Skin Walkers: Gauge

by Susan A Bliler

  Ella shook her head, “N-n-no. He wouldn’t do that.”

  He scented the lie, and was on his feet and out of the room before Ella could protest.

  In the hall, Gauge raced down the narrow corridor that led out of the infirmary, slamming open the doors at the end of the hall before picking up speed and racing through the lobby to the doors that led outside. He kicked the outer door open and shifted before his foot was even back on the ground. Three rapid strokes of his large gray wings and he was soaring up. Peregrine Falcon was the preferred form of the stage four Walkers when speed was a necessity over a short distance.

  Gauge pumped his wings harder, with deeper strokes, his anger lending power to his flight. The beady eyes of the falcon were a matte black, concealing the man within, as he scanned the earth below searching for the sleek black sedan that typically ushered Monroe across the Estate. He raced to the main gates but was unsuccessful in locating Monroe’s vehicle. Circling back to the compound, he spotted the vehicle parked next to the manor. Monroe hadn’t left the Estate at all. He should have!

  Gauge tucked his wings tightly to his sides and dove, letting gravity suck his weight back toward the earth. The free fall had adrenaline coursing through him, which didn’t bode well for Monroe. Gauge judged the fall perfectly, shooting out his wings and arching his body to ride the stream of air that leveled him out and shot him across the grounds of the Estate.

  Several teenagers lounging on the grassy knoll just outside the front doors of the manor eyed Gauge’s flight with pointed interest. They knew only stage four and indigenous Walkers could take the form.

  Gauge ignored them as he shifted mid-air and dropped to the soft earth just feet from the students, his designer shoes sliding on the lush surface before he slowed and righted himself to stride angrily towards the main Estate house. The short flight had done little to diminish his anger, if anything he’d had longer to think of the suffering Ella had endured for the sake of Monroe’s damned answers.

  He kicked open the front doors of StoneCrow manor. The doors crashed back on their hinges as Gauge heard the teenagers behind him gasp before he shifted again, this time to a sleek king cheetah. He could’ve taken the stairs just as quickly in the form of a wolf, but Gauge rarely shifted to an animal form that others could take. He was a stage four shifter after all, why not revel in it, and show off when he could?

  He brushed past two students who were huddled together on the stairs sharing a pair of ear buds that were connected to an I-pod. Both students jerked the ear buds out and stood to watch as Gauge raced past.

  “Whoa…cool!”

  His long thick claws dug into the plush carpet that covered the wide stairs, and he used his muscles to both push and pull his weight as quickly as he could up the stairs. He smiled to himself as he heard the material ripping. Monroe liked expensive things and the furnishings for StoneCrow Manor were no exception. The cost to replace the damage Gauge was causing would be astronomical, but Monroe should have known better than to anger him.

  On the third floor, Gauge shifted back to human form and strode angrily down the hall. He cleared the reception area just outside Monroe’s office quickly, ignoring Lilly’s, “Mr. Alexander, Mr. Stone Crow is not taking visitors.”

  The door to Monroe’s office swung open before Gauge had the chance to kick it in.

  Inside the office, Monroe stared at him impassively from behind his large desk. King and RedKnife were planted on either side of the CEO and Lilly scurried from the doorway behind him with a squeak.

  Gauge’s eyes slid from one Sentry to the other, before turning on Monroe. “Do you honestly think they can keep me from killing you?” He had stopped just inside the door. His lithe frame was taught with barely controlled rage as his body shook, his breath sawing back and forth raggedly.

  Neither King nor RedKnife spoke, but Gauge knew Monroe had summoned these two Walkers specifically. King was the Chief of Security for StoneCrow and a close friend. While RedKnife was the only Indigenous Walker on the Estate and possessed abilities that many, including himself, couldn’t even begin to fathom. If any two Walkers at StoneCrow could be a match for Gauge, it was King and RedKnife.

  Monroe gave an exasperated sigh before lacing his fingers together over the paperwork in front of him. “Have you got my answers?”

  Gauge took an angry step closer, “Fuck your answers!”

