Addison had never heard anything as heartfelt as the plea. Kendrick was afraid, scared for the kids, angry, dangerous.
And naked—had she mentioned that about seven times already? His body was hard and tight, strong, formidable. She kept her eyes averted so she wouldn’t see anything too personal, but not looking was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
He was right, though. This was a small town. News traveled fast; any trouble was instantly reported. If Robbie, Zane, and Brett had been normal kids, she wouldn’t worry about the police so much, but they were Shifter, and their dad had just killed a man—possibly all the shooters. She knew enough to realize that cops would take the kids—the cubs—and keep them who knew where. Maybe never let them go again.
Addie looked at them, two little tigers huddled against the older Robbie, the three of them alone and vulnerable.
“Yes,” she found herself babbling. “Yes, I’ll take them.”
“Now,” Kendrick said, cutting through her stammering. “Robbie.”
“I’m on it, Dad.”
Robbie, small himself, picked up the tiger cubs by the scruffs of their necks. He cradled them against his chest and looked up at Addie in total trust.
Addie felt a brush of air, and when she looked back for Kendrick, he was gone, vanishing out the door into the hot night.
* * *
Four Shifters had attacked the diner, two of them with guns, the fucking cowards. What Shifters used guns?
Kendrick had taken down the one he’d just sent to dust—a Lupine called Ivan—who’d never been the most obedient to Kendrick but had never outright opposed him before. Kendrick had caught and fought a second Shifter, a Feline, and also sent him to dust with the sword before he’d gone after Ivan.
Kendrick’s heart ached from the deaths, each one a gaping loss for every Shifter.
He changed to his tiger again and found the trails of the two remaining Shifters, who’d fled when he’d attacked. They’d taken to vehicles about a mile away and driven off down a dirt road heading straight west.
Returning to where he’d hidden his clothes and sword on his motorcycle, Kendrick saw Addison come out of the diner’s back door, a big floppy purse at her side. She herded Robbie and the cubs into her car, a well-used Camry that had seen better days.
Kendrick had a momentary flash of anger. This woman should have a bright, beautiful car and be dressed in the finest clothes, not the ill-fitting waitress uniform and the flat, dull-black shoes on her shapely feet.
He’d recognized in Addison, the moment he’d first walked into her diner, a beauty that he’d never before encountered. He’d gone in with the cubs to find them something to eat late one night, choosing an out-of-the-way town where Shifters didn’t go.
One look at her had floored Kendrick, made him want a second look. She’d cheerfully served them pie, the last pieces of the day, confiding to Kendrick that apple with streusel was her favorite as well. She’d spoken without worry to the cubs, gaining smiles from even Robbie, who was slow to trust anyone. She’d won over Brett and Zane by squirting extra whipped cream onto their pies, making a game of swirling it around.
Addison had hair the color of darkest coffee—the way he liked it—and eyes the blue of sudden violets in the snow. She wore her hair in a ponytail, which swung against her back as she ushered the cubs into the backseat.
Kendrick had looked at her and seen a diamond among pebbles, a vivid and striking brightness in a world of grays. Something had awakened in him when he’d heard her voice, seen her smile. He didn’t know what that something was—his mate had been gone since Zane had come into the world, too soon for grief to be over.
But for a brief moment, his life had not been so dark or uncertain. There was Addison, beaming her smile, winking at the cubs, always with a welcome.
That was her job—Kendrick understood that—but in that space of time in her diner, Addison had seen Kendrick as himself. Not a Guardian, a Shifter leader, an errand boy for Dylan Morrissey, or a Shifter trying to draw his clan together again. He’d been Kendrick, father to three cubs, man who ate pie.
When Robbie had asked the next night, “Can we go see Addie again?” Kendrick hadn’t been able to say no.
Addison secured the cubs in the back then slid into the front seat and started the car. She scanned the parking lot, searching the shadows, not seeing Kendrick where he’d parked his bike well back from the lights. Kendrick watched her square her shoulders and drive away.
