A Tiger's Destiny (Tiger Protectors Book 3) (3 page)

But she made him very curious for some reason.

“Really? You don’t strike me as the chatty type,” she said, lowering the book slowly and observing him suspiciously.

“Hey, can’t judge a book by its cover, right?” Kel joked shamelessly as he shrugged.

At first, Sofia winced at the painfully ridiculous remark. Then a smile slowly crept up the side of her mouth as she shook her head, as if unable to help herself.

Oddly enough, it was the first time he’d seen her smile like that since they had been introduced. As she did, her whole face and demeanor seemed to brighten, like a break in a patch of dark clouds, letting a single ray of sunlight through.

Kel could tell it had been a long time since she’d smiled.

He wanted to see it again and again.

Just as he was about to remark on her affinity for bad jokes, Kel noticed several black dots trailing behind the car. As he watched, the dots got closer, and he could make out four vehicles, all pitch black, fast approaching.

Not normal, given the fairly abandoned stretch of highway they were now on. Aside from passing the odd semi truck here and there, nobody was headed north this time of year and at this time of day.

Kel accelerated the heavy SUV, increasing their speed to a little over ninety MPH, but the cars behind them only quickened their pace in order to overtake them.

Dammit, they were going to have company.

So much for a quiet drive.

He looked at the RPMs of the engine and quickly realized their armored, luxury SUV, laden with supplies for their trip, probably wasn’t going to be able to do more than a hundred or a hundred and ten on this road. And at that speed, they’d be more likely to get killed by a bump or pothole than pursuers. And even if they didn’t, Kel could start to make out the vehicles following them better and saw they would be faster and more nimble.

The only option now was prepare for the fight.

“Buckle your seatbelt,” Kel instructed Sofia.

“Why? Planning on crashing anytime soon?”

“Just do it,” he said more sharply, his head racing with preparations. He didn’t have time for explanations.

Sofia glared at him cautiously but did as he asked. As she did so, Kel reached behind him to the passenger seats (which was made much easier by his incredibly long arms) and lifted, revealing a foam-padded case with firearms inside.

Good, just as he’d asked for.

He pulled a pistol and a small assault rifle from the pad and checked both to ensure they were loaded as he held the wheel with his knees.

At that, Sofia looked up with worry and shock. “What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“It appears someone saw us leave the mansion,” Kel said as he methodically stashed the pistol in the cup holders between them, along with extra magazines from the stockpile behind them.

“What do they want?”

“You,” he said, pulling back the metal lever on the assault rifle and chambering the first round.

In the rearview mirror, he could make out the cars perfectly now—two sedans and two smaller SUVs, all black with dark-tinted glass. He couldn’t make out how many passengers, but he was more than willing to bet they were all loaded and armed to the teeth. They were driving side by side, two deep on the double-lane highway, and they were almost on top of them now.

Kel backed off on the accelerator, bringing them to sixty MPH, and turned on the cruise control.

Time to get down to business.

“Hold the wheel for me,” he said as he pressed a button for his window to roll down.

“What? But I—”

“Please, I need your help right now.”

She did so, reaching over and holding the steering wheel steady as Kel leaned out the window and looked behind them. They were close enough he could see the fake license plates on the front bumpers. Now that they were doing sixty, they would be within shooting range in seconds.

Which was why Kel wasn’t going to wait for them to take the first shot.

He fired three shots at the lead sedan on the right side of the road, aiming for the driver, the deafening sound of the gun dissipating into the wilderness surrounding them. But instead of the sound of glass breaking, the bullets stopped as they hit the windshield with a muted
thump, thump, thump
, making white pockmarks upon impact.

Dammit, their vehicles were custom outfitted, too. Just splendid.

In perfect unison, the four vehicles slid behind each other into a line, with one of the black SUVs taking the lead. Then all at the same time, they accelerated toward them.

Kel fired two more shots at the car in front, but the bullets ricocheted off the hardened, bulletproof surfaces.

These weren’t your everyday kidnappers. Not by a long shot.

Until they opened a window or showed him their tires, he was just wasting bullets at this range and on an enemy that had him outnumbered and outgunned.

He’d have to outdrive them for now.

Kel leaned back into the car and took the wheel, accelerating. But just as he did, their vehicle lurched forward to the sound of metal scraping on metal. In his rearview mirror, Kel could see the lead SUV ramming into the back of their own. As it did, Kel had to hold the wheel as the tires lost traction and slipped on the cold asphalt.

