Page 14 of The Vampire's Werewolf Bodyguard

Cody

Cody braces behind the SUV, every sense ablaze. His upper arm stings with the gunshot—nothing serious. The bullet hadn’t been silver. The pain is just the sharpest edge of his fury. His quarry runs, and Cody surges in chase.

He only caught a glimpse of the woman before she shot him. She’s wearing a black mask, and there’s something off about her movements. Like she’s never done this before.

A snarl breaks from his throat.

The echo halts him in his tracks. That was a true snarl, shaped by his lengthening jaw. Fur prickles his shoulders, stretching down to his wounded arm. His grip adjusts so he can pull the trigger even with his growing claws. The enemy’s footsteps race towards the stairs, ducking behind cars.

Cody’s every instinct screams to chase, devour, avenge. Discard his gun and rip his enemy apart with his bare hands. Not for hurting him. For threatening Simon. She has to pay in blood.

His nerves sing for him to finish the shift.

But Simon’s cold, dead scent keeps Cody rooted in place. A reminder of his purpose. He’s a bodyguard, not an attack dog. His job is protection, not revenge. Cody inhales, shaky with rage.

Then he looks over his shoulder and meets Simon’s eyes—wary. Distrustful.

Simon must see Cody as he is. An uncontrolled monster, just as dangerous as the fleeing assailant. Simon’s dark glare silences the screaming of Cody’s instincts. Cody takes a deep breath. Exhales.

His shoulders tickle with vanishing fur, and his jaw settles into place.

“Stay down,” Cody says, voice rough.

Simon folds his arms, a strangely defensive posture given his usual self-control. “I heard her running, too. She’s already gone.”

“There could be others,” Cody says. “I need to clear the area, then lead us to your car.”

Simon looks like he wants to argue, but thankfully just nods.

Time to follow protocol, as much as possible. Usually, Cody would have called the cops already. That isn’t an option when he’s guarding a vampire.

Gun held low, Cody cautiously inspects their surroundings. This floor of the parking garage is quiet. One floor up, a family bickers. One floor down, a group of drunk partiers giggles incessantly, hopefully with a designated driver.

There are security cameras overhead—all dark and motionless. One is visibly fractured. This attack was planned, but not very far in advance .

No more threats for now. Cody holsters his gun, tense, and returns to Simon’s side.

Simon hasn’t moved from his place against the SUV. He turns away, and even in profile his expression is blank. Pale and soulless as he looked the night they met. Nothing of the warm, almost flirtatious spirit Cody’s become strangely accustomed to.

Simon’s fingernails dig into his bare arms.

“Are you okay?” Cody asks, heart jumping. Fuck—he should have examined Simon first. If he missed Simon getting hurt—

Simon flinches away. His eyes are dilated, with deep red pupils. “I’m not hurt,” he says, every syllable sharp. “But you are.”

That’s when Cody remembers the sting in his upper arm, and the blood sliding to his wrist.

The pain is negligible. The bullet only punched through muscle, and the bleeding has nearly stopped. Werewolves heal quickly. Two days from now, there won’t even be a scar.

But right now, Cody’s still bleeding, within arm’s reach of a vampire. His internal sense of danger readjusts. One threat has fled, and another is here. A cold-blooded predator Cody wants to protect above his own skin.

Because that’s his job. Of course. Cody’s a professional.

“I didn’t ask about me,” Cody says, grinning. “Are you okay?”

Simon’s eyes close. His blank expression is a mask, barely papering over his hunger. When his eyes open again, he looks vulnerable, caught in the force of his own instinct. “I’ll resist the temptation,” he murmurs.

Maybe more than instinct.

No. Cody’s pulse quickens, not from fear. He has to be imagining the desire in Simon’s red eyes—but he isn’t imagining how much he likes the idea. Somehow, this barely dressed vampire craving his blood is the hottest man Cody’s ever met. Protection is only the surface shape of Cody’s desire.

Professional. Keep this professional. Cody yanks himself back to reality. “I need to get you back.”

“Lead the way,” Simon says, still tense and controlled.

