Liam raced the bike back down the highway to the city, then north on the freeway. He dove off and angled west, through the main city, circling fine homes that clung to the hillside above the river. The night was hot and dank, but the air rushing past the bike felt chilled.
He thought of the red dot on the computer map that indicated Kim’s house. To him, the red dot was a target, an announcement of her vulnerability. He needed to warn her, protect her, hold her, taste her…
If it wasn’t too late.
Chapter Five
A muffled tinkle of broken glass trickled from the kitchen downstairs. At first Kim rolled over in bed, not paying attention. This was a safe neighborhood, never any break-ins.
When hinges of the kitchen door squeaked, she sat up straight.
Kim hadn’t been asleep. She’d been staring at the dark ceiling for the last hour, absorbed in thoughts of Liam. How his warm, friendly voice tickled her ear, how the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, how nice his butt looked in those tight jeans. Now her heart pounded, adrenaline pumping as she heard someone moving around her kitchen.
Should she trust her martial arts classes? In her baby-doll nightie?
Screw that. The magic numbers were 911.
Kim lifted her cell phone from the nightstand, thumb reaching for the numbers. She smelled a sudden sour odor, and then the phone flew across the room and shattered against the wall.
Before she could scream, strong hands lifted her by the neck. Kim found herself staring into white-blue eyes in a hard male face that had half changed to a wolfish form. Lips lifted from pointed canines, and the breath that washed over her smelled like rotten meat. Kim fought frantically as the half-shifted man’s hands cut off her air, claws raking hot pain. He was going to kill her. Through her dimming vision she realized that this Shifter wore no Collar.
Then suddenly she was free. Kim crashed back into the bed, gasping for breath, as the Shifter was ripped from her. She dragged her hair out of her face in time to see a wildcat slam the Shifter to her bedroom floor. Snarling filled the room, not angry doggy snarling, but the real thing, wild animals in red-hot fury.
Sean Morrissey stood inside Kim’s bedroom doorway, holding a broadsword that gleamed with light of its own. Sean’s eyes were midnight dark and full of rage. His gaze fixed on the fight in the middle of the floor, but he didn’t rush to interfere. He watched, waiting.
The creatures upended Kim’s dresser and nightstand and shoved her bed across the room like it was a cardboard box. Sean didn’t do anything, just stood there with the sword ready. Kim heard herself shouting, but her words were lost in the animal screams as the two creatures fought.
The wildcat—ears back, canines extended—snapped its jaw across the wolf’s throat. The wolf yelped once. Its paws scrabbled hard against the wildcat’s body, drawing blood, before the wolf’s head lolled to the side and it fell to the carpet, lifeless. The wildcat sat back, sides heaving, watching the corpse as though expecting it to get up again.
Kim fought the urge to laugh hysterically. Excuse me but there’s a deceased wolf and a wildcat in my bedroom! She wasn’t certain what kind of wildcat it was—tawny like a cougar, muscled like a leopard, with a hint of stripe like a tiger. It also had the huge jaws and massive paws of a male lion. But the cat didn’t look weird, like a mishmash. It was lithe, beautiful, powerful.
Sean finally moved. The wildcat backed off as Sean raised the sword, then drove its point into the dead wolf’s chest. The wolf shimmered, became the half-shifted man who’d attacked Kim, then slowly disintegrated to ash. At the same time, the wildcat rose on its hind feet and flowed back into the form of a very naked Liam Morrissey.
Mmm, he looks good, the back of Kim’s mind said. Rippling muscles, smooth skin, wiry dark hair spreading across his chest. Tight abdomen, massive thighs, huge…Oh, man.
As soon as air poured back into Kim’s lungs, screams hurtled out of her mouth. She tried to stop them, but hysterical reaction grabbed her and wrung her in its grip.
Liam’s big body was next to her on the bed, his hand covering her mouth. “Hush, now, love. It’s over.”
Delayed shock. Understandable. I’ll be all right.
Liam’s hand was warm, somehow comforting, even though he was trying to keep her quiet. After a moment he gave her an inquiring look, and she nodded, indicating she’d finished screaming. Liam lifted his hand away, and Kim dragged in a deep breath, inhaling his heady male scent.
“Liam, man, get yourself dressed,” Sean said. “You’ll scare the woman.”
“No, it’s all right.” Kim closed her eyes, felt Liam’s bare arms and legs encircling hers. Nope, didn’t bother her at all. She opened her eyes again and looked at Liam. “What the hell just happened?”
“We killed him,” Liam said. “We had no choice. The bastard would have killed you.”
“Is that what happens to Shifters? They dissolve into dust, like vampires on TV?”
Sean didn’t answer, standing stoically with the sword still pointed at the floor.
“No.” Liam eased himself away from Kim. She wanted to reach for him again, have him enclose her back into that so very nice, naked embrace. “Only the ones Sean runs through with that sword. Sean is our Guardian.”
Sean’s eyes narrowed. “Liam.”
“What’s a Guardian?” More nonverbal cues flew between the brothers, not telepathy, but body language so subtle she couldn’t catch it all, let alone understand it.
“A protector,” Liam said. “Of Shiftertown, in this case.”
“I didn’t see a Collar on the Shifter.” Kim shivered suddenly, violently. “I was going to die, wasn’t I?”
“He would have killed you. He was feral. That means he was dangerous, to you, to me, to our families. He’d already killed a Shifter female and her children.”
Kim gaped. “Wait, I heard about the Shifter woman dying. I thought she and her kids were killed in a car accident on a back highway in Hill Country. Weren’t they?”
“No, lass.” Liam looked so sad. Sean stood apart, incongruous in jeans and T-shirt with the medieval-looking sword. “She was murdered. Sean and me, we put her body in her car and pushed it into that ditch and set it alight.”
“Why?” Kim got off the bed. She realized all she wore was a short, silky baby-doll, and she grabbed for the robe she’d tossed to a chair. “Why not report the crime and have the Shifter brought in?”