ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (157 page)

Ms. Hayes listened with a blank expression, her nodding the only sign that she was even registering what I was saying.

“You’re suspended until further notice pending investigation. In light of the current events you’re not allowed to come close to her. It’s almost like a restraining order, so respect it,” she said when I was finished. I’d expected as much, but her words still felt like physical blows when she said them.

“Who will take care of Miss LaGrange?” I asked.

“The agency has more guards at the Mansion, Mr. Prior. She’ll be safe.”

“But besides me she only has nighttime guards.”

“We’ll find a substitute nighttime guard for Mike and he’ll take the day shift.”

I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the tightness in my chest, the fact that my mouth had gone dry. I was the only werewolf. I was the only guard capable of really caring for her. If something happened again like the incident in the alley a couple of weeks ago, and it was human-Mike taking care of her, she’d be lost.

But there was no point in arguing. The rules were clear. I’d signed the terms and conditions myself. I knew I had no foot to stand on. Not until one of the other guards slipped up and I had something I could report against them, or I could redeem myself somehow.

“What do I do until then?” I asked.

She looked at me with a cold stare, her eyes lifeless and void. “Pray, Mr. Prior,” she said.

When I stepped into the sunlight the warmth was lost on me. I felt like I’d frozen over. I couldn’t feel my fingers. The numbness of disappointment and regret flowed through me. I made my way slowly to the mansion, walking the streets but not seeing anything.

I had to come up with some sort of plan. The witch had been very clear, and I knew they wouldn’t wait. They would take this gap.

When I got to the Mansion, I walked around the back to use the kitchen door into the house. I wasn’t on duty now, I had no place in the main house, and I didn’t want to run into Gemma. I didn’t want to see her, tell her, and I didn’t want to see Mike standing at her side where I belonged.

Jealousy suddenly rose up like a bitter taste at the back of my mouth, and I pulled a face. I wasn’t just jealous of his opportunity to guard her now. I didn’t want another man by her side, no matter what his job.

Mine, I heard my own voice echo in my head. The wolf in me wanted to claim her. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the voice. I couldn’t claim her. She was human. She was my  boss in away. And she was my charge. I had to protect her. I had to push away the feelings for her so that I could it properly.

Mike sat on the steps outside the kitchen door, eating a sandwich. Gemma was in her room, then, and Carol was watching her while she got ready for her appointment at the salon. I knew her schedule by heart.

“Hayes chew you out?” Mike asked and grinned at me. His eyes were a watered down shade of blue and his grin wasn’t a friendly one.

I sighed.

“No one to watch over her now that you’re gone,” he said again.

“That’s your job now,” I said, my voice hardening. “And you better do a damn good job of it too.”

“They’re coming for her, you know,” Mike said and took another bite of his sandwich. I froze, my body running cold. They blood in my veins stopped moving. I narrowed my eyes at Mike. He chuckled around the sandwich in his mouth.

“Oh you heard right,” he said with the food in his cheek. “You’ve been removed from the equation now.”

The old witch’s words rang suddenly in my head.

“You work for them?” I asked, feeling dazed. How had I not picked up he was a supernatural?

Mike laughed a horrible raspy sound and dusted the crumbs around his mouth with the tips of his fingers.

“We all have our place in life, Colt. You chose the hard path. I chose the easier one. Working for them is much better than working against them. You see, I’m offered a life. Where you… well you’re just facing death over and over again.

“You can’t do this to her!” I cried out.

“I’m not doing anything to her,” Mike said, getting up and dusting his suit pants too. “I’m just doing what I’m told.”

I breathed in and out slowly, My hands were clenched into fists and I could feel the wolf inside me fighting to get out, but I couldn’t let that happen. Not now. There were too many people around that weren’t meant to see. Mike knew it too. His eyes flashed a teal color, the blue suddenly so intense, and I understood. He was their human servant. Their subjugate. If he kept doing what they ordered, one day they might start including them in their rituals and meetings until he could be one of them.

But that wasn’t going to happen for a long time. And it didn’t need to. Gemma was in more than enough danger already.

Gemma

Colt was nowhere to be found. After he’d left for his meeting Mike had taken over his shift, and when Colt hadn’t come to see me again, I started to worry. My session at the salon wasn’t nearly as refreshing and relaxing as it usually was. A fresh haircut and blow-out, new nails and a pedicure always made me feel better.

But today it had just been frustrating having so many people around me, chattering way and fussing over me, and Colt wasn’t standing at the door waiting for me.

Instead it had been Mike, who didn’t understand what I needed from a guard, and didn’t give me the space I needed when I needed it. He was clingy and overprotective, staying in my personal space and doing things for me that I would have liked to do myself.

“Will you fetch Colt for me?” I asked Carol when she reported for her duty at nine in the evening. “I need to speak to him and I haven’t seen him all day.”

“He’s not in at the moment, Miss LaGrange,” Carol said. Her voice was deep, like she smoked a lot although I never saw her doing it.

“Where is he?”

She shrugged. I knew by now that he’d been suspended. I felt rotten for it. I needed to see him, even if it was just to know that he didn’t hate me for this. That he could still look at me with the soft eyes he usually reserved for me.

“Carol,” I said and again. “Can I ask a favor? Can you switch with the new guard so that he’s at the windows and you’re at the door? I’d just feel… more comfortable with it.”

Carol nodded and disappeared to speak to the new night guard. He was tall and gangly, and he didn’t look like he was much of a fighter, but people could surprise you, so I’d been told. I didn’t really care. I felt better than the person outside my door was Carol, someone that kept her distance respectfully until it was necessary to venture into my personal space.