As he tried to accelerate out of the SUV’s range, two cars approached closer, one close on their left and the other behind them to the right. Kel saw the windows of the sedan next to him lower, revealing men in the front and back seats with guns pointed at them.

In an instant, the men opened fire on Kel’s side of the car, aiming for the driver’s seat. Everywhere bullets hailed upon the left, popping and scraping and crashing into the armored metal siding and bulletproof windows.

But even though they weren’t using particularly high-caliber guns, even thick bulletproof glass could be punctured after sustained fire.

“Get down,” Kel yelled above the deafening cacophony of gunfire as it peppered their car.

Sofia ducked down and put her hands over her head but otherwise remained surprisingly composed. As she did, Kel heard a loud thump at the back of the car and looked over to the black sedan on their right side.

On the side of their car, toward the back, was a large harpoon that had struck through the rear passenger door, anchored by a heavy steel cable that trailed to the window of the black sedan.

It was obvious they were here to take Sofia. Had they been trying to assassinate her, they would have just started using explosives by now. But instead, they were trying to take out the driver and then reel their car in like a three-ton sturgeon.

Little did they know they were dealing with a catch far deadlier than they could have ever expected.

The gunfire ebbed for a moment as the enemy’s guns ran out of ammunition and they reloaded. By now, Kel’s driver-side window was a foggy white sheet covered with black marks, the bulletproof glass all but spent. With a swift motion, Kel punched through the polycarbonate and took aim with his gun. He fired four shots, two at the front and two at the back, to take out the men firing at them. Then he jerked on the steering wheel, ramming it into the car to the left. It pushed off, creating enough space so Kel could see their tires, and with trained precision, he fired again, letting the bullets rip into the front and then rear passenger-side tires of the sedan.

Both blew out, and the vehicle careened off the road, catching the asphalt on the shoulder and rolling several times. Even as their cars zoomed past, he could hear the sound of metal crunching.

One down. Three to go.

T
his wasn’t
how Sofia had expected this morning to go.

Being forced out of bed? She was used to that. Being sent on a trip to nowhere with someone she’d never met? That could be handled. But being shot at while her newly appointed guardian-for-hire singlehandedly took on an armed blockade of vehicles full of people that were after her? That was a new one for the record books.

Sofia had seen some crazy stuff in her life, but this took the cake.

She tried to stay low as more bullets pummeled the back and sides of the SUV, but she hated feeling helpless more than she hated being in danger, so she looked up to see the Kel at the wheel.

“What’s the plan now?” Sofia said. She could hear their engine rumble as it sped down the highway, still pursued by three black cars.

For a moment, he looked down at her, those bright-blue eyes calculating, as if his mind was going a mile a minute. The more she was around this guy, the more she realized this wasn’t some brawny, well-trained thug.

“I’ll need you to hold the wheel for me again, but stay as low as you can,” he said, his voice calmer, asking for her help instead of demanding it.

Sofia just nodded in reply and reached an arm over to hold the wheel. It jerked in her hands as the car behind them smashed into their rear bumper, and she reached out both hands to hold it with all her strength so they didn’t go careening off the side of the road.

As she did, Kel unbuckled his seatbelt, grabbed the pistol he’d stowed in the cup holder at his side, and leaned past her, his long body coming over her to aim his gun out the window.

For a moment, she felt tight muscle brush her shoulder and back, and her skin tingled with unfamiliar sensations that sent a warm chill down her spine. But before she had time to process it, she heard the
pop, pop, pop
of the pistol in Kel’s hand, followed by a loud
twang
.

Their car lurched forward, and Kel slid back into his seat. Sofia released the wheel and looked over her shoulder to see that the cable that was attached to the harpoon stuck in their car had been severed.

Even for someone as unfamiliar with guns as her, Sofia was smart enough to know it was a hell of a shot.

The black sedan was still on their right, and Kel pulled the wheel hard, slamming into their smaller vehicle and sending it flying off the road into an embankment.

It was just them and the two smaller black SUVs now. Both came up behind their car, sticking close to them, but not coming alongside.

“I was hoping to not have to use this, but…” Kel trailed off as he reached back into the secret compartment and pulled out what looked like a grenade.

What else had her godfather packed into this car?

Acting completely normal, Kel pulled the pin on the grenade and held it in his hand for a count of three. For a moment, Sofia was afraid it was going to go off in his hands, when he put his hand out the window and let it roll to the asphalt. She heard it clink a couple times as it rolled on the road, followed immediately by a loud explosion that sent the SUV on their left into the air in a ball of flame.