As they edge back to the car, Cody’s neck prickles. But whenever he glances over, Simon is looking far away. His body is tense, all slender lines of coiled energy, and the leather pants aren’t half as distracting as his parted lips.

Cody checks the car before opening the passenger door. “I want you to duck down until we reach the highway.”

Any desire in Simon’s eyes burns away with indignation. “You’re the one who got shot. Maybe you should duck down.” Then he hesitates. “Can you drive with your injury?”

Cody shrugs. Bad move, given the healing gunshot to the shoulder. “I’ve driven with worse.”

Simon frowns, skeptical, but folds into the car, out of sight. Cody takes one last view of their surroundings. Listening carefully, he hears nothing more than a drunken argument one floor down. Then he gets in the car too.

The seatbelt feels tight over his chest as he exits the parking garage. Every sense fixates on the vampire crouching at his side, a heady blend of fear and foolish want. Cody’s hindbrain keeps circling around the memory of painting the wall. Simon’s cool fingers picking splinters from his palm. His present pain is an afterthought.

Cody forces his attention onto the job. The attacker fled, but she or an accomplice could be waiting in a getaway car. There could be a second sniper on an adjacent rooftop. Every moment of quiet heightens the anticipation of attack .

But there’s no follow-up. They hit the highway, and Cody says, “You can sit up.”

“Great,” Simon says, muffled, before sitting up with an exaggerated stretch. “I’m too old for this shit.”

He fastens his seatbelt, then cracks a window open. Presses his face to the glass, which doesn’t hold his reflection. Nervous tension still thrums through the car, thick as the smell of blood.

If Cody finds the person behind this, he’ll rip their throat out without a second thought. That knowledge scares him. He almost shifted in the garage, and if those security cameras were still working, it could have been disastrous.

Not as bad as letting Simon get hurt would have been. Satisfaction mingles with Cody’s anger. He kept Simon safe. Simon is fine, and Cody is taking him back home where they belong—

For fuck’s sake, Cody. Professional.

“Did you recognize her?” Cody asks, because unraveling this attack serves his professional and unprofessional needs alike.

“I didn’t see her,” Simon says. “Did you?”

“Briefly, but she was wearing a mask.” Cody frowns, struggling to recall details. Eyewitness recollection is tricky—at least when it comes to the eyes. “Definitely human. Her scent wasn’t clear.”

“Another human.” Simon rolls the window down a bit more, and air whips in from the chilly highway. “They used to be easier to deal with.”

Cody almost offers to turn up the AC. Then he remembers Simon is a vampire. He isn’t susceptible to temperature; he’s trying to clear the scent of Cody’s blood from the car.

“How did she know we would be there?” Cody asks. “That wasn’t an accident.”

Simon folds his arms around himself again. “ I don’t know.”

“Could Kimiko have set it up?” Cody presses. “Or someone else at the club?”

“I don’t know,” Simon repeats, plaintive. It’s an odd sound from a centuries-old vampire. “Not Kimiko, but I can’t rule out anyone else. A motive would narrow it down, if I had one. This has to be personal, considering everything else. I just don’t know why.”

Cody’s grip creaks on the steering wheel. They’d had an understanding that Cody needs accurate information to do his job. Apparently not. He glares out at the flaring headlights. “You specifically told me this wasn’t personal. Were you going to tell me about ‘everything else’ at some point?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Passing lights flit along Simon’s bare arm and catch in his hair. “But plans can change.”

“They’d fucking better,” Cody growls. “I told you the day we met—I won’t ask much of you. I just need you to help me do my job. I need you to be honest with me.”

“I don’t trust you,” Simon says, matter-of-fact and tired.

The ensuing silence is deafening. Cody is tense and uncontrolled again, but it’s not his wolf this time. Just his own emotions bristling below the surface. A deep breath fights down his anger. His unreasonable hurt.

He must sound ridiculous demanding Simon’s compliance. Cody’s a twenty-eight-year-old idiot acting like he knows everything. Yeah, he knows his job, but his job is guarding vacationing business moguls and minor celebrities. Not protecting gorgeous, ancient vampire twinks from assassins.

“It’s not about you,” Simon says suddenly. “I don’t trust anyone.”

