by Lisa Kessler
Five minutes may as well have been eternity. Every instinct screamed at me to hunt the shooters who threatened my boys and…and my mate. She’d been right in front of me all along. I was a fucking idiot. How could I not have seen it? In my defense, we’d never touched skin to skin before tonight, and Asher had strong boundaries around her, so I’d never allowed myself to interact with her anymore than necessary.
I’d have to worry about making things right later. For now, I had to keep them safe.
I fought to remain still and think things through. If my boys were their target, then the shots could’ve been a distraction to lure me out, to leave the twins unprotected. Leaving would play right into their hands. I needed to wait for Vance and Asher.
My gaze shifted to Becca. With my heightened senses, I had no trouble seeing her in the dark, memorizing every angle of her face. How did I miss the familiar shape of her dark eyes? There was definitely a resemblance to Henry and Hawk. I hadn’t been paying attention. All this time I’d been searching, and she was right in my path the whole time.
The moment the slide on the gun outside had moved and the click had reached my sensitive ears, I’d grabbed Becca, taking her down to the carpet, and my hand had brushed the bare skin of her arm. Out of nowhere, my wolf had come unglued, howling from the depths of my soul until my ears were ringing from the inside out.
My packmates had described the instant they touched their true mates’ skin to skin a few times. They’d all said the wolf had recognized her, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the beast inside me clawing his way to the surface of my consciousness with a visceral, animalistic need for his mate.
Mate.
This instant connection with Becca was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and the instinct to protect my mate slammed into me like a truck. Usually the wolf remained dormant in the shadows of my spirit until the full moon, but at the moment, he was alive in my consciousness, his instincts overwhelming me.
And Becca had no idea.
“Are we just going to lie here until Asher arrives?” she whispered.
“No.” I wrestled with the wolf inside my soul and tipped my head toward the hallway. “Take cover in the boys’ room. You’ll be safer back there. I’ll watch the door. No one is coming into this apartment.”
“Okay.” She looked over at the window. “Won’t they be able to see me?”
“Not if you crawl.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
“I will.” I covered her hand with mine, another zing of awareness surprising me as it shot up my arm. This all-consuming attraction to her made me off-balance. I’d never wanted anyone like this before. Especially not Becca, who as Asher’s employee and the boys’ occasional babysitter, was off-limits.
Now I knew she was much more than that. But what if she couldn’t accept what we were? What if she couldn’t accept me being a shifter?
She slid her hand free and made her way to the boys’ room. I didn’t know her well yet, but she was brave. Someone had just shot two bullets through my window, and she hadn’t panicked or cried. Maybe she was in shock, but I doubted it. Her heart rate was even and steady as she made her way down the hallway.
Either way, my mate had nerves of steel.
Would that be enough when I tried to tell her I was a werewolf?
I moved to the window again, peering down at the parking lot below. My apartment complex was small—two double-story buildings with a pool in the middle. Someone with a gun should’ve been easy to spot, but I didn’t see anyone.
My phone buzzed. There was a text from Vance.
Swept the area. Found a couple casings. Shooter’s gone.
I sucked in a deep breath and wiped my nose as the adrenaline drained from my bloodstream. I sent a reply.
Is Asher here yet?
I walked back toward the boys’ room. When I rounded the corner, Becca gasped and thankfully did not whack me with the baseball bat she was holding at the ready.
She lowered it with a relieved sigh. “They’re gone?”
I nodded. “All clear.” I looked at the snoozing boys and back to her. “Asher’s on his way up. Have you met Vance?”
“Yeah, I know Vance.” She nodded. “He comes by the office sometimes.”
“He’s outside and Asher should be here soon.” I probably held eye contact with her for too long, but I couldn’t help it. She was a miracle, but I couldn’t just declare she was the other half of my soul. She didn’t have the same wolf instincts as me. She’d laugh in my face, and because she was human, she could walk right out of my life and find someone else. Hell, after the gunshots tonight, she might run.
Even her uncle had told her to.
A soft knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. I managed to pull my gaze from her face and resist the urge to touch her. Barely. The wolf was fighting me to keep her close. “Come on.”
She followed me down the hall and back to the living room. My Alpha’s scent told me he was outside before I opened the door. “Hey, Asher.”
He clasped my forearm in the traditional pack greeting and came inside, only to freeze when he saw Becca. He raised a brow and glanced at me with a questioning look. Shit. We hadn’t worked out a cover story, either.
I stepped back to her side and took her hand before I realized what I was doing. She didn’t pull away. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was fucking over all this second-guessing. I wished I could explain to the animal part of my soul that Becca was human and if we came on too strong, we could lose her forever.
I forced the words out. “Becca came over for dinner before the shooter showed up.”
Asher didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t probe any further—for now. “I didn’t know you two were…seeing each other.”
Becca looked up at me with questioning eyes before focusing on Asher again. “Tonight was our first…dinner.”
I squeezed her hand in support as I kept my attention on my Alpha and forced my breathing to remain even, my heart rate slow and steady. “Thanks for coming by.”
