by Amelia Jade
His hand slipped down and found hers, their fingers splaying wide until they could link up with each other, his bare hand versus her gloved one.
“I’m glad you aren’t a winter hater,” he said at last, his head swiveling to glance down at her.
She reached up and brushed her free hand against his unshaven jaw. “You are an interesting man, Noah Landeau. A very interesting man. There’s so much more to you than I would ever have expected.”
He grinned. “So what you’re saying is that you just assumed I was a dumb walking goon covered in muscle and good looks?”
Angela sputtered in protest. “Absolutely not! That’s not the way I meant it, I…” her voice fell off as he broke out into big-bellied laughter, the noise booming up and down the streets. “Rude,” she added, sniffing airily as she turned up her nose on him.
Noah grinned and pulled her tight, planting a kiss right on her forehead. “You are something else,” he rumbled. “I admire your fire; it’s very potent for a little thing like yourself.”
His voice had deepened once more, taking on a very bear-like tone she thought, rumbling out of him like snow as it poured down the mountain, gathering speed as it went. He spoke formally and there was a rigidity to his words. It suddenly made Angela feel very small, as if she was truly witnessing his power for the first time, a glimpse into his true being that he rarely displayed.
She took it all in, noting the way his shoulders seemed to strain at the seams of his shirt as he spoke, his eyes wide and full of glittering blue gemstones, thousands of them all pushed together into little circles that looked at her, through her, and around her all at once. Angela swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry as Noah fixed his stare on her.
“Th-Thank you?” she stammered, unsure of how to respond.
Noah smiled and she was almost knocked from her feet by the feeling of joy that seemed to flow out of him from such a simple thing as a facial expression. It must have shown on her face, because he shook his head violently and reached out to catch her as she wobbled, strength leaving her legs.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice almost a growl, filled with anger. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. Are you okay?”
Angela trembled in his arms, but they never moved, holding her perfectly still while she recovered.
“Wow,” she said breathlessly at last, finally shaking off the last of the effects of…of…of whatever that had been. “What happened?”
“That was my bear,” he told her, very obviously trying to rein in his temper. “It decided to come out and play, to try and pull you into itself.”
“It was…powerful. Big. Strong.”
“And very, very bad,” he said, clenching his jaw. “It’s not listening to me right now, and I’m having a hard time keeping it contained.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “What, um, what happens if you can’t keep it contained?”
Azure fires erupted in his eyes once more as they trained on her. “Then I take you, right here, right now, and kill anyone who looks at you funny,” he said in that same oddly deep and old-sounding voice.
Desire swept through her at his words, at the idea of being taken where everyone could see, of having him mount her and broadcast to the world that she was his. It was like a living, breathing thing. She felt her nipples harden at the idea that Noah would fight anyone who tried to take her away from him, that he would protect her and do whatever was necessary to ensure no one else could have her. It spoke of devotion and caring on a level so basic it could be understood without saying anything. Actions were greater than words after all.
Noah slammed his hand into a nearby light pole, the metal screeching and caving inward under the blow. He fell to one knee, and a rumbling noise that couldn’t have come from any human throat filled the air around them. Throughout it all she never once felt scared or nervous. Unsure, yes, but she always felt safe and secure, knowing that no matter what happened, he wouldn’t hurt her.
She reached out and rested one hand on his shoulder, like a royal to a bowing servant. Noah shuddered under her touch, his opposite hand coming up to engulf hers in a warm grip, his massive fingers completely folding over her, making her feel dainty and small. He took in one painful-sounding breath, his shoulders lifting and falling with tremors that were noticeable through her touch.
Then he took another. And another. Each one seeming more smooth than the one before. Eventually he even looked up, and she saw Noah looking back at her, the human half, not his counterpart. After a moment of basking in his presence once more she smiled at him. He smiled back, but there was a hint of something else in his face.
“What is it?” she asked, tugging him to his feet.
He was still holding her hand, and he looked at it now. “I don’t know. Your touch it…helped. It calmed me. My beast I mean. It quieted it right down, allowing me to get back into the driver’s seat.”
Angela smiled. “I’m glad I could help.”
Anguish appeared in his eyes. “I am very sorry for that,” he told her, looking at the light post that was still somehow upright. “I’m going to have to fix this.”
“Probably,” she agreed. “But what happened there, Noah?”
He looked around, his eyes searching the dreary streets of Cloud Lake. Looking for something. Searching. But they never found it. She turned to sweep the streets and nearby buildings as well, trying to figure out what it was he was after.
“I’m not sure,” he lied.
It was easy to tell he was lying. Noah knew what it was, or at least, he had an idea.
“I think I know,” he corrected under her glare. “But until I’m positive, I don’t want to say more. I promise, I will share it with you when I do know.”
That was a much better answer, and she let him know it. “Can we still do whatever it was you had planned for us?”
“Oh yes. Absolutely,” he said, taking her arm and linking it through his once more. “In fact, we were almost there.”
She smiled. “But where is it you’re taking me?”
