Deceiving the Protector

by Dee Tenorio

  Except I haven’t chosen anyone.

  Shame descended over Tate like night with no stars. It didn’t matter if he’d chosen anyone or not. The Wolf in him had sensed a female it wanted, one it considered a worthy counterpart, and nature was trying to take its course. Nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t mating and it didn’t have to be a bonding because his Wolf side wasn’t the part that made up his mind. Like he’d told Lia before, they always had choices.

  His choice was to make sure he didn’t hurt Lia again.

  Nothing would.

  Which still left him the question of how was he supposed to earn her trust back when even now he was feigning sleep, waiting for her to rise out of her pallet and sneak away the way she had before?

  The hours stretched long ahead of him, to the point that he actually allowed himself to fall into a light half-sleep. Every sound of the sparse woods, from the crickets to the owls, registered in his mind like the ticks of a second hand. Moment to moment, until finally, he heard the one tick he’d been waiting for.

  The faintest shift on her pallet.

  She must have rolled to her feet because her padded steps came next, each one gaining speed as she made her way through the trees. He waited, temper rioting, wanting to let her get comfortable. Let her start to believe he really was as dumb as she seemed to think he was.

  Minutes slowed to a crawl as he counted it down. One minute…two…He gave her four before deciding she wasn’t coming back from a quick ablution. The hat hit his pallet first. Followed quickly by his boots. Within seconds, his clothes were all tossed down, forgotten as quickly as they were discarded. He moved toward the trees, barely noticing as he shifted from one form to the other. In less than a second, he’d become the beast he usually spent all his time holding inside. Paws landed soundlessly on the dry earth, every sense ringing with crystalline clarity.

  He was getting to the bottom of this. Now.

  Fuck everyone else’s agenda.

  She hadn’t gone far. Barely out of earshot of their campsite. Like last time, she’d found a small finger of the river to wait by. The ground wasn’t nearly as forgiving as the muddy grass at the last spot. The earth here was dry, no grass to speak of except near the water. She stood there, shivering. He could tell from the faint rattle of her teeth and the sound of her breath. Not from cold, either, because summer still kept the night air warm.

  He kept his eyes trained on her back, his body crouched down behind a shrub, thankfully downwind of her, his ears flat to his head. The whole area was flooded with fear. Her fear. His lips rose above his fangs, hackles high, while his claws dug into the hard ground. He wanted to pace, to snarl, to strike out at whatever was terrifying her, but he couldn’t. Because she stood absolutely still, chin up, moonlight washing down over her, a show of pride he couldn’t bear to take away from her.

  Long minutes ticked by before a shadow dropped out of the tree to her left, scaring her entire body into a hard jerk. If Tate weren’t in his Wolf form, his vision might not have been acute enough to make out the form among the shadows from even this short distance. More disturbing, no scent of it drifted through the air. Nothing. Its steps didn’t even register on Tate’s hearing but the way Lia openly shook, they might as well have caused an earthquake.

  His own skin rippled under the strain of holding himself back.

  She turned, at the last second trying to put a smile on her face, but the expression faltered, finally falling flat. And he understood why.

  The shadow had taken the form of a huge man. One who could crush her bones with a glancing blow. Six-five if he was an inch, no less than two-eighty by the size of him, head to toe covered in a body-armor suit the likes of which Tate had never seen. Though still a bulky shape, the suit fit close, outlining the form of a man and turning it into a nearly invisible shadow. Everything but his hands, which looked eerily pale, even in Tate’s black-and-white vision. Weapons at his sides and back made not even a clank or snap as he moved. His face was only a smooth reflection of moonlight, but for a protrusion that looked like the end of a sniper scope.

  Without a doubt, Tate knew this was his killer. A beast on two legs in a way Tate could never be.

  A beast far too close to Lia.

  Protect her! Now! The Instinct all but screamed inside him, but he kept his head down. Forced the urges to wait. There was more going on here than his need to protect her. Lives that mattered away from this place. Pieces of the puzzle he needed in order to make the decision to trust her or not. If he took her in and she betrayed him…he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do what Pale would require.

