her or prepare to die!”

  The crowd of boys took in a collective breath of disbelief, and Val furrowed her brow. What the hell was going on?

  “You can’t be serious,” Ren said, dropping his hands off Val and backing away. “You’re so old! Don’t you have a wife or something?”

  Gabe’s intense glare didn’t waver as he stared Ren down, and he reached his hand out and laid it steadily on Val’s shoulder. He brought her close to him, sheltering her from any further harm the group of boys might think to do to her, and finally spoke, his voice a menacing whisper.

  “I claim this girl. None of you are to so much as look at her, let alone speak to her, again. Is that understood?”

  “Man, this guy is crazy,” Ren mumbled, turning his back on Gabe and Val. “He’s claiming this dumb bitch! Let’s get out of here.”

  The group mumbled in agreement and they took off down the sidewalk. Gabe held his hand on Val’s shoulder protectively until the boys were out of sight, and then he sighed deeply.

  “That might have been really dumb of me,” he confided, dropping his hand from her shoulder. “But we’re going to deal with it.”

  “What did you do?” Val asked, dumbfounded by the whole altercation. Everything had happened so fast. “What do you mean you claim me?”

  Gabe hesitated, his handsome face softening as he looked up to the sky, hoping to find some way to explain it to her so she wouldn’t get mad.

  “These guys have been giving me trouble for a while now,” Gabe said with a heavy sigh. “They’re real assholes. Entitled kids with parents who let them get away with murder. I let my temper get the best of me, and now you’re mine to protect for the rest of our lives.”

  Val furrowed her brow, opening her mouth to respond, but Gabe shook his head and held his hand up.

  “I know. There’s nothing for you to worry about. I won’t get in your way. But…” he glanced at his watch, furrowing his handsome brow. “You’re going to be late to work. Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

  5.

  Gabe gripped the steering wheel tightly as he rolled to a stop in front of the gas station. He and Val hadn’t spoken a word since he had explained his claim on her, but now she turned to him, her agitation turning into a small smile.

  “I thought I was going to be late, but since I didn’t have to take the bus, I’m early.”

  Gabe nodded, afraid to open his mouth to speak. He was feeling angry and volatile, more at himself than at her, but it wouldn’t do either of them any good for him to take his frustration out on her. Val seemed to understand the tension between them and took a deep breath.

  “Thanks for the ride…and everything,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands. “I’ll pay you back somehow.”

  Gabe scoffed, turning his head away from her and staring out the window, and Val climbed out of the truck and went inside.

  What in the hell would Molly have to say about all this? He knew she would be furious if she were still alive, but now that sh
e was gone, what would she think? Would she be happy that he had someone else to take care of now? Or would she think he was a horrible pervert, inserting himself into the life of the first young girl he felt a twinge of attraction toward? He wouldn’t blame her either way, but the fury he felt for himself was mounting. How could he have let himself lose control to such a huge extent?

  He would never forgive himself. And now, according to the laws and customs of the pack, he was obligated to serve her, to protect her, to give her all the comforts and pleasures that life had to offer. He might as well have married her right then and there. It was a totally insane thing to do right in the heat of the moment. What the hell had he been thinking?

  The problem was, he hadn’t been thinking at all. Not even a little bit. Everything he had been stressing out about had resulted in this small explosion; this ridiculous, self-destructive act that gave the wolf the satisfaction of taking control of the situation in its own rash and impulsive way, no matter what the hell the consequences of that might be. He had brought this all on himself.

  And now that he had staked his claim, he was going to have to go and register it with the Council. Gabe growled, punching his steering wheel hard. A sharp honk echoed in the parking lot of the gas station and he gritted his teeth, ignoring the confused and offended looks of the bystanders.

  Gabe tore out of the gas station and headed toward the Council’s building in the center of town, where all the most important events were always held. His stomach sank when he parked his truck, remembering how happy he had been the first time he had staked his claim on a mate; the deep pleasure on Molly’s face when, hand in hand, they had walked into the council’s building and told them they were going to make their relationship official. He had told everyone there that he was going to protect her for all time.