Bodyguard (Shifters Unbound #2.5) (19 page)

Julio finally drew his gun. "All right. Let's
go under the trees."

"Wait." Pablo lifted his hands. "No, you two
get out of here," he said to the men who'd remained with him.
"There's no reason for you to die for me."

They hesitated, assessing the situation. "Go
on," Pablo repeated.

The men in his crew were, in the end,
practical. They gave Pablo apologetic nods and walked away toward
the cars.

"I'll pick them up later," Julio said,
motioning with the gun again. "I can't believe you're surrendering
to me."

Pablo's brain spun with escape scenarios even
as he let one of the men take his gun and started walking where
Julio indicated. "You're my brother. I'm hoping I can talk some
sense into you."

"Only if you can talk fast on your knees with
my bullet in the back of your skull."

Ay
, Julio, I predict that you'll
regret every one of those words.

They stepped under the thick trees that grew
so well in Texas hill country, the branches blotting out stars,
moon, and lights around the big barn. Darkness made for terrific
cover, and no one had been smart enough to bring a flashlight.

Pablo felt something brush past him, sensed a
whuff of breath and the warmth of fur. The skin between his
shoulder blades prickled again, every instinct telling him to drop
and get out of the way.

He took a few more steps, threw himself flat
on the ground, and rolled away through mud. He came to a stop on
his back and saw something leap over him, wildcat limbs flowing
through the darkness. The thug the wildcat landed on screamed, his
weapon discharging, bullets flying. Someone grunted, hit.

Pablo heard Julio cursing, men shouting. More
dark shapes solidified from the trees, sparks igniting in the
darkness. Collars. Shifters.

The fight was swift and ugly. By the time
Pablo scrambled to his feet, all of Julio's guys and Zach's were
down, many of them unconscious. Julio was screaming, hanging from
the arms of the tall Shifter with all the body art. Now that the
guy was naked, Pablo saw that he was well and truly inked.

Julio tried to twist around and shoot Spike,
but the Shifter called Dylan materialized from the shadows, took
the gun out of Julio's grasp, and crushed it into scrap metal.

Pablo brushed off his clothes. His suit was
thick with mud, and he'd have a bitch of a dry-cleaning bill. "What
the hell?"

Spike's teeth flashed in the darkness. "Nate
said you looked like you could use a hand," he said in perfect
Spanish. "Or two, or ten."

"Thanks." Pablo said it briskly, because he
knew that Shifter help wouldn't come cheap. He was a long way in
their power now. They'd been right about this territory being
theirs. Just because no humans realized it didn't make it true.

"Did you stop the fight?" Pablo asked
Dylan.

Spike answered, switching back to English.
"Can't stop it. Rules."

"Don't be an idiot," Pablo said. "That
feral's insane. He's never lost, and you'll have to pry him off the
other Shifter's dead body. He has a strong instinct to kill."

Dylan dropped the pieces of Julio's gun onto
the grass. "Sean's on it." He faded away so noiselessly that Pablo
lost sight of him after the man had taken two steps.

"Pablo." Julio's bravado was gone, and now he
sounded like he was crying. "Man, I'm sorry. I didn't know what I
was doing--"

"Save it," Pablo said. "I felt sorry for you
when Mamita died, but now I think I've spoiled you rotten. We got a
lot to talk about." He was looking around as he spoke. "Where's
Casey?"

Not there. Pablo accounted for the fallen,
but Zach Casey wasn't with them. "He's gone after the woman," Pablo
said in disgust. "Stupid waste of time."

"He wants to kill her," Julio said. "He told
me he'd help me if I took him to the girl. He's going to do her and
then kill her."

Dios
, would this night ever end?

Spike at last set Julio on his feet. "Well,
then," he said, another grin showing all his teeth, "we'd better
get down there and stop him."

*** *** ***

The fight had grown bloody. Elizabeth
watched, her throat tight with fear, as the wolf tore into Ronan,
and Ronan tore into him in return. Blood coated the wolf's fur and
lay black against Ronan's. Ronan's Collar sizzled and sparked, but
he wouldn't stop fighting.

Eventually, though, the pain would overcome
his adrenaline, and Ronan would collapse. When he did that, the
wolf, unhampered by a Collar, would kill him.