  Simultaneously, both King and RedKnife inched around the desk to stand in front of it.

  King tried to reason with his Walker Sentry, “She’s not yours, Gauge.”

  “And she’s not yours!” Gauge countered through clenched teeth.

  Monroe steepled his fingers, his eyes narrowing. “I have never claimed she was, but she’s got answers she’s unwilling to freely give. If she won’t give me what I want Gauge, then I’ll get those answers by any means available to me.”

  King flinched as he flashed Monroe an angry look of his own. He and his angel had experienced their own problems with Monroe at the onset of their claiming. He knew the CEO would go to any lengths to get what he wanted and getting what he wanted from an unclaimed, non-Walker woman would be child’s play.

  “You’ll stay the fuck away from her Monroe! I am not playing your fucking games with you and neither is she. When she’s ready to tell me what happened, she will. In the meantime, if I catch you near her, if I even scent that you’ve been to the infirmary, I’ll come back here and you and I will resolve our problems once and for all.”

  “She’s your secretary, not your angel,” Monroe pointed out, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “And, I’m the one that signs her paycheck. Therefore, as long as she’s working for me on my property, she’ll give me what I want or I’ll fire her ass and have her escorted from the Estate.”

  King turned to the CEO. “But her attacker is still out there.”

  Monroe looked from King to Gauge before he picked up a pen and began signing the papers that sat in front of him. “Not my concern.” He spoke as he wrote. “What is my concern, are the Walkers here at StoneCrow. Up to this point we know one thing. Her attacker has focused solely on her. Perhaps this isn’t an attack on our kind, but rather a personal vendetta. If that’s the case, she’s bringing trouble here that we can’t afford.”

  “You’re a fucking coward!”

  Monroe calmly set his pen aside to frown up at Gauge. “I am not being cowardly, Gauge, I’m playing offense, being smart. I have the entire Walker population of StoneCrow relying on me to keep them safe. In that endeavor I’m often called upon to make judgments that many don’t agree with. Regardless, I make the hard decisions to keep us safe. At the end of the day Ms. Garret is an excellent secretary and a lovely person, but she is not someone I’m willing to risk our safety over. She’s not one of us, and she’s not an angel to a Walker; therefore, she’s an outsider and her problems, however significant they may be, are just that…her problems.”

  “I’ll take care of her problems,” Gauge ground out. “You just stay the fuck away from her, Monroe.” He dropped his head to sneer at the CEO. “If you come near her again, hurt her again, and I will kill you.”

  Monroe simply stared at Gauge for several tense moments before picking up his pen and dropping his head back to his work. “I need answers, Gauge.” He lifted his head. “Get them, or get her off my estate. You’ve got one week before I banish her.”

  Gauge clenched his teeth, “I’ll get your fucking answers when she’s ready to give them. Until then, back off!” He turned his scowl on King then RedKnife before he turned and stalked out of the office.

  With Gauge gone, King turned to frown at the CEO, “Crow?”

  Monroe smiled coldly. “Is Stoney back yet?”

  “No,” King shook his head. “She’s still back home with her family.”

  “Send Haka out to bring her back. I’m done waiting for answers.”

  “You sure she’s got ‘em.”

  Monroe’s lack of answer was answer enough. />
  “If you knew you could get your information from Stoney, why bother with Ella? All you’ve done is make an enemy of Gauge.”

  Monroe took up his pen and began writing, “As I once nearly made an enemy of you?”

  King growled and turned to plant his hands on Monroe’s desk angrily. “Is that what this is about? You forcing another claiming? Another mated pair, more Walker children?”

  “That is all any of this is about,” Monroe supplied coolly without looking up.

  Crossing thick arms over his chest, King smirked, “And is Eden aware of your actions?”

  It got the CEO’s attention. Monroe slowly placed his pen on the desk and looked up at King with steely blue eyes that glinted with warning. “Upset the Domina while she’s swollen with my seed and, friend or not, you’ll pay the price!”

  As much as he wanted to defy Monroe, King knew he couldn’t. Monroe’s angel, Eden, was having a difficult pregnancy, and it was common knowledge that upsetting the Domina at such a delicate time wouldn’t be tolerated. Honestly, he was surprised Monroe took the threat as well as he had.

