by Amelia Jade
Jake didn’t take her response very well. “You judgmental bitch!” He reached into the bag while she watched and downed one of the pills. “Now you’re going to be sorry.”
At a cue from Jake that she missed, Danny picked up a chunk of concrete and whipped it at the light above them. The glass shattered and the parking lot plunged into darkness.
Andria cried out, backing away from them even as she blinked rapidly, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness so she could see. Loud footsteps hit the pavement and then someone’s hand landed on her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Cowl growled, moving so that he was in front of her. “You’re safe now.”
Jake laughed. “Safe? Is that what you think she is with you, pretty boy?”
“I’m a lot more than good-looking, trust me on that. Now, twice I’ve told you to leave Andria alone. Twice you haven’t listened to me. You continue to trouble her, and I’m starting to get mad. I wouldn’t advise you make me mad.”
Her eyes finally adjusted, letting her see the standoff going on in the empty lot.
“Oooooooh.” Jake shook his hands in front of his face, pretending to be scared. “What are you going to do, turn green and smash some stuff?”
“Not green, no. But you wouldn’t like it.” Cowl flexed one thick arm, his knuckles cracking loudly in the silence. “Now get out of here before I kill you all.” He took one step forward.
Andria grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back. “Come on, Cowl. There are three of them, and only one of you.”
“I know. So they should come with a few more friends next time. Then it might be an even fight.”
She admired his bravado and confidence, but she knew what Jake’s family was capable of. If Cowl touched his son, then his father would have to get involved, and that would be the last she ever saw or heard of Cowl, she was positive on that. Especially if they were now openly dealing drugs.
“Come on.” She tugged on his arm, trying vainly to move his iron-like muscles. “It’s not worth it.”
Jake leered. “You heard your master. Go on. Get.”
Cowl bared his teeth, standing his ground. Andria looked back and forth frantically. Jake wasn’t helping issues here, dammit. Even if he did have the numbers, she suspected the fight would be far less one-sided than he might suspect. Cowl was insanely strong, and she’d seen him move with a quickness and litheness to his movements that belied his size. Jake was picking a fight with the wrong guy, in her opinion.
But she still wasn’t going to let it happen.
She needed a way to distract Cowl. To get him to walk around Jake and escort her to her car. Andria abruptly had an idea.
Taking Cowl’s hand, she locked her fingers through his and squeezed. “Can you walk me to my car?” she asked, looking up at him.
It was a gamble. A big one. And not something she wanted to do. It could send all sorts of wrong signals.
But it worked.
Cowl looked down at her hand, then at her, drawn away from his standoff by her touch.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Yeah, I can do that.”
They walked around Jake’s laughing gang, Cowl careful to put himself closest to Jake, who followed them around making kissy noises and uttering taunts, all of which were directed at Cowl. But the big man bore up against it admirably, rarely engaging at all.
Eventually Jake got tired of it, and with one last pointed glare in her direction, they left.
“I’m going to kill them if I see them again,” he snarled the instant they were out of earshot.
“I know.” She let go of his hand, trying to ignore the feeling of reluctance that came along with it, and placed that same hand on his chest. “There’s something wrong with Jake. He’s not stable anymore. Promise me you won’t start anything, Cowl. Please.”
He frowned, clearly unhappy. “Why would you make me promise that?”
Because she was trying to save his life. Even if Cowl did kill Jake, that would only bring more trouble his way. And hers.
“Richard Malkin is not a man to mess with. Jake isn’t the same as his father, but trust me, if he gets involved, Cowl, it will be bad. Really bad. So please, promise me.”
“Will you tell me then what’s going on?”
Andria shook her head. “No.” Propping herself up on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. “Thank you for coming to my rescue. Again. I promise I’m going to try to stop getting into these situations.”
“You’re leaving?”
She unlocked her car. “Yes.”
“Just like that? Without any sort of explanation at all.”
“I have an early class?” She gave him a wave and got into her car, firing it up and pulling out as fast as she could.
Only when she was around the block and out of sight of Cowl did she pull over to the curb, her entire body shaking. Everything had come so close to exploding in her face just then.
“Breathe.” She had to speak the word aloud, else it was unlikely her body would have responded to it. It was traumatized by what had almost happened.
What the hell was going on with Jake? The date had been set for nearly two months now, but only the past week had he decided to start threatening her so that she didn’t show. Something had changed, but she didn’t know what. Was it the drugs? Had he started taking the same stuff he was dealing?
If it weren’t for Cowl being around, Andria feared that she might have already become another one of the “missing persons” mysteries that surrounded the Malkin family.
But he only worked for her. What was she supposed to do the rest of the time?
Chapter Eight
Cowl
Andria was already at the pub by the time he arrived.
Hoping that he wasn’t late, Cowl looked at his cell phone. It was an amazing device, one that he’d truly just begun to feel confident with. It boggled his mind how many different things it could do, but even more so was how attached to theirs everyone seemed to be.
