by Leela Ash
“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Achilles mumbled. “I know you work hard too. We all do. It’s important.”
“You’re damn right, it’s important. And it’s really good to see you starting to get into the spirit of things, you know? This welding is great. You’re actually pretty artistic, you know?”
Achilles peered at Apollo, who gave him a knowing grin. Yeah, Apollo was messing with him, but not in the way Achilles had originally been worried about. It was clear, he didn’t have any idea what Achilles had been up to. If he had, that would be the topic of their conversation. Not Achilles and his artful welding and whatever he had done to warrant a compliment and boost in morale from Apollo.
“Thanks. It’s growing on me.”
Truth be told, it was a welcome distraction from his thoughts. He had hated leaving Veronica’s home knowing here could be any manner of threats lurking around every corner. But somehow, that wasn’t even the worst of it. He had left her house feeling reluctant to part with her. But not because he wanted to protect her. He genuinely seemed to want to spend more time with her! What in the hell was that about?
The woman was a major pain in the ass. She had figured out how to push his buttons in record time, and yet, there he was, still wanting to hang around and let her freaking press them. Maybe there was something seriously wrong with him.
But his mind kept wandering to the intense heat he had felt from her gaze. The second he had gripped her arm and challenged her with a question, there had been only one thing in the air between them, and both of them had felt it without question. A raw, captivating desire.
The wolf within him had been begging for an escape, but Veronica had quickly managed to change tracks in their conversation. She was a skillful communicator, that one. And he was afraid that, somehow, in this little human with a power complex, he had met his match.
He had nearly forgotten that Apollo was still there and looked quickly to his friend. Fortunately, he had gotten distracted and was standing in the window, watching his daughter play with Quinn, Apollo’s mate.
“You know, a family really isn’t all that bad,” Apollo said, almost as if he could read Achilles’ thoughts. The words brought indescribable pain to the wolf shifter’s chest, and he cast his eyes away from Apollo. “I know you don’t really see yourself finding a mate, but if you did, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
Achilles was quiet as he considered the words. Maybe Apollo had noticed him sneaking off last night to go to Veronica’s house. But he was clearly getting the wrong idea about what it meant. He thought the two of them might have something more meaningful going on, when the fact of the matter was, the woman was trouble, and in trouble, and it was up to Achilles to keep her safe.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” Achilles said, refusing to entertain the notion of a family himself. He’d had his dreams once. The thought of a family and a wife who loved him and his pups were one thing he couldn’t help but fall back on when times got rough. But it was just his stupid pack mentality. He was simply trying to fill a void that didn’t need to be filled with another person or with having children. No, those things were all wrong for him. What he needed was his work. To protect the community, and the universe, so everyone else could worry about the simple pleasures of family living.
That wasn’t his lot and he had made peace with it a long time ago. Leaders walked alone. And that was the way it had to be.
***
“Finally!”
Achilles raised his eyebrow at Veronica’s greeting. “I’m ten minutes early!”
“Well, I’ve been waiting all morning!”
An unstoppable grin creased Achilles’ face. “I see you’re the impatient type.”
Veronica’s eyes sparkled. “Only when I’m eager for something. I think it’s going to be really good to talk to Lester about all of this.”
“I’m sure there are bound to be answers there,” Achilles agreed.
Truth be told, he had been the opposite of eager that morning. In fact, he felt something akin to dread when he thought about spending the morning with Veronica, working toward answers with a human man who clearly knew far more than any human being should. But at least it could give them some insight.
“Does he know we’re coming?”
Veronica shook her head, already halfway out the door. “I thought it might be better if we surprised him.”
“Ah, the old ambush,” Achilles said, stretching. “Information rooting at its finest.”
Veronica scoffed, and Achilles felt the wolf stir. He tried to shake it off and was working very hard to remain casual. But being so near Veronica’s energy was getting to him already. He couldn’t stop thinking about the attraction between them they had experienced the night before. It had taken everything within his power to subdue the wolf and focus his mind on something else. For whatever reason, his distraction had been dishes. Housework. Things he was used to doing in shifts with the other two men in the league.
It had been a good enough distraction from his feelings at the time, but now that he was about to spend all day with the damn woman, he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do. He laughed to himself as a mental image of all of Lester’s dirty dishes suddenly came to him. Maybe he would be able to keep himself busy after all.
“I’m driving,” Veronica said, nodding toward her car. Achilles gave a noncommittal shrug. Sure, she could drive. If he had his choice, he would just walk there and not worry about any of the transportation irritations. He could certainly use the stress relief of a nice run in his shifter form. That was one of the things he missed the most about living in Stonybrooke. No matter what was going on, he could always count on the people around him to be understanding about his shifter needs and look the other way if he disappeared into the woods for a while and showed up half naked.
But this was a new area and he had to be careful about everything. He couldn’t even tell anyone he had met Veronica, or the way she made him feel.
