ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (152 page)

“That’s enough!” Grant stood and shouted across the field. His voice echoed around us. Everyone stopped, not so much because they were listening, but because they were confused. I was confused.

The wolves didn’t change the way he did. I didn’t know how he’d managed that with the full moon. I knew his pack couldn’t. Maybe that particular power was what allowed him to be alpha.

“Get out of here,” he said, and the wolves hesitated. He started them down, each other them that were close enough, and they started pulling back. I pushed myself up.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t watch you die.”

“But I’m a vampire. You said so yourself. You made it clear that—“

“I was wrong, okay,” he said and it looked like saying those words physically hurt him. He took a deep breath. “I was wrong. I don’t want to… see you die. I don’t want to lose you.”

“But we’re enemies—“ I started but he cut me off again.

“We’ll figure it out. Somehow. Who knows, maybe you think I’m an arrogant ass and you don’t want me anyway and then this doesn’t matter. But I want to take my chances.”

“Even if it means you might lose your pack? I’ve never heard of something like this…”

I felt weak but the power was slowly seeping back into my bones. My healing. I felt better by the second but a lump was rising in my throat. He was suggesting we risk a lot for each other.

“You really care that much?”

“Enough to take my chances,” he said. He held his hand out and took it. The small action stopped everyone in their tracks, and all heads were turned to us. If we didn’t figure this out we would be in big trouble. The clan and the pack could turn on us.

But if he was willing to take his chances…

Why not?

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BONUS

THE BODYGUARD WOLF

By Sicily Duval

Colt

I rolled out of bed before dawn, stretching. I tipped my head from side to side, feeling the bones in my neck pop. I rolled my shoulders and walked to the bathroom. After a drink of water I walked back to my room and pulled on tracksuit pants. Before I left I walked to Gemma’s room. The bodyguard on night duty stood in front of her door, stiff and upright.

I nodded at him. He nodded back.

Gemma was safe, nothing was out of the ordinary. I didn’t have to worry about her just yet. The fact that I never really stopped worrying about her was besides.

I weaved my way through the servants’ passages until I reached the kitchen where a single halogen light burned by the back door. I let myself out. The chefs would arrive in an hour to prepare her breakfast.

I jogged down the long drive way that led to the LaGrange Mansion and slipped through the side gate that the servants used. Every morning I jogged up and down the roads that curved through Beverly Hills.

The morning was crisp, the air burning my lungs on the way in and out. When the sun rose it reached across Los Angeles with warm fingers, defrosting it, pushing away the gray to make space for color and light.

When I reached the edge of Beverly Hills, I kept going until I was surrounded by trees in Holmby Park. I wasn’t out of the city yet, but this time of morning it was easy to lose myself in the trees and not a soul would know.

As soon as I knew I was far enough from the road for anyone to see me, I got rid of my clothes and hit them in a hollow under a fallen log. I got goosebumps in the chilly air. I closed my eyes and turned my focus inward, concentrating on the rhythm of my heart and my breathing, slowing it down. My blood slowed in my veins, and I managed to bring everything in my body down to a speed so slow I could almost have been frozen. That was the frequency where I could change. Where I could manipulate my cells into another shape before I pulled them out of the odd suspension again.

My bones started moving under my skin. It was always an odd sensation, and I knew I would never really get used to it. Fur crept over my skin, starting from my spine and wrapping around my body. My teeth felt like they were going to fall out for a moment before I felt them move as well, and the next moment I was curled on the ground, not a man anymore.

I’d been a werewolf for almost fifteen years. I’d changed the first time when  was twelve, petrified and  lonely. A pack had taken me in for a while, teaching me how to control the wolf, or if I couldn’t, at least how to get along with it.

I shook myself like a dog, and set off running through the trees. I trained like this every morning, as a man and as a monster. I had to be as fit as I could to do my job. I hadn’t stayed with my pack for long. Instead I’d enrolled in an academy that trained me how to fight, to protect. I wanted to make sure others didn’t have the same fate as me.

When I was nineteen I had met a man that had showed me how to be human, too. Even though I had so much wolf in me. Peter LaGrange had been patient and kind, and he’d taken me under his wing, making sure I had everything I needed to become the man I wanted to be. I’d trained with him for two years before I’d realized he had a reason for knowing the things he’d taught me.

