by Erin Havoc
“When I accepted it, I knew it was just for the app,” he says, and in his eyes, there’s so much honesty I’m sure I can read his soul. And there’s a part of him calling for me. Chanting my name. My guard drops, my heart hammering with how hard I want him to be mine. “But now that I’ve met you...”
I shake my head, trying to dispel the enchantment. “Magnus. I don’t think it’s—”
“I’m saying the truth.”
“You don’t need to—”
His hold tightens in my hand and he pulls it to his chest. “Don’t push me away, Karen. I beg of you.”
My eyes snap up to meet his, and I’m taken aback by what I find there. Vulnerability. He’s exposed, showing me a piece of him I never expected to see. But what could he want with a girl like me? Yes, there’s tension but how wouldn’t there be when he’s such a sexy, handsome man, distributing pantie-melting smiles as if they’re free candies?
My lips part and I want him to say more. To tell me more about this thing I cannot understand.
“Karen, you are—”
Another shiver rushes down my spine. This one is not nice. It feels… ominous. It seems to run down Magnus’s spine too. He halts, words frozen on his tongue as he shudders.
The bodyguard comes back. But he’s… different. This one is blond, his short hair spiking up. He’s thinner, taller… I frown as I watch him striding into the hall.
With two pistols in hand.
Time seems to slow down, and several thoughts collide in my brain at the same time.
Jason turns, slowly, and opens his arms behind Magnus. Protecting him. Protecting from what’s about to rain down on us. Magnus still stares at me, his brows coming down over his nose.
My heart thunders and adrenaline floods my veins. Instead of screaming, I jerk up to my feet and jump over Magnus as if I was diving in a pool. We tumble back, the table hitting the ground at the same moment the first shot is fired. It flies right over our position and lodges itself somewhere in the wall behind.
Magnus has enemies. And they’ve come after him.
6
MAGNUS
My back hits the ground first, and I have the good sense to hold Karen against me as she topples over my chest. The table drops with a sharp thud, and a shot fires just above us. The sound, too loud and too close, makes my ears ring.
Someone’s shooting at us.
Fucking hell, Callie was right.
Jason’s feet shuffle next to me as I hold on to Karen. She pushes away, and for an idiotic moment, I’m terrified she doesn’t want me. As if that’s what matters right now. As if her life isn’t in danger because of me. Because of the things I say and the ideals I defend. Fuck. Protests and signs are a thing, but shooting me? Prejudices are harder to break than I expected.
Karen lies low, a hand gripping my suit. I meet her eyes with assuring words on the tip of my tongue, but they die down when I fix her gaze. Her eyes are focused, her brows furrowed, and she seems ready to fight.
My heart skips a beat. Damn, I’m falling in love so fast for this woman.
She tugs on my suit as Jason covers us, and I hear him screaming something at the man.
“We need to get out of here!” Karen says with a firm voice.
I nod, gripping her elbow. “I’m not letting anything happen to you.”
“They don’t want me,” she hisses, her eyes shooting back and forth around the coffee shop. Her gaze locks with a table next to us. “Follow me!”
Jason half-turns to us. “Senator, wait!”
A shot wheezes right over us and I hear Jason’s grunt. He drops to his knee, blood seeping through his pant leg. My throat collapses and I reach out to grab him. “Jason!”
He shakes his head and holds his electroshock weapon ready. “Go, go! I’m covering you!” He says that as he gets back to his feet and runs at the man in the back.
I can’t see what’s happening with the other customers, but it sounds like chaos. Glass bursts, and people scream. My mind goes to the girl behind the counter and the selfie.
It’s my fault. It’s my fucking fault.
Before any self-deprecating thoughts take me, Karen grips my suit and hurtles to her feet, pulling me along. I follow her as fast as I can, shielding her body with mine. Even if they want me, and not her, I cannot allow a stray bullet to hit my woman. God, I could never live with that.
