Craving Her (Keeping Her Series Book 4) (9 page)

But Shawn was no dummy. 
He was already backing off.  Cleo could feel his eyes on the back of her head,
even as his hands left her, but she didn’t turn around.  The urge to mark him
was upon her.  Whether the urge stemmed from the wish to warn off other females
that he was taken, or just pure rage, she could not have said.   Either way she
wasn’t turning around.  Shawn disappeared from her back and she relaxed even
further.  Seeing this, Logan slumped back down and picked his beer back up, but
it was hard to miss the speculative look in his eyes, or the suspicion in Ian’s
as he watched Shawn fade to the other side of the room, and then turned
narrowed eyes her way.

“You got something going
on with Shawn?”  And just like that he became the irritating beyond words
teenage boy again.  She lunged over the bar and gave his nipple a savage twist.

“Oww.  Shit.  Fuck.”  Ian
stumbled back, his hand over the offended nipple.  “What the hell was that for?”

“Sheer stupidity.”

Out of the corner of her
eyes she saw Logan shaking his head.  “Boy, you got to learn when to shut the
fuck up.”

She didn’t stick around
to listen to Ian’s answer.  She headed for her bedroom, and a few minutes of
blessed quiet to deal with her rampaging emotions, and her freaking rampaging
lust that just the touch of Shawn’s arms in a crowded room had stirred.  She
threw herself across the big bed.  Maybe if she just went to sleep everyone
else would get the hint and just leave. 
Worth a shot.

***

Watching from as far away
as he could get, Shawn was relieved when Miley started rounding everyone up and
out of Cleo’s house.  He left as soon as he could do it and not look like he
was running.  Which he was.  He had grabbed Cleo without thinking when he saw
she was about to belt her brother.  After years of keeping his distance, he had
not even hesitated, and it had been both revealing and goddamn painful to touch
her and then have to let go.  He was only too happy to get out from beneath
Logan, Miley’s, and hell, even Ian’s suspicious eyes.  They all seemed to ask
him questions he didn’t have answers for.  And making it ten times worse, the
sweet fucking scent of Cleo was everywhere in her apartment, keeping his hawk
right on the edge.

As soon as he could make
it happen, he was gone, shifted and flying in the clear night sky.  He circled
checking the area, and then finally landed where he could see what was
happening in and around Cleo’s apartment.  It didn’t help much; it was like her
scent was now lodged permanently in his head, but it was enough for now.  He
settled down and kept guard through the night, content in the knowledge that
Cleo was finally getting some sleep, and wondering idly how many weapons she
wore to that giant, fucking sexy bed of hers.

CHAPTER
NINE

Lucas growled, thinking
of his mate..  He had ordered Shawn to
request
Ian and Cleo come home
this morning for a “breakfast tactics meeting.”  He had to put it that way
because Miley insisted that ordering them home would be bad.  He snapped his
teeth at the thought.  She was not wrong.  That did not make it less
irritating.  In fact, when he considered it, that she was right actually made
it more irritating.  And if he did not have some bullshit council business
suddenly show up at his door, he would find her right now and communicate that
across his desk.

Instead, the door opened
and a council enforcer walked into his office.  Never a good sign.  And this
one looked familiar.  Brown hair with a flash of red in the light, cut short,
green eyes that Lucas would have recognized as predator even if he wasn’t
wearing black leather, and armed to the teeth.  Not that he needed it.  From
the way he walked, Lucas recognized a honed weapon when he saw one, though
thankfully no sword in the empty sheathe across his back.

Lucas said nothing as he simply
studied the man. Tall and broad, he was only slightly smaller that Lucas
himself, and he stood 6’ 4”.

The enforcer stopped a
distance from Lucas’ desk to keep his options open if he needed room to defend
himself.  He stood at parade rest.  His eyes, however, met Lucas’ challenge
without flinching until Lucas finally spoke.

“You want to tell me why
I got so lucky as to have the council in my business twice in a month?”  His
words had a bitter snap to them that he didn’t bother to hide.

“I am not here for the
council.”  The expression in the man’s eyes was cold flint.  Hearing something,
he turned before the door opened, and then his eyes softened when Miley walked
in, her skirt a tight sheathe that flipped up at her knees.  The blouse was a
transparent white gauze that floated over the pink camisole she wore underneath,
and her kitten heels were pointed at the front with sweet little pink polka dot
bows.  She was, as usual, ultra-feminine and softly sexy, with all that lush
hair flowing to her waist.

Lucas had liked that
outfit when she put it on this morning, and he had spent a good bit of time
picturing taking her back out of it.  So the sudden need to rip off the face of
the man giving his mate an appreciative once over, subtle though it was, did
not really surprise him.  What did surprise him was the recognition on Miley’s
face when she stopped right inside the door, rather than coming straight to
him.