He walked around the streets a lot, eschewing cars to foot transportation where feasible, and all too often he was forced to dodge people who were looking at their phones and not where they were going. It was absurd to witness, but he was forced to chalk it up to a changing of the times. After all, they hadn’t had anything even remotely similar when he was born. Things were bound to change.
The time showed that, as he’d suspected, he was fifteen minutes early. Greg, the bartender and sometimes-cook who handled the morning shift, was just getting ready to leave. They exchanged polite nods. Nothing more needed to be said.
“You’re early,” he remarked, sliding into a circular stool in front of the bar.
Andria kept reading her textbook for a moment before looking up. “Class got out early.”
“Ah.” He hoped it sounded a little more sage to her than it had him. “Is today where you finally explain to me—”
“Cowl, I told you, I—”
“What all the words in that book of yours mean?”
She fell silent. “Right. The book. That’s what you were talking about. Of course.”
He took pity on her. “How did your class go today?”
“It was fine.”
“And the rest of school?”
She was brightening, happy for the out he’d provided, so that they didn’t have to revisit a topic she seemed to want to keep locked away. Cowl wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to be feasible, however. He suspected Jake wasn’t going to just let it go, and he was going to need to be prepared for that eventuality.
“School is good. I really like what I’m studying. That’s why I decided to do a Master’s in it.”
“A Master’s?” He’d caught the emphasis on the word, but he didn’t know what it meant.
“Like, graduate school? You know, that thing between an undergraduate degree and your doctorate?”
“Ah, right.”
He had no idea.
“Anyway, I know I’m a little old fo
r it, but I think that’s helped me gather a better appreciation for the material as well. I’m certainly getting better grades than I ever would if I’d done this when younger.”
“You’re not old?” Now he was thoroughly confused.
“For school? Sure I am. I took two years off after high school to save up money to go, and then another three years before I decided to go back for a Master’s. There aren’t that many twenty-eight-year-olds in my class.”
Cowl frowned as she laughed, an awkward-sounding thing that she used to try and cover the embarrassment of her remark.
“You should not care. Seriously. Everyone else should be in awe of you for how hard it sounds like you’ve worked to get to where you are. I admire that dedication. Anyone who doesn’t is an idiot and I’d be more than willing to let them know that.”
Andria shook her head. “That’s not necessary, Cowl. But thank you. It can be awkward to be in the same class as people in their early twenties at times.”
“I bet you’re doing better than all of them.”
“I’m not sure I would go that far.” She was blushing now, feeling good about herself.
That was exactly how he wanted her to feel. How she should always feel, every day. Andria was amazing. He just wanted to bask in her presence, to make her feel more confidence with every passing day.
“Well, you certainly know what all this means.” He tapped her textbook with a finger.
“This? Oh this isn’t that complicated.” She opened the book to the first page. “It has a lot of big words, and if those aren’t your thing, then yeah it can sound complicated. But really it’s all just about the interconnectivity of the spine to the rest of the body. In short.”
“Right. What exactly is it you’re studying?”
“Kinesiology.”
At his blank stare she elaborated. “The study of the mechanics of body movement.”
“Ah. Of course.” So many advances. Cowl had a lot to catch up on. He was going to have to start doing some research to fill in the huge gaps of his knowledge base. The courses the military had put him through had been designed to help bring him up to speed. Language, history, how to use his cell phone, things like that.
Where they were woefully lacking, however, was on everyday knowledge, as he was quickly finding out. But they had taught him the search function on the internet, and he could begin to look it all up. There had to be some sort of website that had all this aggregated information.
“How much more school do you have?” She liked talking about her studies, and he wanted to keep that going. The way her face brightened and she became talkative was like watching a rose blossom, spreading its petals wide. He wanted Andria to reach far and wide, to never be afraid of striving for more.
“I’ll be done in April.” She looked away. “Hopefully. So just eight months left.”
“You sound eager to be done.”
“Hell yeah. I’ve been working toward this since I was sixteen. I’m so close now, and then I can finally graduate and blow this town.”
“You don’t like it here?”
She laughed, a bitter sound. “No. Not at all. I want out. I’m going to move to the coast, to a big city there. I’ve got contacts out there from various conferences. I think I can get a job. Anything to get me out of Barton City.” She stopped abruptly and looked up at him. “What about you? Are you going to stay in Barton City?”
Cowl nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”
This was where the portal was. There really wasn’t anywhere else for him to go, unless the Outsiders came through and overwhelmed Barton City. Then he would go with the military. Cowl knew he was going to fight. His brothers were unsure, but he wasn’t.
How could he view the threat that was coming and then stand by and do nothing? If there was one thing Cowl was not, it was a coward. He was not afraid of any fight. The Outsiders hadn’t truly faced an ice dragon. Not yet. When they did, they were going to regret it.
“Oh.” She looked sad.
“Can I ask you something?” He wanted to switch the topic.
