ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (155 page)

“What do you want?” I asked. I was just about to take a step forward when she moved, not looking right at me.

“I know you think you’ve outsmarted us, Gemma. But we’ll find you. Your bodyguard managed to stop our messenger, but he won’t be so lucky next time.”

“I don’t want any of this,” I answered.

The girl shrugged. How old was she, anyway? Maybe not any older than I was. “Consider yourself warned,” she said, and then she disappeared. A cloud of black mist hung in the air where she’d been, but after a few seconds it dissipated. I stank down to the floor and clutched my chest. A sharp pain had driven in between my ribs like a stake.

They were on to me. They would find me. And there was nothing I could do about it.

“Gemma?” Colt’s voice was outside the door. “Are you alright?”

“Just fine,” I called out even though my voice sounded thin. I’ve been right. That attack at the studio hadn’t been a random one. And it hadn’t been the last.

Colt

It was a month since the attack and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was out of place. The foreboding that had come with the shifter hung around me like thick fog that didn’t want to roll out again, and I kept looking over my shoulder. I woke up earlier and ran harder and longer, trained until every muscle in my body screamed.

I hadn’t been strong enough to take on the shifter when it had attacked me in the alley. It had looked like it wasn’t nearly strong enough, but it’s ability to shift into a bear had caught me off guard and the injuries had been sever enough for me to take a couple of days to recover, even with my ability to heal in no time at all.

I’d nearly died. I might have if it hadn’t been for Claude, the driver who had saved me in the nick of time. And thankfully the shifter had been alone, so Gemma, who’d been hiding in the studio, had been safe.

I was under no illusion that we were all still okay out of pure luck. It hadn’t been my skill. And that wasn’t good enough.

“Are you heading out?” Gemma’s voice floated along the dark passage when I closed the door to my bedroom before sunrise. I turned and looked at her. Her blond hair hung over her shoulders and down her back, and her green eyes were dark, the color of grass.

“What are you doing up?” I asked. She usually slept until eight, with a guard at her door and one on her balcony. I glanced over her shoulder. Mike was standing to the side, and nodded at me.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. Her voice was soft, dancing across my skin like feathers, and I could smell her scent; flowers in the rain. For just before dawn. The forest after a thunderstorm. When she looked up at  me her eyes were big and round. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her robe wrapped tightly around her body so I could see the curves of it, the hourglass figure that distracted me so often.

She stood close to me, and her presence was intoxicating. She’d spent a lot of time in my room, checking on me, making sure I got food in my system and that I was alright, after the attack. I hadn’t realized she cared about me that much. I would have done the same for her, but it wasn’t the same. When a bodyguard fell for his charge it was different than when the feelings were returned. When a famous singer like her fell for an employee like me, it would make ripples in a pond where dangers lurked just beneath the surface.

“Are you going to train?” she asked. Her lips met in a cupid’s bow. I wondered what it would be like to bend down and touch my lips to them. The feeling between us intensified, wrapped around us, sealing us in a cocoon. My glance slid to Mike where he was still standing. He wasn’t looking at us, but I knew he knew. I knew where his attention was. So I didn’t give in and lean into her.

“I have to get my personal things out of the way before my shift,” I said, breaking the spell.

Gemma nodded and took a step back. The atmosphere broke and returned to normal. Soon the sun would rise and the magical quality of the night would fade, letting my control myself by the time I had to go on duty.

“Be careful,” she said and turned away. I nodded, but we both knew that I was only in danger because she was. That was the life of a bodyguard.

And I would do it all over, again and again. Saving her was my goal, what my whole revolved around. I watched her hips sway as she walked away, her hair swishing gently against her back. Mike looked at me, when she closed her bedroom door behind her, and drew up his eyebrows. I shook my head and slipped into the door that led to the servants passage.

The night air was crisp, with dawn pending. The inky black had given way to a dark blue, and everything had a silver quality to it. I jogged my usual route, taking note of the changes in the neighborhood. Nothing passed me by. I believed that the smallest changes could show when something was wrong, and noticing them made me a better bodyguard.