Sofia turned to look over her shoulder just in time to see the burning vehicle roll to its right, colliding with the other black SUV behind them and sending both crashing over the side of the road, leaving them alone once more on the empty stretch of highway.

Was that just really lucky, or did he
make
that happen?

For a moment, they both just sat there, only the sound of the wind blowing through Kel’s broken window and the car’s engine thrumming to punctuate the silence. Then Kel huffed and rolled his neck around, making it pop a few times.

“Whew. Close one,” he said nonchalantly, as if they’d barely missed a red light, not a high-speed death in the middle of nowhere.

Sofia couldn’t help but stare agape at the huge, muscular man as he held the wheel with one hand and pulled what looked like his coat (from the sheer size of it) from the backseat. He retrieved what looked like a bag of pistachio nuts from the pocket, then tossed the jacket onto her lap.

“Take this. With my window busted, it’ll get cold in here, and I don’t want you freezing to death,” he said as he turned up the heat to max and turned all the vents in her direction.

Sofia hadn’t realized it, but she was fast starting to feel cold from the blast of early winter air. So she wrapped the huge coat around herself, practically swimming in its size but feeling much better.

As she did, Kel put the bag of pistachios in the cup holder next to the pistol, opened it with one hand, and pulled out a handful of nuts.

“So before we go any farther, I’m going to need a little more info,” he said as he cracked a shell between his thumb and forefinger, popped the green nut in his mouth, and discarded the shells in a separate cup holder.

Did he always eat pistachios at odd times?

“What do you mean?” she replied, hoping to keep her secrets to herself.

“Well, for one, you’re a cat shifter. But what
kind
of cat?”

“That’s none of your business,” she replied, noting the way his large hand was able to de-shell a pistachio and pop it into his mouth while never once taking his attention off her or the road.

What other things could a man with that kind of dexterity do with his hands?

“I’d say it definitely
is
my business, considering it’s probably what almost got us killed,” he said.

It had gotten the two most important people in Sofia’s life killed already. Her parents had died keeping her identity safe, and she wasn’t about to go telling a hired hand, no matter how hot or capable he was.

There was still no telling what he’d do.

But for some reason, deep inside, her cat could sense Kel could be trusted. That he had a much bigger role to play in her life than she suspected.

Sofia remained silent as Kel watched her and munched pistachios.

“So assuming it’s
not
that, is there any other reason you can think of that would instigate this sort of response the second you leave your godfather’s place?” Kel asked, moving past his initial subject.

Sofia could tell he still wanted to know, but he was willing to let it lie for the time being.

It was nice to have someone who listened to what she wanted, for the first time in a long time. A person who heard what she needed, not just another heavy hand that imposed their will on her as if she didn’t know what was best for herself.

“Not that I know of. He has been in contact with a lot of people the past couple of weeks, just based on the amount of time he’s on the phone or been out of the house, meeting people. But he’s kept me out of it, so I just assume it’s business-related.”

“Sucks being kept out of the loop, right?” he said with a knowing smirk, giving her the inkling he was no stranger to being ostracized.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just look at me. I don’t exactly blend into your average crowd. Growing up was kind of like that, too, times a hundred. Everyone’s always afraid of what’s different,” he said thoughtfully.

She did, but everything about him that was different was what she liked about him. His height, his light, neutral-colored skin, his pale-blue eyes, and his rippling muscles that spanned every inch of his body and were partially flexed as he held the steering wheel.

She wanted to say something, but just looking at him made her throat dry. Instead, she picked up her book and tried to read to distract herself, but the icy wind from Kel’s open window made her hands too cold, so she put it down and stuffed her hands back into the oversized coat pockets.

“So all that fancy driving back there… How did you learn to do that?” she asked, better able to keep her mind off the cold when they were talking.

For the next little while, Kel shared stories of the bodyguard jobs he’d worked in the past. Though he left out any details of who he’d worked for, Sofia was amazed at the sorts of situations he’d been able to get himself, and his clients, out of.

Before long, Kel pulled off the highway onto a long, empty-looking dirt road. After another twenty or so minutes, they pulled up to a small, quaint-looking two-story house.

“This is it, from the looks of it,” Kel said as he got out of the car and took a look around.

Aside from a couple trees in the front and back, there were only a few nearby hills in the distance and miles upon miles of flat, brown grassland marked with old, broken-down wooden fences. The house itself was probably quite old but seemed to have been painted in the past few years. If Sofia had to, she would guess this had been a ranch or something, based on the dilapidated barn a hundred yards or so from the house.

