Holiday Mates: Supernatural Enforcers Agency Short Stories (12 page)

His jaguar was nearly tearing his fur out. 
It wasn’t his imagination
.  Men were overly interested in his penguin.  At first, he thought he was just being sensitive.  He was protective of Penny and no, he didn’t like it –
or more like downright loathed it
– when any male looked at her, but usually it wasn’t this bad.  Hey, he couldn’t fault anyone for finding her attractive.  He just didn’t
want
any of them to find her attractive.

He’d been suspicious at the restaurant.  Paranoid when three waiters almost got into a fight over who got to help her don her coat.  (It was solved when Diaz growled at the three pangolin shifters and he was the one to help her with her coat.)  Furious when one of the businessmen asked if she was
busy
later.  And now that she was getting eye-fucked as she walked along the street, he was pretty freaking incandescent with rage.

A courier went past on a bike, slowed down when he spotted Penny, let out a long whistle and then promptly crashed into a parked BMW.

“Jeez, should we check if he’s okay?” asked Penny, hopping from foot to foot.

“No,” spat Diaz, who felt that the young man wasn’t even getting a smidge of what he truly deserved.  “Let’s get out of here – now.”

He took Penny’s hand and virtually ran all the way home.

*

“No, let go!  It’s my purse!”

The robber pulled out a knife.  “Take it easy, Grandma,” he sneered.  “Just give it to me and I won’t hurt you.”

“The hell I will!” yelled Ethel Winklestein.

“Fear not, dear lady, help has arrived!”

Ethel and her robber both stopped in the midst of their tug of war to watch as a man in a costume, and a cape ran towards them.  The robber instantly hooted with laughter and even Ethel, despite the situation, couldn’t hold back a guffaw.

Wolfman ran up, trying not to pant because his suit was heavy and he hadn’t run anywhere since being tortured by Coach 'dickhead' Dikter in high school.

“What the fuck are you supposed to be?” chuckled the robber.

Wolfman struck a suitably heroic pose with his hands, balled into fists on his waist, cape flapping in the wind –
or would be flapping if there was any wind
.  “I am Wolfman.  Here to save the city from… hey, stop that!”

The robber, bored already of Wolfman, resumed his attempt to free Ethel from her purse.  It had to be noted that Ethel was a wily, old coyote shifter and this was the robber’s first time.

“I said… wah!”

Wolfman, on attempting to stride toward them, managed to slip on something he later suspected to be dog waste.  He landed on the ground hard, hitting his head.  The robber almost doubled over with laughter.  Ethel took the opportunity to hit him over the head with her purse, repeatedly until he yelped, gave in and ran away.

“Come on, dear,” said Ethel soothingly as she helped Wolfman to his feet.

“Did I save you?” he asked while rubbing his head.

She gave him a sympathetic smile.  “Not exactly, but you provided a nice distraction for me to clock him over the head.  And look, I even managed to steal his wallet while he was trying to run away from me.”

Ethel held it up proudly. 
She was quite the pickpocket back in the day.
  “That’ll teach the little bastard.”

“Oh.”  It appeared he might have actually aided in a different crime to the one he was trying to prevent.

“A for effort, though,” said Ethel encouragingly.  “But maybe next time you should watch where you step.”

*

“Sorry about the dent in your car,” rumbled Boris.

Cecile smiled at him while trying to ignore her swooning inner swan.  “I can hardly blame you for that.”

He shrugged, and his grip tightened on the wheel.  When Boris tackled her assailant, he used so much force he left an enormous dent in her car.  Which made it even stranger that her young attacker had fled the scene so quickly.  Getting hit like that by such a big, strong, muscled, impressive…
she was getting off track
.  Getting hit like that would put even a shifter down for the count.  Although she did concede that perhaps he was a vampire.  She was a bird shifter and therefore not gifted with the same heightened sense of smell as other shifters.  Vampires could look like everyone else.  And that could explain why he hadn’t shown up on any security cameras either entering or leaving the garage.  Perhaps he glamoured the cameras.  Some vampires developed abilities like that.  Her own boss, Juliet could talk to animals – although it wasn’t something she bragged about and would prefer it kept quiet.

“Thank you for driving me home,” she said tentatively.

He shrugged again, and then threw in a grunt.

Cecile blushed and looked out the window.  She should not find his monosyllabic, rough nature sexy, but dang it, she virtually turned into pudding every time she saw him.  Thankfully, he seemed completely oblivious to her little crush.  It had all started a few months ago when she first saw his hulking form escorting a crocodile shifter out of the building, none too gently.  For some reason, instead of being annoyed at his roughness –
which was her usual reaction
– her inner swan had sighed, her heart went ‘bada-boom’ and her lady parts…
well, the least said about what happened down there, the better
.  And since then, her infatuation had only gotten worse.

But while her swan urged her to make a move on the gorgeous bear, Cecile held back.  She was thirty-eight and with two bad marriages behind her she wasn’t interested in trying for a third. 
And he definitely wasn’t her type.
  She liked neat, thin, sleek swan shifters.  The bear couldn’t be more different to them if he tried.  Although, her swan was keen to point out that perhaps that was a good thing.  She’d married two swans, and both those relationships ended disastrously.  Perhaps a little variation was called for.

Her eyes roved over his body, taking in his stern brow, dark narrowed eyes, magnificently muscled arms covered in tattoos – tribal patterns she believed - and down to his large hands – one sporting a tattoo of a wolf and the other, a heron.

“I like your tattoos,” she said, softly.

Surprise flared in his eyes as he briefly looked at her.  “You do?”

