Page 19 of My Shifty Bodyguard

A feral gleam lights Dax’s eyes. “It must be the…” He glances at me and stops himself. My heart drops.

He’s still keeping secrets.

“Good,” he says to his cousin Nero. “We’ll take care of this once and for all.” He glances at me. “You need to go inside the pack headquarters and stay there.”

“But why? What’s happening?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“You can’t!” Jesse snaps at him.

My heart thuds in my chest. Excuse everyone very much? So it’s not just Dax who’s lying and keeping secrets. It’s everyone.

I thought they liked me. I thought they accepted me.

I look over at Lane. She looks at Jesse with a questioning expression, arching one eyebrow. He shakes his head at her firmly, and she sighs and her shoulders sag.

“I disagree,” she murmurs.

“I know.” His voice is a low rumble.

I am so sick of this. I am sick of my father everyone protecting me until I suffocate, of everyone keeping secrets to me.

“Do not talk to me. Do not follow me. I will be inside, being protected by everyone because apparently I’m too dumb to walk without tripping over my own shoelaces.” The fact that I have, actually, tripped over my own shoelaces on more than one occasion, is irrelevant. I shoot Dax a furious look and storm down the path to pack headquarters without looking back.

“Violet!” Dax shouts. “Violet!”

I don’t say a word.

Chapter Ten

Dax

The woods behind my house are peaceful—towering pines, thick underbrush that smells like sap and moss, and a narrow deer trail. But there’s a predator out there, a threat to my mate.

I will find out what his plans are, and then I will end him. I will not describe what I do to him to Violet, though, because it would upset her.

My packmates and I move quickly through the forest — silent, fast, practiced. I draw in the scents of the forest - dirt, pine sap, squirrels, distant water… and there, wandering through the underbrush near my cabin: unfamiliar wolf.

A male. He reeks of fear. He’s alone.

We fan out automatically. Two flank left, two right, the rest closing in a wide circle.

The stranger wolf freezes the moment he hears us. His ears flatten. He tries bolting left—only to find Connor there, all massive shoulders and gleaming teeth. He tries right—Nero blocks him with a growl.

The stranger skids to a stop, chest heaving, tail tucked. Then he shifts.

A skinny, wide-eyed young man stands trembling and naked in the ferns, hands raised over his head. He has mousy brown hair and pale brown eyes that are huge as saucers, staring at us in fright.

“I surrender!” he blurts. “I’m just hiking! I’ll leave immediately! Please – just point me in the direction you want me to go!”

Nero snorts behind me. I shift back to human form, the rest of the pack doing the same in a rustle of fur and cracking bones.

The stranger stares at us, eyes saucer-wide.

“Name,” I order, voice clipped.

“Uh—Rory. Rory Delaney.”