Protector's Mate (2 page)

As he cruised through the quiet night streets, he spotted the same green truck that had tailed him to the airport. At first he’d thought he was being paranoid, but this was too much of a coincidence. When he neared the upcoming yellow light, instead of slowing down, he flipped a sharp U-turn into the parallel two-lane road.

Felicia jerked awake with a gasp and grabbed her armrest. A few horns blared and the spike of adrenaline that rolled off her was sharp and acidic. Thanks to the close confines of the vehicle and his extrasensory abilities, he could hear the thump of her erratic heartbeat. “What’s going on?”

“I think we’re being followed.”

She whipped her head around.

In the rearview mirror he watched the green truck jump the median and swerve into their lane. Lately both he and Knox suspected someone from the new pack they’d taken over was plotting to cause dissension among their ranks. Knox had recently mated with a vampire—something rare for a shifter to do, especially an Alpha—so all the warriors had been on edge lately. Especially since they’d had to kick out one of their own when he tried to attack Knox’s new mate. While Alaric couldn’t be sure this was related, he had no way of knowing that it wasn’t. Hell, it could just be a rogue vampire or rogue werewolf out for blood, but he didn’t think so. Alaric wasn’t easy prey and the rogue beasts from both species liked easy hunts.

As the truck gained ground, he switched lanes and pulled down a side street.

“Why would someone be following us?” Despite the tension he scented rolling off her, her voice was calm.

Before he could answer, the back window exploded in a shower of raining glass. Metallic pings ricocheted off the inside of the vehicle.

“Get down!” he shouted.

A slight trail of fear trickled off her as she unstrapped her seat belt and scooted lower in her seat but she didn’t panic. “Do you have any weapons?”

“Yes but they’re in the back—”

Without pause, she dove into the second seat with a speed that impressed him. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and swerved down another one-way side street. For a moment they lost their tail and the only sound was the whistling of the wind rushing through the blown-out window. He caught sight of her in the rearview mirror digging through his bag of weapons. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like? You want to let some crazy human hunters try to kill us? I’m going to blow out their tires.”

As a shifter, from a young age she’d have been trained like all of their kind to use weapons, but he didn’t like the thought of her hanging out the window making herself a target. “I don’t think they’re human, Felicia.”

Understanding crossed her face as she met his gaze in the mirror. If it wasn’t humans hunting them—and few even knew of their existence so he doubted it was them—it would be someone of the supernatural variety and they’d be more than capable of tracking and killing them. It was one of the reasons the tribe leaders from the six most powerful vampire covens and six of the strongest werewolf Alphas in North America would be gathering soon to discuss a treaty between their kinds. Too many rogue vampires and rogue shifters without tribe leaders or Alphas were wreaking havoc in the human world. Taking victims whenever they felt like it. Since there wasn’t a formal organization to mete out justice to offenders, if paranormal beings didn’t belong to a group and they hurt humans, there was no one to bring them to justice. If the shifters and vamps could come to an agreement and actually work together, everyone would be held accountable for their actions, especially loners.

But Alaric knew a few blown tires wouldn’t slow down either shifters or vamps. It would only enrage them. Not to mention they’d be smart enough to be packing silver-lined bullets, which could be fatal to shifters.

Under normal circumstances he’d stay and fight but he couldn’t risk it. Not with Felicia. Not when she was finally under his protection. As the headlights appeared in his mirror again, he did the only thing he could.

“Hold on,” he said through gritted teeth.

The needle on the speedometer spiked sharply as he pressed on the gas. When he’d put enough distance between them, he took his foot off the accelerator, slightly depressed the brakes and yanked the wheel.

Everything in the vehicle shifted at once.

Felicia let out a startled cry as she slammed against the door, but he didn’t glance back at her. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Mercifully, the SUV didn’t flip when he pulled it into a one-eighty spin. The engine sputtered and growled as he hit the gas again.

“Are you playing chicken with them?” Now her voice rose, panic clear in every syllable.