  She lifted her hand as the giant moved closer, reaching for his face. Not to fend him off. In welcome.

  What the fuck?

  Rage, a roiling inferno of fire, ignited in his blood. Pain he didn’t bother trying to understand firing it even faster.

  Wrong. This is wrong.

  But not as wrong as the bare-knuckled fist that shot across the expanse between the two figures, the crack of bone so loud in his ears that he was already leaping through the brush before Lia crashed to the ground.

  The shadow turned like lightning, his hand reaching for something at his hip. Tate leaped left, moving just as a dart embedded itself into the earth. Another shot, another leap right. He moved on instinct, dodging shots until the shadow threw the handgun to the side, bracing himself for impact.

  All four paws hit the shadow in the chest, sending them both into the icy water of the river. Tate flipped, kicking off the shadow, his body twisting midair before his feet splashed down into riverbed. He wasn’t there long. Hands caught in his fur, ripping him off his footing and flinging him on his back into the water until he hit bottom with a breath-stealing thud.

  His claws sliced through fabric but lost purchase on the smooth armor beneath. A forearm pinned him down at the neck, a knee digging into his side, heavy as a fucking tank, while a pale hand fought to close around his snout. If those hands clamped around him, he’d drown. Without question. Savaging anything that came near with his teeth, he gathered his free hind leg to shove at the knee, pushing hard enough to slither the second one out. Even the white sizzle of pain from doing it wasn’t enough to distract the Instinct.

  Out of time. Air, get air!

  With both hind legs free, he did the only maneuver left to him, jackrabbiting both feet to the single knee supporting the killer’s leverage. Two full body blows later, the shadow fell to the side, the pressure on Tate’s neck lifting long enough to scrape himself out from under. He rolled with the water until he found the surface, gulping in air even as he searched for his enemy.

  The bastard wasn’t hard to find. He’d regained his footing, rising to full height, still knee-deep in the river.

  Firmly grounded in shallow water again, Tate backed up, positioning himself between the shadow and Lia’s unconscious form. Up close, he could see his prey clearly, but the image was no better than it had been from a distance.

  Tactically, there wasn’t much room for attack. The mask must have some kind of ventilation system, because those three slats over the mouth wouldn’t give a man of his size enough air. The shredded fabric over the front of the shadow’s uniform didn’t do much for its appearance, but it did give Tate a simple kind of satisfaction. Unfortunately, he knew he’d have to do a hell of a lot more than scratch this bastard to bring him down. This guy wasn’t even heaving from the exertion of having flung a two-hundred-pound Wolf out of the water or holding it down. And that made no sense. None at all. Humans were never this strong. Never. And they always had a scent. But not this guy.

  What the fuck are you?

  The question came and went without an answer because just then, the shadow reached over his back and began lifting something…heavy. When the weapon became visible, Tate could hardly believe his eyes.

  An ax. A two-handed, two-sided, Spartacus-fucking-battle-ax.

  The arching swing came down so fast Tate felt it slide through his fur as he
leaped out of the way. The second swing came almost immediately afterward, crashing into the ground and spraying the water like a geyser. Tate took advantage of the time needed to lift the long-handled blade, darting forward to clamp his hand around the bastard’s exposed wrist.

  Blood, bitter as piss, gushed in his mouth.

  The ax dropped, but another arm came crashing down on Tate’s head. Hard enough to make his vision flash white for a second and make his mouth go slack. He let go, retreating before another blow came down. The shadow took a step back as well, looking down at his hand bleeding freely into the water below. Almost as if he didn’t know what it was like to be wounded.

  Tate shook his head to get the taste of the bastard out of his mouth. First blood, asshole.

  But this battle was hardly over. The bleeding hand simply curled into a fist. The shadow crouched defensively, edging himself step by step closer to the river’s edge. Tate snarled, taking a threatening step forward. That ax was still there on the ground. He wasn’t about to let it be brought back into the fight.

