One Second (Seven Series Book 7) (17 page)

April beamed with pride and swung her gaze up, admiring the paintings on the walls. They were mostly items I’d bought on sale—images of Parisian bistros and European street scenes.

“So you’re Atticus Rain, cookie maker and bodyguard.”

He smiled and casually leaned back on his elbows. “It has a nice ring to it. I just hope my pointy fangs won’t affect business.”

“How do you keep those retracted so they look normal?” she asked.

Atticus winked. “Magic.”

I chewed on my lip and stood next to him. “Izzy’s going to show you how to run the cash register in case we ever need you to hold down the fort. Anyone who has a problem with you working in my store can find another place that makes lemon cake as good as I do.”

“Good luck with that,” April said. “So how do we know you’re a good bodyguard? Have you ever worked as one before?”

He averted his eyes and began pinching one of his dark eyebrows. “No. Would you mind if I look around your kitchen?”

“Go on,” I said. “I’ll be back there in a second to show you what I do.” After he circled the counter and left us alone, I gave April an apologetic glance. “I know I asked you to come along and help me out, but if you don’t want to, then you can sit out here and read a book while I show him the ropes. Trevor keeps an e-reader in the locked cabinet behind the register.”

“Are you sure hiring him is a good idea?” she whispered.

“He can probably hear you,” I said. “And the more I think about it, yeah, I do. Eventually I’m going to balloon out and won’t be able to work. Then I’ll have the baby to take care of for a while, so there’s no way Trevor and Izzy can keep up with all the prepping, baking, and running the store. Naya’s hooked Wheeler up with some of her clients who need financial advisors, so I really don’t have an extra hand. On top of that, I still have clientele who order large volumes for their businesses, and I can’t afford to lose them. If Atticus doesn’t catch on, then I’ll hire someone else. But I need a dedicated worker to keep this business afloat.”

“Jeez. When did we get so old?” she asked on a sigh, propping her chin in the palm of her hand. “If we didn’t have to make money, I’d be perfectly happy.”

I laughed and went to lock the door. “Until you can figure out the magic spell to fill our bank account with enough money to last us the next eight centuries, we’re stuck with jobs.”

“Well, at least I won’t have to work as many years as you will.” She chuckled whimsically, but the thought tugged at my heartstrings.

When I approached the door, my breath caught. In the middle of the road beneath a dim light cast from the streetlamp, a woman was lying on her stomach, her blond hair caught in the wind and her right arm outstretched toward me.

I swung the door open and ran as fast as my feet could carry me. “Call the police! Someone’s been hit by a car!”

“Lexi!” April shouted from behind.

My heart raced. I’d seen idiots drive down this street a million times without yielding to pedestrians.

As I neared the woman, she suddenly sat up and smiled. That’s when a swell of terror came over me. She was bait, and this was a trap.

When I heard the bell jingle on the door, I turned to warn April. As I did, I spotted at least five wolves surrounding me.

“April, no!” I screamed. “Go back inside!”

She hesitated at the curb, confused until she noticed a black wolf baring his canines at her.

Atticus rushed through the open doorway like death’s shadow, snapping the rogue’s neck before he could lunge. Another wolf scurried into the shop, and Atticus lifted April onto the hood of my car as if she weighed nothing. April warily looked around at the flickers of movement cloaked in darkness.

As I turned, the blonde was backing up, a smug grin on her face as she settled in the embrace of a guy who could have easily passed as one of Axel’s biker buddies, with his leather jacket and fingerless gloves. His eyebrows and mustache were darker than the short beard on his chin, and his nose was crooked. A few tattoos were creeping out from his collar and up his neck.

“Southern girls are always so polite… so gullible,” she said on a giggle.

My heart was a banging drum, and when I backed up a step, I bumped into Atticus.

“What’s your business?” he asked the biker, his voice firm.

The leader replied, “A friend of ours is missing. We thought the bitch might know something.”

“What makes you think I would know a damn thing?” I snapped.

He smiled and tipped his head to the side, not giving me the answer we both already knew. He must have picked up the scent on our land and did the math. “You’re the Packmaster’s bitch, aren’t you?”

Atticus’s fingertips tightened around my arms.

I couldn’t fight. Worst of all, I couldn’t beg for my baby’s life, because telling them I was with child might bring a worse hell than I could imagine. These men had traveled a long way to spill blood, and I wasn’t about to hand them a goblet.

“Stay close to me,” Atticus whispered.

Both April and I had left our purses inside—purses that had phones and car keys.

“These streets have cameras, you know,” I said.

Lied. Some streets did, but not ours.

Harley Man flicked a glance around. “So be it. Where’s my man?”

“Probably buried on a golf course.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “I was going to take you as one of my bitches, but on second thought, your mouth is pissing me off.”