He didn’t answer. They’d survive a crash. Sure, they might suffer a few broken bones and internal injuries but they’d heal quickly. It was a calculated risk but he needed to slow down their pursuers and get her to safety. Racing all over Huntsville was a surefire way to get noticed by the human cops, something they couldn’t afford.

Protect Felicia.

It was all that mattered.

The silhouettes of the driver and passenger were becoming more visible. Two males, and possibly a third person in the backseat. He couldn’t be sure. Might be a shadow.

The truck wavered and jerked back and forth, but it didn’t alter its path. Alaric braced himself for impact. If the other driver didn’t back down, this was going to be painful. He’d broken more bones than he could remember over the past five centuries, but it still hurt every time.

As he increased his speed, the truck weaved erratically.

“Strap in, Felicia,” he ground out. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but there was no other way.

All his muscles tensed. As he prepared for the impact, the truck swerved off the road at the last second. Glass and metal crunched behind them as the vehicle rammed into a telephone pole. With his extrasensory abilities he heard the pole creak dangerously as it cracked and fell onto the truck, but Alaric didn’t pause in his escape.

“What the hell is going on?” Felicia demanded as he turned back onto a main street. At least she sounded more annoyed than scared.

Even though his Alpha had recently taken a vampire as a mate, he wasn’t sure who would be coming after them right now. Some of the new pack members might not like their new female Alpha, but making a move like this against him made no sense. Alaric wasn’t on pack business at the moment. And hurting him or Felicia wouldn’t affect the upcoming formal treaty between vampires and shifters, which was barely a couple months away. It would only solidify the need for it. He didn’t have time to go into all the possibilities though. “Grab what you need from your bag.
Necessities
only. I’m going to find a safe place to park then we’re shifting.” It would be harder to track them that way. He could go home to the protection of his pack, but he wanted Felicia to himself for a while. He’d already run it by Knox and his Alpha had given him the okay.

She’d left Huntsville because of her former Alpha and he planned to show her that his pack was different. That she could have a different kind of life than the one she’d run from. Her grace under fire tonight had only solidified how tough she was. She might have worked overseas in a war zone but it hadn’t been in a military capacity. Her reactions tonight had been purely instinctive. Whether she realized it or not, her inner wolf had known they needed protecting and had taken over.

Unfortunately he couldn’t get a read on her. She’d left Afghanistan without telling him, completely cutting him off as if he meant
nothing
to her. As if their friendship wasn’t as important to her as it was to him. That cut bone deep. He might want her with a fierceness that stunned him, but it didn’t mean she felt the same. A dull throb spread across his chest at the thought that she might never feel the pull that he did. If that was true…he shook his head. He couldn’t even think about that possibility.

Chapter Two

Felicia’s heart beat an erratic tattoo against her chest. She’d been under fire in Jalalabad more than a few times before, but she’d never imagined experiencing an attack on the streets of Huntsville. That was just too surreal. It didn’t matter that she could survive almost anything— explosions and gunfire scared the crap out of her. Even though she had about a million questions for Alaric it was obvious he didn’t plan to answer any of them at the moment. Stubborn male.

She’d love nothing more than to drag the answers out of him but now wasn’t the time. She fished out her wallet, passport, a pair of pants, a sweater and one pair of sandals. Everything else was replaceable. She’d shipped most of her stuff back weeks ago to a human friend so she could travel light. At the moment she was thankful she’d made that decision.

Alaric steered into the dimly lit, nearly deserted parking lot of a closed supermarket and jumped from the vehicle. She followed him and watched as he grabbed a small backpack from the back—full of his weapons—then took her small bundle of clothes and shoved them inside. For a brief moment he trained that hot gaze on her and she could feel herself being swallowed up by his dark, soul-searching eyes. She knew his look didn’t mean anything, that it was all in her head, but for a moment she imagined what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a heated glance from him.