Sofia unbuckled her seatbelt and was about to get out when the door was swung open for her.

“Let’s get you inside. I’ll unpack the car and then park it in the shed over there so nobody sees it,” he said, motioning to a small garage that stood next to the house but separate from it.

She followed Kel as he took a large box from the back of the car and walked up a small set of stairs onto the front porch. Still holding the box with one arm, he unlocked the house and opened the door.

Inside was similarly quaint. It was furnished with couches and chairs with faded flower patterns that were in otherwise good condition. The living room had a TV and a fireplace, and the kitchen had all the basics one required.

It was like a rental house that nobody had lived in for years yet still was kept clean and tidy. A complete enigma.

Kind of like the both of them.

“Go ahead and choose a room. I’ll be right back with your stuff, and we’ll have lunch,” Kel said, closing the door behind him. She could hear his heavy boots as he walked down the steps and back to the car.

Sofia wondered if they were really going to be safe. But as long as the car was hidden, how would anybody know they were out here?

And then she realized the same person who’d made her jaguar purr was going to be staying with her.

It was going to be just the two of them, all alone in this small house in the middle of nowhere.

She was going to have to keep her hormones in check or someone was going to get pounced… by her.

A
s Sofia got settled in
, Kel brought in anything he thought they might need from the SUV, then hid it in the shed in case any passers-by came looking for them. The last thing he wanted sitting out front was a bullet-ridden Escalade that had their calling card all over it.

But given just how remote this place was, Kel was fairly certain they were safe from any detection for the time being.

Assuming his employer and his butler were still the only two people that knew about this, which he had his doubts about. But the best he could do was just be prepared.

After getting the things inside, which mostly consisted of food and emergency supplies, Kel spent some time setting up a detection perimeter around the house while it was still light outside. He placed several sensors at even intervals around that would warn him of intruders, and a half-mile down the road, he placed a remote camera atop a tree stump that would automatically turn on if it detected any motion and send the video feed directly to a gadget that monitored and controlled everything.

All in all, not the best setup, given he had to work with equipment provided him by Ralston. But it would do for now.

While he set up everything, though, his mind continually wandered back to the curvy woman waiting inside, probably reading her book. As strange as it was, having a safe house like this and having it just be the two of them gave him domestic urges unlike anything he’d had before.

His work usually involved visits to classy nightclubs and expensive mansions with high-profile persons of immeasurable wealth. This mission was altogether different, and it made him think of finding a mate and gave him a yearning to settle down and quit this life of reckless danger he chose for himself.

His two older brothers had both found mates in the past year, and though he was completely supportive of them (and in both cases had helped his brothers see past their problems and go after what would make them happy), Kel couldn’t help but feel a little bitter about it. Amber and Amy were stellar women, and Jace and Carter were more than lucky to have found them.

But what about Kel?

He was the loner. The outsider. The different one. That’s what he’d always be.

It was turning dark as Kel got back inside the house. Despite the warm fire burning in the living room, it was pretty cold inside. He fiddled with the heater, realizing it wasn’t working.

It was going to be a pretty cold night, but they were indoors, and a little cold never affected him. He’d take a look at it tomorrow, see if tweaking it would fix it.

Using ingredients in the supplies Ralston had packed, Kel whipped together a tomato bisque, figuring they could both use something warm after the cold drive. When he brought it in to Sofia, he noted she was still wearing his coat and was wrapped with a blanket, still shivering as she worked on her second book of the day.

“Here, take this. It’ll warm you up,” Kel said, placing the bowl on a plate in her lap.

“Whoa. Fancy. Where’d you learn to cook?” Sofia asked, flabbergasted.

“I was hired to work for a famous chef for a few months after he received a death threat. It turned out the threat was a fake, but I learned a few things following him around twenty-four-seven,” Kel said, sitting on the couch across from her.

Sofia took a spoonful and raised it to her mouth, and Kel felt intensely curious to know her reaction, as if it actually mattered for once how someone felt about something he did.

It was an odd feeling, actually caring.

Sofia put the spoon in, and her eyes closed as she smiled at the taste of it. Kel felt his entire body stand at attention as she moaned softly.

“That’s delicious. Maybe after this, I’ll have to hire you as our cook,” she said.

“I don’t think you could afford me. But I’d be willing to make an exception in your case.”