Peter had had a bad history with the witches in the area. I knew a little about them. When I’d been with the pack, we’d learned how to fight them and try to outwit their magic. Witches and werewolves were arch enemies. Since the beginning of time we just haven’t gotten along. We had magic too, in a way, and they resented us that. Witches were selfish and greedy. They wanted all the power to themselves. They’d managed to strike deals of protection with a lot of other creatures so they could have power, but wolves refused to fall somewhere at the bottom of a food chain.

Peter had been human, but the witches had been after him because they’d believed he’d taken the most precious thing from them. The next in line to be high priestess. A little girl who had been claimed by blood by her mother, the high priestess that reigned before this one. Peter’s only daughter.

I’d fought at Peter’s side  every time they came after him. I’d been there when he died.

Gemma his last words had been don’t let them get her.

So I found her. She was hiding in plain sight from her enemies, even though she knew nothing about the supernatural fight among her.

I’d trained in an elite academy and requested to guard her when I’d graduated. I shared my duty with two other guards who took the night shift, but I was the one watching over her whenever she was awake.

When I made it back to the Mansion, the sun was higher in the sky and the grounds were bustling with everyone coming and going to make her life as easy as possible. The gardeners waved at me when I jogged past.

“Morning, Francois,” I greeted the French chef who’d been imported to cook her food.

“Always up and running, eh?” he answered.

“No rest for the wicked.” We both chuckled and I made my way up to my own room where I showered. My hair was still wet when the alarm on my wristwatch went off. Gemma was waking up.

I walked down the passage.

“Long night, Rob?” I asked the guard who yawned as I got there.

“Oh, you know how it is. When nothing’s happening it’s hard to keep your eyes open.”

“Professional hazard. Get yourself some Red Bull.”

“Always the best advice, Colton,” he said sarcastically and walked away. I stepped into the place he’d vacated, with legs spread apart and my one hand on my other wrist in front of me. I wore the classic bodyguard suit, white shirt, black pants and blazer. In my pocket I had a Taser and a small hand-baton. I wasn’t allowed to carry a gun.

I didn’t need it.

The agency I worked for had a very strict policy about deadly weapons. There had been too many accidents with trigger-happy clowns when things got serious. But I had my wolf to back me up, and he was damn lethal.

The door swung open behind me and I stepped to the side.

“Morning, Colt,” Gemma said, her voice husky as it was in the mornings. I turned and smiled at her. This was my favorite part of every day. When she came out and she was still just herself, before she put on the mask she showed the masses.

“Morning, Gemma,” I said. She wore a black satin robe and slippers, and her blond hair was curled up and pinned on her head in a way that made it look like even her pajamas were arranged by a stylist. Her salon-manipulated skin was bronze against the black material, and her green eyes smiled at me.

“Is breakfast ready yet?” she asked.

“I believe so,” I answered. Her lips curled up in a smile.

It was the same question every morning, with the same answer. I followed her down the passage and then the stairs, watching her hips sway as she walked. She moved with grace, almost like she was floating.

She sat down at glass table in the breakfast room and servants brought in her food. A plate of fruit slices, rye toast with reduced fat butter, and a cup of tea. A moment later the butler came in.

“Mr. Howard, madam,” he said.

“Oh, so early? I just woke up,” she complained. The butler nodded.

“Fine, show him in,” she said, taking a bite of the toast.

Mr. Howard was a thin man with a moustache that crawled across his top lip and black eyes that missed nothing. I stopped the lawyer at the door to the dining table and patted him down. Someone else would have done it already, but it was better to be safe.

“What is it, Charlie?” Gemma asked. “Why are you bothering me so early?”

“Just some paperwork you need to sign, Miss LaGrange, before the shoot later. We have to get the legal matters out of the way.”

She nodded and Howard launched into a detailed explanation of what the contract said. Gemma had enough money not to have to read anything herself. Finally she nodded and signed. When Howard left she looked at me.

“This isn’t fun for me, you know,” she said. Her voice was light and clear, like crystal, and laughter laced it even though her face was perfectly serious. I smiled because I knew she didn’t mean it. She loved living the high life.

