Falke’s Renegade

by Anna Leigh Keaton

  “Jav—”

  His tongue darted past her lips to cut her off, and though she had tried to stop him before, she couldn’t summon the strength to protest anymore.

  He tasted far too good, and the rampant passion behind the kiss scrambled her thoughts and overwhelmed the best of her intentions. While he kissed her hard, one hand at her nape, he slid his other along her spine to cup her ass and press her against an obvious and impressive erection.

  Heidi moaned with sudden need. She ground herself against his body as he broke their kiss to plant a trail of lust along her jaw line, the side of her neck. He nipped her earlobe, and she bucked a little, burrowing closer.

  “Isabela...” he whispered, dousing every flicker of arousal that burned within Heidi.

  “Oh my God!” She shoved at him, punched his arm and jolted him awake.

  He released her the instant his eyes shot open, and she scrambled from the bed.

  Breathless and upset, with herself more so than with him, she spun to see him struggling to sit up.

  For a brief second, the thought of adjusting his pillows to help him flashed through her mind, but she didn’t act upon it. Distance was called for now, since close proximity proved the worst line of defense.

  He looked at her with equal bits drowsy confusion and irritated suspicion.

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke. She couldn’t. Her lungs weren’t functioning correctly, and her heart pumped way too much blood to her neck and face. Embarrassed beyond belief, she couldn’t divert her gaze either, although she wanted to do that and more.

  Why wouldn’t he say something?

  She caved in to the urge to wipe her palms against her thighs. Then she remembered his meal.

  “I...um...I brought you something to eat.” She retrieved the tray and set it across his lap, backing up to give him—or rather herself—some much needed space. She didn’t mention the noticeable bulge underneath the covers.

  Maybe if they just didn’t talk about it...

  But he had to say something. His silent stare was driving her insane.

  “I hope you like venison stew.”

  He lifted one hand and, without breaking eye contact, swiped a thumb across his moist, well-kissed lips.

  Her face would combust any second.

  She didn’t blame him for what happened. He’d been dreaming of another woman.

  “Who’s Isabela?”

  His expression shut down in the blink of an eye, and his deep bass voice gave her chills. “Get the fuck out. Now.”

  Chapter Six

  “How did Fridrik and Burke take him?” Beth joined Heidi in the kitchen to help prepare dinner.

  When Kelan and Reidar first moved Beth into their family home as their mate, Heidi had been a little put out with having another woman under foot, usurping her authority. But things had changed over the last year. She loved the sisterly camaraderie her sister-in-law provided. Heidi had been the only girl in a houseful of men for so long she’d forgotten how having more estrogen in the house could be a good thing.

  “Things were a little tense at first.” She tore lettuce into a bowl. “After Javier went to sleep, I was called into the den for a discussion.”

  Beth winced. Everyone knew the den was a sacred place into which the children were rarely invited. If they were summoned into the den, it wasn’t to sit and chat about the weather.

  “They’re leery of him and warned me to be careful, but they also realize I couldn’t turn him out while he can’t fend for himself.”

  Beth sliced cucumber for the salad. “How’s he doing?”

  The kiss—and her reaction to it—flashed through Heidi’s mind. She wanted nothing more than to share what happened with Beth, but she bit her tongue. She wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it yet, and she honestly didn’t know how much Beth would tell her husbands. Heidi definitely didn’t need her brothers knowing.

  “He’s getting stronger by the minute.” All his parts seem to be working at any rate, she silently added, reliving the feel of his solid arousal against her hip. Never in her life, in the more than a decade since her first date, had she felt so aroused so quickly. If he hadn’t said that other woman’s name, she would have fucked him without a moment’s hesitation.

  “What?” Beth asked.

  Heidi looked up from the green pepper she’d been chopping. “What, what?”

  “You have a strange look on your face. Did something happen?”

  She licked her lips, and her face heated. “Uh...yeah...some—”

  “What the hell is that smell?” she heard from the other room.

