The Protector (19 page)

****

Josh
paced in the cabin where he was to meet his current employer. Almost as soon as
the parents of the kid had paid him for his job the strange guy in the mask had
hired him. He couldn’t tell him no, even though he thought about it. This place
freaked Josh out, and he just wanted to get home and back to his own work.
Still when the guy showed up and Josh had planned to get his money and quit, he
didn’t want to.

He better fucking
pay
me even though I didn't finish the job. I will make his
life hell if he thinks being pissed will get him out of paying me.

Josh
was getting antsy here. It had been weeks since they found the kid. At first he
stayed for the investigation. Then he’d told Jennifer he was taking a break to
enjoy the town, which wasn’t true. He was working with a new client. He would
give him strange requests like spying on the townspeople, but he paid well so
Josh never questioned it. He was starting to feel very unwelcome here, and
anxious to go home. Jennifer had also brought up going home, too, and even
shoving extra money at her wasn’t shutting her up.

The
door opened, and Josh nearly laughed. He coughed at the last minute to save
himself.
Do not insult anyone before they
paid.
Once he had his money he would laugh at the idiot. He sure was one
paranoid son of a bitch. He was wearing a white kabuki mask over his face, with
red lines and black eyebrows and eyelids painted on it, just like last time,
and he wore a voice distorter.

“You
do realize I am not from here, nor do I have any desire to live here. There is
some strange shit that goes down around here.”

“This
is for my protection. I get sick of erasing your fucking memory. That bitch fox
took a lot out of me last time. I need to save my strength in case I have to
deal with Michael. I can’t risk losing this territory now. I have my
experiments that I am observing, and if anyone were to find out what I am doing,
well, it’s hard to study my subjects while I am on the run.”

“Experiments?”
Josh looked around. Suddenly he
had a vision of a meth lab and crazy fuckers that would keep cooking that shit
when they didn’t know what they were doing. Then they blew their houses up. He
was not in the mood to have the cabin go up around him. He heard the crazy
fucker ranting on about his crimes. He must have thought since Josh didn’t know
who he was, that he was someone he could brag to. Too bad for him, Josh didn’t
give a shit. He just wanted his money.

“I
broke a Guardian,” the stupid looking masked man continued. “I made him think
the female that killed his mate was here.”

Josh
tuned him out again, struggling not to yawn. He was gloating about some
pregnant chick now and Josh wanted to yell "enough, just fucking pay me so
I can leave," but if he did, that would be a sure way not to get paid or
perhaps even killed.

“When
I found out Dani’s twin sister was around I couldn’t resist.”
 

Josh
shrugged him off, not very curious. He was silent long enough for Josh to get a
word in. “Whatever, so am I getting paid?”

The
idiot stopped mid-sentence. “Why do you think you shouldn’t?” the masked man
asked in that annoying fake voice of the voice distorter.

“You
sent me to attack a couple, and I didn’t get very far before I was attacked and
had to leave before the cops showed up. I heard sirens, and I knew it wouldn’t
be too long.”

“You
did perfectly. My plans are once again on track. That fucking moron trying to
bring me that brat nearly ruined everything. I need to get these test subjects
to stop bringing me gifts, especially dead ones,” he said and tossed a bundle
of money at him.
“Fifty thousand, as promised.
Are you
going to spend it on that pretty assistant you have?”

“Jennifer?
She is a little shy for my tastes. I like mouthy women I can slap the fire out
of,
then
fuck ‘
em
.”

“Such
a waste, she seems like a pretty little thing. I am too worn out to tamper with
that many memories. Pity, she would be fun to keep around. Just one of the sacrifices
I have to make to achieve my goals
..
The good news is
Cole trusts me completely after that little show we put on. I feel like I can
breathe again without that ass watching my every move.
 
Blair remembers nothing, so we are back on
schedule. I will be able to start capturing test subjects before long. ”

Josh
shrugged, pretending indifference. He didn’t care about Caleb’s power struggle
or what sort of shifter fighting force he wanted to make. He was disappointed
that Caleb claimed he was too tired to do the same mind trick with Jennifer.

