by Amelia Jade
The song ended and the woman, now fully unclothed but with a fistful of money in either hand to compensate, scampered from the stage, snatching up her discarded items as well, minus the shirt she’d lost to a customer. Rachel tried to estimate how much the bills she’d seen tossed around added up to, but got lost somewhere between two and three hundred.
Maybe I should be doing that.
Her hand went to the gentle swell of her stomach, a reminder that it wasn’t going to be quite that easy for her. The child growing inside of her was wonderful for repelling a lot of the shifters, and almost all of the human men who might want to hit on them, but it meant that dancing for money was also off the table, not that she was serious about it.
A commotion broke out nearer the stage as yet another young woman approached, all thick and curvaceous like the rest of them. Which wasn’t a surprise to Rachel, though it would have been to any random person who walked in. This particular adult entertainment lounge, as they titled themselves, catered to an exclusive clientele.
“He’s not calming down,” Michelle said from next to her.
The music had died away, and security was rushing to the scene as the noise grew. It wasn’t the good-natured catcalls and shouts of encouragement from earlier. The noises had taken on an undertone of anger, which would make anyone nervous. Considering that a decent amount of the patrons were possessed of superhuman strength, it was a sign that they should be putting some distance between them and the stage.
“Come on, ladies,” Rachel called. “Time to hit the ladies’ room I think.”
There was muted agreement from the group, and they all stood up, some grabbing bottles of water as they headed, hopefully, away from the growing situation. The last thing Rachel wanted to do was be near an irate and likely drunk shifter. She knew the majority of those who came to the town of Cloud Lake were friendly and easygoing, but there was a bad apple in every bunch.
Acting as sort of their shepherd, she got them across the floor and into the bathroom before things got worse. Rachel was just about to follow them in when the tensions suddenly ratcheted up a level as something broke. Security was hanging way back, trying not to provoke the situation any further, but there was only so much they could let pass.
One of them shouted and she saw movement from right to left. There was a loud rumbling growl that filled the room, and then there was much faster movement from left to right. Most of it was obscured by the crowd of people standing between her and the situation. The cries of astonishment and parting of the crowd allowed her to see the bouncer that had gone flying across the floor. He hit the ground, slid into a table and chairs that spilled the contents of drinks all over him, and then lay still, groaning.
At least he’s still alive. If the shifter wanted to kill him, he could have.
“Come on, why isn’t anyone else intervening?” she asked, speaking the words out loud without realizing it.
“No idea, but I wish they would.”
She looked over at the voice. It was a male, his attention focused on where the situation was playing out on the far side of the room from them. Like her, he must have had the idea that making himself scarce couldn’t hurt.
“Before anyone gets hurt,” she agreed.
There were other shifters in the bar. She knew that. They sort of stood out, considering most of them were well over six feet in height and covered in 3D-printed muscles. Not to mention each one was quite attractive. All in all, they had a number of advantages on normal humans, much to the dismay of the locals, who had found themselves suddenly competing with them.
“Yeah,” the random guy said, just as another roar sounded.
This time they both watched the black-clad security guard sail through the air, crashing through a table. The wood shattered under the impact, splinters flying out in a circle from it. One skittered across the ground and came to a rest against her shoe before she kicked it away.
Nearby, a large figure made a displeased noise as he was pelted by remnants of the table. Rachel watched as he stood up. Without a word he plunged into the crowd, his massive frame parting them like water, allowing even someone as short as her to watch as he lumbered his way across the floor.
“You know, I suddenly get the feeling that I don’t want them to intervene,” the man said from next to her, and disappeared into the male bathroom.
Rachel frowned, but she couldn’t stop herself from watching. There was a fight about to go down. It could be dangerous. Deadly even, to a bystander like her. When two shifters threw down, it wasn’t a pretty sight. She knew that much. Yet her feet remained glued to the floor, unresponsive to her efforts to get them to move her into the bathroom itself.
Before the irate shifter could make it to the unknown instigator, the front door swung open and two men came inside. No, not men, she corrected. Shifters. It was obvious. The door boomed loudly as they slammed it open, not bothering for a stealthy approach. She watched as they strode forward, patrons and tables simply falling out of their way.
The lead one spoke. “That is e-nough!” he bellowed sharply, his voice full of steel and command, so much that even Rachel, innocent of anything, felt the subtle urge not to disobey. She could only imagine how those it was directed at must feel.
Another roar sounded, followed by several meaty smacks. The shifter who had been seated near her had evidently arrived. There was a howl of pain—she wasn’t sure from which party—and then the two newcomers rushed across the bar. Moments later she heard dual shouts of agony, and then suddenly the crowd seemed to relax. There was a nonverbal sigh that seemed to rush through them all like the wind through the forest, and suddenly the atmosphere was more upbeat.