When I’d run to Holmby Park and I was concealed between the trees, I shed my human appearance and became the wolf that ruled one half of me.

Lycanthropy was a curse. There wasn’t a doubt about it. Even though it made my job as a bodyguard easier, I would have traded who I was for a normal life in a heartbeat. Maybe I could have been an accountant, with an office job and a wife to come home to.

As I weaved my way through the trees, feeling the cold night hair ruffle my fur, I knew it would never have been enough.

The long fingers of dawn curled over the horizon, testing the world to see if it was ready. The light bled into the bluish black of the night and started coloring the world, ridding the world of the shades of silver and gray. I watched the sunrise from the edge of the Park, as it touched one house after the other, until LaGrange Mansion was illuminated too, before I headed back home.

I ran to where I’d stashed my clothes before I shifted. My body always took longer to go back to human form. It was as if it was just more natural, more comfortable, being a wolf. It took no time at all to slip into the wolf’s body. Returning to the man took effort and often hurt.

I sat on the ground, tipping my head side to side, hearing the vertebrae click. I rubbed my hand over my face and then through my hair.

“You’re getting careless, little wolf,” a voice croaked behind me, and I jumped, scrambling across the ground to find my clothes. I clutched my tracksuit pants in a bundle at my crotch, covering up what I could in such little time.

I found the source of the voice. A middle-aged woman sat on a log. She was dressed in clothes that looked like it had been made of quilted blankets. She had a scarf around her head, holding her gray hair out of her face, and one around her neck. She had a ring on every fingers.

She looked a lot like a gypsy.

“You can get dressed, what does an old woman like me want with a naked man like you?” she asked and her voice was deep like she’d smoked her whole life. Colt collected his clothes and stepped behind a tree, pulling on his pants and then his shirt. When he stepped out from behind the tree again, the old woman smiled.

“Now that we’re on equal footing we can talk,” she said. Colt felt a flush color his face. He’d been caught off guard and he hated it. He’d been so lost in thought that hadn’t heard or smelled or felt anyone coming.

And this woman sat there on her log looking like it was the most normal thing in the world to see a werewolf change.

“Who are you?” I asked. She didn’t look like much – just a crazy artistic lady wandering around in the woods shortly after sunrise. But I’d learned never to trust the ones that looked too innocent.

“The question is, who are you?” she retorted and I steeled myself. It grated me when people weren’t direct.

“What kind of a question is that?” I asked.

“Well, now isn’t that the thing to ask? You see, you’ve been very sure of yourself for a very long time to get into this position, haven’t you? Yes, I can see it in your eyes. Your pride and confidence in who you are, protecting the little LaGrange girl, making sure we can’t get to her.”

At the mention of Gemma it felt like the blood in my veins slowed down and I felt cold. The atmosphere was suddenly thick, like a fog had rolled in and I took a deep breath hoping for oxygen. It was like her identity had stayed hidden until she’d mentioned who she was. No that she’d pointed it out I could feel the tingle in the air that accompanied the witches. When I look at her again her face had changed. She wasn’t old anymore. She still wore the same clothes and her hair still had the white quality to it but it was crystalline now. And her face was young and smooth, her skin flawless.

“Oh, we know who you are, Colton,” she said and her voice curled around Colt.

“You can’t have her,” he said. “As long as I’m here—“

“Ah yes. You’re protecting her like you protected Peter. We didn’t even have a claim on him and look how that turned out.”

When she mentioned Peter, Gemma’s father, a pain wedged into my chest and I struggled to breathe.

“Oh yes, it was very dreadful. But he was old and Gemma wanted nothing to do with him anymore. He was of no consequence and he still had to be punished for what he’d done. So we took care of that. You couldn’t save him, Colt. And you can’t save her. We have a right to her.”

“You don’t have any kind of right to her.” I’d trained harder and longer since the old man’s death. I’d made sure I would never fail anyone like that again. He had been like a father to me, a mentor, someone that had not only paid me to protect him, but that had accepted my curse.

