Page 8

Chapter 8

The Bodyguard

KEENAN

“W ake up.” I throw a stone, startling Thorny awake.

He hoots his annoyance as he soars to the ground, shifting so he lands in his human form. He reaches under the bench beside Pinky’s shack and pulls out a pair of glasses, perching them on his nose. “An emergency, I presume?” he huffs.

I resist the urge to wring his neck, reminding myself I’ve spent centuries turning myself into a civilized wolf. And civilized wolves don’t kill… often. This bird is testing my patience though.

“When were you sent here?” I demand.

He blinks at me and a shutter falls over his expression. “I was sent after your arrest.” He takes a quick step backwards.

“Convenient you got here so quickly.” I stalk closer. “In fact, I would say it’s impossible.”

He clears his throat. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

I don’t beat around the bush. “I think you and Lock hatched a plan to hasten my mating with Vanessa, which is why he urged me to come check up on her. I think he sent you to watch over us and assist.”

He looks like he wants to deny my accusation.

“I think you’re lying about how long you’ve been here. You were in that police station directly after my arrest. If I’d have had to wait for you to arrive from Wolf-Haven, I’d still be in there.”

“Then you should be thanking me, right?” he says quickly. “Maybe let me get back to sleep.”

“Tell me how you got here so quickly, Thorny.”

“Magdalene sent me through a portal,” he says defensively, naming my witch sister-in-law.

“Yeah, when did she do that?”

He cringes. “A week ago.”

“Lock sent you here ahead of me?” A growl escapes my throat as I realize he was probably spying on Vanessa before I arrived in L.A.

Thorny backs away, but the wall of the shack blocks him from putting more distance between us. “King Lock thought you’d need – “

“A wingman?” I grip him by the neck and slam him into the wall.

He gasps for breath as he tries to nod.

“Has no one told you what happens to meddling birds?”

“Your brother… won’t… like it… if you… kill me.” He chokes on the words, his face purpling.

“My brother isn’t here.” I seriously think about snapping his neck. If I discover he looked in Vanessa’s windows while she was –

“He’s trying… to save… your mate.”

I drop him.

Collapsing against the shack, he coughs, rubbing his throat. “Wolves are so damn touchy.”

“How?” I demand.

He sighs heavily and turns his back on me, seemingly not bothered by his near-death experience as he rummages through his briefcase, coming up with a wrinkled shirt and pants. Dragging them on, he says officiously, “This could’ve waited until morning.”

“You chose to meddle with my mate, now you get to deal with me.” I nod toward my Jeep and we climb in, him settling in the passenger side. “Start talking.”

Thorny looks somewhat more contrite as he admits, “It’s not your mate we’re trying to meddle with. Well, not entirely. The King wants to help you break the curse and save your mate from death, which is why he sent me ahead of you. He wanted me to get the lay of the land and report back so we could come up with a plan.”

“Were you spying on Vanessa?” I demand as I conjure an image of him hovering next to her fourth-floor apartment window in his owl form as she changes her clothes. I clench my fists so I don’t throw him through the windshield.

He cringes against the door. “No, not really. I confirmed her home address and her agent’s address, but otherwise I was here in the city gathering information and waiting for your arrival.”

“What information?”

Thorny tilts his head to the side and stares at me like I’m an idiot. “About the humans. The people you will be allying with when you mate with a human.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You are a royal prince of Wolf-Haven and fourth in line to the throne,” Thorny says pompously. “You and your mate must be protected from all potential threats.”

“What threats?”

He gives me a condescending look, which isn’t much of a departure from his usual expression. “You are no longer a little-known wolf from a backwards shifter settlement. You are brother to a rising star in world politics, prince to a once more powerful shifter regime. You and your brothers are of interest to the humans.”

I shake my head in denial.

