Page 1 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Cass was drunk. Not about-to-vomit drunk, but not fun-drunk either. The sidewalk tilted dangerously beneath the heels she’d borrowed from Raven, and the frigid air felt good against the overheated bare skin of her legs.

The passing headlights blurred and trailed like the tails of comets, and she squeezed her eyes shut against their glare, which only made the world spin faster.

She was in trouble. Pretty bad trouble, and rapidly slipping into more dangerous territory, but she still had enough wits about her to know that she couldn’t call Raven.

She could , but Natalia was still in a bassinet in Raven and Toly’s room, and the ringing would wake her.

It was just after three, she’d seen on the grandfather clock as she staggered through the house’s vestibule, which meant Nat would scream and scream until sunup.

That wasn’t fair.

Just like it wasn’t fair that Cass finally got invited to one of Sig Blackmon’s parties and she’d only taken three sips of a bright red cup of punch before she flushed hot, started sweating, and realized it was hitting her much harder than it should have.

She opened her eyes, and the cars parked along the curb juddered and leaped like they were in the middle of a California earthquake. There was a high whine in her ears, counterpoint to the drum-drum-drumming of her pulse.

Raven kept saying she wasn’t careful enough; that she ought to be smarter after all she’d lived through. But she wasn’t stupid .

She fumbled her phone out of her purse and almost dropped it.

Shit. The screen was so bright she could hardly look at it, but she managed to open her call history.

The contact she wanted was number two on the list of recent calls, and she spent what seemed an eternity steadying her thumb so she would hit it and not Raven’s number above it.

The screen went black, SHEP lit up green across the middle. Calling…

Cassandra wrapped an arm around the lamppost beside her and clung on for dear life, wobbling in her heels while she waited for the call to connect.

Come on, come on, come on…

“Kid. What ?” Shepherd’s voice was two notches lower and three shades rougher than normal with sleep. She felt bad about waking Raven and Toly, but Shep was…well, let’s just say she didn’t feel bad.

Cassandra took a breath and found, when she started talking, that her tongue didn’t want to cooperate. “Shep. Sheeeeeeppppp. Shit.”

It was quiet on the other end, one beat, two, then there was an almighty rustling of bedsheets, and his voice became a short, sharp bark, completely alert. “Where are you? Are you drunk? What’s going on?”

“‘M drunk, yeah. But not…not on… purpose . I had ssshhhree sips. Tha’s all, I swear!”

“Shit, okay, you’re…yeah.” More rustling. He cleared his throat, and she could tell he was upright and moving around, now. “Where are you?”

“Sig’s house. Well, his parents’ houssssse. Fuck I can’t…” She laughed though she didn’t want to, but her voice sounded so funny . “I can’t talk. Damn. It was only three, Shep, really! Only thhhhreeeee.”

“Okay, forget it. Your phone’s got an Air Tag on it.” Buckles jangled on his end. “I’ll find you. Are you safe?”

That was a complicated question while the earth was seesawing all around her. “I don’t…”

“Are you alone? Are you with somebody?” His voice took on a hard edge. “Who the fuck is Sig ?”

“He’s…” Conveying the complicated art school politics that meant she was a pariah despite her sister’s beauty and fame, and that she’d finally managed to edge her way in with the old money progenies, was beyond her at the moment.

“Um,” she managed, and then hiccupped dangerously.

She wasn’t nauseous, exactly, but burping seemed like a bad idea.

Shep sighed. He sighed a lot, and Cass liked to think she’d become something of an expert linguist when it came to interpreting the Sighs of Shepherd.

Heh. That had a fun little ring to it. Sighs of Shepherd.

That sounded like an album title. An album with a dark, moody cover; perhaps Shep himself, his broken-nosed profile against a black backdrop, that low-lidded you’re-a-pain-in-my-ass gaze directed out into the middle distance. He was…

Oh. He was talking, and she should be listening, because that last sigh was one that meant I’m Gonna Have to Shoot Someone, Aren’t I? and he wasn’t thrilled about it.

“Just sit down , Cassie,” he commanded, and, still holding onto the lamppost, Cass folded her legs, slid downward, and plopped onto her bum right there on the cold concrete.

She wished she wasn’t wearing a skirt. “Stay there. Don’t drink anything.