His gaze flicked to Becca and then back to me. “Can I talk to you, Gage? Outside?”
We couldn’t discuss the shooters in front of her since there was a good chance they weren’t human. But her hand was getting clammy in mine, and I didn’t want to leave her when she was so worried.
“Sure. I’ll be right out.” I pulled out a chair for her at the dining room table. “Wait for me, okay?”
She gripped my hand, keeping her voice low with no idea Asher would still be able to hear her. “Please don’t tell Asher I thought he was in trouble with the police.”
“I won’t.” I shook my head. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She stared into my eyes for a second before she finally nodded and released my hand. Someone had been shooting at us a few minutes ago, and now her main concern was not upsetting Asher. She was tough and obviously loyal. I wanted to learn everything about her, to figure out what made her laugh, cry, smile. Everything.
I was getting miles ahead of myself. I didn’t even know if she was remotely interested in me. Until tonight, she’d never texted me unless it was about the boys. I could be the only one of us who wanted to spend more time together. I tried to shake off the thoughts. Insecurity sucked. I wasn’t a single military guy anymore. Add to it that I was a single dad and my kids’ dead mother might’ve been Becca’s missing cousin.
Fuck.
I raked my hand through my hair as I followed Asher down the outer stairs to the parking lot. This was going to be complicated and messy, and the more I thought about it, the more I worried. What if she told her uncle about his daughter and his grandchildren? This could end very badly. If there was some kind of custody battle, I didn’t have birth certificates for the boys, and they couldn’t have a DNA test without revealing that shifters were real.
I glanced around Asher’s Jeep. Vance’s scent was nearby, but I didn’t see him. “Is Vance still here?”
“Yeah. He parked on the
other side of the building.” Asher paused and didn’t continue until I met his gaze. “The shooters were jaguar shifters. I’m guessing they’re ex-operatives from the dead Nero Organization still hiring themselves out to the Transparency Collective.”
The Collective rose from the ashes of the Nero Organization. In our intercepted communications, we’d discovered the group referred to their four leaders as the four emperors. My pack had taken out two of them so far, but we hadn’t discovered the identities of the other two yet.
Asher scanned the darkness, clenching his jaw. “Maybe the jaguar shifters installed a new emperor after we ended Duane. I don’t know. But something doesn’t add up. We’ve got two new sets of infants in the pack now, and infants would be easier to abduct than your little boys. So why go after them again?” He glanced up at my apartment window. “And I thought I was pretty clear about keeping Becca out of all this. Why does she think I’m in trouble with the police?”
Fuck. I’d promised her I wouldn’t tell Asher why she’d come over, but he needed to know about her uncle. Maybe after I explained who and what we really were, she’d understand. Then she could talk to Asher herself.
Until then, I’d stall. “I haven’t told her anything about shifters. I owed her dinner after she watched the boys last time. I was just paying up.” I maintained eye contact, conscious to keep my breathing and pulse slow and controlled. Because of our heightened senses, we could usually tell when someone was lying by the uptick in their heart rate.
Hopefully mine hadn’t betrayed me.
Asher crossed his arms. “That doesn’t explain why she would think I’m in some kind of trouble with the law.”
I nodded and met his eyes. “She’s going to talk to you about it later. She knows it’s not true.”
Asher clenched his jaw, but he didn’t probe any further. “All right. Just don’t lead her on. I know you’re trying to find your mate, but Becca might think there’s a future. I don’t want her to get hurt.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d found my mate, but before I could say anything, he went on. “Ryker and Serenity came across something interesting today.”
Ryker and his mate had gotten their Private Investigator licenses from the state and hadn’t wasted any time digging into the financial records for Evolution Defense in the hopes of finding out if one of their donors might be another emperor in the Transparency Collective.
Vance came around the corner, jingling empty shell casings in his hand. “They’re gone now, but this was definitely a hit attempt. Question is, who hired them and why.”
“We might have a lead on that.” Asher looked at me again. “Ryker found over thirty calls from Deidra Harlow to a clerk working for a judge on the Arizona Supreme Court. Serenity did some astral-projecting to snoop, too, and there’s a connection. Between the judge and the Transparency Collective. He could be one of the emperors we’ve been looking for.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose as I looked up at my apartment. Becca’s uncle. She couldn’t know about him, but he could’ve put a tracker on her car or something. He’d know right where to find our pack and my boys. What if she was actually part of the Transparency Collective and playing us all?
Asher frowned at me. “Something wrong?”
My gaze locked on Asher’s. “Becca mentioned her uncle is on the Arizona Supreme Court.”
Asher tensed. “Shit.”
I nodded slowly, my wolf howling again, protesting the thoughts tumbling through my head. He already trusted our mate, willing to lay down his life to save hers, but as a man, I’d seen plenty of betrayals over the years—both in love and combat.
“He could be using her to spy on us,” I admitted.
Vance broke in, keeping his voice down. “If so, do you think she knows she’s being used?”
That was the most important question. My gut said no. She had come to me tonight because she didn’t believe her uncle. Or at least, that’s what she’d told me.