Rachel meant to turn around, to go back into the bathroom with her friends. But as she tried to tell her body to do that, her feet once more stood rooted to the spot. Some part of her needed to watch the proceedings. Irritated, she looked around, noting the raised area of the private lounge, an area where men could go for a semiprivate dance, if they felt like forking over the money. Climbing the short three steps up onto that gave her a much, much better view of what was going on.
The two shifters, both in white T-shirts that stood out easily amongst the darkened interior of the club, were hauling two figures to their feet. Neither prisoner seemed overly with it, swaying and having trouble staying on their feet. It was the first clear glimpse that Rachel had gotten of any of the participants, but it wasn’t there that her attention was riveted. She froze at the sudden realization that she knew one of the shifters who had come to stop the fight.
It was Hector.
Trying to remain calm and unobtrusive, Rachel glanced down to ensure she had proper footing to get off the raised platform before he saw her. But when she looked back up, his eyes were focused unerringly across the club at her. He’d seen her. His eyes took in her, her outfit, and where she was standing, and she could practically see them become hard and glittering.
Rachel glanced down at herself, and then suddenly it all made sense. She was wearing a very similar outfit to the first dancer, albeit with more buttons done up and far less skin exposed. But still, combine that with the purpose of the establishment, and then her location on the edge of the VIP stage, and it all made sense.
He thought she worked there. Part of her wanted to rush across the club and reassure him that she didn’t. The rest of her did what she’d done every time he’d contacted her since the day they’d met. She stonewalled him. Simply standing there, watching as he hauled his captive across the floor. His eyes fixed on her more than once, and the sadness became more etched on his face with every step.
Say something. Wave to him. Acknowledge his presence, dammit!
She did nothing of the sort. Rachel stood there like a statute until after he was gone and the club had turned up the music to try and re-energize the crowd. It didn’t work much at first, but then a parade of topless women appeared from the back, and the intoxicated men in the club went wild.
It never ceased to amaze her what a pair of exposed breasts could get from a man.
“Rachel?”
She glanced sideways as Michelle came up to her, the rest of their group having emerged from the bathroom with her.
“Yeah?” she asked, dazed.
“Are you okay?”
“Hmmm?”
Michelle looked worried, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Are you okay? You look, um, distraught, kind of.”
Some of the other women nodded along with her.
“I do?” she asked, unaware of the expression on her face. Giving her head a shake she brought herself back to reality. “Sorry. I’m good, I promise.”
She flashed Michelle a smile that, while not completely convincing, helped to relieve some of the worry.
“Come on, let’s go get some more shots of delicious H20 and get crazy!” she shouted.
The women cheered, which set the men nearby to cheering, and then carried through the rest of the bar. A path opened up between them and the bar, and Rachel led the way, taking Michelle’s hand in hers. This was her friend’s night after all, and she wasn’t going to let one gorgeous shifter ruin it.
Chapter Two
Hector
“Shut up,” he snarled at the shifter he was escorting down the sidewalk. “Another peep out of you and I’ll…” his words trailed off as the memory of Rachel popped back into his mind.
He shook his head, trying to get the image of her out. But it wouldn’t go anywhere. All he could see was her schoolgirl costume. The white shirt, plaid skirt, and thigh-high stockings should have been a dead giveaway. But paired with the fact she’d emerged from the VIP lounge to look at the show, it was an open and shut case as far as he was concerned. Rachel worked there as a dancer.
He didn’t like it, but it was her choice. Maybe that was why she’d been ignoring him, ever since that night they’d met several weeks back. She was always busy whenever he’d contacted her to try and arrange getting together. Either he’d had the single worst timing in the history of courtship, or Rachel was giving him the polite runaround until he got the hint that she wasn’t interested. It was the latter, of course, it always was. And now he knew why.
The prisoner he was taking back to the Cadian embassy suddenly bolted.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he swore, taking up the chase.
His escapee didn’t get all that far before Hector caught up with him, tripping him to the ground and falling on his back, driving the shifter to the ground. Hard. Something cracked under impact and the shifter, whose name he’d forgotten, cried out in pain.
“Quit your whining,” he growled, yanking him to his feet roughly. “You brought it upon yourself, dumbass. You knew the rules, you broke ‘em. Then you tried to escape? What did you think I was going to do, chase after you and ask you politely to stop?”
The other shifter just glared at him sullenly, not responding.
“Real mature,” Hector snorted before driving a forearm into the back of his head and getting him started down the road some more.
This time he went without a fight, holding one arm tight across his body. Normally Hector would help out one of his kind, resetting the bone, or maybe it was his shoulder. He didn’t know, and this time didn’t care. Criminals weren’t treated the same, especially ones who tried to run from him, like this one had.
Once again the image of Rachel standing there came to him, unbidden. He could practically see her, pixie-cut pastel-pink hair and all, standing right in front of him. The shirt was oversized, to accommodate her bulging waist, but she’d somehow pulled it tighter around her top half. Most of the buttons had been done up, but enough were open to give a glimpse of the swells of her breasts.
Maybe it was just him, but she’d seemed like the most gorgeous woman in the entire place.
