Aedan: Harrison Ambush – Erotic Tiger Shapeshifter Romance (7 page)

“That’s for being childish. And I should hit you again for being a jackass. Yes, you’re a jackass. Let the great and powerful Aedan Harrison tell you his woes while his mate, new to this family, lies up in a stranger’s bedroom bleeding and in a great deal of pain. Let me not also point out that you could make her better with just a small effort. But I guess for you, Aedan the Powerful, that’s asking too much. Perhaps I should go and make a few calls. I’m sure that I can have that man come here and take her off your hands so you won’t have to have your precious plans fucked up.” She hit him again, and this time he felt it cut into his mouth. “That one was for ruining my walk, you selfish overgrown prick.”

Aedan laid back down. He was pretty sure that one, if not all, of his brothers was going to be after him as soon as Andi got home. He could hear her crying even now. Looking at the water, he thought of what she’d said to him and hurt for it. Not because of what she said, but because he was afraid that she was right. He was a selfish prick.

~~~

Nikki held tightly onto her temper. She wasn’t sure what, at this point, had pissed her off more. The Harrison man who had tried to feel her up, the doctor who was laughing at her right now, or the woman sitting in the chair telling her that she wasn’t going anywhere without an escort. Finally having enough, she reached up under the pillow she was laying on and wasn’t surprised to find her gun there. Mason had said he’d make sure she had it when he came for her. Pulling it out, she put it on the forehead of the man leaning over her laughing. Surprise, surprise, he stopped laughing immediately.

“I’m not in the best of tempers.” He said he could see that. “You’re not helping me by laughing at me either. I fucking hurt and I’m confused, not a good combination even on my best days, which isn’t all that often. But you’re pissing me off more.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you, but at Aedan.” She asked him who that was. “The man’s bed that you’re currently in. The guy that tried to order you around…your words, not mine. And this is also his house. Do you think you could stop trying to make that weapon a decoration in my head for a moment? I only have one more stitch to put in.”

Nikki felt the tears. “I hurt badly. I think that I’m going to be sick too. Do you suppose you could, I don’t know, back off for a minute when you’re done with that one? I don’t want to have to puke on you and tear out the stitches again.” He lifted his hands from her body, but she just couldn’t stop the pain and gripped harder on the butt of her gun while she breathed though it. Or tried to. “I can’t move.”

“All right.” He—she thought his name was Ennis—didn’t move either. “Can Storm help you? She’s had some experience with this level of pain.” Nikki was vaguely aware of the woman moving toward her. Slowly and with confidence.

“I’m going to touch your arm, all right?” Nikki nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off Ennis when Storm spoke to her. “When I do, I’m going to gently lower your arm so that I can take your weapon.”

“Don’t take it. I mean, you can’t take it. I might.... Adkins is out there and coming, you said. I don’t want to be without it.” Storm said she understood. “All right. But I want you to know that the pain in my chest seems to be connected to my arm right now. I mean, it hurts like a son of a bitch.”

As soon as Storm touched her arm, Nikki screamed. She didn’t just hurt but was sick with it. When she felt her weapon leave her fingers, she screamed again. The pain nearly took her under. But before she could roll over and throw up, there was a fucking huge tiger standing over her. Whatever had been going on in her belly disappeared right away. And there was the tiger right on the bed, his entire body hard with anger. She had no idea why she knew he was pissed, but everyone in the room backed away.

“It’s Aedan,” the doctor told her. She started to ask who that was again when she looked at the tiger. “He’s protecting you from me.”

“What did you plan to do, murder me?” Ennis laughed and the big cat growled. “Oh, shut up. Christ almighty, are you trying to make me hurt more? Get off of me.”