The abrupt softening of tone is dizzying. Simon seems as erratic and vulnerable as Cody feels tonight, their emotions feeding off each other. Maybe Cody is emanating more violent energy than usual, or Simon is more sensitive than the humans Cody usually hangs out with. All the more reason to stay in control.

“I’m sorry,” Cody says. “I shouldn’t expect you to.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong. As much as I like to nitpick.”

“Nothing wrong? Not even ruining your library wall?”

“I like your painting,” Simon says, which is a terrible sign. He must be woozy with bloodlust.

Or he’s trying to distract Cody.

“Why do you think this is personal?” Cody asks.

Simon rolls the window an inch up. Then an inch down. “Two things. The first could be a coincidence. Did you ever hear about the treaty crisis twenty years ago?”

That would be like yesterday for a vampire, but Cody struggles to reach vague childhood memories. “Was that the vampire who got murdered?”

Simon fidgets with the window again. “That was my fledge-sister Tania.”

It’s all Cody can do to keep his eyes on the road and his hands on the steering wheel. He wants to hold Simon close—if he would allow it—and offer any comfort he can. But that isn’t what Simon’s looking for. There’s a reason Simon is revealing this.

“What happened?” Cody asks.

“I don’t know.” Simon sounds worse than sad—he sounds resigned. “We hadn’t been close in years. A human killed her. The council never caught them.”

The details are coming back now, such as they are. Cody’s pack leaders recounted the aftermath more than the murder itself. A group of bloodthirsty vampires using a flimsy excuse to try overthrowing the treaty.

“Do you think this is related?” Cody asks. He should be angry that Simon kept this from him, but he’s just relieved Simon is saying it now. There are clearly reasons for the vampire’s reclusiveness.

“Humans don’t tend to have twenty years of patience,” Simon points out. “You have to understand—I’ve known so many people who’ve died. Francisco and Tania aren’t even my only dead fledge-siblings, just the ones I cared about.” Simon takes a deep breath. He hasn’t spoken this much to Cody before. “Is this related to Tania? Or to Kimiko’s sister, who died fifty years before that? Where do patterns stop, and where does paranoia begin?”

“You can have both,” Cody says, which he doesn’t intend to be funny. But he doesn’t mind that Simon laughs. Talking about death with a vampire is strange. “You said there were two things. What’s the second?”

Simon slumps back in the seat. “That’s the troublesome part. When Lawrence Baird attacked me, he knew my name. He shouldn’t have.”

“Shit.” Cody peers into the darkness, as if the landscape whipping past them holds any answers. “Did you find anything else in the stuff from his apartment?”

“Nothing that led to me. Just paranoid ramblings about vampires stalking the shadows.” Simon chuckles darkly. “Maybe two centuries ago, that would have been more accurate. He knew he sounded crazy, too. There were notes about therapists. He made an appointment six months ago but canceled it. The superstitious rambling stopped three months ago, and he started withdrawing cash and booking long-distance bus tickets.”

“A paranormal shopping trip,” Cody says. “So, all the fake stuff came first, and then… what, he found something real?”

“Or something real found him,” Simon says quietly. The words are chilling, like the wind whistling through the window.

Instead of narrowing down, the suspect list has widened. Lawrence could have run into a vampire, a witch, a hunter, or even a werewolf. Someone with a grudge and not much care for treaty secrecy laws.

“Can I look through everything too?” Cody asks. “I might pick up on something you missed.”

“I thought you weren’t a detective. But sure.”

“Just doing my job,” Cody says, even though that doesn’t feel true. “I’ll see if Tobias can get security footage of tonight’s attacker. His data team is good at identifying people.”

“Put it on my tab,” Simon says absently. He lowers the window an inch more. The wind is almost loud enough to cover Simon’s next muttered words: “Fuck, why do you smell so good?”

Cody jumps, and glances over at Simon—whose eyes widen in mortification.

“Fuck off,” Simon groans, covering his face.

Despite everything, Cody grins as he turns onto the exit. He feels settled inside himself. Not happy, but right. His wolf likes protecting Simon.

And Simon thinks he smells good.