  Chapter 16

  Jenny could only watch as Gauge stalked to the closet door, jerked it open, and began yanking out Ella’s clothes.

  “How long was he in here grilling her,” he demanded angrily.

  “I’m not sure, Gauge. I was in with other patients. I checked on her about two hours ago and she was alone then.”

  He seemed displeased with her response as he began cramming clothes into the bag he’d found in the closet before he turned and snatched items off the dresser top to shove into the bag, some that didn’t even belong to Ella. “We’re leaving!”

  “Christ, Gauge! This isn’t my fault.”

  “Isn’t your fault?” he spun on her, his eyes sparking with undisguised fury as he jabbed a finger in the direction of the bed as his voice rose. “He interrogated her to fucking exhaustion!”

  In the bed, Ella’s pale features we lax in a fatigued slumber.

  “That tells me he tortured her for a great deal of time, while your incompetent staff did nothing to stop him!”

  Jenny looked at Ella’s sleeping form and frowned sympathetically. Gauge was being loud and for Ella to be sleeping through it… “Look, I can have a Sentry stationed at the door.”

  “One of Monroe’s Sentries?” Gauged asked sarcastically. “No. He placed her bag on the chair and crossed to Ella’s sleeping form. He bent reaching for her, then stopped and straightened as he eyed her bandaged ankle and arm that rested across her chest in a sling. “Will it hurt if I lift her?”

  Huffing out an exasperated sigh, Jenny crossed to wrap the blankets more securely around Ella. “No, but keep her covered. Where are you taking her?” As if she needed to ask.

  “My place.” He lifted her effortlessly and felt his pride swell at how right she felt in his arms.

  Jenny crossed to open the door as she spoke. “I’ll have one of the nurses bring her bag up and she’ll deliver some pain meds as well.” She held the door open as Gauge passed. “Contact me if either of you need anything, and bring her back in a week for a check-up.”

  His grunt was the only response she got. In the hallway, Gauge stopped to peer down at Ella. Unconscious as she was, he couldn’t keep his protective instincts from surging to the fore and kicking in full force. He lifted her slight frame higher and held her tighter as he exited the infirmary and made his way excitedly up to his suite. Ella’s coming home! He was eager to have her in his suite and reunited with Alysa.

  Over the few weeks he’d had her, he’d grown close with the child…perhaps too close. The thought of Ella healing and taking Alysa back home had him fighting down his possessive instincts. He knew she’d applied for housing on the Estate and had meant to speak to Monroe about pushing the application through. King was supposed to have taken care of it, but now that Monroe had given Ella a deadline to divulge information on her attacker, well, he may as well start looking for housing for all three of them outside the Estate. As much as he too wanted answers, he wasn’t going to let Monroe use Ella’s pain to get them. He wouldn’t force them from her either. When she grew to trust him, if she grew to trust him, then she would confide in him. Until that time, he’d simply have to wait.

  He contacted Anne through the mist. She was one of the Walker women employed at the Estate’s daycare where Ella typically left Alysa when she worked. He’d hired her to assist him in caring for Alysa while Ella was recovering since the Walker woman was already familiar with the family.

  “I’m on my way back. I’m bringing Ella. Prepare my room.”

  “You go it,” Anne responded.

  Some short minutes later, Gauge was tucking Ella into his bed. He had a spare room, and it had been his original intention to house her there, but once he arrived in his suite, he had to have her in his bed.

  Anne was in the sitting room, getting Ella’s things from the nurse that had followed Gauge up. Quietly, Anne slunk into the room to set Ella’s bags next to the door before holding up a bottle of meds and shaking them once. Gauge looked at her and she set them on the dresser nearest the door before whispering, “Call me if you need me.” She exited just as quietly as she’d entered.