Don’t take anything. Don’t talk to anybody. I’ll be right there.”

“Okay.”

“Repeat it back: don’t talk to anybody. You got that?”

“Don’t talk to…anybody,” she slurred.

He sighed again. This one was How Is This My Life? “Fuck me,” he muttered. “ Stay .” Then the line went dead.

She sighed with relief when she lowered the phone to her lap, and rested her head against the hard metal of the lamppost. She was so, so tired. Shep had said not to drink anything, take anything, or talk to anyone, but he hadn’t said she couldn’t take a little nap. A nap sounded heavenly.

A very small, still-cogent part of her mind was throwing a temper tantrum way in the back, because she wasn’t a kid anymore.

She was nineteen, turning twenty next month, and she was in her second year at NYU.

Ordinarily, with her wits fully about her, she didn’t let Shep boss her around.

She would eventually concede to his security concerns, but only after he understood that was because she wanted to, not because he was her master.

He was her designated bodyguard. He works for you , Raven had said once.

Cass didn’t truly think that. That seemed so…

shitty. Pretentious. She liked to think of them as friends…

which meant it stung every time Shep treated her like some snot-nosed brat he had to babysit.

She didn’t like to think of it as pitching a fit; she was simply reminding him, everyone, really, that she was an adult now.

That she didn’t need to be handled all the time, and was capable of navigating the world on her own.

She did need him tonight, though.

A slamming door startled her upright. She opened her eyes and didn’t know if her vision was swimming or if she was.

“Cassandra?” someone called behind her. The scuff of shoes on the house steps echoed like someone was sandpapering the inside of her skull.

She winced, and managed to blink the streaking headlights into some semblance of order just as someone sat down on the curb beside her.

“Hey, there you are. Why are you sitting out here?”

The human-shaped blob to her left resolved in fits and starts, crisp as a professional photo one second, nothing but a wettish smear the next. After a long beat of struggle, she realized it was Sig.

“He-ey,” she said, and slumped back against the post, head too swimmy to hold it upright for long. “I’m…” She flopped a hand toward the street. “Shep.” That seemed like it covered it. Any further explanation was too much effort, honestly.

It was hard to tell with the way the lights danced around, but she thought Sig smiled. “You’re Shep?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s awfully cold out here. Do you want to go back inside?”

The idea of standing turned her stomach over unpleasantly. “Nuh-uh.”

He chuckled. It was a musical sound; the first time she met him, before they even spoke, she heard his laugh across the room and thought his laugh sounded like singing. “Okay, then. Here. At least take this.”

There was a rush of air, and something warm and soft settled around her shoulders; it brushed gently at her neck.

“What?” she said, and blinked some more, desperately willing her eyes to work. The whole world looked like the view through a rain-streaked window, foggy, and rippling, and bleeding all over the place.

“It’s a blanket. I don’t want you to freeze.” The laugh was still threaded through his voice. Something rubbed briskly against her arm, and she thought it might be his hand.

No, it was definitely his hand—she could feel the distinct shapes of his fingers when he gripped her shoulder and squeezed, the pressure firm through the blanket and the too-thin jacket she’d worn because it was her favorite, and went perfectly with her shoes.

“Do you want some water?”

“Yes,” she said, right away, and it came out yesh . She was parched. Her tongue was made of cotton and the insides of her cheeks were cardboard.

But. Wait. No. Shep had told her not to drink anything.

“No,” she said, frowning. Damn, she was thirsty.

Sig chuckled again. It really was the loveliest sound. “Yes or no?”

She murmured…something. Who knew what. The sidewalk was going full teeter-totter again.

“Here.” Something red closed in on her face, and resolved into a Solo cup. “I brought you some.”

She blinked, and somehow the cup was in her hand instead of his.

She peered down into the cup, and there was no color. No smell. Was it empty? No, he’d said water. It looked like water. It smelled like water—or, well, like nothing, which was always a good sign when it came to water. And she was so thirsty …

The edge of the cup bumped against her lip, and Shep’s sleep-rough command filled her head. Don’t drink anything .

Shit.

“Shit,” she said aloud, and passed the water back.

She attempted to. Suddenly her bare leg was wet, and Sig said, “Shit,” too, and the cup was no longer in her hand.