The place Kendrick had told her to take the cubs was straight south, a few miles outside San Antonio, where Dylan patrolled regularly. No one would dare harm Kendrick’s cubs in Dylan’s territory.
Now to make sure no other Shifters lingered here, waiting to corner him.
Kendrick had always had unrest in the Shifters he led. How could he not, with different species living together, hiding from humans, keeping their true natures a secret?
Unlike most Shifters these days, Kendrick and his band didn’t wear Collars. They’d hidden away when humans came to round up Shifters years ago, and had lived free of Shiftertowns, covertly, for the last twenty years. But they’d had to follow Kendrick’s stringent rules to remain hidden, and Shifters hated confinement. Restlessness turned to resentment and anger. Kendrick had been challenged for leadership more than once, though he’d always prevailed.
At the moment, Kendrick’s Shifters were in limbo. They’d been living in secret in an underground bunker in South Texas that they’d made into a functioning if inelegant hideaway. But then a human man working for Shifter Bureau and his Collared Shifter mate—a Kodiak bear—had found the compound, broken in, and destroyed it. Kendrick’s Shifters had gone to ground as per their standing contingency plan, hiding out the best they could.
When Kendrick found a new place for them to be safe, he’d contact them. But his Shifters, never the tamest, must have decided to break away and even to try to take over in the meantime. Kendrick had failed them, they must have reasoned; therefore, Kendrick had to die.
At least, he assumed that was what these attacks had been all about. He’d have to find one of these assholes and shake answers out of him.
Shifters who wanted new leadership were supposed to challenge the leader directly. They didn’t fire guns—what the hell were they thinking?—and try to simply kill that leader and his cubs.
Kendrick dressed in the darkness next to his motorcycle with its sidecars, made specially for the cubs. He mounted it, started it up.
Sirens blared into the night, law enforcement responding to whoever had called in the violence at the diner. Kendrick rolled out of town in the opposite direction from the flashing lights, the Sword of the Guardian once more strapped to his back.
* * *
Addie had one of the tiger cubs—she wasn’t sure which one—on her lap by the time she pulled into the parking lot of the closed gas station just off the 377. The other tiger was curled up in the front passenger seat. Robbie sat in the back, his lap full of the cubs’ clothes, his face too serious.
Addie had called her sister as she’d driven, knowing Ivy would have heard about the shooting already—nothing stayed quiet long in Loneview. Ivy had been frantic, but Addie reassured her she hadn’t been hurt. “I’m really fine. I’ll be home in a little bit,” she’d said. Ivy assumed it was because she had to talk to the police, and Addie didn’t correct her. “Tell Tori and Josh I’m all right. Give them a kiss for me.”
She’d clicked off the phone before Ivy could ask any more questions.
Addie parked and turned off the car’s lights but kept the engine running. She turned to look at Robbie, who watched her with grave eyes. “You okay back there?” she asked him. “You haven’t said much.”
Robbie shrugged. “Nothing much to say.”
“I know, sweetie.” Addie reached back and patted his jeans-clad knee. “I just want
to make sure you’re all right. You want to come up here and sit with us?”
Robbie shook his head, though Addie saw in his eyes he did want to. He thought he had to be brave.
“You’re good to take care of the little ones,” Addie said. “Are they your, what—cousins?”
“We’re not related,” Robbie said without changing expression. “They’re Feline. I’m Lupine.”
“I’m not sure what that means, honey.”
Robbie pointed at the sleeping tiger cub in the passenger seat. “Feline—big cats. Lupine means wolf.”
“Oh.” Addie studied him. “That’s why you have such nice gray eyes, I bet. You take care of them well.”
“Kendrick takes care of me,” Robbie said. “It’s the least I can do.”
He was far too young to speak in phrases like that. Addie had grown up fast, but not that fast. She’d still had a childhood, thanks to her sister.