I tossed and turned that night, unable to sleep. Colt’s room wasn’t very far from mine, but I felt emptiness radiating from that side of the house. I was being stupid, he was probably in bed right now, but I felt unhinged with the new guard arrangements.

I rolled around, closing my eyes and opening them again. Finally I dozed off, but the moment I did something scraped against my window. I had a balcony, and there were no branches nearby.

The scraping sounded again. I got out of bed and walked to the window, moving the curtain. The new night guard would come around in two seconds, and I could relax again. I waited for the sign of him, the dark shadow that moved around in the floodlights that went on when they detected motion.

But he didn’t come.

The scraping sounded again, much closer this time, much louder.

A window broke and thick black mist filled my room like a creepy fog. Two dark creatures slipped in through the broken window and emerged from behind the curtain without moving it.

I screamed.

“Now now, Gemma. There’s no need to get jumpy about it,” one voice said and it sounded very familiar, although I couldn’t place the face.

“We’re just here to escort you back. We’re not going to harm you.” The second voice belong to a woman with long blond hair and brown eyes. She was beautiful, tall and slender and she moved like she was made of water. But I knew better than to be fooled by good looks. I recognized her for the coven I’d been aiming to join so long ago. I’d been stupid thinking I could get involved with that world, when all they wanted from me was to suck me in and change me until I was exactly like my mother.

I shivered.

“Come on, Gemma. Medea is waiting.” She held out her hand like she expected me to take it. For a moment I considered it. Her hand looked so soft, I wondered what it would feel like if I touched it. I shook my head, trying to snap out of it. It was the magic that made me think like that. I could feel it, thick in the air even though the mist had slowly dissipated again. I struggled to breathe through it.

“Come on, Gemma,” she said again and her voice danced around me like a melody. The most dangerous things were always the prettiest.

I shook my head.

“I’m not going with you,” I said in a voice that I hoped sounded more confident than I felt. “Guards!”

The woman laughed and the man joined in with that same voice that sounded so familiar. Their laughter danced around me, yanking on my clothes and hair like children trying to mock and bully me. I tried to duck away from it, but how could you get away from a sound?

“Your guards won’t hear you, precious gem.”

I shivered when she used the nickname. There was something strange about the way she said it. I felt my body move even though I didn’t want to. I took a step forward.

“Don’t,” I pleaded, because I knew it was them forcing me to come. “What have you done with them?”

“They’re not hurt,” the man reassured me, and for some reason I believed he was telling the truth. They’d just been removed. Witches had no quarrel with humans. Except me, obviously.

I closed my eyes and reached deep down to a dark side of me I’d locked up long ago. I’d vowed I wouldn’t use it again, wouldn’t access the blackness, but I had to.

“No!” I cried out, and pushed my hands forward like I was pushing against something physical. But I was still a couple of feet away from the witches. I’d flung a shock wave that knocked them both back. The man stumbled and fell to the floor, scrambling on his backside. The woman – I still couldn’t grasp her name – took a couple of steps back but managed to catch herself before she fell. She was the stronger of the two.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, and her voice promised pain. I took a deep breath and focused on what was inside of me, focused on bringing out the monster I’d been trying to kill.

Before I could do anything drastic though, Colt jumped through the balcony window. I sagged at the sight of him. His eyes were black and fierce, and his lips were pulled back, revealing his teeth in a very animalistic snarl.

The man on the floor scrambled backward until his back hit the wall. I was starting to realize he was an apprentice of some sort. He came across confident and strong but he had no courage and faith in his own ability yet. I could feel it now, his uncertainty like a hole in the magic that hung around me. Now that I’d woken myself up to it again I could feel how strong it was, how dark the room felt despite the light the fell in through the cracks in the curtain.

“Don’t touch her,” Colt said in a sneer. The woman rolled her eyes, like Colt’s presence only irritated her.

“I thought we told you to stay out of this, little wolf.”

They’d spoken to him? My body went cold thinking what he could know about me. Cold didn’t take her threat. He stood rooted to the spot, his face like stone, staring at her with eyes that would have scared me if I was on the receiving end of a stare like that.

“I’m not going to ask you again,” Colt said in a low voice and goose bumps broke out over my skin. He had something radiating from him, something I somehow knew but couldn’t place.

The witch laughed, the melody in her voice replaced with something sharp and threatening. It was poisonous now, and I felt my skin crawl. I wanted to get away from it. I ran to the door and tugged on the handle but the door wouldn’t budge.

“You didn’t think we would make it that easy to run, did you?” she said to me and I felt like a child thinking I could get away with something. She turned her attention back to Colt, and lifted her hands, her fingers stretched spastically. She mumbled something guttural in her throat and the magic picked, like steam in the room. It was hot and it rose up to the ceiling, hanging above us like a cloud.

Two creatures jumped through the window. They looked like mountain lions, but slimmer. Their bodies were long and when they moved it looked like they slithered rather than ran. Their eyes were completely black, and when they growled it rolled around us like the witch’s laugh had done.

I sank to the floor, making myself as small as I could against the door, but the animals weren’t looking at me. They were set on having Colt.

This was it. This was where he was going to die. I made mistakes as a stupid teenager and the man I was falling in love with was going to die.

But a new magic crept in. I could feel it, like slim fingers, prying its way in between the waves of the magic that already hung in the air. This magic was lighter, not as black, and it felt sweet on my skin. Sweet and warm. I looked at the witch. Her eyes were rolled back in her sockets, only white showing, and I had the idea her focus was on Colt through the lion-creatures.