Instead of doing what she said, he leaned his massive head down and licked her arm. The pain that she’d been having from the wound there disappeared. Not completely, but enough that she could move without causing her to hurt so badly. Ennis told her to let him see the other wounds.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. In the event you don’t remember where they are, I’ll just let you know I’m not going to let a huge fucking cat get anywhere near my breasts and nipples.” He purred. And with his body over hers and so close, she felt it all over her. Looking up at him, she curled her fingers into his mane and pulled his head down so that he was looking at her. His eyes were the same light color as the man who had been under her earlier. The color of the cat, even the darker streaks in his fur, were the same as had been on his head. There was something there, something more, and it occurred to her that Ennis might be right. “Aedan?”

He licked her face. It might have grossed her out under other circumstances, but she tightened her fingers in his fur and held onto him. This was one of the more ridiculous things that had ever happened to her.

“He wants you to let him see the other wounds, please. His saliva can heal you faster than I can with just meds. With these men coming, and we know that they are now, it might benefit you to be healthy rather than banged up the way that you are.” She glanced at Storm and noticed that Ennis had left them. “Aedan won’t hurt you. He won’t be able to. And he’ll protect you with his life if it comes to that. Even to the point of you wanting to shoot him yourself.”

“That’s about where we are now.” The cat took hold of the man’s shirt she had on, the one that she’d put on when she arrived here, and tore it off her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He tore at the shirt until it was gone. She lay there, exposed to him, and felt her heart pound in her chest. When he took the first padding in his mouth, she watched him as he gently lifted it from her, but still it hurt. When she cried out, he stopped all movement.

“I had on a vest, but the shooters were really close at the end and it couldn’t survive that much pressure.” She took the padding in her hand and lifted it the rest of the way off. He moved off her but not the bed. “What do you think is going to happen if you take my blood?”

I already did taste your blood. When I healed the wound on your arm.
Nikki stared at him; his voice had come in her head like he was speaking in the room with her. She looked around the bedroom, thinking this whole thing was a joke, and he said her name.
It’s me. You know that.

“You can talk to me.” He rubbed his head over her chin and chest, then looked down at her. “Are you going to hurt me?”

No, I can’t. I can never harm you or let you be harmed. And I can heal you. Pull the bandages away and let me do it for you.
She wasn’t sure and said that to him.
You need to be up and about. I just heard from Mason that Otis Adkins took a plane to Ohio.

“He’ll kill whoever gets in his way. I have something, a lot of things actually, that he wants back.” He only nodded, didn’t ask what it was like most people would have. “It might be better for your family if I left. Grandda…I’m not sure what to do with Grandda. I’ll think of something. But if I stay here, someone will get killed.”

You’re my responsibility now. I have no choice but to make sure that nothing happens to you no matter how much you mess things up for me.
It took her a moment, but she thought she got what he was saying.
So if you would please lift the bandages out of the way, I can get this over with.

Lifting the gun this time wasn’t painful. And even if it was, she was pretty sure as angry as she was right now, she might not have felt it. Pushing on his chest where perhaps his black heart was, she pushed the gun into his head so that he would have no doubt that it was there.

“Move.” He growled low. “I don’t know if you realize this or not, but I think my gun pointed at your head trumps your fucking growl. Now get off the bed, or so help me we will be testing the theory of whether or not I can hurt you.”

You’re being as unreasonable as I knew you’d be. You think I want this? To have you fucking with my plans after all the work I’ve put into them?
She sat up and barely held onto the moan of pain.
Why are you doing this? Just lay down and let me heal you. Do you want to be killed because you’re being stubborn?

Getting up, she held her gun on him. Reaching for the sheet, she wrapped it around her body and moved to the door. As soon as she found the handle and opened it, he looked ready to pounce. Pissed off now, she fired a bullet at him and it hit less than an inch from his paw. Thankfully he didn’t move again, but he did look pissed off.

As soon as she was out of the room, she shut the door and moved down the hall. When a door opened beside her, she aimed at the person there but luckily didn’t fire. It was her grandda. And he was armed as well.

“We have to go.” He nodded and moved with her. “I don’t have a car. Nor clothing. But we can’t stay here.”