He
didn’t declare his income from his criminal activities. He liked to call
himself a master of all trades. He could get drugs, girls, cars or whatever a
client wanted. Lately young girls were in demand.

“Thanks
for the pay. If there is anything else I can do, you know my number.”

“Yes,
actually there is. I do not know who the human is that attacked the employee at
the coffee and pastry business in town, but my assistant Dani lured him here,
without my permission. I want to have a chat with this fellow, but I've no idea
where he's hiding out at the moment and perhaps I can make him of use. Go and
find him for me, before the police catch him.”

Josh
thought about it. He did want to get out of here. These people were strange,
and he was drinking way too much in this place. He kept waking up with serious
hangovers, the likes of which he'd never experienced before, and the worst
thing was, he had no memory of the evening before whatsoever. It was freaking
him out a little, and he needed to leave. Perhaps it was some moonshine these
weird yokels made in their bathtubs. Whatever it was, it was frying his brain
cells obviously.

“I
will make it worth your while of course. Bring me this human, and you will get
an additional five hundred thousand.”

Josh
stopped and stared at him wide eyed, “Well, I can’t turn that shit down. You
have a deal.” He put his hand out for the man to shake on it, but the man turned
away from him, and walked out of the cabin.

Chapter
Twelve

Blair
was more than ready to go home after a couple weeks of being stuck in a
hospital bed. Doctor Trask’s medicine as well as shifter healing meant she was
well on her way to recovery. Even the broken bones from her body trying to
shift had healed well.

Cassie
walked in, looking as elegant as ever. Blair had no idea why Cassie thought she
was not as pretty as some of the other shifters around town. Blair thought she
was beautiful, and she carried herself with all the grace of a shifter twice
her age.

Cassie
had not come to Pleasant Cove as a shifter though. She had been a human
vacationing with her friend. She had been attacked by the then-banished Lucas,
who not only killed her friend Marcy thinking she was the insane woman that
killed his pregnant mate, but realizing Cassie was a
halfling
,
decided to change her into a shifter to make her into a companion for himself.
But she escaped. All his effort was for nothing, though, when Michael and
Cassie bonded.

“You
look radiant, girl,” Blair told her with a fond smile. Blair had found Cassie
when she was hurt and trying to find help. They had become close friends since
that day. Blair now counted Cassie as one of her closest friends.

“I
do?” Cassie asked. "Why do you think so?”

“Well
you just do, I don’t know. Did you have a nice visit with your grandparents?”

“Oh
yes. They love it here. They may move here in a couple of years. They are
really happy in Denver though.” Cassie shrugged. “Oh well, it is not a long
drive really.”

“Oh,
moving here will be so good for them. I hope they do. Did they take the news ok
about you turning into a shifter?” Blair had really hoped they would not stroke
out, or have a heart attack. She wondered if it was best to not tell them, even
though for
halflings
it was common for them to tell
the parent or guardian that raised them if they didn’t know. Most times they
did know, since most shifters loved their children dearly. They did not go
around making children with human women, only to abandon them.
 

There
were the exceptions, though. The wild shifters that were banished lived by
their own rules. The only thing that kept them from exposing the shifter secret
was the threat of being hunted down by
cholan
warriors and killed. While there were others out there like Cassie, who had no
idea they were
halflings
, most knew both their
shifter and human families.

“Oh
they did all right with that. I shifted and turned back when Grandma thought I
had been drinking a bit too much lately.”

Blair
could not help but giggle. After all the stories she had heard about Cassie’s
grandma, she wished she could have seen that.
“Oh, my.
So how did she take it?”

Cassie
laughed a little harder. “She smelled the coffee she was drinking to check for
drugs. But then when she realized she was not drunk or drugged she started to
come around. Then she nearly fainted when I told her I was pregnant.”

Blair
smiled. “That’s
ni
—” Blair gasped. “What?” She gaped
at Cassie before she let out an excited squeal. “You’re pregnant?
With a baby?”

Cassie
was smiling wide as she nodded her head. “Yes, at least I hope so. I keep
thinking I might get a cougar or wolf cub.”