Karen knocks a table down and rushes behind it. Next, we reach the exit door as a bullet shatters the glass, prompting it to shower down on us. I hug Karen closer to my chest, protecting her from the shards, but she shrugs me off, grips my hand, and takes us past the blasted doorway.
“Stay low!” She says in that astonishingly steady voice. Her fingers grip mine hard, and that’s the only signal she offers that she’s as affected as I am. We hurry up the sidewalk and duck into a side-street. “This way!”
Behind us, I hear more screaming, and a man yells, “You’re not escaping!”
Karen straightens her spine and picks up her pace. I follow her out of the side-street into an avenue. She never wavers as she motions for the cars to stop so we dart across the street and enter another alley.
“Where—?” I voice as I watch over my shoulder. The men can’t be all that behind us. We can’t run forever. We need to hide.
“It’s Saturday,” she gasps, out of breath as we dart down the alley, zigzagging between trash bins. Saturday? Yes, yes, it is, but what does it have to do with—
We quit the alley and bump into something. Karen cries an apology and keeps moving, weaving between... A huge, vast crowd. Our speed diminishes as we enter a street taken by a fair. Stalls selling every souvenir and types of plants and homemade items cram all available space. The crowd stretches to the horizon, and I tug Karen closer.
“We can’t lead him here. Someone’s bound to get hurt,” I breathe into her ear.
“We have to mingle,” she says as she tries to gulp air. “That’s the only way. Let’s hope they won’t open fire here.”
I don’t like that, at all. One cannot hope for anything with people like these. The man opened fire in a coffee shop. Instead of waiting to get me alone, he put so many others at risk. My blood boils and I swear this is not happening again.
Karen keeps moving as if she knows where she’s going. “Keep your head down,” she fires at me from over her shoulder and I obey, my gaze darting around after our pursuer.
Shouts from the back tell me the attacker has arrived at the fair too. My heart slams into my ribcage as I pray for him not to hurt anyone.
Karen drags me to one stall, where an old woman sells herbs. She’s dressed in bright colors and opens an enormous smile as her eyes meet Karen’s. “Karen, dear! It’s been so long!”
“Denise,” she gasps at the woman, pulling me behind the stall with her. “I need a huge favor.”
Denise’s eyes are on me and her brows hike up her forehead. “Oh, who is this handsome man? New boyfriend?”
I shoot a hand out automatically, “Magnus...”
“Not now!” Karen hisses at me. She snaps back to Denise. “We need to hide. May I use your storage?”
“Of course, dear.” She blinks and her gaze focuses somewhere over our shoulders. “If you’re hiding from a man in black, you better run.” She digs into the pocket of her apron and slams something into Karen’s hand. “Go, dear, go!”
Karen nods and shoots out, running with me tagging her. Her fingers are still tight around mine as we dash down the street, careening between sellers and jumping over crates until she veers off to the right and into another side-street.
She lets my hand go and closes it around a doorknob. Her hand shakes as she tries to insert the key into the keyhole, and she manages it on the second try, unlocking the door and jumping inside in a heartbeat. I follow her as she slams the door shut.
Darkness covers us, the sounds of our ragged breathing taking the compact space. It smells a lot like chamomile in here. I shuffle, my feet hitting se
veral stuff. A switch clicks but no light comes up.
“Damn it,” Karen hisses. I hear her rummaging inside her purse and a moment later the light of her phone covers us. She looks up with pale cheeks, her lips half-opened as she catches her breath. “That was quite the first date.”
Nervous laughter bubbles from me as she presses her ear to the door. “Can you hear something?”
She shakes her head, pulling back. “Not really. The door’s too thick. Guess we’ll have to wait a bit. Lie low.”
The light of her phone bathes the storage space, taken by boxes upon boxes of herbs. The smell is less pungent than one would expect, but there’s nowhere for us to sit but the floor. And even so, I’m sure it wouldn’t be comfortable. The place is teeny.
Patting my pockets, I release a frustrated sigh. “My phone.”
“What of it?”
“I left it on the table.”
“Oh.” She offers me hers. “Here. Call Jason. I’m worried about him.”