“Sure.”
“Last night Jake said that I was just a bodyguard for you. Is that true?”
Andria bit her lip, unwilling to meet his eye. “No, Cowl. I hired you!”
He reached out and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I wasn’t looking for a job, Andria. I came in to have a drink. You didn’t even know my name.”
“Right. Well, maybe I do like having you around. You’re big, strong, and you don’t take shit from people like Jake. But you work hard too, and I don’t regret hiring you at all, even if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Maybe I just recognized a good worker when I saw one, and made my decision then and there.”
Cowl glanced around the bar before replying. “But you’re still not going to tell me why you need a bodyguard in the first place, are you?”
She shook her head. From the moment he’d asked the first question, he was seeing the other side of Andria—the timid, uncertain creature that replaced his mate whenever this topic came up. He hated this side of her, and wished he could wrestle whatever demon she was fighting away from her. Cowl wouldn’t hesitate to bear her problems, but first she had to tell him.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s humiliating and embarrassing. I don’t want to talk about it, and the fact that you don’t already know is nice because you don’t look at me like everyone else.”
“Well I should hope not.” He clamped his mouth shut, fearful that he’d already said too much.
“You’re a nice guy, Cowl. You really are.”
He cringed. Six hundred years, and that phrase still meant the same thing. She still saw him as just a friend. Or was trying to convince herself of that at least. He wasn’t sure which one, though based on some of their prior interactions, he suspected the latter. He hoped it was that.
“You can go, though. You don’t need to stick around. You don’t need to be my protector.”
“Wait.”
“What?” She was fidgeting, and once again looking anywhere but at him. The conversation was making her uncomfortable, but instead of letting the topic change as he usually did, Cowl persisted.
“I never said I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Be your protector. I would be honored to assume that spot in your life.”
“You…what? Cowl, I hired you to work the bar, not be my bodyguard. I don’t need a shadow, no matter how big and strong and capable you might be.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
Andria’s eyes flashed brightly, the dark green glowing with light after being told she was wrong.
“You don’t want a protector, but you need one.”
“Jake would never actually harm me,” she said instantly, but there was no conviction in it.
“Maybe not. That’s why he has that other guy.”
“What other guy?”
“Drinks too much, green eyes like jade. Evil.”
“Danny.”
“Sure. Don’t care about his name. But he’s bad news, and he won’t hesitate to hurt you. Trust me, I know these things.”
Andria seemed poised to argue his point, but by changing the topic from Jake to someone she didn’t know as well, he’d driven home his point.
“Maybe. I doubt they would go so far as to do something physical though.”
“They won’t if I’m your protector.”
His mate worked her jaw for a moment longer, then she caved, wilting slightly as she conceded the point. “Maybe. What does this mean?”
He leaned over the bar. “It means I go wherever you go.”
Andria’s eyes grew wide. “Oh no no no. You aren’t following me around!”
Cowl smiled. “That’s the best way for me to protect you.”
“I dunno, Cowl.”
“I’ll be invisible. I promise.”
She looked him up and down, making certain he saw. “You. Invisible. Ri
ght.”
He smiled to reveal his teeth. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
Chapter Nine
Andria
What did I get myself into?
Her shoes echoed off the pavement as she walked to her car. Cowl walked beside her, his head scanning from left to right, as if he expected Jake to hop out from somewhere and try to attack her. It was such a silly notion. Jake wouldn’t do that to her. They’d known each other for fifteen years. They’d gone to high school together and then they’d both attended Barton City University.
He was in his residency, while she was completing her masters. They hadn’t been best friends, but they’d known each other, neither shying away from saying hello if they ran into each other. It’s how she’d ended up dating his brother Jack. He’d introduced the two of them at a party a year and a half earlier.
Back then Andria was different. She went to parties. Some parties. Not all. She was a bit old for some of the more vigorous efforts her classmates participated in. Back then she socialized too. Even let herself flirt with guys if they decided to hit on her. Jack had done that, and they’d ended up dating.
Then he’d completely and totally humiliated her over a perceived slight that in reality hadn’t even existed. Since then her life had been little more than a living hell until Cowl arrived. But she wasn’t going to let him convince himself he was her guardian savior. Her only goal was to get Jake to back off, to finish school, and then get the hell out of Barton City so she could forget everything that had happened to her.
Unlocking her car, she walked up to the driver’s side. “Goodnight, Cowl.”
The car rocked and sank on its springs, creaking and making all sorts of noise as Cowl got into the passenger seat while she stood there with her door open. Eventually Andria stopped replaying what had just happened in her mind and ducked her head down, looking into her car. “Invisible, but not silent. Is that it?”
He gave her that smile, the one that threatened to turn her knees to Jell-O and spurred other, more primal feelings deeper within her.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you. I’m your protector. I go where you go.”
Andria slumped into her seat. “So you’re going to do what, come to my place, wait until I’m inside, then take a cab home? That seems silly.”