He quickly looked away and scanned the area around them. “You need to stay close to me. We’re going to have to run through a few residential neighborhoods, but it’s late so we should be able to blend in.” Despite his unreadable expression, his commanding voice had a soothing effect on her.

She nodded but her throat seized as he started stripping down in front of her. Just took off his clothes like it was no big deal. When he bared his taut, muscular chest, she averted her gaze. Most shifters didn’t care about nudity but she was from a different generation. As far as she knew Alaric was almost five hundred years old and, well, he was a man. It didn’t seem to matter what species they were, males didn’t care about showing off their stuff.

But she did.

Turning her back to him, she slipped off her boots and then forced herself to undergo the change. She hated to ruin her clothes, but she was
not
stripping in front of him. Her cargo pants and T-shirt ripped as her bones broke and shifted. The pain rushed over her like she’d been flattened by a truck but, as always, it was fleeting. Once her ligaments and tendons realigned, the sudden euphoric charge nearly overwhelmed her. Everything was clearer. Smells and sounds were sharper. The night air rushed over her newly sprouted fur as she surveyed her surroundings.

A cold nose nudged her in the side. She turned to find herself looking at a hulking gray wolf. He was at least a hundred and thirty pounds of pure muscle. With strong back legs and a broad chest, she felt dwarfed next to him. She was already small for a shifter but next to him, she felt absolutely puny.

A weak mongrel.
How many times had she been reminded of that growing up?

She shook away her insecurities and fell behind him as he darted down an alley toward a quiet neighborhood. Her muscles strained and stretched as they raced through the streets and darted in and out of backyards. She guessed that if any humans saw them he’d look pretty strange carrying a pack in his mouth. At least it was night and the asphalt wasn’t hot against her paws. It seemed they ran forever, though she was sure barely an hour had passed by the time they stopped at the back door of a two-story brick house in a cozy middle-class neighborhood.

Before she had time to prepare herself, he shifted to his human form. Then he simply stood there in all his naked glory staring at her.
Waiting.
Lord, why did he have to look so good? There was no fat on the man. Taut skin stretched across his broad, muscular chest and shoulders. His arms looked like they were chiseled from stone, and she wanted to drool at the sight of what was between his massive legs.

She couldn’t help it. She turned away from him as she underwent the change. Somehow she managed to stifle a cry as her bones shifted back into place. Her heart raced wildly and she could feel his gaze burning into her naked back. Staring at and assessing her. No doubt with a critical eye. Where he was built like a Greek god, she was way too skinny for a shifter. That’s what the women of her pack had constantly told her growing up. She’d more or less grown into her body but her breasts were still pretty nonexistent. On more than one occasion Lamont had told her she was lucky he’d even offered for her. What wolf would want someone like her?

A shifter like Alaric could have any female he wanted. Hell, he probably had a new, stacked she-wolf in his bed every week. Something akin to jealousy jumped in her gut at the thought of him with a female, but she ignored it. She didn’t care who he slept with, and it was none of her business anyway.

“Here.” He reached over her shoulder and gave her one of his T-shirts.

She quickly tugged it over her head and was thankful when it fell to midthigh. His spicy scent enveloped her, all earthy and male and way too intoxicating. For the first time in years she felt like that awkward nineteen-year-old girl with a silly crush. How many nights had she lain awake thinking about him after their first meeting? His Alpha had sent Alaric to visit her pack for something since they were in neighboring territories at the time and she’d been absolutely smitten by the sexy wolf. It was embarrassing to even remember it.

Relief poured over her when she heard the door unlock then open. “This is it. We’ll bunk down here for the night,” he murmured, too close for comfort.

His deep voice rolled over her skin like a soft breeze. She turned and tried to brush past him, but he blocked her. Refusing to make eye contact, she glanced down but wished she hadn’t. His erection stood tall, thick and proud against his abdomen.

An answering rush of need burned low inside her. She knew his reaction wasn’t to her, but the result of the adrenaline rush they’d just experienced. After working in a war zone, she understood that it had that effect on some people, especially males.