Elizabeth had been aware of Spike, Dylan, and
Sean retreating from the ring and disappearing into the crowd. But
she couldn't worry about where they'd gone. She kept her gaze on
Ronan and the fight that might take him away from her.

No
, no, no,
a voice inside her
wailed.
Don't lose him. Don't. Lose. Him.

She had to stop this fight. But how could
she? The four big Shifters Julio had brought in as refs were
surrounding the ring, and the fifth ref watched them warily.
Elizabeth wasn't foolish enough to think she could jump in there
between two raging Shifters trying to tear each other apart and
hold up her hands for them to cease. Sure, they'd stop
instantly.

The refs would grab her and throw her out
before she could even reach them. The four Shifters weren't letting
anyone or anything interfere with this bout.

Ronan had the wolf under him. He drew back
his paw, ready to knock him out, but the wolf suddenly wasn't
there. Ronan's swing kept going, and Ronan, tired, fell.

The wolf pounced on him, mouth open, claws
ripping. Ronan rolled onto his back and grabbed the wolf in a
deadly embrace, but the wolf was too strong, too fast. He ripped at
Ronan's belly, Ronan bleeding from a dozen wounds at once.

Ronan roared his pain, his Collar white-hot.
The wolf latched his jaw around Ronan's throat and bit down. Blood
sprayed, and Elizabeth screamed.

She ran for the ring, damn the rules and damn
the refs. At the same time, the one referee who hadn't come with
Julio jumped in and tried to break up the fight. The other four
grabbed him and nearly threw him out of the ring.

"What the hell are you doing?" the first ref
yelled at them. "We have to stop it. The bear's done!"

"The bear goes down," one of the other refs
growled. "It's done when he's dead."

"That's not what we . . ."

The four refs closed ranks and blocked the
fifth from the ring. He swung around, boiling with fury, and took
off into the crowd. Going for help, maybe, but would it come soon
enough?

Elizabeth jumped up onto the circle of cinder
blocks. The things had simply been laid on the ground, unattached,
and they wobbled.

"Ronan!" she shouted, waving her arms to keep
her balance. "Ronan, hang on!"

Ronan wasn't giving up. He was fighting on,
but his struggles were weakening, while the wolf held on, jaw
locked around Ronan's throat. If the wolf managed to tear Ronan's
jugular, Ronan would die.

Because of her. If he hadn't been shopping in
her store that night, Ronan wouldn't be here now, fighting to the
death to keep Elizabeth alive.

She had to stop this.

"Ronan!" Elizabeth screamed. She cupped her
hands around her mouth. "I accept the mate-claim!"

She wasn't sure what she expected--for him to
suddenly burst upward, throw the wolf to the ground, shift, and
sweep Elizabeth into his arms? She couldn't be certain he'd even
heard her. In any event, Ronan was too busy fighting to
respond.

But Elizabeth needed to tell him, in case.
Ronan was one of the good ones.

"Ronan!" she shouted.
"I
love
you!"

Love you . . .

Elizabeth put her hands on top of her head as
she watched him, the man she realized she loved, die.

*** *** ***

Ronan felt the tingle of it through the agony
of his Collar and the crazed biting of the wolf. He heard
Elizabeth's voice, though he couldn't make out the words through
the fog in his brain.

But he felt the magic. It wrapped around his
heart and flowed through his limbs like heady wine.

The
mate bond.

That sense of oneness with a true mate, which
Ronan had never thought he'd feel--had started thinking himself
fated never to feel it--threaded through his body and completed
him. The click he'd felt when he'd first made the mate-claim now
became music.

"Ronan!" he heard Elizabeth scream.
"I
love you!"

Like hell would he let himself die when the
mate bond was filling him, while Elizabeth declared her love at the
top of her voice in a barn full of Shifters.

She'd accepted the mate-claim in front of
witnesses and given Ronan the greatest gift of his life. He had
never heard the words, "I love you," from another being. Liking,
respect, comradeship, even affection. But never love.

Elizabeth was the first. And he loved her
back with intensity that shattered all pain.

Fuck
this.

Ronan gathered the last of his strength,
wrapped the mate bond around it, and roared with sudden power as he
rose up to his full Kodiak bear height. He ripped the wolf from his
bleeding throat, lifted the crazed beast in both paws, and threw
him as hard as he could.

