Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More

by Michele Bardsley

  But if the bad guys heard her? Then they could either be out to get her now in either their cougar form or armed with guns. They had to know there were at least two cougars, Travis and the one who had rescued him. Probably they’d figure another male had come to his rescue though.

  She hid in tall junipers, waiting for someone to show up. Then she saw Travis!

  She called out softly to him this time, more of a dark, low, rumbling purr.

  He turned in her direction and bounded for the junipers she was hiding in. As soon as he was with her, he nuzzled her muzzle with his in greeting and as a well-being check. She did the same with him, so thankful that he had at least come, still worried about Chet. But they had to return to the house and be prepared. She shifted and shivered in the freezing cold, though the shrubs helped to protect her from the biting wind and sleet somewhat. “I just heard one of them talking,” she quickly said. “One of the men at 1520. That’s their house. He knows your name and your residence. He was telling someone that they’d have to do something, but not what. Move the drugs? Take care of you at your home? All our cars are there. And our clothes. Guns. IDs. Everything.”

  Travis shifted, pulled her into his arms, holding her tight to help warm her. “Okay. Where’s Chet?”

  “I don’t know.” Her teeth were beginning to chatter and she was shivering hard.

  This was a difficult call. But if the men burned down Travis’s home, they could destroy everything the three agents needed to take these men down as humans.

  “Okay, let’s go. If Chet heard you, he’ll be headed this way, and he can follow our recent scents back to the house.”

  “Okay.”

  They both shifted into their cougar forms, the shift so quick that if a human saw them, he would think he’d been seeing things. Her body, muscles, and tissue warmed with the transition. They nuzzled each other one last time before they took off for the house.

  They dodged through shrubs to give them some cover in the areas that weren’t very treed. And finally after what seemed like forever, they arrived at his house. No vehicles were parked nearby, and she was reminded that traveling on ice might preclude them from coming here that way. Which meant they’d arrive as cougars.

  It also meant they could get in through the cat door because Travis had left it unlocked while they needed to use it.

  They took in deep breaths of the area. They didn’t smell any sign of anyone else, but if the guys were wearing hunter’s spray, they wouldn’t leave a scent unless they had been careless.

  They listened, then Travis dove through the cat door. She waited a few seconds so if the men were inside, both she and Travis wouldn’t be ambushed at the same time. She snarled and dove through the cat door and didn’t see any sign of him. He had gone toward the bedroom, and then the door to the garage opened and a fully naked Heaton stood staring at her, jaw dropped, gas can in hand.

  She leapt at him with one powerful jump and seized his throat before he could shift and tear into her with his mightier male cougar weight.

  He fell back dropping the container of gas container and grabbing her by the neck to try and pull her off. She bit down hard, tasted blood, and wouldn’t let go. Fighting for his life, he shifted. One moment his human’s neck was between her teeth, the next, he was a blur and she had hold of a thicker, furry-necked cougar.

  He was already too weak and she finished him off before he could tear at her with his wicked claws. One last clamp down, and she heard his heartbeat slowing, then stop.

  But what had happened to Travis?

  She heard snarling in his bedroom, and she raced down the hallway to help him out.

  ***

  Travis knew Bridget was fighting with a man, not another cat or he would have snarled right back at her. No shots were fired, so he assumed the man wasn’t armed with a weapon. Probably hadn’t been looking for anyone’s guns. But the cat in here had been taking a dump in his bathroom, door locked, and Travis shifted to get his Swiss Army knife and unlock the door to get at the bastard, when he heard Bridget snarl. So did the man in his bathroom.

  The bathroom had no window, and the man most likely wouldn’t be armed. Instead he’d have to shift and take Travis on, but Travis wasn’t waiting for the cat to get up the nerve. The rogue would have to open the door first and then shift, and he knew Travis could pounce on him and kill him before he managed to take Travis out.

  This way, Travis was taking the risk, shifting into his human form, and then preparing for the man’s pounce as a cougar. He could use his Glock. The guy had broken into his house with malicious intent. Travis was perfectly in his rights to kill him using his gun.

  He sure as hell didn’t want to give this guy the advantage again.

  Travis went for his gun, then unlocked the door, hesitated, then pushed the door open, and instantly took the stance to fire his weapon.

  The growling cat lunged at him. Travis got off two rounds before the cougar took him down. Unable to use the gun on him now, though Travis smelled blood and knew at least one of the rounds had hit the bastard, Travis shifted and came up snarling, viciously tearing at the other cat, his teeth sinking into his neck and he held on, fishhook-claws digging into the cougar’s shoulders, while the man tried in vain to wrench free.

  Bridget snarled, coming to his aid, and Travis bit the man with one last final bite that took him out. He released him, listened for any sign of a heartbeat, faint, then nothing. He quickly shifted so he could ask Bridget about the other man.

  She shifted, and Travis pulled her into his arms. She held on tight to Travis. “He’s dead too. Heaton. This was Franklin, the man you killed.”

  The man had turned into his human form upon death.

  “Hell, now we have to clean up the mess.”

  “What about Chet?”