“You kill him?” She said not yet. “All right then. I have both. Money too. We’ll be as right as beans and cornbread, see that we ain’t.”

She hoped so. But she had a feeling that she’d stand a better chance with Adkins than she would with the man upstairs. Adkins might kill her, but Aedan would destroy her.

Chapter 6

“I’m guessing you said something to her.” Aedan said nothing but sat on his mother’s couch and waited. He’d been called home—well, ordered home—an hour ago, and he wasn’t any happier about that than he’d been when he saw that old car that had been in his garage for two weeks pulling out of his driveway. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“No. I don’t even know why she left.” Which was a lie. He’d hurt her. He’d seen it in her face when she’d put the gun to his head. “And if you ask me, she’s a little too free with trying to blow people’s heads off. What if she had shot me?”

“I would imagine that you gave her good reason.” His dad, who he thought might understand just a little, had been snapping and biting at him since he showed up. “Did you spout off that crap that you told her grandda? About how she was messing with your time charts or something?”

“I never mentioned charts. But yes, I might have mentioned that she wasn’t what I’d had planned for the rest of my life.” He really did feel badly about that. Aedan wasn’t normally so crass with his words. To be honest, when he’d felt her pain, it had made him a little on edge. “I could have explained to her what I meant and what I wanted, but she pulled a gun on me and then left. Why was she even armed anyway?”

“I would think that would be obvious, even to you.” His mom hit him on the back of the head. “What is wrong with you? Your mate is out there, hurt and being pursued by a man who wants her dead. And not only that, but he’s tried to kill her and her grandfather once already. And here you sit whining about how she messed with what you had in the works. I did not raise you to be such a fool, did I?”

Aedan decided he wasn’t going to answer that on the grounds that he might get into more trouble. “What would you have me do, Mom? Worry every time something doesn’t go her way that she’s going to pull a gun on someone? That if we’re at some state function that she might have a bad guy come in gunning for her and kill several innocent people?” He stood up. “Her leaving was the best thing that could have—”

The pain took him to the floor. He thought it was his mom, that she’d hurt him, but he knew immediately that it wasn’t him that was hurt, it was Nikki. Grabbing the table to pull himself upright, he felt blood on his face and wiped at his nose. His hand came away bloodied.

“What is it, son?”

He couldn’t answer his dad to tell him he had no idea. Another pain, this one more powerful, bent him in half. Aedan could hear his mom screaming at him, his dad calling his name. Before he could say anything, darkness swamped him.

When he woke—it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds later—he was still laying on the floor. His body no longer hurt, but he stood up cautiously. As he staggered to the door, he knew only that he had to get to Nikki when his Dad was suddenly in front of him.

“She’s hurt.” His dad nodded. “I have to find her. Something has happened to her and I need to go and bring her home.”

“I thought you were just saying how her leaving you was the best thing ever.” He turned when his Dad did, and there stood Mason. “I called him. He’s going to get her so you don’t have to be bothered with her anymore.”

“I’m going too.” Mason just disappeared. “Dad, where is she? What happened to her? I want to…I don’t know what I want, but I need to get to her.”

Both his dad and his mom left him standing in the kitchen. Aedan stood there for several seconds before he followed them into the living room. Dad was sitting in his easy chair reading the paper, Mom was knitting something. Neither of them acknowledged that he was even there.

“You’re just going to let me believe that you don’t give a shit about her.” His mom didn’t even look up from what she was doing, and told him to watch his language. “My mate is out there, hurt, and you want me to watch my language? What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I’d like to tell you that we’re lucky that we didn’t get to know her better so it won’t hurt as badly now that you’ve kicked her to the curb, but that would be a lie. Because of her grandda. He made her seem as if we knew her as well as he did, and he brought us some of his memories of her that make me think I would have loved her very much.” Mom looked at him then, tears in her eyes. “I think you’re right, as much as it pains me to say so. You might be better off without her in your life. I know that she certainly will be without you in hers. There is no telling what other cruelty you might have heaped on her.”