I shake my head. “I haven’t memorized a number since 2001. But we can certainly call the cops.”
Taking her phone, I do call 911 and tell them what transpired. My description of the man is rather accurate because of my keen sight, and when I give Karen her phone back, my heart’s almost at its normal rate.
“We should wait for a while. They said they might have problems finding him because of the fair.” I watch her face shift as she holds the phone up, the light bringing sharp angles across her pretty face. “That was amazing, Karen.”
Her lips tilt. “Running? Thanks.”
I shake my head, bringing a hand up to the wall next to her head. “You held a cold, rational mind in the middle of a shooting. You reacted fast, and you created an escape route and a plan in the middle of chaos. Are you a spy or something?”
She laughs, and her shoulders loosen up. The sight relaxes me too. “No. It’s just that... When I was younger, I worked far from home, and I lived in this nasty neighborhood. I had to run from shootings between gangs more than once.”
I want to hug her to my chest and promise her she’ll never go through that again. But is it true? Will she be safe with me?
“It’s an impressive skill, though I wish you had never lived through these situations,” I tell her and watch her shrug.
“It’s in the past.” She smiles up at me. “And it’s allowed me to have your back, senator.”
Frustration eats up at my stomach. I lean closer, captivated by the way the light catches on her eyes. “That’s not how it’s supposed to go. I’m the one supposed to protect you.”
Her eyes glint as a soft smile takes her face. “Why?”
Once more, I want to tell her she’s my mate. My panther purrs in her vicinity, nudging me on. It would be so easy. But the consequences?
For once, I’m not so sure about them. I’m not sure about bringing her into my life. Shackling her to a dogged person. Because Karen’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and I can’t risk her. I can’t put her in harm’s way.
So I let myself drown in her eyes as the subject ebbs. Her phone light dims and darkens, and we don’t care to turn it back on. It’s just the two of us.
And the truth hanging in between. Hidden. For her sake.
7
KAREN
The darkness should scare me. I’m locked in a storage smaller than my bathroom with a man I barely know. A man I met two hours ago.
And yet... He’s not any man. It’s Magnus.
And I know my length crush shouldn’t vouch for his personality, but it does. The man sets something so odd and so intense deep in my body, I feel safe and protected in his presence. Even if someone has just tried to shoot him.
“What was that about, anyway?” I voice, the sound breaking the silence. Magnus doesn’t touch me but I feel his presence too close. Heat irradiates off his body, brushing along mine. A shiver crawls down my spine as I feel his breath against my cheek.
“When I came out as a shifter and took the cause in my hands,” he starts in a whisper, “I knew we’d have trouble. I knew we’d find resistance. But this?” He releases a shaky sigh. “This irrational violence just because we seek equality?”
“I can’t understand the people who disagree so passionately,” I admit, my heart heavy in my chest as I think of several occasions where protesters lashed out at us. They attacked Nat in her own house. “I mean, shifters have always been here. Nothing is changing.”
“Right?” His voice is strangled and I feel his forehead pressing to mine. He’s too close, setting my body aflame, but his words are exposed and honest, and I try my best not to show how affected I feel by his proximity. “My career as a politician is older than the Reveal. I attained my achievements before they knew I was a shifter. Why does it matter that I seek equality? Nothing is going to change for humans.” He hisses, the sound animalistic. It elicits another shiver to run down my back. “It’s not like I’m asking for rights to be taken from you. I just want shifters to be safe.”
You. It’s so odd to think we’re not the same species. We’re not two humans hiding from a terrorist.
I am the fragile human girl working for an app. He’s the powerful politician who turns into a panther at will.
My mind tells me we’re too different. He’s too focused on his career, and he won’t make a move on anyone but his fated mate. But my body doesn’t give a shit. It keeps telling me to touch him. To brush myself against him just a little. Just for a second.
My girl parts call his name and beg for his attention. He’s pouring his heart out at me, talking about his doubts and insecurities, and all I can think about is the feel of his skin beneath my fingers. The press of his body to mine. The way his tongue feels as it brushes along my lips.