Not that he was even sure about that himself. And the secrecy was his own doing. Apollo would kill him if he knew he’d gotten so close to law enforcement. He had been told explicitly, numerous times, that the less attention they drew to themselves, the better. The only possible way he would be able to redeem himself is to make sure something good came of it.
For the second time that week, Achilles found himself trapped with the overwhelming scent of Veronica in a car that she was driving. This time, though, they weren’t in the cruiser. She had chosen to take her personal vehicle, which he was grateful for. The smell of the creatures they’d fought would still be heavy in the air − at least for him – if they took the sheriff’s car. It was a nauseating enough experience to be working with this woman. At least it didn’t have to get any worse.
“I hope Lester doesn’t mind us stopping by this morning,” Veronica said. Achilles dared to take a peek at her. Her cheeks were rosy, and she was smiling. She was in a vibrant mood, and while she was distracted by the road, he decided to drink her features in slowly.
She wasn’t in uniform this morning. Before he’d left the night before, they had briefly discussed staying incognito. Achilles didn’t want to risk someone seeing him with the sheriff and having it get back to the others. She had agreed, so this morning, they were just two people casually driving to interrogate a crazy old man. No harm, no foul.
“I’m sure he’ll manage,” Achilles replied.
No matter how sour his mood seemed to be, Veronica wasn’t phased at all. She seemed to find the whole prospect of going with him to meet Lester somehow exciting. Or maybe she was happy about something else. Whatever it was, she was bright and radiant and chipper. All the things Achilles seemed to be having a difficult time with.
It was refreshing but somehow it made him feel guilty. He wanted to be able to enjoy her. But there were so many things about it that was preventing that. He was worried the others in the league might realize he was spending time with the human − the
sheriff. He was concerned that spending time with her could maybe encourage more of that painful attraction. And he was worried that, if it did, things would go from bad to worse with the league. His mission could be overthrown. It wouldn’t be the first time that being involved with a woman had nearly cost him a mission. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if it happened again. No, it was better to keep his distance.
“Here we are,” Veronica said, slowing at the entrance of the long, winding driveway that led up the hill to Lester’s abode. Achilles sensed something off immediately, and soon, Veronica looked to him with her brow furrowed as well. Wait a minute. A human would never have been able to tell something was wrong just from energy alone. Would they?
He didn’t have time to think about it. Veronica was suddenly gunning it over the hill, stopping just short of the old man’s door. It was ajar, and both of them rushed out of the car and went inside.
Lester was lying on the ground in a heap, his documents and relics discarded, some of them smashed against the wall and broken around him. Achilles noticed that, in his fireplace, there was a stack of papers, burnt to a crisp. But from the smell of the smoke, they had been that way all night. Lester’s attack, however, seemed far more recent.
Achilles strode to the old man to examine him, trying to detect any mortal injuries. He was alive, thankfully, but just barely.
“We have to get him to a hospital!”
The panic in Veronica’s voice matched Achilles’ concern about the old man’s destroyed relics. Why hadn’t he taken more of them home with him when he had been here the first time? Who knew what priceless information might have been found, or destroyed, at the hands of whoever had done this.
“Lester, can you hear me?” Veronica was speaking to the old man while simultaneously pulling her cell phone out to dial 911. It was shocking how quickly Achilles heard the sirens start and begin their way toward Lester’s place.
“Veronica…”
He gave her a meaningful look and she glanced up at him, surprised but suddenly catching his meaning.
“Why don’t you go into the bedroom and hang out there. They don’t need to know you were here with me.”
Achilles nodded, grateful that she had seemed to understand him with so little effort, and ducked into Lester’s bedroom. He snooped around while he waited for the paramedics to arrive, listening to Veronica as she administered what first-aid she was capable of until the old man was in more professional hands.
He didn’t find much of interest, and as soon as he heard the ambulance pull up, he remained motionless, refusing to give any indication of his presence. The town would certainly talk about it if they had known he was there when Lester was found unconscious. And that would absolutely get back to Apollo and Atlas. That was the last thing he needed.
He felt horrible for Veronica. She was doing her best not to let on how panicked she was, but it was clear, Lester meant a lot to her and she was doing everything she could to be strong until he was in better hands. The paramedics easily took him under their care and offered Veronica some water before they left.
Once the ambulance was heading down the road, with Lester in it, Veronica came into the bedroom, her face pale. “This is now officially a crime scene,” she stated. “We should look around. See if anything is missing.”
“Okay,” Achilles said. He would be able to tell a little bit from the cursory look he had been able to manage before he had been interrupted by Veronica, so they quietly proceeded to look around Lester’s house and carefully examine the place for clues. The paramedics had said it looked like natural causes. Still, Achilles couldn’t be so sure about that. He and Veronica were clearly beginning to look for separate clues. He knew more about the enemies they were facing and said nothing to her about the kinds of things he was keeping an eye out for.