“Has that fan been trying again?” she asked. We’d been having trouble with someone that had tried to get closer to Gemma than the standard security details allowed. He’d been persistent.

“I’ll have to check up on it for you, but you know you’re perfectly safe,” I said. She smiled at me.

“I know,” she said in a whisper, and her eyes lingered on mine longer than it should have. It made me feel soft, like my center was melting. “You always take such good care of me.”

“It’s my job,” I said. But it wasn’t just that. She was the most precious thing to me. She was delicate and elegant, an exotic desert flower. Her smile could get her anything she wanted, even though she never used it on me, and her green eyes always made me feel like she was stripping away the brawn until it was just me left, naked and vulnerable.

I forced myself to push the thoughts away. I was her bodyguard. Agency appointed. I couldn’t think about Gemma LaGrange that way. If she was ever going to marry, it would be to someone in her circles. Someone like Ryan Gosling. Not me.

Besides, I was also a werewolf. There were those that were aware of our existence, but even though humans chose to ignore us, it was still taboo to have anything to do with humans. We were a mystery, and the humans like to keep us that way.

“Look at the time. I have to get dressed. I have a shoot at eleven and I haven’t even gotten in the bath yet.” She stood up and the servants cleared her half-eaten food. She floated to the stairs and I followed her to stand guard by the door while she got herself ready for her shoot.

When I walked past the window in the passage that looked out over the front gate, a man was standing there. Dark, like a shadow, he almost didn’t exist at all. He stared at the house and I almost thought I saw a pair of fiery red coals instead of eyes.

I stopped, but when I looked again he was gone.

I frowned. I did a quick sweep of the room for Gemma, and when she closed the door to the bathroom I pulled out my cell phone and phone Nelson at the gate.

“Did you see the figure that stood there two minutes ago?” I asked.

“There was nothing here. I can check the tapes for you, if you like.”

“Please.”

He was quiet on the other end of the line while he rolled through the tape.

“No, sorry Colt. Nothing here. Anything we need to worry about?”

I shook my head even though he couldn’t see it on the other end of the line.

“No, maybe I was just seeing things. Just keep your eyes open.”

“Always do.”

I hung up and slipped the pone into my pocket. My eyes might have been playing tricks on me, but the uneasy feeling curling around in my gut told me otherwise.

Gemma

Being a celebrity was harder than I thought it would be. When they found me singing in a bar in Vegas for extra cash, I’d never have dreamed I would wind up in Hollywood someday.  Life the way it was now, was perfect.

I had everything my parents had never been able to give me as a child, and my fans loved me. There was something thrilling about stepping out on stage and hearing thousands of people chant my name.

Of course, the security was an absolute bonus. I’d been looking over my shoulder ever since high school, and now I had Colt to look after me, and the other two to watch the doors and windows when I slept at night.

No one could creep in and steal me away in the middle of the night. No one could come and make me keep to my word.

I took my time in the bath, soaking myself in oils and salts until my fingers were wrinkled and I smelled like I’d been created in a hothouse. In the mirror I looked at myself. I didn’t recognize who I saw anymore. My hair was a jet black now, carefully done by a stylist every month so that I would never have to see the blond hair again.

I considered it a curse that I looked exactly like my mother.

The jet black suited my green eyes better, anyway.

I slipped into a summer dress and cork wedges, and I let my hair fall in curls over my shoulders. The stylist at the shoot would work magic with it again, and I wouldn’t have to worry. Everything was easier with money. Hair, make-up, clothes, I didn’t have to worry about any of it.

Colt was in the passage when I finished, as he always was. He never looked like he relaxed. His suit made him look smart, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of the blazer, and with his dark hair and eyes he looked mysterious. Wild. Raw. I loved looking at him when he was checking out the perimeter or frisking someone. The way he moved was with confidence and power.

I’d never felt this safe in my life.

The car was brought round to the front door, and Claude was behind the wheel with his white gloves.

“Morning Miss LaGrange,” he said when Colt held the door for me so I could climb in. He climbed in after me, and sat next to me. I was aware of his presence when he was so close, an atmosphere of authority radiating from him.

“I’m not looking forward to this shoot,” I confided in him once we were on the road.

“It will be over soon. It’s for your new album cover. You’ll love it when you’re there.”