Bodyguard (Shifters Unbound #2.5) (13 page)

"Son," Sean said, in an almost kind voice.
"You wouldn't have time to let it worry you."

Pablo was not blind to the fact that these
guys were serious. Somehow, they'd gotten past his guards. He had
no doubt that if he killed them, three more Shifters would visit
him in the night. Collars or no Collars, laws or no laws, they knew
their stuff.

He took his hand all the way off the gun and
pushed the pistol it aside, leaving it close enough to grab if he
needed to, but showing that he'd be happy to settle this without
violence. Which he was. Julio had been stupid, and even Pablo
hadn't realized that the bitch had the entire Austin Shiftertown
backing her up. Julio so needed to learn to do his research
first.

Pablo had been researching Elizabeth Chapman
ever since Julio had gotten himself arrested for trying to rob her.
He'd run into difficulty trying to discover specifics about her
past, but he'd find out. He was very close.

"I don't have time for a war," Pablo said in
a reasonable tone. "And I'm thinking neither do you. My brother is
an idiot, but I have some good lawyers, and maybe I can get him out
of this. But it will be bad for my business if your friends insist
on testifying."

"Your business really isn't our concern,"
Sean said. "Don't you sell drugs and hurt people? Not a business we
want in our town."

Pablo's business was a little more
sophisticated than that, but he wasn't going to argue the
point.

"How about this?" he asked. "Your friend gets
a little forgetful in the witness box, my lawyers help my brother,
and we call it quits? Your friend stays in her business in SoCo, I
stay in mine here, and we never see each other again."

The Shifters said nothing. They didn't look
at one another, but Pablo got the feeling they were discussing it
amongst themselves, with that nonverbal communication animals were
supposed to have.

The one called Dylan was the first to speak.
"We want you out of our town, Pablo Marquez. And you'll go."

He looked straight into Pablo's eyes. Pablo,
having grown up in the back streets of almost every city in the
south, had learned to meet his opponent's challenging stare and
then look away casually, almost derisively, as though he wasn't
concerned about winning the staring contest.

But he couldn't look away from Dylan. Pablo
wanted to, but Dylan's blue-white stare would not let him go. He
saw, behind Dylan, Sean relaxed, unworried. They had no doubt that
Pablo would obey Dylan--if not now, then eventually.

"Why don't you go on out of here?" Pablo
said, pretending nonchalance. "I'll make sure my boys don't get
trigger happy so you make it to your car. But I can't guarantee it,
so watch yourselves."

The Shifters didn't like being dismissed.
Well, too bad. Pablo wasn't going to wet himself for them. He had
his own plans. The next time they met, he wouldn't be caught so
unprepared.

They faded away. Pablo wasn't sure how they
did it, but one minute the three Shifters were in the shadows of
his office; the next, they were gone.

He snapped an order to the man who was
supposed to guard the door and got no response. Gun in hand, Pablo
made his way to the front door and peered outside. The darkening
street showed no one, not his guards, not retreating Shifters, not
the mechanics who ostensibly worked in his body shop. All was
silence, but for the few bits of trash that drifted across the
pavement on a hot Texas wind.

* * * * *

Chapter Eleven

The bar Liam managed opened for business that
night, but none of the Shifters went to work. Ronan explained that
the human government had ruled that Shifters did not have to work
on Sundays, a concession to the Shifters' request that they be able
to continue their religious observances after taking the Collars.
Ronan related this with a laugh, because, he said, Shifters didn't
have a designated religious day or a set time for prayer. All days
were religious to them; any time and place fine for meditation and
prayer.

An interesting take on the matter, Elizabeth
thought.

Apparently Shifters used the day off to build
bonfires in the common land between the backs of their houses, cook
out, and let the kids run around in both human and animal form.

Sean Morrissey, minus sword and in a plain
T-shirt, was grilling alongside his brother Liam, the two of them
arguing about how best to cook the steaks. Ellison and the trackers
lounged nearby, beers in hand, though Spike with his black eye
wasn't getting too close to Liam.

Cherie and Mabel were laughing together in
the age-old manner of twenty-something girls aware that men eyed
them, but not deigning to notice. Olaf romped around in his bear
cub form with wolf cubs and wildcat cubs.