But she had been so calm when the gunshots started. Could she have known they were coming? Shit. And she was alone with my boys right now.
“I better get back up there.” I started to go when Asher caught my arm. Could he sense my doubt? “She’s watched all our kids many times. If she was really a part of the Collective, she would have made a move to snatch one of them while she had the chance.”
He was right. Or I wanted him to be right. The wolf’s mate instincts were fucking with me head. I couldn’t be sure if instincts or logic were in control right now. The only thing that mattered was keeping my kids safe.
The wolf inside of me growled, a dangerous, animalistic warning.
Our mate mattered, too.
But how could I protect her if she was working with our enemies?
CHAPTER 4
Becca
Gage came through the door with gusto, as if he half expected me to be gone. I stood up. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He glanced down the hallway without making eye contact. Something seemed off. He crossed over to me. “What are you going to tell your uncle?”
It was like a different guy had just come back into the apartment. I tensed up, crossing my arms. “Did you say something to Asher about it?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.” He came over and sat across from me, but it was as if he’d built a huge brick wall between us. Maybe I’d imagined that look he’d given me earlier, like I was the only person in the world who mattered. It could have been wishful thinking on my part. I’d obviously been alone for way too long.
If he didn’t tell Asher about my uncle’s warning, though, why ask me about my uncle at all? Unless he thought the attack we’d just experienced had something to do with my uncle… I frowned, keeping my voice down so the boys wouldn’t wake up. “Wait, do you think my uncle had something to do with the shooting? That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” His gaze locked on mine. “He warned you about leaving town and lied to you when he said that Asher was trouble.” He shrugged. “Maybe he thought you were out of the way before the bullets started flying.”
I blinked, shaking my head. “If that were true, why would they be here? You’re not Asher.”
He sighed, running his hand down his face. When he lifted his eyes to mine, the torment in his expression was plain. “Sorry, Becca. What happened tonight has me…messed up. There’s so much I need to tell you, and half of me is worried that…you might already know.”
He searched my eyes, but I couldn’t guess what he could be looking for. I shook my head. “Maybe I should go.”
“You didn’t scream when the bullets blew through my window.”
“No, I didn’t.” My eyes widened as his words sank in. “Are you saying you think I was somehow in on this?” I stood up, wiping my hands on my pants as a spark of anger ignited inside me. “Screw you, Gage. I love those little boys, but you’ve probably been too busy dating Barbie dolls to even notice.” I went to the door and gripped the knob. “And just to make everything crystal clear, I didn’t scream while the bullets were flying because that might’ve signaled to whomever was shooting that we were injured, and they might have tried to come inside.”
I didn’t bother explaining how I’d been with my dad the night he was shot, or how he’d coached me to stay quiet so they wouldn’t find me. It had taken years of therapy to end the nightmares.
I opened the door and looked back to find him on his feet. I narrowed my eyes. “Before you jump to more conclusions about my character, my dad was an FBI agent killed in the line of duty.”
In spite of the slumbering boys, I slammed the door behind me and raced down the stairs to my car. By the time I got behind the wheel, my hands were trembling. A tear rolled down my cheek, triggered by the memories of those last moments with my dad. I backed out of the parking space and glanced up at Gage’s broken window. Did he really believe I might’ve known someone was going to shoot at him tonight?
But I guessed the bigger
question would be why?
If they weren’t in trouble with the police, then who was after them?
I woke up early and got in the shower. In the light of day, it was easy to pretend last night had never happened. My uncle had never called to offer to get me out of Sedona. My friend Gage had never accused me of knowing he was about to be ambushed with live ammunition. And my boss wasn’t going to ask me questions about why I was at his friend’s house for dinner.
Life had never been that simple, though, at least not for me. If I’d learned anything over the years, it was that denial was much easier than living in the present.
I washed my hair and got out of the shower. After blow-drying my dark hair, I got dressed and brushed my teeth. The ritual of getting ready for work gave the denial legs to stand on. I’d march into the office like usual, and Asher would be drinking his coffee at his desk while he checked weather reports and news headlines. Everything would be just like it was every day.
But the echo of bullets crashing through Gage’s windows still lingered in the shadows of my mind, refusing to fade away.
When I parked in front of Wild Sedona Tours, Asher’s Jeep was already there. I sucked in a deep breath. The truth was, I could quit. I didn’t need the money. I had a trust fund collecting dust in a bank account from my other uncle. He’d been an internet technology mogul who had died in a tragic car accident a few years ago in Washington, DC. I’d always been his favorite niece, and without any children of his own, he’d left me a substantial nest egg.
I could walk away from this situation and never look back.
But I liked Asher and Naomi, and their little boys, Bart and Ben, were rays of sunshine in my empty days. I didn’t want to leave.
I needed to know what was really going on here. I was sick of feeling like a pawn in a game I didn’t understand. Between my uncle’s eagerness to get me out of town and finding out that Gage’s twins might be related to my missing cousin, I deserved some explanations.
I set my jaw, determined as I opened the door and stepped inside.
