Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04

Lennox, Kentucky

Friday night

SOMEONE SMELLED GOOD. No, better than good. Someone
smelled downright sinful. And as the warm, womanly, mouthwatering scent filled
his head, Aiden Shrader began thinking that his current assignment was an even
bigger mistake than he’d thought it would be. After all, he was standing on a
human female’s doorstep at nine o’clock at night, ready to tell her that she
was now under his protection, for God only knew how long, whether she liked it
or not. And he was probably going to have to toss in the fact that he wasn’t
just an armed, badass-looking bodyguard set on keeping her and her
three-year-old niece alive, but a shape-shifter, as well. One who could take
the form of a massive, deadly predator. An actual tiger-shifter, to be precise.

Oh, yeah, he thought, pushing his windblown hair back
with one tattooed hand while the bitter December night twined itself around his
long body like a cold, clinging lover. There isn’t a chance in hell that little
tidbit is going to go down well.

Aiden and his colleagues didn’t know how much Olivia
Harcourt’s stepsisters had told her about the world of preternatural creatures
who lived hidden among humanity, the various races collectively referred to as
“the ancient clans.” And since they also didn’t know how much she might have
been told about the Watchmen—the organization of shape-shifters that Aiden
belonged to, whose job it was to watch over the remaining clansmen—there was a
good chance the chick was probably going to run screaming, hell-bent for
leather, the instant he laid things out for her. She might even run the second
she set eyes on him. Not that he’d blame her, if she was the skittish type. At
nearly six and a half feet, packed with long, solid muscle and sporting a
multitude of tattoos and shaggy hair that he hadn’t bothered to cut in months,
Aiden was used to sending some women running for cover. They either loved what
they saw or didn’t stick around long enough to discover if the “bad boy” was
really as wicked as he looked.

The simple fact was that some women had a taste for
danger…and some didn’t. Aiden had never cared much, one way or another, seeing
as how his interest in the female gender remained purely physical—his inner
animal far easier to control when he kept it sated. The only rules he lived by
were that he never messed around with a woman unless she understood exactly how
much he was willing to offer, that she was built to handle a hard ride and that
she didn’t touch the darker, more primal aspects of his nature.

Of the three, that last rule was by far the most
important, and now he had to face the unsavory realization that someone in that
goddamn house smelled good enough to arouse the dangerous, possessive hungers
of his beast…and he was going to be so screwed because of it.

Aiden half prayed the mouthwatering scent didn’t
belong to the Harcourt woman, but doubted he would be that lucky. Pulling his
hand down his face, he stifled a frustrated snarl and figured he might as well
stop stalling and get on with it. As the wind stretched a dark, ominous string
of clouds across the hazy glow of the moon, he lifted his right hand and banged
his fist against the front door of the brick two-story. While he waited
impatiently for someone to answer, he silently cursed the fact that he needed
to get laid, in a bad way, while doing his best to convince himself that he was
reacting to that scent only because he’d been forced to live like a monk for
too many weeks. He wasn’t the type of man to go without, his primal instincts
constantly driving his sexual hungers to an urgent, aggressive level, but it
was bloody hard to pick up women in the middle of a war. He’d been so busy in
the past month, most nights he just collapsed into bed and didn’t move until it
was time to get up and start all over again the next day.

Not that the Merrick and the Watchmen were making a
lot of progress. Though the Merrick were one of the most powerful of the
ancient clans, their bloodline had been dormant for centuries, until the recent
return of the Casus and the beginnings of the war. A vile race of immortal
creatures who’d been imprisoned over a thousand years ago for their crimes
against humanity and the other clans, the Casus had somehow begun escaping from
Meridian—the metaphysical holding ground that served as their prison—and
returning to this world. The first had returned at the end of the summer, with
more and more following in recent months. They were now hunting down the
Merrick, one by one, exacting a bloodthirsty revenge against their ancient
enemy.

As a result of the Casus’s return, the Merrick blood
within the original clan’s descendants was awakening, and some Merrick, like
the Buchanans, were now waging a fight against the monsters, along with the
help of the Watchmen. Ian Buchanan had actually been the first Merrick to be
awakened, and thanks to Ian’s sister, Saige, it was the Buchanans’ and
Shrader’s Watchmen unit who were conducting the search for the Dark Markers. As
the only known weapons that could destroy a Casus’s soul and send it to hell,
the Markers were invaluable in their fight against the Casus. The mysterious
crosses had been hidden across Europe and the Americas in order to keep them
from falling into the wrong hands, and Aiden and his friends were doing
everything they could to track them down. But it wasn’t enough. Despite the
fact that they’d now managed to find five of the hidden Markers, giving up only
one to the enemy, their side was losing the war—and Aiden wasn’t a man who
liked to lose. He’d spent too many years under the thumb of his enemies when he
was younger. Now, at the age of thirty-four, he was a man who liked to fight
hard and come out on top, no matter what it took to get there. He’d been
working his ass off to make sure that he and his friends were going to end this
conflict as the victors, and he wanted to be out in the field, continuing the
fight. Not acting as a goddamn babysitter.