“You were the enforcer at
the challenge.”

“I was.”

Lucas growled, his eyes
moving back to the enforcer and turning cold.  But it was his mate he spoke
to.  “Miley, come here.”

She did, instantly, which
soothed the beast at least a little.  The way she tucked herself up against his
side helped as well.  Now that he had his hands on his mate, where she
belonged, he turned his eyes back to the enforcer.  An enforcer who seemed to
have made more of an impression on Miley then him.  He still looked like a
walking weapon to Lucas, but he would probably be considered good-looking by
females.  Lucas turned a glare to his mate which had her rolling her eyes. 
Then he got to business.

“Why are you here?”

“For your mate.”  The
words might as well have been a slap across his face.  Lucas felt every muscle
in his body tightening.  Just from those words, he was about a second from
mayhem. “The council knows she is a healer.  There are some who feel she is wasted
on a small mixed pack like yours.  I came to give you a heads up.  You are
going to receive an invitation to the next council gala. Don’t go.”

After the long speech,
Lucas waited and then snorted, relaxing against the soothing brush of his mate’s
hand down his back.  “Is that it?  You came all this way to tell me not to go
to the gala? Why the fuck would I?”

The enforcer tilted his
head and studied Lucas as if what he said surprised him.  “It’s considered an
honor to receive an invitation.  Most alphas campaign for one.”

Lucas snorted dismissing
that idea as beyond idiotic.  “Most alphas are power hungry assholes.”  Then he
waved that away.  “Is that all of it?”

The enforcer looked from
Lucas to Miley as if at a loss.  “You do understand, the council, while serving
a purpose, is run by men with their own agendas.”  He looked back at Miley.  “Keep
your mate close to home, and beware any overtures by the council to bring you
deeper into their orbit.”

Miley studied the man,
a
little too closely
, Lucas thought irritated.

“Why are you warning us?”
she finally asked.  “I was always taught that council enforcers had one loyalty
and that was to the council.  Aren’t you all born and bred ‘council first and
last’?”

He thought about the
question, his eyes going cold in his harsh face.  “Most are born into a council
family.  Some are inducted into a position because they have the aptitude for
it.”

He did not have to tell
them that an enforcer had one aptitude, and that was killing.  Lucas studied
the man more closely.  “You have a name besides ‘enforcer’?” he finally asked,
understanding the man more than he would like.

The enforcer looked
surprised by the question.  Took him awhile to answer it too, and it was almost
like his own name was rusty on his lips when he finally did.  “Stryker Vaughan.”

Lucas would have said
more, but just then he heard the cars pull up outside and he started to shake his
head at the arguing they could hear.

“You will have to forgive
us, Mr. Vaughan, but I can hear the sweet dulcet sounds of my children
arriving.  We will have to continue this momentarily.”

Miley was following him
out because he had a grip of her hand she could not shake.  But he could do
nothing about her tongue.  “Will you stay for breakfast, Mr. Vaughn?”  It was
interesting the way the man seemed to flinch a little when his name was said. 

“Stryker, please,” he
said, following them with his eyes and nothing else.  “I can wait.”

Lucas looked back at the
man who looked like he could indeed wait, hours if necessary, and ground his
teeth when his mate caught his eyes.

“Breakfast. Stryker,” he
said loudly, and with little welcome, “join us or I will never hear the end of
it.”  He also had no intention of leaving the man in his office.  He didn’t
keep sensitive materials out, but who knew what skills a council enforcer had,
besides killing that is.

With Stryker following
behind them, reluctantly, Lucas started to think about that.  Stryker Vaughn
looked like he was in his early thirties.  But if you looked in his eyes, he
looked closer to a deadly lived-in fifty.  How long had he been with the
council?  And when did they start recruiting children?

He was already regretting
the decision to invite the man to breakfast when Shawn, Cleo, and Ian joined
them. Then he was only thinking of Cleo and the fact that she no longer looked
like she’d been crying, which frankly had been unacceptable.

He was so distracted by
studying his daughter that he almost forgot to introduce their guest.

“Shawn,
my
enforcer,
Cleo, my daughter, Ian, my son, meet Stryker Vaughan, council enforcer. 
Stryker, the rest of my family.”

***

Cleo walked into her family
home, still arguing with Ian about the best handgun on the market, which he
insisted was the CZ-75.  Ridiculous of course, when put up against the Glock 22
or the HK P30, which was what she preferred for the concealed carry.  But when
the leather-clad enforcer walked out from behind her father, it derailed the
entire argument.  Right then and there she had an epiphany.  Miracles did walk
the Earth. 