Oops.

“Uh-oh.”

“That’s okay.” She heard the rattle of plastic and what might be him swiping at his pants.

She tipped her head all the way back and searched for the stars. The sky whirled and dipped and seemed to pulse. Orange-red light pollution blotted out all the constellations. Nothing to see but the hot burn of humanity beaming up into the nighttime clouds.

“Cassandra? Cassandra, hey. It’s really cold. Let’s go back inside.”

What…? What is…?

Oh. Sig.

She tipped her head forward, and then kept tipping, tipping, tipping.

“Whoa.” Hands gripped her shoulders, and pushed her back upright. Sig’s face was very close. His eyes were very big, and very dark, and she wondered if he might kiss her. “You okay?”

“I…”

Bang. A loud sound drew her attention toward the street, such as it was. Swirly and irregular and making her sick.

She swallowed hard, and caught a flash of white. Saw movement.

“ Hey .” Oh, that was a voice. A familiar voice. That was Shep!

“Shep!” she cheered.

“What the hell are you doing?” Shep barked, but before she could say, sitting on the curb, what does it look like, dumbass? he charged forward. “Get away from her. What the fuck?”

Oh. He was barking at Sig. That wasn’t very nice. Sig had brought her a blanket, after all.

Sig let go of her, and Shep’s legs appeared before her, blocking Sig from view. “Sheppy,” she protested, pawing at the back of his jeans-clad knee.

“Shit, I didn’t—look, man, I wasn’t—I—sorry,” Sig stammered, and a scuffle on the concrete was followed by the slap of sneaker soles. A few beats later, the door to the house slammed shut.

Sig was gone. Damn.

But, in other news, Shep’s calf was firm under his jeans. Holy shit. And was his thigh…yep. That was nice, too.

“Okay, stop groping me, how drunk are you?” Shep grumbled, and moved away from her.

“No,” she protested, but then the world folded and unfolded, and Shep’s familiar face was right in front of hers. It took far too long to comprehend that he’d squatted down in front of her, that it was not Sig’s, but his much larger, stronger hands that held her shoulders now. “Oh. Hi.”

The first time she met Shepherd, she’d been struck by the sheer meanness of his face. His lean, angular jaw, the hard set of his mouth, the sharp way he smiled, the dark, hooded eyes. He looked like someone who’d gotten his nose broken in a bar fight, and then killed the man who’d done the deed.

But she’d quickly learned that looking mean wasn’t the same as being mean.

He was gruff, and crass, and inappropriate, but not frightening.

Not to her. Her dad and her brothers all looked pretty benign, and three of them were literal assassins.

Shep’s mean look, she’d decided, was more cute than anything—if middle-aged ex-military medics who liked dick jokes too much could be cute.

His face was set at its meanest angles now, lips pressed to a narrow slash, his eyes big and glossy in the glow of the lamppost. It was the clearest she’d seen anything since the last, fateful sip of her punch, and it was a relief to know that her eyes still worked properly.

A kaleidoscope of whirling lights and color limned his jaw, the top of his head.

He’d had a haircut recently, short on the sides, a little spiky on top.

She wanted to touch it.

Oh, she was. That was her hand petting his hair, wasn’t it?

He made an impatient sound and brushed her hand away. Held her wrist so she couldn’t reach for him again. Then he leaned in even closer, until their noses almost touched, his eyes tracking back and forth.

“What did you take?” he asked. “Your pupils are fucking huge. You’re not drunk, you’re high.”

“I didn’t…it was…fuck.” Why was talking so hard? “I just had punch. Three sips!”

Something warm and rough touched her throat, just beneath her jaw. Two firm points of pressure. His fingers.

“Yeah.” He leaned back, expression grim before it got too far away and went blurry. “Somebody dosed you. Come on.”

That sounded like a lot of work: getting up, going somewhere. But when she opened her mouth to say as much, all that came out was a sad little humming grunt.

“Jesus. Okay. C’mon, sweetheart.” Big hands hooked her under her arms and hoisted her upright.

“Oh,” she said, startled by the sudden force of the movement, by the effortless way he lifted her.

Then she said, “Oh,” again, because her stomach sloshed and…

Okay, yep. There came the vomit.