He pointed at a building, and she grinned. “Oh goodie. I love the movies!”
Chapter Thirteen
Noah
“I’ll see you on Saturday then?”
“Of course,” she replied, tilting her head up to him and coming up on her toes as he bent over to kiss her goodbye, ensuring he did a thorough job of it.
“Good. I can’t wait.”
“Me neither. Thank you again for such a fun day. I haven’t been to the movies in forever.” She held a hand to her stomach. “Nor eaten that much popcorn and laughed so much.”
He just grinned, unable to say anything more, pleased beyond words to have made her so happy. It had taken a little questioning of Rachel to find something that she liked that he could surprise her with, but eventually he’d landed on the idea of a movie followed by a live comedy show. There was only the one in town, and he hadn’t expected much, but the performer had ended up being more than adequate.
“It’s been quite some time for me as well,” he said, kissing her one last time as he reached behind himself to open the door. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Can’t wait,” she said with a wink as he backed out of her unit.
Almost immediately the feeling hit him again, but he fought it aside, keeping his eyes trained on her. “Me neither. Goodbye.”
Angela gave him a tiny little wave and then slowly closed the door, keeping her eyes trained on him until the last moment when she shut it. There was a pause, and then the lock sounded from the inside.
Noah stood up and turned around, taking a deep, lung-filling breath as he paused warily, his eyes scanning everything within sight as he fought to keep his bear down. Now that Angela wasn’t around it wanted to come out. Not to play, but to destroy, to maim and kill, to annihilate whoever it was that had been watching them all day long.
He didn’t know if they were watching him, or if they were w
atching her, but he suspected it was the former. As a potential Cadian Intelligence agent, he was under suspicion by the original embassy guard. But he had also inadvertently revealed to the real agent that he had a woman in town. So it could be that the agent had followed him to learn more about her, and was going to pay her a visit when he left.
Noah had to find the watcher. Snow drifted down from the skies. It had slowly been picking up intensity all afternoon, but at a glacial rate. In another hour, perhaps, it might reach “storm” status, if it was lucky. For now it provided a helpful covering over the ground that he could use to trail anyone. If he could find them.
ENOUGH!
He snarled the mental command at his animal as it once more lunged for the surface, trying to take over. Noah couldn’t let it do such a thing. Shifting inside the town limits was extremely illegal, and could get him sent back to Cadia or worse, depending on what he did while in his bear form. Keeping himself under control was of the utmost importance at the moment, no matter how badly he needed to find the person watching him.
Moving forward, he decided to test whether the person was watching him, or Angela. He strode as calmly as possible down the gravel road that wound through the complex. With the onset of winter it was mostly covered in snow, but he could still feel stones crunching underfoot as his weight compacted the snow down.
The feeling vanished as he rounded the first corner, but it picked up again as he continued walking straight. Noah took a left and kept walking, heading toward the outskirts of the complex, as if he were headed back to the east part of town, to where the embassy was located. Again the sensation of being watched faltered, but picked back up.
I’ve got you now, he thought. They were tailing him, and that was a bad, bad idea. Noah was bigger and more ruthless than whoever it was that might be tailing him, and he was about to prove it. Nobody spied on him and got away with it. Cutting around what should have been his last corner, Noah sped ahead and ducked around to the right. He was now leaning against the wall of a building that faced the street he should have been crossing.
Now it became a waiting game.
He slowed his breathing and crouched down, trying his best to hide in the late afternoon shadows. His white shirt helped him blend in with the snow, and he hoped that the black of his pants and boots would be mistaken as shrubbery or something.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry. The sound came not from the pathway where he’d walked, but from above him. It wasn’t much. A shuffling of a foot that disrupted enough snow to come falling down in a pile three feet behind him. Noah looked up, going completely still.
Come on. Jump down already. You’re mine. I’m going to make you pay for—
Abruptly a face covered by white material and white ski-goggles peered over the ledge. It almost immediately latched on to him and then was gone, pulling back.
“Shit.” His follower must have realized Noah hadn’t gone into the park across the street. But now the chase was on. He exploded out of his crouch away from the building. Footsteps pounded on the roof above him and he followed them from the ground. The pair raced—one on the ground, one on the rooftops—as they headed for the next building.
As Noah watched, the unknown figure clad all in white leapt clear from one building to the next. Any doubt he may have had remaining that it wasn’t a shifter pursuing him went out the window in a flash.
He flexed his knees and used the gap between buildings as an opportunity to join the other shifter on the rooftop. He landed and slipped slightly as he sought grip. Once he found it he was off, bounding across the shingles, forcing himself to move faster than his opponent, closing the gap. Thirty feet separated them as they leapt from building to building. Then twenty-five. Twenty.
It was down to ten feet and Noah had just started his closing maneuver when they abruptly ran out of rooftop. This was the last building in line. The man in white, obviously prepared for just that situation, simply dropped over the edge. Noah, off balance and unaware, went over the edge as well, but in a flailing sort of motion that would have left him ridiculed by any who saw him.