  “You can’t win, Wolf.” A digital voice garbled out. Damaged by the water, maybe? It didn’t matter, the flat tone didn’t make for a convincing argument. “We’re mates. I die, she dies. You can’t win.”

  Tate only wished it was the wind in his fur sending that cold shiver through him. Instead it was the memory of Lia’s question. Wh-what makes you think I’m not mated?

  No. She wasn’t. He knew it. He’d all but reveled in her scent the past two days. There was nothing else on her…

  But there was nothing to this bastard’s scent either.

  The distraction slowed him enough that the shadow leaped on him, hands grasping, digging into his fur as if he meant to rip it right off. No escape, no dodging this time. The only option left was more instinct than thought. He lurched upward to grip his teeth around the shadow’s throat. Even there, the shadow was armored, but the plates were small. Thick enough to keep Tate from ripping the shadow’s throat out…but no match for his jaws if he chose to crush the windpipe beneath.

  Crush it the way this son of a bitch had crushed Lia’s.

  That instant, the knowledge was clear. He was no mate to her. A mate could never do the things this asshole did to a female he considered his own.

  Tate ground down harder, uncaring at the rush of his own blood as his teeth dug against the resisting metal. The shadow roared, an oddly comical noise when converted to the damaged voice box. He yanked at Tate’s body, ripping at his fur, but Tate could ignore the pain. Would ignore it, if only to make sure this fucker died.

  Died begging, if he had any say.

  Punches sent his body to the side, his ribs threatening to break from the blows. But still he hung on. He let his weight fall to the ground, keeping the bastard from rising. The giant crouched on his knees, unable to breathe or even make that garbled noise any longer. The punches slowed. Lost strength. The shadow fell onto its back, giving Tate the chance to fit his teeth deeper over the monster’s neck.

  If he could just hold on a little longer, it would be over.

  A little longer…

  And he would have, if he hadn’t heard Lia screaming, her fists landing on his back in desperation. “Stop Tate! I need him alive. You’re killing her! Please, God, Tate, stop!”

  All it took was a flinch. A half-second of lost focus.

  A knife he never saw slid into his belly.

  “No!” But her scream came too late. Asher was already shoving Tate’s limp form off like a sack of refuse. She stumbled back, scrambling to find her footing but only managing to drag her ass in the dirt.

  He’ll kill me this time. He won’t care and he’ll kill us both. Then it’ll only be a matter of time for Laurel…

  But for the first time since they’d told her she was mated, she wasn’t sure she believed it. The scientists had told them repeatedly they were a symbiotic relationship. If she killed her captor, she killed herself. The law of mates. Even Tate had said as much, but his other words were what echoed in her mind now.

  …he can’t take your bond or your soul. That can only be given…if you never learn another thing about mating, learn that. We always have choices.

  What if Tate was right? What if, somehow, it was all a lie?

  What if she still had a choice?

  Asher stood, uncaring that Tate had shifted back into human form with a ripple of shadow. He simply stepped over him, like a broken toy abandoned on the ground. “You should have been loyal to me, Aurelia.”

  She’d thought his digitized voice wrong before, but now it gargled. Water trapped in the circuits instead of his lungs. Or Tate had done enough damage with his jaws to actually ruin Asher’s throat.

  “Y-you promised to l-let him l-live,” she said through numb, trembling lips. “You p-promised.” She kept scooting back, every foot she moved, he ate up, stalking her, enjoying her fear. Feeding on it like a damn parasite.

  Unexpected pain sliced cleanly into her palm. She jumped, realizing the cold metal there could be only one thing. Asher’s axe. Hand already slick with her own blood, she reached blindly for the handle, angling it out in front of herself to hold him off. She’d never touched it before, terrified of this thing more than any of his other weapons, had no idea how heavy it really was. It took all her strength to lift it with both hands on the textured black handle beneath the blade head.