He sat down. Cruelty? How was that even possible? He’d been honest. With her and with himself. Sort of. Aedan watched his parents as his dad asked his mom what a four letter word was for idiot, and she told him fool. Aedan had no idea why, but he was pretty sure that there wasn’t a clue like that in the crossword puzzle that his dad was working on.

When he got up to leave, he didn’t bother kissing them good-bye. Neither of them said a word when he told them he was leaving. It was as if he wasn’t there, that it mattered little to them that he was hurting by their rejection. He’d not done anything wrong; not so far as he could see, he hadn’t. Why were they making him out to be the bad guy in all of this?

Going home, he was met at the door by Winnie. He told him that he’d been cleaning the bedrooms, and asked if he wanted the things that Mr. Neal and Nikki had left behind, that he’d put them in the living room for now. Aedan told him to put them in a box, and that he’d make sure that they got them. When he went into his living room, there was the bundle of things on the table that Winnie had told him about. Aedan picked up the first thing he saw.

It belonged to Paddy, he knew it at first glance. It was his wallet, with nothing in it but pictures. No credit cards or cash. Not that he would have taken either, but Aedan was surprised by their absence. There was a photo album too. The picture on the front was of a child, and he had a feeling it was Nikki.

Leaning back on the couch, he flipped it open to the first page. It was a folded up newspaper article that was yellowed with age. He pulled it out, feeling slightly guilty about what he was doing, but read the headline and decided that he needed to read this. Local Family Gunned Down in Home. He looked at the date and realized that it was Nikki’s family.

He read it all the way to the end of the long story. It told how Nikki’s father, Nicholas Neal, had been a good cop and a better man. A loving and wonderful father and husband as well. It told how one day Nicholas had walked in on a robbery and had saved two people, the owner and his wife, in a robbery of their store that had gone bad. The would-be robber, a man so high on something that he could barely speak, had tried to kill Nicholas, but only succeeded in wounding the man. The robber was killed when Nicholas, having no choice, had shot the man to save himself.

Then three days after Nicholas had been sent home from the hospital, his wounds barely healed, the family of the robber had broken into his home and murdered him and his wife, Anastasia, as well as shot the couple’s only child. It said that she was not expected to survive either.

The townspeople were outraged that something like this could have happened to their hometown hero, and had rallied around the child until her grandparents could come and see to her. The murderers of the family had been put in jail, and there had been no word on what was to happen to them at the time of the article.

Aedan looked at the picture that accompanied the article of the little girl and her family on a beach somewhere. It had been a picture taken during a family vacation, he’d bet. Their faces were full of love and laughter. The date under it with their names was a month prior to the newspaper article. There was another picture in the article, this one of her bloodied body laying between those of her parents. The sheets over them were dark with what he could only assume was blood. Aedan felt his heart ache when he thought of what he’d do if something like that would happen to his own family members.

Aedan moved to the first photo in the album. It was a newborn baby, chubby and asleep. As he moved through her life, pulling out more newspaper clippings and reading them, he gained a picture of Nikki that he’d doubt very much anyone else would have ever known. Pictures of her and her grandparents on trips. Paddy and her at a shooting range. There were Christmas pictures, birthday parties, and even one of her graduating from high school at the age of fifteen. The article that accompanied that picture said that she had also been taking college classes at night, and would be finishing that part of her education soon as well. It was her dream to be a prosecutor, this article had said.

College had been no different for Nikki. She’d graduated at the top of her class, gone on to get her doctorate in law, then to the police academy. Aedan wasn’t really surprised to see that she excelled at that as well. Her grandda was in a picture with her in her blue service uniform.

Nikki had donated her time and money to soup kitchens, and volunteered at shelters when she wasn’t working yet another article said. She even read to the elderly at the local nursing home where her grandmother had lived for nearly ten years before her death. The woman, his mate, was someone that he had judged badly and poorly. It was then that he knew that his mother had been right…he’d been beyond cruel to her.