Just under her father’s
height and all of it hard compacted muscles on top of muscles sheathed in leather. 
Between the body of a killer, and the intense green eyes that looked like he
could see right through her clothes, Cleo was riveted.  The man was a tall,
deadly package of yum-my.  And even better, when he saw Cleo, his face went
from serious to appreciative, as he looked from the toes of her biker boots up
the long line of her low-riding jeans, over her red t-shirt that hugged her
curves and stopped right along the top of her jeans.  If she reached for
something or bent over, a strip of golden skin would reveal itself.  Not that
she was thinking of doing either of those things.  Probably.  To top off the
truly hot warrior in her house, she felt the tension rise behind her, and a
second later, Shawn was at her side — close, and his eyes had gone raptor gold
in his sharpened face.  It could be construed as a warrior protecting his
charge from the sudden arrival of a predator, but Cleo really wanted it to be a
man marking his territory with a rival for his mate.  She was not going to bet
on that though.  In any case, she elbowed him back, or at least tried to, only
to bruise her elbow on his rock hard side.

“Ease off, Shawn,” Lucas
warned, “he’s not a threat.”

Shawn eased back, barely,
and like the hawk he was under the skin, he watched the other man with eyes
that had just seen a small hungry mouse in a field.  Only in no universe could
this man be called a mouse.  A slow smile appeared on the Stryker’s face and
Cleo nearly shook her head at the hotness factor he exuded.  But it was Shawn
who really got her engine revved.  The intensity in every inch of his body only
ramped up the attraction she felt to the ninth degree.  It would have been
better if she could have kept her eyes on the enforcer, but as usual, if Shawn
was in the room, her eyes were forever fighting her will to get back to him. 
It really didn’t help that he was acting like a protective mate, and her
lioness was preening under his attention.  That his attention came in the form
of never allowing the strange warrior to get between the two of them should
have just been irritating.  Unfortunately, she liked it, and way more than was
healthy with a man who continually rejected her.  And that just pissed her off
to no end.  When she realized neither man was willing to end the stare off
between them, she headed for the kitchen and breakfast and left the pissing
contest behind.  Unfortunately, Ian followed her with a continuation of his
ridiculous handgun comparison, as if two predators were not about to get the
front room all bloody.  Again.

***

Shawn knew he was being a
dick, and still he stood there in a stare down with a complete stranger.  And
why was he doing that?  Because the man had looked at Cleo just a little too
long, and because she looked back.  It was not a happy realization to make, nor
was the fact that knowing how stupid he was being, he still wasn’t willing to
back down.  Not until Cleo had left the room, anyway.  Then he relaxed
marginally and smiled at the dangerous enforcer with a lot of teeth.  “What
brings you to Lionsgate?” As if he had not been ready to tear the man’s head
off a moment before.

Then the man, Stryker,
threw his head back and laughed.  When he laughed you got the impression he was
rusty at it.  But it was a full-on belly laugh, and for a second it was as if
his guard came down and he was no longer the weapon, but an honest to God man. 
Then it passed and, within seconds, he seemed to realize what he was doing and
looked around for a threat.  He fondled a knife and examined each man around
him, waiting for the attack.  It made Shawn wonder what kind of life he lived
with the council that the moment he dropped his careful guard he expected
repercussions.  Dangerous ones from the look of it.

“He came to warn me not
to go to the council gala when I received the invitation,” Lucas threw in dryly,
his eyes on the enforcer thoughtful.  Shawn doubted the enforcer could see it,
but he knew Lucas enough to see pity lurking in his eyes as well.

The news he imparted,
however, was enough to distract Shawn from Stryker.  In fact, he was at a loss
and it must have shown on his face.  “Why would you go to the council gala?  You
hate that shit.”

“So I informed the man. 
But he assumed since most alphas would sell their nuts for an invitation that I
would go if invited, and that would put Miley at risk.”

Shawn felt his attention
laser in on the enforcer once again, and it was with a whole new level of
hostility. “Miley?”  He had lost his fake smile and once again looked ready to
throw down.

“No one with any brains
would think they could mess with Miley,” Logan said coming up beside them and
looking the new man over.  His eyes were assessing and direct without being the
flagrant challenge that Shawn’s had been.  “You were at the challenge.”

Lucas looked irked at
that for some reason, but Shawn was looking the man over again.  “That’s right.” 
Then he raised a brow.  “What, no sword?”

“I’m not on duty, and I’m
traveling where full humans may reside.  I left it in the car.”

Logan sniffed the man and
it made Shawn realize he smelled nothing of the man’s animal.  “I had heard the
council enforcers masked their scent during a challenge and when on a mission,
but I had not realized they did it all the time.”

Stryker grimaced.  “There
is a residue affect that lasts a few days.  I am not on an official mission if
that is what you are asking.”