The Lupine flipped end over end, howling, to
land in a crowd of frenzied Shifters. Ronan swung around, great
paws moving, contacting with the Shifter refs who'd sprung into the
ring to stop him. The crowd moved back, some cheering; others,
who'd bet on the wolf, booing and shouting.

The fifth ref, backed by Dylan and Ellison,
stepped up on the cinderblocks on the far side of the ring. "The
fight belongs to the bear!" the ref shouted. "Ronan, of the Austin
Shiftertown . . .
Winner
!
"

Screams and cheers from the Austin Shifters.
Elizabeth was doing a little victory dance on the cinderblocks, her
feet nimble in her high heels.

Ronan shuddered as he landed on all fours,
his Collar's sparks slowing but still hurting him. The mate bond,
though--the mate bond was erasing the pain.

Before Ronan could reach Elizabeth, before he
could shift and snatch her into his arms, a human male closed hands
around Elizabeth's waist, lifted her from her feet, and started to
drag her away.

* * * * *

Chapter Sixteen

Ronan barreled out of the ring after them.
Elizabeth kicked and flailed, the man holding her in a practiced
lock. He had a gun obviously in his holster--he must have gotten
past the weapons check at the door.

Where the hell was Sean? Nowhere, though
Dylan and Ellison had started charging to Elizabeth's rescue. Too
late. The man got her out of the barn, Elizabeth still fighting
him.

Ronan passed the unconscious feral Lupine
surrounded by a circle of Shifters, firelight from one of the
barrels flickering eerily over the scene. There Sean was, kneeling
beside the wolf, a shiny new Collar dangling from his hand.

Ronan burst out into the night. He
hurt--Goddess, he hurt--but he was not letting that bastard take
Elizabeth away.

He came upon them suddenly in the darkness,
Elizabeth fighting her way out of the man's grasp.

"Zach," Ronan heard Elizabeth say, and then
Zach's body was spinning, flying to the ground, as Ronan's paw
smacked him.

"Ronan, don't kill him," Elizabeth said in
alarm.

Why
the hell not?

The human part of Ronan's brain, a voice far
in the background, reminded him that Shifters were executed for
harming humans. The Shifter that was Ronan only saw someone
threatening his mate, and that meant no mercy.

Zach took the split second of Ronan's thought
process to get to his feet, blood on his face. He reached for his
gun, found his holster inexplicably empty, and ran. Ronan roared
and ran after him.

He heard others coming behind, Elizabeth's
voice holding fear, Spike and Ellison trying to get Ronan to stop.
Ronan only smelled his prey, the man who'd dared put his hands on
Elizabeth, the man who'd caused her to live for years in terror.
This man would die tonight for touching Elizabeth--
my
mate
--for daring to come anywhere near her.

Ronan caught up to Zach in a little clearing
in the trees. Zach had no backup weapon, it seemed, because he'd
grabbed a fallen branch and tried to use it as a club as Ronan came
at him.

Ronan rose, rage and the mate bond giving him
glorious strength. He roared his Kodiak bear fury, shifting as he
came down to the terrified man.

Zach's face was pale in the moonlight as he
faced a blood-streaked giant of a man with madness in his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?" he croaked.

"Her bodyguard," Ronan said, and raised both
fists to strike him down.

There was a
boom
, an acrid smell of
gunfire, and the hot scent of blood. Zack looked down in surprise
at his right side, which now blossomed a large red stain. Zach
touched the wound, then his eyes rolled back. His body collapsed
into the mud, and he lay still.

Ronan roared in fury, his Collar sparking, as
he swung to face Pablo Marquez, standing calmly by, a black
nine-millimeter in his left hand, right wrist in a bandage.

"That was my kill," Ronan snarled. "Mine as
mate."

Pablo tucked his gun into the holster under
his coat. "No, my friend.
I
am a cold-blooded killer.
You
are not."

Ronan's mate-frenzied bloodlust made him want
to rip into Pablo for interfering with his vengeance, but pain from
his Collar, the heady feeling of the mate bond, and Ronan's own
common sense stopped him. Better still was Elizabeth running into
him, throwing her arms around him, no matter how bloody he was, and
pulling him close. Distractedly he saw Pablo relieve her of the big
pistol she seemed to have acquired, but he decided to worry about
that detail later.