“Wise choice, because I’d rather be pushing up daisies than kissing your hairy ass. Why don’t you go back where you came from? You don’t stand a chance.”

He stroked his wiry beard. “You’re a tenacious wolf. We’ll just see about that.”

“We can prove what you’re up to.”

He laughed, revealing a silver tooth. “Accusation without evidence is slander, and so the law is on our side. As far as anyone’s concerned, we’re just visiting.”

The bitch with the tan boots laughed haughtily, pacing in a circle behind him like some kind of druggie on meth.

“If you put one finger on me, then they’ll have all the evidence they need.”

He slowly looked left, then right. “This neighborhood seems kind of empty this time of night. If we end up with witnesses, well… the best witnesses are dead ones. Security cameras are something I can work around. I didn’t know you associated with Vampires down here,” he said with disdain, not making eye contact with Atticus.

Ferocious snarls erupted from behind, and April’s boots skidded across my car. She didn’t have her coat on, and a cloud of frosty breath veiled her face as she watched their every move. Despite the fear in her eyes, she’d never looked so fierce and ready to fight. I, on the other hand, had on my pink bunny slippers with the floppy ears.

I counted four wolves in sight, excluding the one inside the shop. The shadows all around us seemed to bend with movement.

“I don’t think your leader would approve of your renegade actions,” Atticus pointed out. “He might consider it an act of treason and string you up by your toes to set an example.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

The woman giggled maniacally, walking a straight line back and forth behind him as if she were taking a sobriety test. Her stringy blond hair covered most of her face. “Let’s just kill them and get it over with.”

I glanced up at Atticus, and his fangs punched out.

“You don’t stand a chance against me,” Atticus said, a smile hovering on his lips. “How many of your men are you willing to lose?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t care so much if the man who went missing wasn’t my brother.” He squinted at me as if trying to read my mind.

For all he knew, I was kidding about the golf course comment. Only, I kind of wasn’t. The Cole brothers had a track record for finding unusual places to hide corpses.

April squeaked, and I glanced over my shoulder. She had climbed up the windshield to the top of the car.

“She’s not a Shifter, is she?” the blonde mused to herself. “I bet she’s human.” The woman skipped across the street in her chunky boots and stopped short of the car. “Hi, sweetie. Scared?”

“Only of your bad dye job!” April spat.

I almost wanted to laugh.

Almost.

“Get him!” the man bellowed, backing up a step. A wave of alpha power rippled through his words.

The wolves advanced, circling us until we had no way to escape. Most wolves wouldn’t attack women or children, but after what had happened to Hope, I wasn’t making that stupid assumption.

I adhered myself to Atticus like glue. Vampires were unnaturally strong, and that was all he had going for him since I didn’t think he could charm an animal into submission.

I felt confident until Atticus disappeared. I whirled around and glimpsed him drifting through shadows. Vampires could shadow walk at night, moving quickly in dark spaces.

Which didn’t exactly help my situation.

A wolf on the other side of the street yelped and then went silent.

“Atticus?” I called out, eyeing the two wolves on either side of me.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m going to kill you with my bare hands,” the woman behind me cackled. “I don’t see why my wolf has to have all the fun.”

But she wasn’t talking to me.

I peered over my shoulder just as April kicked the woman in the face.

The blonde whirled around, bright blood streaked across her chin. “You bitch!”

I frantically searched for a weapon, a place to run… anything. That’s when I noticed a sheath on our fearless leader’s hip.

Advancing toward him, I held up my hands submissively. “I’ll surrender myself to you on the condition you call off your men and let my friends go.”

“Nothing’s that easy.”

I continued taking small steps toward him. The wolves flanking me growled but kept their positions.
Where the hell is Atticus?

“You’re more submissive than I expected from a Packmaster’s bitch.”

Holy hell, if he called me a bitch one more time…

“Look, if you spill blood on these streets, you’re going to attract attention. Who do you think your leader is going to come after? Him?” I asked, pointing at the brown wolf on my left. “We both know you’ll be the one reprimanded. Take me with you, and we’ll get answers from my mate. Nobody gets hurt, and nobody’s ass is on the line.”

I stopped short of him, my eyes centered on his and not on the dagger on his left hip.

His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. I didn’t think he was old enough to tell right away that I was pregnant, but his proximity made my heart quicken.

“Please,” I urged, my tone submissive.

A wolf yelped from behind, tearing the alpha’s attention away. “You blood-sucking Vamp!”

The alpha suddenly reached for my hair, and I went for his knife.

In a blur of motion, I unsnapped the safety on his sheath and pulled the dagger free. He tugged my hair, forcing me to look up. The human part of my brain told me it was wrong to commit murder, but when the thought of protecting my baby flitted through my mind, I plunged the knife into his side, giving it a sharp twist. Metal scraped against bone, and he let go of my hair.