The tall, blonde Glory sat on her porch, long
legs crossed, in a tight, leopard-print pantsuit, not far from
Dylan, who quietly drank beer from a dark bottle. With them were
Kim and little Katriona and the pregnant Andrea.

Elizabeth eyed them a little shyly. They were
all so comfortable with each other, including Kim, who was human,
an outsider. Mabel carried on as though she'd lived here all her
life, but then, that was Mabel. Elizabeth had always been the
cautious one.

Ronan moved close to her. "I know."

Elizabeth looked up in surprise. "Know
what?"

He motioned to the scene around them. "It's
overwhelming. You don't know who to get close to, who to talk to.
You want to be accepted, but it's a little scary with all those
eyes looking at you. You don't want to say the wrong thing to the
wrong person."

"Exactly. Are you reading my mind or
something?"

"Your body language." Ronan's warm hand
rested on the small of her back. "And it's how I felt when I first
moved in."

"You?" Elizabeth studied the towering man,
with his round, tight shoulders in his T-shirt. "You were shy?"

"I'd lived by myself in the Alaskan woods all
my life. Most of my life, anyway. Then I was shoved into a
Shiftertown with all these wolves and wildcats who stared at me all
the time. I'm a big guy, and that makes it worse."

"You stand out." Elizabeth snaked her arm
around his waist. "Hard to miss."

"You got that right."

"And then you adopted a bunch of cubs." She
shook her head in mock dismay as they strolled away from Glory's
house. "What were you thinking?"

"I ask myself that sometimes."

Elizabeth hooked her fingers through his belt
loop, liking how the loop seemed to be made for her fingers. "So
where do you go when you want to be alone? Really alone?"

"Around here? It's tough. I've got the Den,
but that's always being invaded. But there are some caves out west
of town, down on the riverbank. Not many people know about them. I
go out there, sometimes. Not the same as the deep woods, but it can
be peaceful."

"Sounds nice," Elizabeth said wistfully. "I
never have time to go to places like that."

"I'll take you. You'll make time."

"Then you won't be by yourself. I thought
that was the point."

They'd cleared the crowd and were now
relatively isolated under tall Texas oak trees. Ronan stopped. "I
won't mind being alone there with you."

Elizabeth let go of his belt loop and turned
to face him. It felt right to put her hands on his waist, to feel
the warmth of his big body through her fingertips.

Ronan's eyes went dark. "I'm going to kiss
you, Elizabeth," he said, a growl in his voice. "I've been dying to
kiss you all day."

"Yeah? What stopped you?"

"Human gang leaders and too many nosy
Shifters."

"There aren't any around right now." Trees
screened them from the Shifter gathering and the bonfires'
glows.

For answer, Ronan leaned to her, his breath
touching her mouth, his lips following. He kissed her softly, as
though afraid he'd break her, all the while holding her with hands
so strong.

Elizabeth pushed up on tiptoes to reach him.
"You're so tall," she whispered. "Can't you shrink a little?"

Ronan's smile warmed his eyes as he slid his
arm behind her buttocks and lifted her off her feet.

He held her securely in powerful arms, his
chest like a wall. Elizabeth wrapped her legs around his waist,
arms around his back. Much, much better.

They were face to face. Ronan brushed his
lips to the corner of her mouth, then licked there. "I'm not used
to kissing humans," he said. "Hell, I don't kiss many Shifters. I
don't want to hurt you," he finished, brow furrowing.

She nuzzled his cheek, liking the roughness
of his whiskers. She kissed his nose where it had been broken. "I'm
pretty resilient."

He lost his smile. "No, you're not. You're so
vulnerable. Elizabeth, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not killing that idiot with the gun and
then taking you back to Alaska with me. It's beautiful there. I had
a cabin in the woods, right next to this stream that roars all the
time--even in the winter you can hear it gurgling under the ice.
It's an amazing place. You'd love it."

"But they forced you out, didn't they?"
Elizabeth asked softly. "That's why you're here."

"I got rounded up when Shifters were outed
twenty years ago. A couple of people knew there was a Shifter
living back in the woods, and one told the police." He sighed. "I'd
counted them as friends, but one sniff of a reward for Shifters . .
."