Blair
started pulling off the monitor leads. The thin wires tangled together. Finally
she got all the monitor leads off of her and leapt at Cassie, laughing. She
wrapped her arms gently around her. “I am so happy for you. Oh, and no. Your
baby won’t change until they are around twelve or thirteen.”

Cassie
smiled at her. “I know. Michael had already told me all about shifter children.
They are just like human children until adolescence starts to set in.”

Blair
nodded with a smile. “And girls tend to shift for the first time a few years
before boys.”

Cassie
chewed on her bottom lip worriedly. “If I ask you a question, would you promise
to tell me the truth?”

“Of course.
I have never lied to you about
anything.”

“I
know
,
I just do not want anything sugar coated to
spare my silly emotions.”

Blair
knew how Michael could be. He thought that by hiding unpleasant truths from
people he was sparing them. She had tried several times to tell him that it
just caused more anxiety later. When he was telling the whole story, people
wondered if there was more, and he was just not saying the terrible parts.

“Go
ahead, I promise to tell you everything I know.”

Cassie
gave her a grateful smile. “Does it hurt when full shifter children change?
Michael keeps saying that it will be fine.”

Blair
gave her a sympathetic smile and took her hand. She looked her in the eye so
she would see that she was telling her the truth.

“Not
anything like what you went through. You went from fully human to fully shifter
in a matter of a couple of days. When a child is born fully shifter, they
change slowly. When the time comes where they shift, it is more like what you
experience now. It feels like you’re falling, and the first time it feels as if
they land really hard. It’s more jarring than painful. Shifter children learn
quickly to control their shifting, so it is smooth.”

Cassie
gave her a relieved look. “Thank you. I have been so worried that my poor baby
would be in the same kind of pain I was in.”

Blair
smiled. “No. Only half shifters have to endure that. Believe it or not, for
many it is even more painful. You chose mating instead of a bite. Sexual
release eases the pain. A straight bite, with a Guardian simply guiding the
essence changing a
halfling
, is apparently
excruciating.”

Cassie
shuddered. “I heard that. A few of the people around were children of mixed
parents, and they told me their experience with changing.”

“It’s
awful,” Blair said with a shudder. “But remember they go into it with their
eyes wide open. They know how painful it will be, but that it only lasts a
couple of hours.”

“I
know, and my situation was not typical.” Cassie got a haunted look on her face.
Blair knew she was remembering her attack and Marcy’s death. Blair understood
Cassie’s hatred towards Lucas. Cassie was used to human laws, and human laws
said killing was wrong, unless someone was defending themselves. Shifters
killed for vengeance.

If
someone murdered Cassie, Michael would kill them, whether it was a human or
another shifter. Even if Michael came across her murderer years later, he would
kill them, and it would be justified. It was their way.

Even
humans allowed for extenuating circumstances though. In human courts people
accidently killed others and got off with light jail sentences or with no
punishment at all. Courts were full of criminals getting probation for
manslaughter, or if they proved they were not in their right frame of mind they
sent them to other types of facilities.
 
The
big difference between human courts and shifter judgment was the Guardians and
their Goddess,
Ilithyia
. She could sense the true
motives of the shifter or human being judged. Human judges and police only had
the evidence, which could be wrong.
 

Before
Cassie and Marcy ever came to Colorado, Lucas had been killing humans. Michael
banished him for a while, but he only killed humans that meant to harm
shifters. The banishment was more to give Lucas some time alone to heal. If
Lucas had killed Marcy out of malice, because she was human, then Michael would
have attacked him and ripped his throat out. Shifter law was much harsher than
human laws. It was essential for their survival. If shifters were exposed to
the human world, they would be hunted and killed off, just as humans have done
with many wild animals.

Why
Lucas misjudged Marcy, and thought she was her twin sister, Dani, was
troubling. Perhaps it was the madness of grief, or he was so furious at seeing
her, he did not notice. Whatever the reason, Lucas had missed it.