He was reading the last article when he heard someone clear their throat.

“Sir?” Aedan looked up at Winnie. Wiping at the tears on his face, not even realizing that he’d been crying, he asked him what he could do for him. “Browning is here, sir. She’d like a word with you. She is most upset, if you don’t mind the warning.”

“Tell her to come in.”

Aedan didn’t put the album back but held it on his lap. He was going to read each article again, look at every picture until he had her memorized. Aedan needed the connection to the small child that had grown up to be a more than beautiful woman. He stood up when Storm came into the room with him. When she slammed her fist into his face, he didn’t even fight back. He was pretty sure that he deserved that and more.

“Do you have any idea how fucking pissed I am at you right now? Are all Harrisons…I was going to say men, but I doubt very much you would fit in that category right now. But are you all the dumbest fucking idiots on the face of this fucking earth? You fucking dick weed. I swear to Christ.... Get up. I need to hurt you more.” He didn’t move and wasn’t going to until she calmed down…if she did. “I have my gun. I will shoot you right where you are. I said to get up so I can kick your ass all over this room.”

“I’m an idiot.” She only crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not saying that I didn’t think this through, because that is just what I did. I thought and thought until I had nothing left to change. And I don’t like change. But with Nikki, I was a complete idiot, a fool in the way that I treated her and acted. Like I said, I don’t care for changes.”

“Well too fucking bad. Because in the event you didn’t get it, things get all fucked up and you have to bend a little or I’ll fucking break you. You didn’t even give her a fucking chance, Aedan. That’s not at all like you.” He said that he knew that now. “So you want me to believe that you’ve had this great epiphany and that you’ve seen the light? Or are you telling me what I want to hear so you won’t need to be afraid of me?”

“I don’t think there will ever be a time in my life when I’m not afraid of you, Storm.” She looked pleased, and he nearly smiled when she glared at him again. “But yes, I guess you could say that is just what happened. I had a look into her life, and I don’t care for the way that I assumed she was going to mess up mine. I’m a dick and a jackass. How badly was she hurt this time? And is Paddy all right?”

“There was a car accident about four miles from here. She’s in the hospital with some of the stitches that.... How the fuck did you know that?” He told her about the the pain he’d had in the kitchen a bit ago. “Good. Serves you right for kicking her out of your home. I swear to Christ, I could very happily hurt you again right now. I had high hopes for you being the only sane brother in the family. At the very least, the most romantic.”

“If I told you that I don’t have any idea why I acted the way that I did, are you going to hit me again?” She told him she’d have to think on it and put out her hand to help him up. “Storm, how are they, how is Paddy?”

“Sitting by her bedside, holding her hand like it’s the only reason that he’s breathing. We’re still trying to figure out what happened. There is some speculation that the other driver went left of center. But I’m not buying that shit. And Paddy isn’t saying a word. He just sits there looking all of his years.” Aedan took her hand then and was lifted up. “You hurt them both, you know that, don’t you? When I went to see what I could do, neither of them said a word, but I knew it was you. Then I talked to your parents. You hurt them as well.”

“Yes. I know it now. I need to go to see them, but Paddy and Nikki first.” He handed her the album. “Read this. And I’m going to change into something nicer. When I get back, will you give me a ride to the hospital? I don’t think that I could be safe on the roads right now.”

“Yes. But don’t be surprised to find your family there and ready to tar your ass up and roll you in broken glass. I might yet help them.” He wondered if she knew it was tarred and feathered, but was afraid to ask. Instead he went to his room and pulled on clothing. He had a lot of making up to do, and he was going to start now. When he went back to the living room, Storm looked up from the article she was reading. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, me either. But then I never gave her the chance, now did I?” Aedan pulled on his boots. “I need some favors. I need some security here and at the hospital. And someone to look into this Adkins guy.”