  They heard a van pull around to the carport, driving at the slowest rate of speed the driver could manage.

  “That’s the engine rumble I heard when I was getting you into your Durango.”

  “Did these guys have a third partner? And he was coming to pick up whatever he could at the house?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I only smelled the two men’s scents, and Chuck only knew about them. They were going to burn your house. Heaton had a can of gas from your garage.”

  “Not any longer.” Travis peeked out the blinds and watched for the driver to exit the van. On the side, a sign advertised the Christmas Tree Shoppe.

  The driver’s door opened and shut, but Travis couldn’t see the driver yet.

  Bridget shifted and put her paws on the windowsill to peek out.

  Then Chet came around the back of the van and headed for the back door.

  Travis took a relieved breath. “I can’t believe he managed to drive that van anywhere on this ice.”

  Bridget purred in a cougar’s rumbly way and raced off down the hallway. Travis hurried to throw on a pair of boxers, then ran for the backdoor to unlock it for Chet.

  He glimpsed Bridget getting dressed in the guestroom, fastening her bra in front, and he was so glad she was okay, and hoped mentally she was fine after having to kill the other man.

  He saw the naked blond-haired man lying next to the gas can Travis used for filling up his lawn mower. Then Travis headed for the back door and pulled it open, startling Chet who took a step back.

  “Hell, I was going to shift and go through the door. Is Bridget with you?” Chet asked.

  “Yeah, and Heaton and Franklin are dead.”

  “Is Bridget all right?” Chet asked.

  “Yeah.” At least physically.

  Bridget joined the men. “I’m fine, thanks, Chet. You brought the men’s van here?”

  “Hell, yeah. I found you had discovered the men’s home and had left with Travis. The men were gone. So I slipped in the back way, and confiscated their van to haul the drugs.”

  “And bodies. I think we need to take two vehicles. My Durango and the van. That way we can stay in our human forms and dump
the van and then return here. Otherwise, one of us has to leave his clothes behind, which could incriminate us. I need to remove the rounds I hit Franklin with and dispose of the spent rounds.” Travis returned to his bedroom, cleaned up the evidence in there, wrapped Franklin in his shower curtain, and hauled him into the living room.

  “Do you want me to help you guys, or stay here and clean up the mess?” Bridget asked, already cleaning up some of the blood on the floor while Chet returned the gas can to the garage.

  In truth, Travis didn’t want her out of his sight. On the other hand, he’d rather she be here than with them if they got caught. “If you don’t mind, why don’t you clean up and if we have any trouble, we’ll let you know. That could mean you taking your car and leaving the area.”

  She snorted. “In this weather?” But she nodded. “Okay. Keep in touch so I know when you’re done.”

  Travis wasn’t going to do it in front of Chet, but what the hell. He wanted Bridget to know that he wanted more between them. Something beyond this mission. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the mouth, his body pressing hotly against hers, his thoughts going back to when they’d hugged in the junipers near the rogue cougar’s home in the freezing cold to warm her, and when they had killed their prey, shifted, and were both naked in the house. She seemed to want more too, which was the reason he took the chance, expecting her to push him away and scold him, if only for Chet’s sake.

  Instead, she held him tighter, her soft-sweater covered breasts pressed against his naked chest, her soft, sweet mouth kissing him back.

  He should have been more circumspect. Instead, he was totally aroused.

  She finally pulled free and said, “Be careful, the two of you.”

  Chet folded his arms. “No kiss goodbye for me?” He said it in a way that made Travis think Chet was teasing her.

  “You might think more into it than I would want you to.” But then she looked like she didn’t want him to feel bad and gave him a quick peck on the cheek and smiled broadly.

  “Jeez, one of these days, I’m going to be the one to get the hot she-cat.”

  Travis slapped him on the back. “Let me get dressed and I’ll join you.”

  “How long have you known Travis?” Chet asked her.

  “Long enough,” she said, as Travis headed for the bedroom.

  If he hadn’t been getting ready to dump bodies and drugs, he would have been on top of the moon.

  After he dressed, they got to the dark task at hand and moved the bodies into the van while Bridget gathered more supplies to clean everything. Then both Travis and Chet tore open the plastic bags of drugs, the gravel-like granules spilling onto the van floor.

  Because of the investigation Travis had done on Rambo already, he knew the man had two homes. The one was just perfect—out in the country, located near a pond, and no one lived there in the winter.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m keeping an open line between you and Chet so we all know what’s going on if we run into any trouble,” Travis said when they got on the road.

  “How are the roads?” Bridget asked, pouring water into a bucket.

  He hated that he had to leave her to clean up the bloody mess. But at least both men had died so quickly, their hearts had stopped pumping and the blood had stopped flowing. It was too bad they couldn’t have just fed them their own drugs and let it look like an overdose.

  “Roads are definitely icy.”

  “What exactly are you going to do with everything?”

  “Drop them off at your friend’s house.”

  “Rambo’s?” She sounded shocked and pleased at the same time. “What…what if he catches you?”

  “We’ll be in deep trouble.”

  “Don’t you dare get caught.”

  “We’ll try our damnedest not to,” Travis said. “As far as I know, he never uses it in the winter.”