He landed hard, rolling to his feet almost immediately and setting off in pursuit, but he’d lost precious ground, and now that they were back on more solid footing he couldn’t take more risks. His only hope was to run the man in white into the ground, or hope he made a mistake that Noah could take advantage of.
Snow flew up behind both men as they raced across the ground, across an open meadow, and then back toward the city itself. At one point the man in white simply lowered his head and bulled his way straight through a wood fence. Shards of wood flew into the air, showering Noah with the remains as he passed through the cloud. Angered now, he poured on the speed, attempting to close the gap.
Although his original plan had been to run his quarry into the ground if he couldn’t catch him, Noah slowly began to wonder if that would be a feasible plan. They kept up the running chase through the outskirts of the city, slowly working their way into the interior. More and more humans turned their heads as the two of them flew by, all but a blur to their unenhanced eyes.
Cars slammed on brakes and horns sounded with more regularity as the core of the sleepy little town was disrupted by their passage. Noah gritted his teeth but kept up the chase, unwilling to let up. Whoever it was, they had been following him all day, and he wasn’t about to let them get away with it.
Ahead the man in white put on a burst of speed and darted through an intersection. Noah lowered his head and went after him. It was only a sudden reflection of headlights on the falling snow that alerted him to his imminent danger. A mass of metal entered the intersection moments before him, and he snarled in anger, throwing on the brakes to stop himself before he collided with the cab of a tractor trailer.
His boot slipped on ice hidden underneath the snow and Noah whirled into a spin. The huge truck loomed closer and he knew he was going to hit it. He’d been going too fast, and now it was going to slam into him.
Not today, he growled to himself and flung his body to the side as the truck driver hammered on his horn. Noah flipped over onto his side, bounced once and then pushed himself into a hard roll that took him to the side, turning his forward momentum into a diagonal that sent him under the trailer. He came to a hard stop on his back, only to be greeted by the sight of the trailer’s rear wheels coming straight at his face.
“Shit,” he grunted and pulled himself clear of them with no more than a foot to spare.
Clear of danger, he took a moment to inhale sharply and exhale. That had been too close, even for his comfort. A quick glance at the street in front of him showed it to be empty of anything resembling the shifter he’d been after. He’d lost him.
“Fuck,” he said, cursing yet again. The bastard had somehow gotten the better of him.
Noah knew how he’d done it, too. He’d done everything to keep Noah’s attention on himself, focusing it narrower and narrower until he was no longer aware of his surroundings. Then he’d turned it on him so abruptly Noah had almost been caught in his deadly trap. Whoever he was, he was slippery, very good at evading pursuers. But he’d made a critical mistake, revealing just how good he was. Noah wouldn’t be followed again, he vowed, picking himself up from the ground and heading back to the embassy.
Mark my words, there will be another time. I will find you. You will lose.
Chapter Fourteen
Angela
Saturday finally rolled around.
The wait had felt like an eternity, but with Cooper to keep her occupied, she’d managed to make it through. Still, she couldn’t wait to see Noah.
At least I don’t have to wait until he gets off work.
With Hector and Noah working together, both she and Rachel had decided to do a little something to surprise the both of them. It was now assembled and waiting in the trunk for their arrival at the embassy. She hoped Noah would appreciate it.
“Stop it,” Rachel commanded from the driv
er’s seat of her new vehicle.
“What?”
“Your foot. You’ve been tapping it nonstop for the past five minutes.”
She glanced down at the offending limb, noticing that it was indeed doing as accused. Sending a mental command to her brain she made it stop, though it took more effort than she’d expected. Her nerves were apparently on edge. Which was weird. She’d already been with Noah. He had literally been inside of her. What more was there to get nervous about after that, she wondered?
It was nervous excitement then, a product of the fact that she was coming to surprise him, and hoping that he would appreciate her efforts to make him happy.
“Sorry,” she said to Rachel, feeling more at ease now that she’d recognized her own emotions.
“It’s fine. I still get like that with Hector,” she said, a smile on her face.
“Really?”
“Every time I’m going to see him. The butterflies haven’t stopped,” she confirmed. “It’s really quite exciting, I have to admit.”
“Every time?” she pressed.
“Every. Single. Time. Even when he gets home from work, when I know he’ll be close if he got off on time, they start up.” The car came to a halt at a stoplight and Rachel turned to look at her. “He doesn’t admit it, but Hector gets them too. Or ask Kelly. She and Gray are like that too.”
Angela nodded. She wasn’t as close with Kelly as Rachel was, though even their friendship was based solely on the fact that Gray had come barging through Rachel’s door after he’d fought off an attempt to kidnap Kelly, his mate. But if Rachel said it was true with them as well, she wouldn’t doubt anyone.
The urge to bounce her foot grew stronger as they neared the embassy, so she tried to switch her brain’s train of thought to something else.
“So he bought you a car,” she said.
“Yeah,” Rachel said with a grin. “I’m totally spoiled. He’d always said he had money, but it would just take time for him to be able to access it here, but I guess I thought the house was enough.”