“Why don’t you stretch out there while we wait,” Addie said. “I have a blanket—we can pull that over you, make you all cozy.”
Robbie obeyed and lay down, but Addie suspected it was to please her, not because he wanted to. He was tense, waiting, much like Kendrick had been when he’d crouched in the kitchen, just before he’d launched himself through the pass to fight to the death. Cats jumped like that, she realized.
Addie pulled an old wool afghan from behind the driver’s seat and tucked it around Robbie’s small body. He didn’t say anything and didn’t close his eyes, only stared into the darkness.
Poor kid. Addie smoothed his hair, which he didn’t fight, and left him alone.
Fifteen minutes later, a motorcycle headed out of the darkness at her. Addie clutched the steering wheel, ready to gun the car and race away if she had to. As the bike slowed and turned into the empty parking lot, she saw the flash of Kendrick’s white and black hair in the moonlight, the sword on his back.
The cubs woke as soon as they heard the motorcycle. Both tigers bounced to Addie’s lap, put paws on the open window ledge, and started yowling.
Kendrick swung off the bike with easy grace, balancing the sword without trouble. The cubs scrambled onto the window ledge as he reached the car, then hurled themselves at him. Kendrick caught them in his arms, cradling them with his big, gloved hands.
It was an interesting sight, the large, tall biker, holding two little white tiger cubs.
Robbie had sat up and now climbed out of the car without a word. He went straight to Kendrick and wrapped his arms around the man’s waist. Kendrick smoothed Robbie’s hair the best he could with an armful of cub.
“Addison, thank you.” Kendrick’s eyes held true gratitude.
He gazed at her for a moment longer, as though wanting to say more but not finding the words. Then he abruptly turned away, still carrying the cubs.
Addie scrambled out of the car. She knew that when he rode out of here, she’d never see him again. No way was she about to let him race off into darkness without answering a few questions.
“What happened?” she demanded. “Who were those guys? Why did they want to kill you? You stuck the sword into him and he disappeared. Where did he go?”
“To the Summerland,” Kendrick said, cutting through her jumble.
“Oh?” Addie planted her hands on her hips. “What the hell does that mean? If you stuck that sword into me, would I become a puff of dust too?”
“He was Shifter,” Kendrick said. “So, no.”
One thing Addie had learned about Shifters in the documentaries was that they wore Collars, with a capital C. The Collars were designed to shock them and shut them down if they grew violent. Control them—humanely, the documentary had claimed.
Addie had seen nothing around Kendrick’s throat when he’d stood up, unclothed, in the diner. The Shifter who’d run into the diner hadn’t had a Collar either.
“Who were they?” she repeated. “Who are you?”
He gave her a hint of a smile. “Who do you want me to be?”
“Come on,” Addie said in exasperation. “I just went through hell. Tell me something.”
Kendrick’s mouth hardened. “They were Shifters who used to work for me. I thought they still did work for me. I thought . . .” He shook his head. “Someone has been stirring up trouble, and I need to find out who.”
Robbie had let go of Kendrick. While Addie blurted questions, he brought the cubs’ clothes from the car and tucked them into one of the two wide saddlebags on the bike. The saddlebags had been modified to have small seats inside them, and the two cubs scampered down Kendrick’s arms and fixed themselves onto these seats.
“Where are you going to go?” Addie asked.
Kendrick kept his eyes on her, the green visible in the dark. “Someplace safe for them. I want you to go somewhere safe, Addison. Take a vacation; go far away. You’ll have my scent on you—leave Texas for a while. And burn this.” He reached out and took a fold of her sleeve between two fingers. He didn’t touch her, but she felt the heat of him brush her arm.
“Your scent? What the hell does that mean?”
“They can track you through it. Any Shifter can. I can’t risk that they won’t use you to get to me.”
“I can’t just leave. I have a job . . .” In a shot-up diner that would need a hell of a lot of work before Bo could open it again. She probably wouldn’t have a job at all for a while.