"I'm so sorry." Elizabeth's fury rose for
whoever had betrayed him. She remembered the witch hunts for
Shifters twenty years ago, though she'd been only a kid at the
time, with too many problems of her own to pay much attention. When
humans had realized that shapeshifters were real and living among
them, they'd reacted with paranoia. Instead of trying to understand
the Shifters, they'd rounded them up, killed some, done experiments
on others, confined them, slapped Collars on them to control their
violence, and heavily restricted them. Only because of the actions
of some equal rights groups were Shifters allowed to live at
all.

How anyone could have handed over this
wonderful, warmhearted man to be locked away, far from his home,
Elizabeth didn't understand. Ronan craved solitude but gladly gave
it up to help those in need, with no other incentive than he felt
bad for them. She'd learned, the hard way, the difference between
people who practiced charity to look good and the people who were
truly caring.

"I told you, Ronan," she said. "You're one of
the good ones."

"Aw. Bet you say that to all the bears."

"Just the big wrestler ones I want to
kiss."

"Shut up and kiss me, then."

Ronan held her in arms that never moved as
their mouths met, touched, explored. Elizabeth's body heated, and
her limbs relaxed with longing.

She wanted to be alone with him, and she
wanted to make love to him.

The thought stunned her. Elizabeth broke the
kiss, her face an inch from his, their breaths tangling. But then,
maybe it wasn't so astonishing. She wanted to be alone with him, so
see his body bare for her, to feel his weight on her as he made
love to her. Ronan made a noise like a growl, his eyes holding a
hunger that matched her own.

They heard the kids playing, Olaf's small
roar as he ran with the other cubs, Rebecca admonishing, "Stay
close to the porch, Olaf."

Ronan touched his forehead to hers. "No one
will be at the house," he said.

Elizabeth nodded, her need for him
overwhelming. Ronan unlocked her legs from around him and slid her
to her feet. She felt the hardness of him on the way down, and her
eyes widened. Ronan was a big guy, and she'd heard rumors about
Shifters. Knowing she'd soon see whether they were true made her
shiver in excitement.

They walked away from the crowd, hand in
hand, Elizabeth's heart beating in time with their swift pace. She
liked this, the two of them wanting the same thing, united in their
unspoken longing. They needed privacy for it, but they also knew
that they could return to friends and family anytime they
liked.

Ronan's house was dark, but he didn't take
Elizabeth inside. Instead, he led her down the side path to the
Den.

When he turned on the light, Elizabeth saw
that this was a decidedly masculine hangout. The big room contained
a television, kitchenette with a big refrigerator--probably
well-stocked with beer--shelves stacked with games, a couple of
card tables, and a gigantic bed covered with an equally gigantic
quilt.

Ronan swept up Elizabeth and carried her,
romance-style, to the bed. He followed her down to the mattress and
lay on his side next to her, eyes dark. He ran his hand down her
arm, ending by cradling her hip.

"I thought it was the mate-claim making me
crazy," he said. "Starting the mating frenzy. But it's just you."
He released her hip and trailed his fingers up her torso, between
her breasts. "You're amazing. And I want to see that tattoo."

He hooked his fingers on the neckline of her
shirt, pulling it down a little to bare the butterfly that ran
along her collarbone. Elizabeth stilled under Ronan's touch, loving
the warm need that filled her, a kind she'd never felt before. She
wanted to wrap herself around him and pull him down to her, kiss
him until her cravings were fulfilled. But she remained motionless,
marveling in the light brush of his fingertips on her skin.

Ronan traced the butterfly once with his
fingers, then leaned down and traced it with his tongue. Elizabeth
closed her eyes, body loosening, surrendering.

A crazed roar had her nearly flying up out of
the bed, her tension returning in a rush. Ronan swung his legs
around and came to his feet faster than Elizabeth would have
guessed such a big man could move.

The roar came again. Loud, deep, animal.
Ronan tore open the door and ran into the yard, peeling off his
T-shirt as he went. His jeans followed, boots flying. Elizabeth
experienced one glorious instant seeing him tall and naked in the
moonlight, before his limbs distorted, and the space between house
and Den filled with Kodiak bear.