“Everything okay?”
He turned to regard the speaker. Martin was new to the embassy guard detail, fresh from the shifter territory of Cadia. He’d replaced Charles, one of the three original guards that had been assigned there. Along with Hector and the senior guard Gray, the trio had guarded the Cadian ambassador, along with the embassy itself.
Humans weren’t allowed in to Cadia, and very few shifters were allowed into Cloud Lake. The shifters maintained an embassy of sorts there, to better facilitate contact between the two species. There were only ever two or perhaps three dozen shifters in Cloud Lake at any given time, but with a population of just over thirteen thousand, including the surrounding countryside, that made them a rather noticeable minority, their oversized frames notwithstanding.
“Yeah,” he replied, giving Martin a nod of thanks for hustling his own charge up the street quickly to ensure Hector was okay. “Just a wiseass thinking he can get the drop on me. Nothing I can’t handle.”
Martin didn’t say anything. His eyes swung away and he continued pushing his own captive down the street, back toward the embassy. Hector watched him go for a moment, wondering how much longer it would take for him to feel like he fit in. It wasn’t like he could blame the guy. The original trio had been quite close, sharing in many adventures together. But Charles had gotten homesick, and requested a transfer back to Cadia. Martin had been his replacement. He’d only been there for two weeks now, and Hector knew it would be a while yet before he truly fit in.
All it would take was time. Time and a bit of effort from him and Gray.
The rest of the walk was uneventful, and they took their two prisoners and tossed them into one of the cells constructed in the basement of the embassy, designed especially to hold shifters. Thankfully they were rarely used anymore, but the occasion did rise where someone got too drunk and started trouble.
“Sleep it off, boys. We’ll see how you feel in the morning,” he said, and slammed the door closed with a loud clang of metal on metal.
Beside him Martin flicked the lights off and they headed down the short corridor and then closed the blackout door behind them.
“Well, that was fun,” he remarked.
Martin didn’t reply.
Hector glanced at him, but Martin seemed lost in his own world. So he shrugged and went to the front desk, relieving the tired Gray, whom they’d had to wake up when the call came in.
“Shhdrmme,” he muttered unintelligibly and disappeared into his quarters.
Although Gray and his mate Kelly now lived outside of the embassy, every other weekend he still slept in his old quarters there. The passes issued to Cadians visiting Cloud Lake had recently been upped to two weeks from a single week. Thus, every other weekend there was a new crop of shifters arriving, as well as the old crop partying up their final days around the humans. In other words, the most trouble tended to occur on those particular weekends. One of the three guards was always on duty. The other was on call, and the third—today it was Gray—was the backup. They were in talks to bring on some more guards, especially now that Gray had a mate who was very, very close to giving birth. More time off spent at his house was absolutely necessary.
Hector sat in the chair at the oval desk that was placed at the center of the lobby, designed to greet anyone who entered, and put his feet up. The night shift was often extremely uneventful. Even on the double cohort weekends, as they’d taken to calling them, they rarely had to do much. It had been a month, if he recalled correctly, since the last time they’d had to respond to a call like this one.
At first they’d been responding almost every night. Andrew, the Cadian ambassador, had put a stop to that by coming down like a ton of bricks on anyone who violated the rules. He didn’t take any shit from anyone. Several shifters had been sent back crippled, and one had even gone back in a body bag. Things had calmed down after that, and they’d only gotten better as the time went on.
Now he often did his job in little more than name only. Or in extenuating circumstances, such as the ones where he’d met Rachel. That had been back a month ago when Gray had been working things out with his mate Kelly. His friend hadn’t
known it at the time, but the biological father of his mate’s child had shown up. The two had ended up fighting, and when it got serious, Kelly had effectively taken shelter in Rachel’s house until the fight was over and she was safe.
Gray had brought Rachel to the embassy to both use her as a witness, but also to ensure that she was safe and well looked after. When two shifters do battle outside your house, it can be a frightening experience. Hector had been there to help Rachel calm down and relax in the wake of it all. They’d talked for several hours over food. He’d learned little of her, their conversations relegated to unimportant things only. But he had felt an undeniable connection to her, and an urge to learn more.
Unfortunately, his attempts to arrange a date, or even just a hangout with no implications whatsoever, had been stonewalled. Always, Rachel had been busy, with some meeting or another. He couldn’t believe that she was so busy, but she always seemed to have an excuse to not see him. After a while he’d stopped calling, not sure what to do. She always answered, and was polite enough to pretend like she was checking her schedule, but she’d always inevitably have some sort of conflict when he was available.
Hector sighed and crossed his feet as he leaned back in his chair. He’d seen a lot by volunteering as a guard in Cloud Lake back when the embassy had first been established, nearly a year ago now. Met new people, established a life and friends. But one thing was still missing, and now that he had everything else, he found himself wanting it more. Wanting her more.
A mate.
If only he could find her.
Chapter Three
Rachel