Page 5 of Guarded by the Phantom (Monster Security Agency)

Phantom

I listened to the steady splash of my piss against the manicured bark of a tree. There was something so satisfying about pissing in a place like this, perfect and most likely tended by a team of gardeners. I had a feeling no one had ever sullied this tree with their bodily fluids. It was virginal, kept pristine and noble for decades—until I came along and left my golden mark.

When I was done, I waited for the armor plates to click back into place over my crotch, hiding my most precious organ beyond an impenetrable barrier. Only when my dick was hidden did I zip up, the sound seeming loud in the quiet Ashford-Kingsley estate.

I shouldn’t be here yet, since my work officially began the next morning, but I always liked to be prepared. I’d spent my evening prowling around the extensive gardens, which were a nightmare, rife with places where attackers could hide.

The estate was surrounded by a high wall, true, and monitored by regularly spaced cameras. The gate was manned by a guard at all hours of day and night. And yet, it took me exactly three minutes to find a blind point of entry and scale the wall.

Which meant other smart people would have an easy time getting in, as well.

I turned away from my favorite tree and headed for the house, doing a little dance along the way. I would come in with a long list of recommendations tomorrow, the top one being—I should accompany the princess at all hours of day and night, even at home, since her home was not secure.

It would be so much easier to blow all the cursed Conduct Standards one by one if I was with her even in the house. I couldn’t wait to breathe loudly whenever Mrs. Ashford was in the room, and I was giddy to flash her some improper underwear peeking over the edge of my pants.

She deserved it for requiring me to sign that ridiculous document in the first place.

I was about to start humming when something stopped me, a chill of premonition racing down my back. A gasp came from the direction of the house.

My instincts kicked in before my brain did. I broke into a sprint, making a beeline for the sound. I jumped over bushes and tore through shrubberies, the garden blurring past. When the house emerged, and I saw the pink, nymphlike creature balancing on the balcony rail, my blood ran cold.

I sped up, the world falling away. There was just me, the slip of a girl about to fall to her death, and the distance between us.

It shrunk with my every step. Closer. Closer. Closer.

Not close enough.

She fell with an unhinged laugh, an echo of the video, and I dove for her, my boots skidding in the dewy grass.

She landed in my arms with a sharp gasp, her face growing pale, eyes closed. I knew the manipulator was here, close enough to lock eyes with her, and my instincts screamed for me to drop her and give chase.

But she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t speak or move, and so I stayed, fear ripping through my guts.

The report on mind control wasn’t ready, so I had no fucking idea if it hurt her to have the connection severed so suddenly. Behind me, the garden rustled with the sounds of a quick, efficient escape, and I gritted my teeth, biting back a curse.

How I wanted to get them. They were right there, offering themselves on a fucking platter, and here I was, babysitting the girl.

“Wake up,” I said, crouching to arrange her more comfortably in my arms.

She weighed more than I’d have expected, her body solid and sculpted with muscles. Her head lolled on my arm, long blonde hair sticking to my clothes. I just knew some of it would be left after she was gone.

“Baby, wake up,” I murmured, shaking her gently. “You’re shedding. Like a dog. And I hate having fur on my clothes.”

It would have been funny in any other circumstances, but as her nostrils barely flared with slow, shallow breaths, her skin growing even paler until it seemed silver, panic welled in my guts.

I tapped my comm set and sent a quick emergency signal for a Monster Security Agency doctor. They’d locate me at once and come here, which was perfect, because I would never trust ordinary paramedics with my principal.

Not after she was almost murdered.

My chest constricted with fury, mostly at myself. I let it happen. I should have been by her side, in her fucking bedroom if must be, and prevented it. And I definitely shouldn’t have underestimated the mind manipulator. They didn’t want to just humiliate her and shoot down her father’s campaign. They wanted to obliterate him and kill her in the process.

“Come on, doll,” I said, my voice tight. “Open those pretty eyes and tell me you’re all right. Maybe I can even catch them yet. Just wake up.”