He ignores me and continues, “King Lock’s actions within the borders of Wolf-Haven have garnered much attention from the rest of the world. And while most wish to form alliances with the up-and-coming wolf shifter population, some are against it. There are those who prefer to keep the shifters and humans separate. More extreme humans wish to send the wolves back to the dark ages. Or worse, eradicate us all.”

The politics between humans and shifters doesn’t interest me. “None of that is my business, nor does it have anything to do with my mate.”

He shakes his head. “As much as you might wish to live in a bubble with your mate, you don’t. She is an attention-seeking human and you?—”

I reach for him, but he ducks me.

“An actor, she’s an actor!” He throws his hands up in surrender. “And you are a prince. You’ve already made the news and I suspect you will continue to do so until you bring your bride home to Wolf-Haven and leave the world of humans behind.”

I ignore his assumption that we’ll be moving to Wolf-Haven and zero in on the thing that’s been bothering me. “Did you send the paparazzi and police to Yannis’s house knowing I would go full wolf when I saw my mate die in front of me?”

He examines his thumb, refusing to meet my eyes.

I clench the steering wheel. “Why would you do that?”

His eyes shine as he says, “It was rather a brilliant plan. You see, a few years ago, when your brother found out that Vanessa is your mate, he asked me to keep tabs on her.” At my growl, he rushes to add, “Nothing sinister, just the occasional check to make sure she still lives and works in the same places and that she wants for nothing. Over my time watching her, I discovered that she really is quite a good actor, but terrible at choosing roles, so I decided to step in and help her along. I figured if the paparazzi witnessed the murder-mystery debacle, it would put her in the news and give her a leg up in the acting world. I thought you’d appreciate this method over leaking her sex tape.”

“Vanessa has a sex tape?” My heart stops for a few seconds.

“Not yet, and now thanks to me, she won’t have to,” he replies. “My plan had the added benefit of giving you the push you needed to further your bond with her. See? Brilliant.”

I’m unsure whether to wring his neck or hug him for enacting such a stupid, convoluted plan. “Why would you help her with her acting career?”

He shrugs and reaches into his pocket, tossing a handful of nuts into his mouth and crunching. “She’s a decent human. Seems like a shame to let her talent go to waste when she likely only has a few months left to live. Why not let her live her dream?” He glances away but I catch the shine of tears in his eyes. So, he’s not entirely unaffected by my mate’s plight.

And he’s neatly brought us to the subject of my mate’s mortality. “You said Lock has a plan that may allow her to survive the curse?”

He looks sorrowful. “No, he’s working on one. We all are. Magdalene especially. She’s taking this challenge personally. She doesn’t have anything yet, but she’s hopeful.”

I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t be. My sister-in-law, a powerful Rage Witch, has a heart of gold. Of course she would want to help. I should’ve asked her myself, but I’ve spent too many years alone going through each cycle of losing my mate. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask my family for help.

Warmth invades my chest and I clear my throat. “Uh thanks… thanks for watching over my mate and trying to come up with a way to save her. Means a lot.” I pin him with a feral look. “But if you meddle in our mating again, I will pluck every feather from your hide and mail your naked bird ass back to Wolf-Haven in a shoebox.”

I have a lot to think about and barely notice as Thorny leaves the Jeep to return to his nighttime perch. I drive back to Vanessa’s place and take one of the guest spots. Pushing my seat back, I cross my arms, close my eyes and allow my thoughts to drift.

A banging on the window wakes me abruptly. I yelp as I bang my head on the roof and jam my elbow against the steering wheel, blaring the horn.

Sun streams through the windows, telling me its morning.

A wide-eyed Vanessa opens the passenger door. “Sorry about that. Do you mind driving me to the screen test? They emailed the part I’m auditioning for and I want to practice my lines.”

“Sure,” I say, relieved that she isn’t insisting on doing the driving. “Buckle up.”

She does and I turn my head away from her, breathing into my hand in an attempt to gauge how bad my morning breath is.

“Here.” She digs through her purse and hands me a pack of cinnamon gum. “This’ll help. I should’ve offered to let you use my bathroom to clean up.”