“Yes, particularly the heron and the wolf.  Is there some significance to them?”

He glanced down at his hands and flexed his fingers.  “Foster brother and sister.”

“Oh.  Well, they’re lovely.”

He grunted again, but he seemed a little less tense, and she dared to try and make some small talk.

*

“Fuck off!” howled Diaz as he slammed the door.  His beast roared.

Penny frowned as she sidled up to him.  “Who was that?”

“Ira from across the hall.”

She gaped at him.  “You mean you just told your eighty-two-year-old sweetheart of a neighbor who walks with a cane to ‘f’ off?”

“No, I just told the demented old perv who lives across from me to fuck off.”

Penny folded her arms over her chest.  “And what did he do to deserve that?”

“He asked if you were here and wanted to know if you’d be interested in going on a date with him to his sixty-year college reunion!”  He was shouting by the end because the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

“They have sixty-year reunions?  Wouldn’t attendance be really…”

“You’re missing the point!” he snarled as his jaguar clawed to get out and rip the old human a new one. 
Or a new everything.

Penny smirked.  “You’re overreacting.  He probably just wanted an escort.”

“No, you didn’t see the leer on his face.”  Ira definitely had lascivious intentions towards the penguin that would probably match Diaz’s in their dirtiness.

She rolled her eyes and walked away, chuckling.

“Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he’s not a man!  They prescribe Viagra like it’s fucking candy these days!”

Her peals of laughter could be heard throughout the entire building.

*

Cecile woke up, choking.  The air burned her eyes.  Her bird squawked in terror.  She tried to speak but smoke clogged her throat.  She felt herself being lifted.  Familiar, strong arms held her close.

“I’ve got you,” rumbled the brusque, yet soothing voice.

She clutched at his shoulders, closing her eyes, gritting her teeth as she felt flames licking at her body.  He was moving fast through her house, and soon enough she felt the cool breeze of the night air caressing her heated skin.

“You’re safe now,” he muttered.

She dared a peek and saw his stony face staring down at her.  The buzz of cops and firefighters sounded around them.  “What happened?” she gasped.

“Fire in your house.”  He glared at the offending house.  “Don’t know why.”

A crash sounded, and a firefighter yelled at everyone to get back.  Boris took some steps back as the second floor of her house collapsed.

She splayed her hands on his skin, finally noticing that he was once again naked.  Dark brown hair dusted his magnificent chest, as well as a few more tattoos.  In spite of her terror, her agitated beast took a moment to enjoy her position.  He must have shifted to his bear to run into the house and save her.

“Saving my life is starting to be a habit,” she said, sadly.

He grunted and then nodded at the ambulance.  “This time, no argument.”

*

The cashier tried not to look at the gun as her hands shook.

“Hurry up!” snapped the robber.

Maria blinked back tears. 
Why had she taken this dumb job?
  She should have just taken the money for college from her boyfriend when he offered it.  But no, she had to be independent and a modern woman. 
Humph
.  Carlos had tried to forbid her from taking a night job at a Speed-E-Mart, but she just laughed and said it would be fine.  The worst part about getting killed in a robbery over sixty-three dollars?  The fact that it proved Carlos right.

“Never fear!  Wolfman is here!”

Maria gasped as a man in a black costume with a wolf symbol on his chest appeared from behind the stand of chips and dips.  His face was partially obscured behind a mask, and his cape appeared to be twisted into a knot, but he was grinning.  At least, he was until the robber, startled by his appearance and proclamation, spun, shot the gun, narrowly missing Wolfman and hit the giant Smushee machine.

Cold, blue, icy drink shot out of it, smashing into Wolfman and sending him careening into the chips and dips display, which knocked over the popcorn, which knocked over the candy and so on.

Maria yelped and dropped to the ground on hearing the gun.  She cringed holding her hands, still clutching the money over her head.

Her heart almost stopped as the robber jumped over the counter and grabbed the money out of her hand.  She gladly let it go and was relieved when she heard the beep of the door as he left.

Tentatively opening her eyes, she got up and peeked over the counter, finding Wolfman trying to stem the flood of the Smushee machine without much success.

“Almost got it,” he said with an effort before a big blast hit him in the chest.

That’s it.
  As soon as she got home, she was going to beg Carlos to give her the money for college.

*

Penny slipped on her sunglasses.  Diaz was just overreacting.  It was cute really, him being all grumpy and jealous.

Men were not looking at her any more than usual.  She flung her skates over her shoulder and started a slow amble to work.  Usually, she liked to skate, but her ankle was still a little sore from when she went over on it slamming into Big Bertha at her last roller derby game.  They won, so it was worth it, but she was trying to take it easy.

Course, Diaz had been all paranoid and grouchy, insisting she stay home from work because of her apparent newfound popularity with men. 
Barf to that
.  She relied on her tips from her waitressing job.  Besides, if he really wanted her to stay home, he should have objected while she was turning his alarm off and sneaking out of his apartment.

Her penguin clucked in disapproval, but Penny shrugged and grinned.  She was sure he’d find a way to punish her for her naughty antics.  Just like after the time she pilfered his bathing suit at her sister’s pool party.  She didn’t expect him just to walk around naked and nonchalant like there was nothing wrong.  But when her grandma fainted –
with what Penny suspected was girly delight
– it had been worth it.  The blush extended over his
whole
body.

Oh, it was a beautiful day, she had a gorgeous hunk in her life and every couple of weeks she got to pulverize a bunch of people on skates.  Penny was so busy enjoying life that the bag coming down over her head and being manhandled into a van came as a complete surprise.  She did take a moment to chastise her inner animal. 
Some guard penguin you are!