She was draped over my lap, her upper body wedged against my arm, and I pressed her closer to free up my other hand. I almost slapped her cheek before I remembered the armor. Even a gentle slap might cut her skin, so I sighed and retracted the plates.

The carapace covering my hand moved in a rapid series of clicks. It was made of dozens of elements, thanks to which I could move each finger with full mobility. Now, these elements folded on top of one another, each of them a narrow, black plate, stacking on top of each finger and on the back of my hand in neat lines mimicking the bones underneath.

My palm was bare, the inner side completely devoid of armor. My skin was dark gray and soft, and I shivered involuntarily, feeling the wind slipping between my fingers.

I hadn’t been outside without full armor in ages, the only thing I occasionally took out being my dick, whether to piss or get it sucked.

Now, I hesitated, my naked palm hovering over the girl’s face. Her cheek was so smooth, her skin so young and plump. Her eyelashes were obscenely long, fanning luxuriously over her cheekbones. Her lips, so pale now, were thick and kissable.

“What,” I muttered. “The fu-aaaah. What the freak? Hm. Doesn’t have the same ring to it. What the he—heck. Ugh, I hate that freaking contract.”

Trying to come up with a satisfying replacement for my usual expressions distracted me from the fact I thought, ever so briefly, about kissing my principal while she was unconscious. I buried that thought, piling shitty memories on top of it, so I wouldn’t feel tempted to think it again.

Then I drew my arm back and slapped her hard with my naked palm. The slap rang out in the still garden. She jolted, gasping, and opened her eyes.

“Finally,” I muttered, hiding the flood of relief that gushed from my too-soft freaking heart. “What’s your name and how many fingers do you see?”

She blinked blearily, and I shoved my naked palm in front of her face to delay the inevitable—that is, her seeing me and freaking out. If I was lucky, I’d be able to assess her status before that happened.

“I’m… Barbara,” she said slowly with a confused frown. “I have a stupid hyphenated surname. Ashford-Kingsley. And… And why is your hand gray?”

I swallowed an unbecoming gasp when she reached up and trailed her fingers over my palm, her cute frown deepening as she explored my bare skin with featherlight touch.

It tickled, it itched, and worst of all, it made me want to ask her to keep doing it. Her fingers were soft and hesitant, and there was just something so guileless in the way she touched me. It was completely unlike the human women I got naked with, who touched me because they were drawn to my otherness and explored me with greedy fascination.

This… This was different. She didn’t know what I was, didn’t see my face yet, and so she was simply intrigued by the color of my skin.

When a shiver bolted down my back, settling in my hips, I snatched my hand away. Barbara looked up. Our eyes met.

I braced myself for her scream, for the expression of horror and disgust that would inevitably distort her face. But seconds ticked away, time pooling in a limbo around my knees buried in the cool grass, and she didn’t make a sound.

Finally, her forehead smoothed, her eyes opening wider with innocent curiosity.

“Oh. Am I dead?” she asked, watching me without a shadow of fear. “He made me fall, didn’t he? What a bastard. Did I break my neck?”

I should have corrected her at once, but I was too taken aback by her reaction.

“You’re taking it surprisingly well,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t death scare you?”

She sighed, briefly closing her eyes. “I don’t know. It just seems fitting. My life was never my own, and my death isn’t, either. I’m all out of fucks to give, you know? At least you’re pretty.”

I laughed in surprise, pressing my fingers to her neck to check her pulse. She was warm and soft, her blood thrumming gently under her skin.

“Pretty? Now I know you’re not fully in there. Take deep breaths while I call the guy by the gate so he lets the doctor in.”

“No, you are,” she said, raising her hand and hovering it over my cheek, the warmth of her skin just a whisper away from the bone of my face. I stopped breathing. “You have such a good structure. Those cheekbones and brow ridges are so symmetrical and prominent. If Michelangelo ever portrayed death, he’d make someone like you.”

My breath whooshed out of me, and I looked away. I knew I couldn’t blush, but my face felt fucking pink. I was just so thrown by her reaction. She should have screamed and struggled to get away. Not… not tried to touch me with those soft, guileless hands.