  Reidar!

  “Oh, no.” Heidi gasped and dashed from the kitchen, down the back hallway, and just barely headed off her brothers as they came from the other end of the hall toward her room. “No,” she cried as she body checked Reidar away from her door and threw herself against it to block their entry.

  Kelan snarled in puma form. Get out of the way, little sister.

  “No. Go away. This is my room.”

  “What’s in there?” Reidar demanded.

  “None of your damn business.”

  This is our house.

  “It’s my room.” She glared at Kelan but kept a wary eye on Reidar.

  “What’s in there?” Reidar repeated, undaunted by her declaration.

  “A patient who needs rest. Go away.”

  Move her, Kelan told Reidar, who wrapped his arms around Heidi’s waist and lifted her. She grabbed hold of the doorknob with both hands and clung with all she was worth while kicking at her overbearing, much stronger brother.

  “Put me down, you asshole,” she shouted. “It’s my room. You know you’re not allowed in there.”

  A childish reaction, but it was all she could come up with. Her room was off limits to her brothers, had been since she hit puberty. Her one sanctuary in a house full of testosterone. A girl needed privacy, her mother had said when Heidi had been granted a bedroom as far away from her brothers as her own parents’ room at the other end of the main floor.

  She feared for Javier’s safety if the boys got their hands on him. He couldn’t defend himself, and in their state of mind, they wouldn’t stop to listen to her or him. Impulsive to a fault, the pair rarely stopped to listen.

  “Ow,” Reidar shouted when her heel connected with his shin. “Don’t make me hurt you, Heidi.” He all but growled as he grabbed her wrist and jerked it from the doorknob.

  “Daaaad,” she cried, her last resort.

  “Put her down, Reidar,” Burke said, his voice even and calm, as always.

  “Dad, she’s got something in there that shouldn’t be in this house. Can’t you smell it?”

  She’s too protective of whatever it is, Kelan added. She’s hiding something bad.

  “He’s injured and helpless. Nothing to get so uptight about.” Beth stepped up next to Burke. Obviously she’d gone to fetch him, and Heidi gave her a little smile of thanks.

  “What?” Reidar practically dropped Heidi to the floor.

  You know what’s in there? Kelan’s telepathic shout caused Beth to blink and Heidi’s head to throb.

  Beth nodded with wide-eyed innocence that might fool her husbands, but made Heidi roll her eyes. “Sure. Just a jaguar shifter.”

  Kelan turned back toward Heidi and narrowed his eyes, his hackles rising. Open the door.

  Heidi braced herself, ready for another attack, and shook her head. “He’s my patient, and he’s injured. I’ve already cleared him with our dads. They said he could stay until he was healed and could make it on his own.”

  “She’s correct. We have a guest in the house. Yes, he’s a shifter. And yes, I’ve given Heidi permission to care for him until he’s strong enough to leave.”
<
br />   “You can’t be serious!”

  Burke raised his eyebrows at Reidar’s outburst. “Do I sound as if I’m joking?”

  Is he safe? Kelan asked, his tone more subdued and cautious now. Maybe it was because Beth had slipped up next to him and petted his head as if he were a house cat. Her personal kitten.

  Burke glanced toward Heidi, then at Beth, looking indecisive. “If he’s not, I’ll tear his heart out myself. But your sister thinks he is, and he is her patient. We will defer to her until he proves otherwise.”

  “Is he a rogue?” Reidar moved toward his mate.

  They’d grown up hearing stories of rogue catamounts. They’d never had another shifter in their midst, not during the lives of Heidi’s generation, but there’d been one talked about, somewhere in the past far beyond even her fathers’ lives. One who’d been dangerous, out to kill every one of his kind he found.

  Then there were stories of others who were alone, drifting, never fitting in either the human or animal worlds. They died young, usually. Alone. Heidi’s heart clenched when she thought of Javier being alone. But he drove an expensive sports car, so surely he fit somewhere within the human world.