Still, he felt bad. It was true that, to keep her safe, she should be informed. But for the time being, he didn’t want to worry her unless he found something. It was clear she had had a lot taken out of her by finding Lester in this state, and if she could receive any comfort from thinking this had happened naturally, he would allow her to have that unless he was able to prove otherwise. Then he would inform the hell out of her and they would have a direction to go in.
“I think the paramedics overlooked the broken things,” Veronica said quietly, approaching Apollo with the base of a shattered dragon shifter statue in her hand. “How they could say this was from natural causes is beyond me.”
“It was just a suggestion. They were probably just trying to make you feel better.”
“Lies don’t make me feel better.”
The conviction in her words made Achilles see that she was completely serious, and he shifted nervously.
“Well, I’ll be honest with you then. I think someone came here looking for Lester and whatever he might be able to offer them. We might have led them right to him, for all I know. Whoever called me before seemed like they’re keeping really close tabs on me. And you.”
“They were keeping tabs on Lester already. So, of course, they found us suspicious. You were snooping around.”
Achilles grimaced. There had been a reason he was unaware of why the Elders hadn’t given the go ahead to Apollo to check out Lester’s place. He shouldn’t have been so reckless. All of this was his own damn fault. His poor decisions never failed to cause the people around him harm. There was no way he could allow himself to get close to anyone, especially someone as beautiful as Veronica. She deserved so much better. If anything happened to her, or his team members, because of him, he would never forgive himself.
“I know.”
“What do you think they did to him? Do you think they were forcing him to talk to them?”
Achilles sighed heavily. That had been his first thought. The concern in his chest was mounting. If they were ahead of the game and had gotten to Lester before Veronica and Achilles had been able to, then the universe as they knew it may very well be doomed.
“Let’s hope it didn’t come to that.”
“We won’t know unless we can talk to Lester. We will have to wait until he’s feeling better to know what happened here.”
“Do you want to go to the hospital with him and make sure everything is okay?” Achilles was concerned about Veronica. She wasn’t handling this well emotionally, even if she could put up a good front. She was used to having to be strong and cool in the face of difficult situations, but that didn’t mean she was unaffected. And Achilles could tell that. She couldn’t hide any of it from him.
“We’ll be there for him once he’s feeling better,” she said firmly. “Right now, I want to figure out exactly who was here and what they took.”
“It looks like they destroyed more than they took,” Achilles observed. “Maybe they were false leads and they got pissed at him for wasting their time.”
He hadn’t had much time to examine the old man’s body, but from what he could see, the wounds were difficult to trace. Many of the creatures he had faced had very distinct strategies for wounding their victims. He wished he could talk to Apollo and Atlas about what was going on, but he was sure they would be beyond pissed at him for what he was doing.
No, he would clean up his own mess and then they would manage from there. That was the best system of damage control he would be able to come up with. Everything else would be a breeze after that. He could simply approach Apollo and say he had things taken care of and then none of his transgressions would cost him his spot in the league. And whatever ended up happening with Veronica would stay his secret. Nobody else had to know.
“His house is always such a disaster, even when he’s not getting attacked by horrifying space creatures,” Veronica said, perching on the arm of Lester’s beat-up brown sofa dejectedly. “It’s almost impossible to tell what they could have found.”
“He could definitely use a secretary,” Achilles agreed. Or he could be like Gavin, the dragon shifter a few states away, who had a meticulous
system for keeping track of all the information related to their cause and any relics they might have been able to salvage from their home worlds. Didn’t Lester know how sensitive the information he may have found could be? Had it ever occurred to him that it could endanger his life? Why would he leave everything he found right there in plain sight?
“He should never have gotten involved,” Veronica said darkly, her eyes clouded over with grief.
Achilles was stirred by her forlorn state and berated himself for the helpless way he stood up and crossed the room to stand by her and drape a strong, protective arm around her shoulder.
“I know you would have liked to protect him, but he asked to be involved with every new piece of information he uncovered. And this is just as dangerous as I had feared. It’s why I didn’t want you to be involved either. This isn’t something you asked for.”
“Technically, I did,” Veronica said, shifting from her perch to look earnestly into Achilles’ eyes. When she looked at him that way, it seized him with an impossible warmth and his desire to protect her only grew. “I want to know why these things are happening in my town. It’s my job to protect these people. It should have been my job to protect Lester. But it’s too late…”
She gazed off, staring blankly at the mess the attackers left behind, and Achilles felt a twinge of alarm.
“Hey, don’t do that!” he said, putting both hands on her shoulders and forcing her to look straight into his eyes. She inhaled a sharp breath, but her gaze into his was steady. “You can’t blame yourself for any of this. If anything, it’s my fault for not thinking to come here to protect him over you. I should have done everything myself.”
Once again, his entanglement with a woman had caused him to be blinded to his duties. He had been focused so much on Veronica that he hadn’t even stopped to consider what kind of danger Lester, and his most precious information, might be in. If the enemies had found what they were looking for in the old man’s collection, or even in his mind, it would be Achilles’ fault and his alone. He would never allow Veronica to blame herself. None of it was her responsibility.
