Page 1 of Enforcer’s Little Warrior (Little Paws Haven #3)
Bash
Nothing in the two days since bringing his mate home had gone as Bash had planned. For one, it wasn’t his home or even their home. Just a random house owned by a crash member who was graciously allowing them to stay there, so it didn’t continue to sit unoccupied.
Other crash members had donated beds for the two young rhinos in their care, who still hadn’t shifted back to their human forms, if they even could. They had a specialist coming, if the vetting process turned out favorable, then they would stay with their crash. Until then, they didn’t even have names to call the little ones.
The crash had donated a bed for him and Romy too, not that he’d slept in it. The couch facing the front door was where he positioned himself each night, a watchful sentinel to stand between them and the world.
Romy didn’t sleep in it either. Instead, he insisted on piling a mound of blankets on the floor so he could sleep in the room with the little ones. Bash hated seeing him that way. Being unable to move the other bed in there for Romy left him frustrated. None of the rooms in the house were big enough for three beds except maybe the living room and that had too many windows, making it no option at all.
Was he paranoid, maybe? But after everything they’d just exposed about the council’s corruption and experimentation on rare shifters, he wasn’t about to take any chances with a mate the fates had finally seen fit to send to him. And yeah, his mate didn’t seem all that happy with Fate’s choice. Every attempt Bash made, no matter what it was, made a negative impression on the pretty rhino.
For a brief moment, when Bash had first met Cosmo, he’d been certain that the little black-footed cat was destined to belong to him, which was why he’d grown far closer and far more familiar with him than anyone he’d ever teamed up on missions with.
Or any Little, for that matter.
The trust that had formed between them had happened initially out of necessity and a shared desire to put things right and rescue those stolen from their homes, and now he had Romy. Bash knew of the horrors and experiences Romy had felt at the hand of the shifter council who were supposed to protect them all.
It made Bash want to wrap Romy in soft things and hug him in front of the bay window where they could watch the setting sun. The only problem with that was all the blackout curtains that hung over each and every one of them, some of them layered double. Again, protection was the key in Bash’s mind. He couldn’t put enough in place when it came to his mate and the two babies in the house. If anyone was lurking around, they wouldn’t be able to spy on what was going on in the house, not that anything was really going on but a lot of playtime and naps for the little ones. Along with and a great deal of silence between him and Romy when they were alone.
Bash had no clue what to say to him, what subjects might be triggering or flat out off limits, or even how to broach the ones that weren’t. The only thing he knew was how to be an enforcer, how to protect and be hypervigilant, so no one got hurt on his watch.
It was doubly important now that he’d found his mate. A mate that those rogue council members and others that had been working with them might still be hunting.
He couldn’t afford to fuck this up.
Passing in front of the doorway to the room where Romy sat with the two young rhinos cuddled in his arms. He noticed Romy read to them from one of a stack of books crash members had donated to them. There was this tug, deep in his gut, flooding him with the urge to scooch up behind him and hold Romy and listen to the story, too. Especially when one of the little ones huffed and nudged at Romy, who leaned over him to kiss the tip of his horn.
If no family existed to return them to, Bash’s crash had already made the decision to formally adopt them into it, if approved. What was still up in the air was whether or not they’d remain with him and Romy or be given to another pair to raise. Mates with a well-established bond and roots in the community were more likely to get them. Unlike Bash, who never knew when he was going to be sent on a journey that could keep him away from home for weeks, if not months.
He stared at Romy, thinking hard on what that could mean. He wouldn’t be able to accept those kinds of assignments if he had a family .
His pulse skipped a beat. Hell, he wouldn’t even want to.
He didn’t even want to leave the doorway, only the moment Romy turned and spotted him there, that was exactly what he did. Retreated with all the grace of well, a rhino in a teacup factory, meaning he ricochet off the doorframe and backed into the far wall in his haste to get away from that piercing stare.
It was like Romy could see how unsettling it was to have them there and took some sick pleasure out of seeing the badass enforcer flustered and at a loss for what to do.
Like when Romy had sent him to give one of the little ones a bath.
Baby rhino 1
Bathroom and enforcer 0
And yet he was smiling about it when he reached the kitchen, checked the time and started making them lunch.
What the hell did that say about him?
Romy
His heart melted at the clumsy rhino bouncing off the door and walls before he fled. He wasn’t sure how to approach the big guy because half the time he looked frickin’ scary and the other half he appeared to have lost the ability to function like a normal shifter.
He was a conundrum, but Romy tucked that away to think about at night when he lay on the floor between the babies he was desperate to protect from the harms he’d suffered at the hands of the fuckers the press had a field day talking about.
The news was full of it. Full of the gruesome discovery about what lay inside the owl shifter eyes. Cosmo, a Little Romy had gotten to know at Little Paws Haven, and his two mates Nomad and Harley, who ran the club, had retrieved. It had definitely put the cats amongst the birds.
He sniggered as he watched the two baby rhinos snuggling up against each other, seeking comfort the way they did often, their eyelids growing heavy. He figured it wouldn’t be long before they were asleep, meaning that the sounds coming from the kitchen were gonna be for nothing. It also meant he’d be spending another uncomfortable, silent meal with Bash.
If he had small talk in his repertoire, he hadn’t revealed it to Romy. The night before, he’d stared at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, trying to figure out if there was something about him that caused the rhino to not want to talk to him.
He was pretty, or so he’d been told a time or two by the Daddies when he’d spent time in daycare at the club, looking for some reprieve from his thoughts and shitty life. Daycare was where he’d first met Cosmo, being all cute with… Bash—his mate.
Don’t think about it!
Bash hadn’t noticed him—not once. Romy had blended into the background, it was how he survived. A part of Romy didn’t get why others had gotten a shock at discovering just how the two parts of Cosmo, Little and lethal, were who he was. Romy had noticed something different about the little cat as he’d watched him with Bash.
Cosmo gave off a cute innocent vibe, but Romy’s past had taught him the ability to read others really well. He’d seen past the act to the cat shifter’s inert nature to hunt and, as it turned out, kill for the council.
“Lunch is ready,” called Bash, loud enough to give the babies a start.
They both lurched up off the ground, whacking into each other, then plowing straight into Romy’s legs, upending him on to his backside because he wasn’t concentrating. He cried out, his bottom throbbing from landing hard.
The babies cowered back at the thundering sound of booted feet hitting the ground as Bash burst into the room, looking fit to kill with his horn on full display. “What is the threat?” he demanded, weapon drawn.
For the fact he’d hurt himself, Romy couldn’t decide if the quivering his belly did was because of how Bash looked or if it was the shock from falling. His eyes glistened with tears as he willed them to stay put, opening his arms wide for the cowering babies. “It’s all right, I’m sorry I cried out. It’s not your fault.”
Romy cast a look at Bash, directing his inner turmoil at the big shifter who was the cause of all his frustration. “Maybe next time you could try walking the few steps like a civilized person rather than shouting at the top of your lungs and frightening the babies into a charge?” he asked super sweetly, but with a whole lot of sarcasm to not alert the babies to his hurt pride.
Bash blushed and stuttered, “Shit… oh fuck… crap.” He shoved the gun into the back of the waistband of his low-slung jeans that accentuated the leanness of his hips and the enormous breadth of his back. He blushed a rosy pink and dropped his gaze to the babies now in Romy’s arms. “I’m sorry.”
Romy sniffed, and cuddled the babies closer, needing the comfort as much as them, thinking he’d much prefer the massive arms of the man towering over them. “Accepted,” he stated rather stiffly. “Now, can you bring whatever you’ve made in here, please? They’ve had enough drama for one day.” And so has my poor ass!