“Safer for you to be nowhere near here.” Kendrick reached into his coat and took out a thick wad of rolled-up bills. “I don’t know how much this is but it will help you travel.”
Addie stared at the roll, which was very fat, her eyes widening. The top denomination, as far as she could see, was 100. “I don’t want your money. Besides if I showed up at an airline counter looking like this and tried to pay for a ticket with that, they’d call security.”
His lowered brows told her he had no idea why. He took her hand and pressed the roll of money into it. “However you go, take it. Buy a new car.” Kendrick’s glance at the vehicle behind her was full of skepticism that she’d reach anywhere in it. “Go far, Addison. Don’t go home.”
Addie’s heart burned. Ivy would be up waiting, worried about what had happened at the diner. Tomorrow it was Addie’s turn to drive Tori and Josh to school after Ivy made breakfast, and Addie had planned to look some more into signing up for college classes before heading in to work. A normal day in Loneview.
Kendrick closed Addie’s hand around the cash, the warmth of his fingers coming through the cool leather of the glove. “I thank you, Addison. Truly.”
The words told her more certainly than anything that she’d never see him again. He’d ride off down the road and disappear, his cubs with him. Addie would have to find a new job—she needed the money too much to wait for Bo to put the diner to rights, if he ever did. There would be police reports and insurance . . . insurance could take forever.
Kendrick would become a memory, his strange hair, his intense green gaze, the powerful way he moved, his voice deep and resonating, the way he was so careful with the little boys. He’d fade into her past and become a strange, confusing, heart-pounding memory.
“Oh, what the hell,” Addie said softly.
She closed the space between them, flung her arms around Kendrick’s neck, and pulled him down to kiss him fully on the lips.
CHAPTER FOUR
Addie felt Kendrick’s body move in surprise under her kiss, then he went very still. She expected him to not respond, to freeze until she stepped back, embarrassed and apologetic.
Then Kendrick growled low in his throat. He wrapped his arms all the way around her, and Addie went breathless at his strength, his warmth. He cradled her in the darkness, shutting out everything terrible, all the fear and horror of the last hour.
He eased away from her first kiss, only to bring his mouth back down on hers. His body was a
place of heat as he kissed Addie slowly, his lips parting, his tongue tangling hers with a bite of spice.
Kendrick’s arms were hard on her back, crushing her against the solid power of him. Addie felt every inch of his body through her thin polyester dress that ended at her knees, the heat of him against her bare legs.
She held on to him as the kiss strengthened, the two of them seared together in the cool of the Texas night. His breath was hot on her cheek as he pulled her closer still, his strength astonishing. He kissed with aching intensity, the hunger she’d seen his eyes in the diner manifesting in this savage, amazing kiss.
Another growl, and Kendrick abruptly released her. Addie staggered back, fighting for breath. She put out her hand, but found nothing to steady herself on. She had to back away until she bumped into her car.
Kendrick said nothing. He didn’t reach for her again, didn’t apologize, didn’t do anything. He simply looked at Addie for a long moment as she struggled to stay upright.
Another sound came from him, like a snarl in the darkness. “Go,” he said, his voice fierce. “Now. Stay away from me.”
Addie’s throat didn’t work, nothing emerging in answer. Kendrick watched her a moment longer, his chest rising in a sharp breath, then he turned away and mounted his motorcycle.
Moonlight flashed on his sword as he kicked the bike to life. He didn’t look around at her, didn’t say a word. Addie supported herself on the ledge of the driver’s open window while Kendrick eased the bike forward, then out of the abandoned parking lot.
Robbie was the only one who looked back, his small head covered in a helmet, as Kendrick turned onto the road. Robbie raised his hand in a wave, which Addie shakily returned.
The motorcycle picked up speed, the bike’s taillight flashing as Kendrick slowed for a turn, then they were gone.
Addie was left alone in dark, silent warmth, amidst the smell of exhaust and dried grasses, her mouth raw from Kendrick’s hard kiss.