  Isabela, she remembered. Was she the reason he was going to Seattle? Was she of shifter blood?

  “He is seriously injured.” Burke pulled Heidi away from her thoughts. “Fridrik and I haven’t had time to question him, yet. But we will. For now, let him be,” he said, adding a stern look at both Kelan and Reidar. Then her dad’s mood changed. “Will dinner be ready on time?”

  Heidi sighed with relief and sagged against the door. “Yes, Daddy. Of course.” She gave Burke a kiss on the cheek and headed down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Kelan said to Beth, You are in trouble, woman.

  Her sister-in-law could handle the boys, and her brothers would never harm their mate, but Heidi was glad she wasn’t in Beth’s shoes. Keeping secrets from brothers was one thing. Keeping them from your mates was quite another.

  More than half an hour passed before Beth came into the kitchen just as Heidi was putting the pork chops under the broiler. “What do you need me to do?”

  Her sister-in-law’s face glowed, and Heidi didn’t need three tries to guess what had kept her occupied. “Hope they weren’t too hard on you.”

  Beth waggled her eyebrows. “Just hard enough.” Then she burst out laughing before she leaned over the counter and stage whispered, “They’re such pussycats.”

  “Pussycats?”

  Beth batted her eyes. “‘You mean you’re upset I didn’t tell you about Heidi’s patient? But...what does that have to do with us?’”

  Heidi rolled her eyes. “And they fell for that?”

  Beth just gave her a toothy grin and changed the subject. “Now tell me what you were about to tell me before the boys got home. What happened with him?”

  Heidi shrugged and acted as innocent as Beth had. “Nothing. I wonder about him, but he’s not doing much talking.”

  Beth stared at her a long time with a look that plainly said she didn’t believe her.

  But Heidi wasn’t ready to talk about a kiss that might have been nothing but a man in the throes of a drug-induced dream. “Turn those chops, would you?”

  Beth went to the oven, and Heidi smashed the hell out of the potatoes. She couldn’t read anything into that kiss. Nothing at all. No matter how it affected her.

  * * *

  Javier’s heart thudded with anticipation of his homecoming. He’d been on military maneuvers for a week and couldn’t drive fast enough through the city traffic to reach his destination. His mate, his Isabela, promised to be waiting for him. He’d tried calling as soon as he’d left the base, but there’d been no answer. He grinned as he pictured her naked on the bed, posed in her sign of submission to him.

  He hadn’t wanted to go on this last mission, the first time in his entire military career he wanted to stay home with his family. Isabela’s baby bump grew daily, and they’d felt their tiny babies move for the first time the day before he’d shipped out. Triplets, the doctor said.

  Thank God for Juan, or Javier would have begged his superiors to let him stay. Isabela was healthy, seemed ecstatically happy, but she was so small. Growing three children in her belly wasn’t going to be easy. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being left alone for even a moment. She called him a crazy, overbearing gatito, her kitten.

  He chuckled as he pulled into the driveway of the small house that Isabel had quickly and easily turned into a home. Leaving everything but the keys in the car, he ran up the walkway, slipped the key into the lock...and froze when the scent of death hit him hard.

  His stomach churned, and cold sweat popped out on his sides.

  He turned the key in the lock, ready to shift if needed, and nudged the door open with the toe of his boot.

  * * *

  Javier jerked awake, panting, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, lying in an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by scents that confused him.

  As he cleared the nightmare from his mind, he found his bearings and realized he was in Heidi Falke’s bedroom, in her family home. A home of shifters.

  The angle of the sun streaming through the picture window showed the hour to be late morning. The scent of fried meat drew his attention to the nightstand. Two plate-sized ham steaks and three biscuits. A tall glass of orange juice and four of those pills she’d given him the night before. Across the room, the food he’d thrown in a fit of anguished fury after the kiss had been cleaned up and taken away.