Blair
found her opinion of Lucas was changing. She had felt he needed to leave, but
now she could see the guilt was destroying Lucas. She found it just added to
the tragedy of the situation. Lucas had been a damn good Guardian when he had
Allie for a mate. Now he was a haunted shell that Travis kept a close eye on.
Everyone was waiting for the day to come when Travis needed to put a bullet in
his brain. At the rate Lucas was going, he would go feral and be far more
dangerous than a rabid, wild animal. It was another sad reality of shifter life
that if a shifter went insane, he was either locked away or killed. Blair found
herself wishing Lucas could find a new meaning for his life. If he had someone
to protect, it might bring him out of his downward spiral.

Blair
realized she was being rude by getting lost in her own thoughts. She took
Cassie’s hand. “No, it wasn’t typical at all, but you handled it far better
than I would have. You have been strong and brave through everything, and you
will be an awesome mom.”

“Thank
you,” Cassie said with a smile. They sat quietly for a moment watching the
television when there was a light knock on the door.

Mandy
peeked in, looking around the room. Knowing how shy Mandy was, she was probably
making sure Cole wasn’t around.

“Are
you up for visitors?” she asked when she saw it was all clear.

“Yes!”
both Blair and Cassie answered.

Mandy
and Aaron walked in holding hands. Blair didn’t try to hide her smile. Whatever
shyness Aaron had been feeling with Mandy, he had gotten over it. Mandy looked
up at Aaron as if she was head over heels in love with him, and he looked like
a bear protecting what was his. Blair felt so happy for Mandy she wanted to
cry, happy tears of course. If anyone deserved a sweet, devoted, and
overprotective bear like Aaron, it was Mandy. She was such a sweet girl, and
now most people in town felt a little more protective of Mandy. She had come to
town as a tiny little girl who was heartbroken over the loss of her parents to
live with an aunt that she barely knew. Elaine, Mandy’s aunt, and her husband Carl
Reevers
, a panther shifter, adopted her as their own
child soon after settling here. The people were nervous about a human child
from the human world, but their fears were alleviated soon after her arrival.
She was, in fact, just a harmless little girl.

Blair
smiled at her employee and friend. “I see you two are getting on well.”

Mandy’s
cheeks turned pink, and she smiled back. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Blair
saw the hickey just peeking out from under her blouse. “Mandy, come here,”
Blair said concentrating on the spot.

Mandy
walked forward, and Blair looked closer. “Wow, you should have Aaron do
something about those vampires.”

Cassie
put her hand over her mouth and laughed while Mandy moved her shirt to cover
the hickey better.

“I
told you they would see it,” she said to Aaron while blushing even brighter.

“I
don’t see what the problem is. Now everyone knows you’re mine.”

Cassie
laughed and stood up. “Oh that is such a guy thing to say.” She leaned over and
gave Blair a quick hug, “I have to meet Michael in a bit for dinner. See you
soon.” Cassie waved at Mandy with a wink. “Behave, you two.”

Mandy
hid her face in Aaron’s chest making Cassie laugh harder.

Aaron
sat in the chair and pulled Mandy into his lap. He got her settled, and Mandy
turned to Blair and asked, “So, when do you get to leave?”
 

“Hopefully tomorrow.
I really hope so as I want out
of here, so bad. I have so much to do although I have to take it easy for a
couple more weeks. Cole took medical leave though.”

Mandy
pressed a kiss to Blair’s cheek. “I am so happy you are on your way to
recovery. Aaron and I opened the coffee shop, and served coffee at least. The
pastry shelf looks lonely though.”

Blair
winced at the thought of what her customers must be thinking. “I bet, and I can
imagine the pouting when the customers see it is still empty.”

Mandy
nodded.
“A lot.”

They
continued to talk about the business and the people who had sent Blair get well
wishes and the complaining that Mandy had to listen to, when Cole walked in
with Lucas.

Blair
took in the sight of Cole. Her heart rate sped up, and she wondered how she
ever thought she could live her life without Cole being a part of it. She had
tried to fool herself into thinking she could move on without him, but the
reality was
,
she loved Cole with every fiber of her
being. She could have tried to leave, but she would have come right back.

Blair
glanced over at Lucas. Although he still stood tall and muscular, there was a
defeated air about him. She could see the haunted look in his eyes that made
him look like his spirit was broken. She knew that either Cole or Travis kept a
close eye on him. If they ever had to kill Lucas, she knew they would make it
quick.