Around him, the night was strangely silent but for the
rustling of the leaves in the trees, the other four houses in the cul-de-sac
already dark, though strands of Christmas lights continued to flicker around
two of them. Just as he raised his hand to knock for a second time, he heard
the back door open and close. It barely made a sound—just a soft brushing of
the mechanism clicking into place—but it was enough for his sensitive hearing
to pick up. Cocking his head to the side, he listened as someone quickly made
their way down a set of steps, their gait uneven, as if they were carrying
something heavy on one side of their body.

With his left hand braced on the porch’s wooden
railing, Aiden vaulted over the top, landing with a soft thud in the damp grass
at the side of the house. His mouth watered when he drew in a deeper take of
that warm, rich scent as it rode the wintry breeze, stroking his senses like a
physical touch. The predatory beast within him stretched into a fuller
awareness, its gravelly voice rumbling from deep within, vibrating through his
body like a shock wave.

Stalk. Cover. Take.

Cursing under his breath with a bitter surge of
frustration, Aiden wondered why things just kept getting crappier for him,
rather than better, since this was the last damn thing that he needed. One
would think that fighting on the “good” side against a sadistic, merciless evil
would earn him some karma points from at least one freaking entity in the
universe, but his luck just kept slipping deeper into shit.

Then again, he mused, scraping his rough palm against
the bristled surface of his jaw as he moved silently through the shadows, maybe
he shouldn’t be so surprised. Aiden knew firsthand that the good didn’t always
come out on top. And if they did, it usually took a hell of a lot of time and
pain to get there.

Coming around the corner of the house, he stepped into
the backyard…and instantly caught sight of the woman, his exceptional night
vision enabling him to clearly make out her form in the darkness. He could see
that she wasn’t overly tall for a female, probably no more than five-five, her
shoulders narrow, graceful hands struggling to control a bulky piece of
luggage. She looked as though she was in a hurry as she hefted the suitcase
into the trunk of a compact Honda, then slammed it closed. She also looked
nervous as hell, her hands visibly shaking as she seemed to take a moment to
listen to the night. Did she know that trouble was on its way, then? Know that
the ones who’d killed Monica Harcourt, her eldest stepsister, and kidnapped the
youngest one were now after the little girl she was protecting? Is that why
she’d left her home to stay here, at the house of a friend who’d gone out of
town?

If so, it had been a foolish move on her part, because
the house couldn’t have been in a worse location. It sat at the far end of a
quiet country neighborhood in a sprawling cul-de-sac, surrounded by woods, the
only access road providing the perfect place for an ambush. Aiden had spent the
past week about a hundred miles south of Lennox, searching for the fifth Dark
Marker along with fellow Watchman Kellan Scott and their human colleague, Noah
Winston. They’d found the Marker that morning, and would have already been on
their way back to Colorado with it, where the compound they called home was
located in the Rocky Mountains, if it weren’t for the unexpected phone call
that had brought them to Lennox instead. Aiden now carried the ornate cross in
his back pocket, and Kellan and Noah were patrolling the woods, on the lookout
for the Casus. Monica Harcourt’s ghost had been in contact with them, warning
that the bastards were coming for her daughter, and Aiden knew better than to
underestimate them. If he’d managed to find Olivia Harcourt and her niece at
this remote location, the Casus would, as well.

As if she suddenly sensed his presence, the woman
turned, caught sight of him at the corner of the house, then immediately
started to run. Without thinking about which direction she was headed, simply
reacting to the fact that she was running from him, Aiden found himself
sprinting across the grassy backyard and taking her down. She started to cry
out, but the sharp sound was cut off as they landed heavily on the cold ground,
momentarily knocking the wind out of them both.

Soft. That was the first word that came to mind as he
lay heavily against her, his chest to her back. Sweet was the second. He
usually went for his women a little sturdier than this one, so that he didn’t
have to worry about hurting them when he let go, but he couldn’t deny that he
liked the feeling of her lush, feminine little body trapped beneath him.

Without thinking it through, acting purely on animal
instinct, Aiden lowered his head and nuzzled the warm, tender patch of skin
just behind her right ear. The heavy silk of her red hair tickled his nose, the
sleek strands smelling of flowers and spring and things that were too damn
tender for his world. His long frame began to shake, something thick and hot
rushing through his body, as if a biting, visceral craving unlike anything he’d
ever experienced had been injected directly into his veins, poisoning his
reason.

A rough noise vibrated in the back of his throat, and
he jerked from shock when he realized he was actually purring.

Bad, he silently snarled, and he stilled, not even
breathing, while a deeper, more guttural voice chanted “Keep her” within the
darkness of his mind.

No, he growled, shaking his head so hard that his long
hair flew around his shoulders. No way. Not possible, the rational, human part
of his mind argued, while the rest of him went into total meltdown, coming
undone, something dark and possessive clawing against his insides, demanding
its freedom.