  “So exactly where are we leaving the van?” Chet asked.

  “Rambo’s more remote residence. I know about it from when I investigated him before. It’s not secure because it’s not in his name and so he probably doesn’t think anyone would learn of it.”

  “But it’s really his.”

  “Yep.” Travis wanted to ask Bridget how she was feeling about killing the man when she might never have had to do so before. At least when he’d mentioned if she could take down someone permanently, she hadn’t said she already had done so. But he didn’t want to ask with Chet listening in.

  They had to drive so slow, he was afraid they’d never get to where they were going.

  Bridget finally said, “I’m done. I’m going to take a shower, but I’ll have the phone in there with me.”

  That reminded him of when she had taken a shower before at her hotel she’d kept the line open and he’d listened to her sudsing up. He swore the next time she did, he wanted to be with her, soaping her himself.

  His Durango slid on ice again, and he tightened his hands on the leather-covered steering wheel. “How are you doing back there, Chet?”

  “Okay, just hope we’re going to get there soon. Not really fond of all this ice.”

  “We’re almost there.” They drove on a graveled road, and then came to a large, frozen pond covered in a light layer of snow. “Okay, I need you to strip and give me your clothes and gun. Get back in the van, set the car in neutral, and send it down the bank into the pond. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t sink all that deep in the pond. Shift and run as a cougar to the Durango. Then once you’re in my vehicle, you can shift, and get dressed. If the snow wasn’t already falling, no one would see anything but the van’s tire tracks and cougar pugmarks. But with the snow starting to fall, it should cover all of them and the Durango’s tire tracks completely by the time some concerned citizen makes the call to the police.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Sweating it out, Travis went to the van and waited for Chet to give him his clothes and gun. Then once Chet did, Travis returned to the Durango, while Chet drove slowly across the grass to the pond. He kept driving it toward the frozen water when the hill had enough of a slope that Travis knew the van would continue to roll into the water without Chet’s foot on the gas.

  Travis said over the phone, “Get out now, Chet.”

  Chet ignored him and kept going until he was on the ice. He suddenly threw the door open, the sound of cracking ice filling the air. Chet shifted and leapt out onto the frozen pound as a cougar with his paws spread. Then he jumped for the shore as the van broke through the ice and began to sink into the pond.

  Chet raced across the snowy, crunchy field toward the Durango.

  “Hell, Chet,” Travis said, pushing the door open for him. “I didn’t say for you to go down with the van.”

  Chet jumped into the back seat and shifted, then began to get dressed as Travis hauled ass out of there.

  “I had to make sure that it actually went into the pond so that it has enough time to dissolve the drugs. I opened the windows too so that the water would fill the van faster so no one can use the drugs if some criminal found it before the cops do. Though, I’m thinking if we have bad cop problem here, we might want to inform the DEA about it. Rambo could probably just say that someone else stole the van and killed the men, then dumped all of that here.”

  “Probably they’ll believe it’s some vigilante. Why else would anyone dispose of the men and the drugs. Still, if the DEA does any investigating to see if Rambo was involved, they’ll learn his daughter was working for the dead men. Then the bodies are found on his property? He’ll have some explaining to do no matter what.”

  “Bridget will be happy to learn that.”

  Travis smiled. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if you had been driving the van.”

  “I probably would have gone farther out on the lake than you did before it sank.”

  Chet chuckled. “Yeah, you probably would have. You are always more of a daredevil than m
e. Now that we’ve taken out the bad guys—at least as far as the rogue cougars are concerned—our mission is done. I can put in a call to the DEA when I’m out of town tomorrow, using one of the men’s cell phones. They had them and some ID in the van in a bag. Several IDs, I should say. I left everything in there, but one of their cells. I took the battery out as soon as I found it. I’ll make the call and dump the phone somewhere on my way out of here. I can help you pack up your moving van, and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Furniture is being picked up after Christmas. It’s all from a rental store. I just have to load the boxes. Do you have someplace to go for Christmas?”

  “Yeah, believe it or not, I’m going to spend it with my widowed mother.”

  “Don’t tell Bridget.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Makes it sound like you’re a helluva family man.”

  Chet laughed. “If you had family left, you’d be seeing them.”

  “Don’t you want to wait until the weather clears up?”

  “Nah. I think you and Bridget just might have something to build on, and I don’t want to be in the way.”

  “She may want you to stay because of the bad weather.”

  “I’m not that foolhardy. I intend to stay at a hotel somewhere nearby.”

  “Thanks, Buddy.”

  “You’d do the same for me.”

  ***

  Bridget was so glad to see Chet and Travis pull into the garage, considering the weather conditions, and how many hours it had taken them to return. They’d kept her apprized the whole way back, but she still couldn’t quit worrying—some because of the weather and some because of what they’d had to do.

  “Chet said he’d help us load the boxes into the vehicle,” Travis said. “Then he’s going to a hotel and leaving in the morning to see his mother for Christmas.”

  “Will it be safe driving?” Bridget asked.

  “I’ll be heading south. Should get out of this before long,” Chet said.