  “Even if you could swing it, are you truly going to sacrifice Laurel…for him?” Strange that despite the damaged mechanical voice, she could still sense his derision in referring to Tate.

  She didn’t dare take her eyes off Asher, though, not because her stare would stop him, but because he was right. She could barely pull it up, much less swing it. There was no protection here.

  “They’ll kill her if we don’t report in. You know that, but you’re not thinking again. Letting that Instinct of yours do the thinking for you. That never works out for you, Aurelia. Remember?”

  “I’m thinking just f-fine.” Or she would be if he’d just stop talking.

  “Give me the ax so I can finish this.” He even held out his hand for it.

  Her mouth was dry. Her hands shook and she was so cold she thought her bones might be frozen, but she couldn’t let go. Tate might already be dead, but she couldn’t hand over the weapon that would make sure. “N-no.”

  Asher’s extended hand curled into a fist before he brought it back to his side. “What has he ever done for you? I’m the one who keeps you safe. I’m the one who keeps you alive, or are you forgetting that too?”

  “No.” She stayed alive on her own. Despite him.

  “Does he know what you’ve done? How many of his kind you’ve killed?”

  “Y-you killed them.”

  “But you brought them to me. Just like you brought him. They’ve all died because of you.”

  “No…” She refused to sob. Wouldn’t buckle under his words, but she was weakening. They had died because of her. Every single one of them, especially the innocent ones, who never meant anything more than to help.

  All she wanted was for him to stop, but he was relentless. “And what about Laurel? Do you want her blood on your hands too? Didn’t you hurt her enough when you abandoned her? Now where is she? Because you were selfish—”

  “No!” She’d run for Laurel. For her.

  “You’ll leave her again for a Wolf I can gut without even thinking about it?”

  Lia shook her head, his voice almost mesmerizing. She could feel the cold silence starting to form around her. The fear starting to take control again. Her hands started to turn slack on the handle.

  But just then, she felt something. Something…warm. Something that pulled at her, even as it enveloped her. Strength infused her, the feel of it something she’d sensed before. In that moment before she’d ruined everything.

  Tate.

  She let her gaze move, for the briefest moment, to the man lying naked in the dirt. Tate was awake, his eyes glowing with an eeri
e yellow-green fire, reflecting the moonlight back at her. His fist enveloped the handle of the knife still in his belly, gripping it so that the metal ball at the end was all she could see. Something flickered in her mind, recognition she didn’t have time to unfold. He raised his chin, his mouth a grim line of determination.

  Don’t give in. She didn’t hear him say it, but she could almost…feel it, the shivers and the silence receding beneath that imperative.

  He fisted the grip and she knew what he was about to do. Couldn’t believe he would try it. But this was Tate. He didn’t know how to stop fighting.

  He didn’t understand. This wasn’t his fight.

  She took his strength in, accepted it in the same way it was offered—a demand for survival—and abruptly dropped the angle of the blade back to herself, fitting the wicked top arc of it beneath her chin. “Take another step and I’ll end this right now.”

  To her absolute shock, Asher actually stopped. “If you do that, we both die.”

  “Then we both die. They’ll never let Laurel go, if they ever had her at all. You’ve probably been lying to me from the beginning.”

  “I brought you that scarf, didn’t I? How could I have gotten it if they didn’t have her?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know they’ll never let any of us go free.” She wished her voice didn’t tremor, that she sounded at all convinced, but it was the best she could do.

  “For him?”

  “For me.” And she realized she meant it. Tate, the other shifters on the Underground, even the ones in Resurrection, they were distant from this confrontation. Asher deserved to die for every moment, every second of life he’d ever stolen to please the beast within him. Every tear she couldn’t shed, every drop of blood she couldn’t wash off her soul. She’d do whatever it took to wipe him off the face of the planet.

  He stared at her for long, empty seconds. His calm would be frightening if she wasn’t sure he was simply incredulous. “I won’t let you end me.”