His heat licks at me, his breath caressing my face. I open my mouth and taste it on my tongue, my heartbeat picking up. He behaves like he doesn’t know he affects me while my entire body leans to him. Answers to his every move.
Magnus shifts in the darkness but no word comes from his lips. Darkness still veils my sight and I flutter my eyelids shut as we breathe in unison. His smell takes my nostrils, intoxicating me.
“You will have to forgive me for my antics,” he finally says against my lips, “but I cannot hold it back any longer.”
His words drift through the haze of my mind without meaning. Antics? What—
Magnus's lips graze over mine. I gasp and I know maybe I should pull back. Turn away.
But who in their proper mind would do that? Look at this man. I mean, don’t. Since we’re in the dark.
Instead of pulling back, I slam my mouth against his.
Magnus's hands drop to my face, cupping my cheeks roughly. His fingers bury into my hair and pull, and at that moment my entire body ceases being mine. It’s his. It’s completely his.
I fumble with his suit to hug him around the waist as he pries my lips open. His tongue dips to mine and with every sweep, I feel more warmth pooling low inside me. And I know he can smell me, but I don’t care.
Magnus presses me against the door, a groan escaping his throat as his kisses grow hungry. It’s by far the best kiss I’ve ever received. Wet doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel down there.
His chest pressed against mine, I pull him closer and kiss him harder. Our teeth clink as he tugs on my hair so I tilt my head, his lips never leaving mine. He kisses me with such ferocious energy I’m afraid he’s trying to commit every inch of my mouth to his memory. He explores and turns and shifts until I’m a mewling mess. Not hugging him, but using him to keep my balance.
My legs tremble as he presses me so close I can’t tell where my body ends and his begins. His smell seeps into me, marks me as I pray I won’t ever forget this moment. This one moment I will never have again.
Because I know shifters can sleep with others that are not their mates. And I’m aware I wouldn’t mind if Magnus decided to sleep with me. My heart would be a mess by the end of the day, yearning for mo
re, for everything, but my body aches so hard for his touch I don’t give a shit about consequences.
As an answer to my prayers, one of his hands slides down my arm to grip my waist. Down to the swell of my hip. His manhood twitches against my lower belly and I moan into the kiss, bucking against him, seeking friction. Both his hands abandon me to search for my dress. He fumbles with the fabric for a moment and I’m gasping and holding tight against him.
Magnus’s hands clutch my thighs beneath the dress and he brings me up against the wall. My legs sling around his waist, and sweet baby Jesus, I’m a goner.
Gripping his shoulders, my mouth quickly finds his again. He takes turns abusing my lips and nibbling down my jaw to my neck. He takes a deep breath that makes me gush all over.
“You smell so fucking good,” he roars, a deep, rumbling sound in his throat. My nipples pucker with his breath hitting my breasts and I stick them out for his use.
“You smell good too.” The words burst from me as I circle my hips over his erection. “And you kiss damn fine.”
He chuckles against my skin and then his mouth is over mine for another earth-shattering kiss. Slowly, he moves against my core, his erection brushing up and down against my soaked panties. If he’s not careful, I’ll leave a smudge of his pants.
Wouldn’t that be a sight? Knowing he’s made me so wet it smeared his pants. God, I’d let him take me right here and right about now if he asked me to. Soon enough, I’ll be exploding in a climax, anyway. The brushing, teasing, prodding over my clit is ridiculously good, urging hot tendrils of desire to stretch over my limbs.
Magnus has an absurd power over my body. Something I’ve never experienced. I’m sure he could make me come with just a few words.
His lips stretch, a smile into the kiss. “Your arousal has just become my favorite smell.”
My cheeks bloom with heat and I hold his jaw to direct his mouth to mine. His words make me feel more than I’m supposed to. I’m not one for casual sex, but I would open an exception for him. But words that make my heart feel shouldn’t be allowed.