  He’d tried to get up, to clean up the mess he’d made when shame sank in, but he hadn’t had the strength to do more than sit up on the edge of the bed. The pills Heidi had given him made his muscles nearly as weak as his mind.

  Now he threw back the covers and, using his hands, lifted his right leg and swung it to the side so he could sit up. Pain shot from his thigh down to his foot and up into his hip. He’d seen his x-rays—this break was much worse than any he’d previously sustained, and it was taking longer to heal. But he didn’t have time to lie around, no matter how comfortable the bed might be. He needed to get out of this shifter home, away from the shifter female that made his dick hard, and get on with finding and killing Durchenko.

  He spotted his duffle bag on the chair next to the bed. They must have found his car, he surmised. He reached over, grabbed the handle and dragged it onto the bed next to him. As soon as he opened the bag, he could smell the Falke men on his belongings. They’d gone through it. His clothes, which had been neatly folded, now filled the bag in disorder. He dug until he found his wallet. His cash, credit cards and driver’s license were still there. So was his passport.

  The Falkes didn’t appear to be thieves, but neither did they seem to worry about revealing their invasion of his privacy. Of course if the tables were turned, he would’ve done the same, so he didn’t fault them for their curiosity.

  He tossed his wallet back into the duffle and pulled out his shaving kit, a pair of shorts, underwear and a clean T-shirt.

  The bathroom was through a door just across the room, and he’d made it there and back once during the night when he couldn’t hold in nature’s call any longer. Now, he reached for the crutches leaned against the wall on the other side of the nightstand and somehow found the energy to get up and into the bathroom.

  After a sponge bath, shampoo using the hand-held showerhead, a shave and changing into his own clothes, Javier felt almost back to normal, though his muscles seemed to be made of gelatin. He stumbled his way back to bed on the crutches and scarfed down the breakfast, but what he really needed was caffeine, not orange juice, to clear his head. He wondered where his nurse—doctor—Heidi was.

  He hadn’t seen her since his explosive reaction to her unwanted question. He’d heard the scuffle that ensued outside the door of the room th
e evening before, and her vehement efforts to protect him. He’d pushed himself up in bed, ready to defend himself any way he could if she hadn’t managed to keep her brothers out.

  He’d also heard the dire warning in the father’s tone, and Javier had no doubt the older shifter meant what he’d said about ripping Javier’s heart out. Instead of the threats angering him, he respected the elder shifters for their fierce protection of their family, of their females especially. He could even understand the younger men’s reaction to his presence in what they obviously perceived as their territory.

  Javier pushed up from the bed again, using the crutches, and headed in search of a cup of freshly brewed coffee. He hadn’t been told to stay within the confines of the bedroom, so unless he was, he needed to exercise his muscles and try to regain enough strength to get the hell out of there. Damn that his leg kept him from driving. If only he’d been shot in the shoulder instead.

  Or the heart, a soft voice whispered in the back of his head.

  No. Not until he’d captured and destroyed Durchenko. Once he was done away with, Javier could...

  He stopped halfway down the long hallway and stared at the family photos that almost covered the walls. His gut clenched, and a deep, throbbing pain he knew all too well pierced his heart.

  What the hell would he do once Durchenko was dead? He’d never thought past winning the battle over the leopard.

  His chance of family was gone. Without Juan and Isabela, he would grow old alone—

  “How are you doing?”

  Javier focused on the figure at the end of the hallway. One of the elders. “Better, sir.” He moved slowly, a little unsteady on the crutches. “I smell coffee. May I bother you for a cup?” Or a whole carafe?

  “This way.” The elder disappeared through a doorway, and Javier followed into a spacious kitchen and dining room with a long table that seated a dozen. “Have a seat.”

  Javier gladly sank into one of the chairs and lifted his throbbing leg onto the seat next to him, leaning the crutches against the table.