“I know, right?” I said, doing my best to sound nonchalant. “Let me tell you, if abominations ever modeled, I’d be the first choice. I’d have a line of lace underwear named after me.”

She laughed, shaking, and I realized I still held her even though she could probably sit up now. But she was so relaxed against me, so warm and real, I was loath to let go.

“Hey, Mike,” I said into my comm set after getting a connection with the guard by the gate. “It’s Phantom. Uh-huh. Yeah. Listen, we have a small emergency, and an MSA doctor should be here soon. No, nothing serious. He’ll show you a badge. Let him in. Oh, and did you happen to see someone leaving the estate just now?”

Mike said no, and he didn’t see anyone on the screens, either. I was disappointed but not that surprised. That mind manipulator was good, better than I’d expected.

“You said it was a he. A man,” I said to Barbara after disconnecting. “How do you know?”

She stared at me with huge, blue eyes that were like deep pools of water sparkling in the moonlight. Her face lost its softness, her frown growing wary as her body tensed in my embrace. She was catching on.

“I’m not death,” I said belatedly. “You’re alive, so now would be a good time to find some fu—some things to care about, yeah? Now, back to my question. How do you know it’s a man?”

She blinked and slid off my lap with a soft grunt, sitting by my side in the grass. The chill of the night got to her, and she hugged herself, shivering. She still didn’t scream, for which I was grateful. The princess seemed to be tougher than I expected.

“He was inside me,” she answered then cringed, looking away. “I mean, he was in my mind. I… I felt him. And last night, I didn’t remember anything, but now I do. How he stood under the tree. He had… glowing eyes. And his presence was… was slimy and very male. But I didn’t really see him.”

“Glowing eyes,” I repeated, nodding. “That’s a nice lead. Well done, princess.”

“I’m not a princess,” she muttered, hugging her knees.

Right before she pressed her chest to her legs, I noticed her nipples. They were hard from the cold, pointing sharply through the silk. It made me feel a peculiar sort of way, and that in turn made me need to curse real bad.

“Fiddlesticks!” I spat instead of saying what I really wanted. It wasn’t even half as satisfying as the other F-word, even though I put all my vicious frustration into it.

Barbara gave me an odd look.

“Are you all right?”

The arrival of the doctor saved me from answering that. No, I wasn’t all right, but that was a permanent state, and not even a team of psychiatrists could untangle all the things that made me a fucked-up mess.

Elijah was on call tonight, and he lost no time dropping into a crouch in front of Barbara so he could shine a flashlight into her eyes. He wore a spick-and-span suit, but even the extra-long pants didn’t hide the fact he had hooves. I knew he was some type of Moroccan djinn. When I once jokingly called him Fatima’s cousin, she blew her top, asking me in a hissy fit why I thought all djinni were inbred relations.

Now, as I watched him examine Barbara, who shook from the cold, a wave of annoyance overcame me. I was sure he had a thermic blanket somewhere in his bag—he had to. Then why wouldn’t he take it out and cover her? Why was he being such a fucking dick?

“Count backwards from twenty, please,” he said, his voice dispassionate as he held her wrist, monitoring her pulse while her teeth chattered.

Asshole.

I took off my tactical jacket with a huff. It was heavy and cool, because I kept lots of things in the pockets and released little body heat when enclosed in my carapace. But it was the only thing I had, and I wasn’t about to ask the asshole doctor to do his job if he didn’t know it himself.

Barbara jolted when I dropped the jacket over her shoulders. Before she threw me a surprised look, I was already heading for the driveway, rolling my eyes at myself. If I didn’t know better, I might mistake myself for a chivalrous man, but it would be bullshit.

I was the kind of man who blew his load on a woman’s face and offered her her own panties to clean up. Definitely not a gentleman.

So then, why did I worry about the spoiled princess being cold? My job wasn’t to shield her from discomfort but to keep her safe, and those were two different things.

As I waved at Mrs. Ashford’s car slowly crunching up the driveway, I decided it was because of the nipples. It was them I was worried about. Not the girl.

And anyway, who cared? I had a situation to report and a fucking criminal to catch. My hands were full.