And even with my ability to heal and fight, to be faster and stronger than any other man, it hadn’t been enough.

“Be careful, little wolf,” she said. “If you get out now you’ll live. We’re coming for her and you should know that we’re unstoppable. You’ve seen it yourself. If you don’t remove yourself out of the equation we will do it for you. You have a lot to lose.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but suddenly she was gone. A thick black mist hung in the air where she’d been sitting, and it smelled acrid. I wrinkled my nose and looked around, but she was gone.

I yelled, balling my fists, and with them both together I hammered down on the log where she’d been sitting like the object itself was the source of all my emotional pain. It broke in two, with the middle crushed. My hand bled where I’d connected with the wood, but I left it alone. It would heal before I got back to the Mansion.

I turned and ran. I had to get there as fast as I could. I doubted they would come for her this very second, but my time was running out. And if I couldn’t save her, if I lost her the same way I’d lost her father after I’d taken a vow of putting my life before his, I wouldn’t make it through.

Gemma

I was already at breakfast when Colt skidded into the dining room looking wild and crazed. He was wearing training clothes. I’d never seen him so casual before. And he was panting like he’d run very far for very long. When his eyes settled on me it looked like he relaxed, his taut muscles slowly uncoiling.

“Are you okay?” I asked him, putting my fork down.

“I’m fine,” he said but he didn’t look it. “I’m sorry. I have to go get dressed. I’m late.” He nodded at Mike who had been taking his place while he was away, and turned.

“Colt, wait,” I said and jumped up, rushing after him. He paused just inside the door in the servants’ passage. I stepped through as well so he could let go of the door and it swung shut behind me.

“What’s wrong?” I was aware of how close we were standing to each other in the narrow passage. Everything was beige all around me, the floor, the walls, the light that fell through a small window. It felt like we were in a parallel reality, one that suddenly didn’t exist.

He shook his head and swallowed. “It’s nothing. I was just… I had to make sure everything was fine. With me… being late and all.”

He took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. His muscles were bulging, the adrenaline sculpting his body into something ready for war. I could almost feel the tension coming off his skin like a fever. He looked so different than I always saw him. To me he was the calm and collected bodyguard, ready for everything. Now he was disheveled and his dark eyes were big and black, laced with craze and something animalistic I hadn’t seen before. It sent a shiver through my body that ran down my spine like a finger of something dark and attractive.

I reached out my hand. He flinched but he didn’t move away, and I touched his cheek. His skin was searing hot under my fingers and a hum traveled into my body like I was a tuning fork, picking up his frequency. He gasped for breath, quietly, but I heard it. He’d felt it too.

He swallowed again.

“Gemma…” he started but he didn’t finish his sentence. The air around us grew warm and thick, tangible, so that I was sure I could run my fingers through it like water. Colt was looking at me in a way I didn’t want him to stop doing, and my mouth suddenly went dry.

Something pulled me forward, an urge, something magnetic. I didn’t know what it was. I fought it for all of two seconds before I let it go. It was making me dizzy, like I’d had alcohol and my system was buzzing.

Colt had opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t let him say whatever it was that he’d wanted to say. I stepped forward and kissed him.

He froze under my lips, not moving, but not moving away either. I kept my lips against his, and it felt like time stood still. This was where he was going to push me away, I told myself. Tell me what a child I was being. How unprofessional. This was where I was going to realize that all the feelings I thought I’d felt from him before had just been dreams and fantasies.

His lips moved against mine, and he kissed me back. It was gentle at first, a question. He lifted his hand and placed it behind my neck, under my hair. It was big and warm, covering my whole neck from the base of my skull to the bottom of my neck. His tongue slipped into my mouth and his other hand was on my hip, and he leaned his body against mine.

I was out of breath immediately, my heart beating erratically in my chest and I felt light-headed, like I was floating. Colt sighed into my mouth, his muscles hard against my body, but he was gentle with me despite his strength. Like I could break.

He was the one that broke the kiss, and I felt like was untethered when he pulled away. I swallowed and touched my lips with the tips of my fingers. His eyes were impossible to read.