  Gauge stood with his arms crossed and stared down at Ella as she slept. He took a step back so the couch in the sitting room was in his line of sight as he turned to eye the other room. Alysa was on the couch, crashed out with a blanket tucked around her as cartoons played silently on his TV. His two beauties were sleeping safe and sound and his world had never felt more right. His house felt full, his home felt complete. His chest tightened with emotion and he stalked out to the sitting room where he picked up Alysa and carried her into the bedroom.

  Gently, he placed the babe on the bed beside her mother and swallowed hard as he eyed the cozy scene they made. His mind made up, he toed of his expensive shoes and unknotted his tie before easing onto the bed beside Alysa.

  One arm curled to cushion his head as he faced the two females. He snaked a hand across Alysa’s little body to lock his fingers around Ella’s good hand and it felt warm and fragile reminding him of the delicate woman she was.

  Why did it feel so right to have them in his home and under his protection? He thought on it long and hard. At first, he thought it was guilt, but after dissecting his emotions further he realized that, while he did carry some blame for Ella’s condition, it wasn’t what evoked the tenderness that he felt for the woman in his bed or the child that wasn’t truly hers. It was longing. He’d come to StoneCrow to seek out an existence where he didn’t have to hide who or what he was. He’d come with the dream of being free and the hopes of starting a family. He’d never intended to stumble upon an already formed family that he couldn’t give up, but thinking on Monroe’s threat, he knew that if Monroe did in fact banish Ella and Alysa from StoneCrow that he’d gladly go with them. They would never be unprotected again. Not while he lived. Granted it’d be easier if they could remain at StoneCrow.

  The thought set his mind in motion. There was only one way for a human female to be granted Walker status. A plan began to formulate. The best way to outwit CEO StoneCrow was to beat him at his own game. He twisted Walker law to suit his needs, why couldn’t others do the same?

  How long he plotted, Gauge didn’t know, but when Ella jerked and her eyes slowly opened, he smiled at her when her confused gaze landed on him.

  “Morning, gorgeous.”

  She looked from him down to the child sleeping beside them and inhaled sharply. She pulled her hand from his and lifted it to finger Alysa’s hair. When her eyes found his again they were brimming with emotion. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  His tone was soft, “For what?”

  “For taking care of her,” she licked her lips and eyed the room before looking back at him. “For taking care of us.”

  “It’s been my pleasure,” he suddenly turned serious. While the circumstances had been hideous, he had enjoyed the
chance to take care of Ella and her child. The action had spawned some form of ownership and he wasn’t sure he could ever let them go.

  “How was she?” her hand smoothed over Alysa’s cherub-like cheek.

  “Perfect.”

  Ella’s eyes lifted to dart around the room. “What…what am I doing here?”

  “After what Monroe had done, I didn’t want you in the infirmary any longer. Now, to get to you, he’ll have to come through me.”

  She sucked in her bottom lip. “I’m not trying to make trouble for you.”

  “You’re not.”

  “If Jenny cleared me, maybe we should…”

  He didn’t let her finish. “You’re not.”

  Perfect brows knitted, “I’m not what? Not cleared from medical?”

  “Jenny released you into my care.”

  “Well, I was just trying to say that if Jenny released me then…”

  Again he cut her off. “She released you into my care. You’re not going anywhere, gorgeous, don’t bother asking.” He eased from the bed, careful not to wake Alysa. He was relieved when he heard a knock at his door. “Stay here,” he commanded and exited the room.

  “Stay here!” Ella mocked in indignation even as she curled her body tighter into Alysa’s, feeling safer than she had in years.

  ***

  Gauge jerked his front door open with a snarl, “WHAT?”

  In the hall, King’s brows hiked. “Having a rough home coming?” his tone was playful.

  Hissing out a pent up breath, Gauge plowed a hand into his hair. “Damn woman!” it was the only explanation he offered. “What do you need, King?”

  “I’d like to know your plan.”

  Gauge eyed him as if deciding whether or not King could be trusted.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve gone behind Crow’s back several times for you. I deserve to know what your plan is and I’m not leaving without that information.” As if to solidify his words, he crossed thick arms across an equally impressive chest.

  Motioning with his head for King to back up, both men stepped into the hall and Gauge sealed the door closed behind them.