“I’ve spent weeks sleeping in the forest with nothing but stream water and a stick to clean my teeth.” I press the starter button and pull out of the lot. “I’m used to roughing it.”

She stares at me, curiosity in her gaze. “What about toilet paper? How do you pack toilet paper?”

I chuckle, keeping the truth of the matter to myself. My mate wasn’t built for roughing it in the woods and since we won’t be separated again while she lives, my living rough days are over until…

“Never mind,” she says, her attention already drifting. “I have to study.” She pulls her phone out, taps her screen and begins reading, muttering lines to herself, her brow wrinkled in concentration. Occasionally she looks up to direct me to the studio lot.

“Just up ahead,” she says, and I sense a note of panic in her voice.

Immersing myself in her brain I see more than just panic. Her anxiety is exploding into a five-alarm fire. I pull the Jeep to the curb and turn it off.

“What are you doing?” Her voice is high. “I’m going to be late.”

I turn to her, taking her shoulders in my hands. Touching my mate is the fastest way to sooth her when she’s overwhelmed by emotion. “You’ll do great, Vanessa.”

Though her shoulders gradually relax beneath my grip, her voice is still rushed as she says, “How do you know? I’m the queen of fumbling auditions. It’s why I’ve had so many with so few parts offered.”

“They already want you, right? That’s what a screen test is.”

She nods. “Yeah, it usually means you’re close to getting the part.”

“Then you’ve got it in the bag.”

“How do you figure?” Her heart rate is slowing, so I continue moving my thumbs in small circles against her shoulders.

“I’ve seen the way you talk to people. You have a light inside you that shines so bright it attracts them to you like moths. They hang off your every word.” It’s true. I spent the evening before trailing Vanessa through nightclub after nightclub watching as her friends basked in her perpetual glow, while outsiders attempted to get closer.

“You really think so?” she asks, her eyes luminous as she leans toward me.

My thoughts shift gear as my tunnel vision narrows on her silky cherry red lips. They look like tiny pillows inviting me in to rest upon them. Maybe after a chaste kiss or two, they’ll open, accepting my tongue. Maybe later, after we’ve known each other a while, she’ll take my cock, filling that gorgeous mouth…

“Keenan?”

I blink, lifting my gaze from her lips to her eyes. Thank god she can’t read my mind clearly yet.

“I should really get to the studio. It won’t look good if I’m late.”

I clear my throat, turning the car back on. “Of course.”

At the closed gate to the studio lot, we’re confronted by a guard asking for our identification. Vanessa digs through her purse, fishing out her driver’s license and handing it over. He takes it, finds her name on the list and nods. I hand mine over, relatively certain my name isn’t on any studio list.

Sure enough, the guard hands my ID back. “Ms. Bedalia is good to drive through to building C, but you’ll have to stay out here.”

I can feel Vanessa’s tension and I’m about to say it’s fine to get her to the studio on time when I catch her frantic thoughts. … don’t think I can do this without him. It’s one thing to read a few lines of script, but this is an actual screen test for a major movie with one of the world’s most talented directors. What if I screw it up? I need someone there to stop me from dying of shame after.

I shove my door open, forcing the security guard back a few paces. I grip him by the back of the neck, not too tight since humans are delicate. “I appreciate you’re just trying to do your job out here, and on a regular day I’d applaud you for keeping the people on this lot safe, but your job is interfering with mine.”

“Uh… what job’s that?” he stammers, shaking under my grip. I’m a foot taller than him and outweigh him by a hundred pounds. My hand completely encircles his neck.

I think about escorting Vanessa and her friends the night before, then grunt, “Bodyguard.”

“Y-you’re her bodyguard?”

“Yeah, I am. It’s my job to make sure she makes it safely in and out of this studio and I’m not gonna let anything stop me from doing my job. As a fellow security officer, you get my dilemma, yeah?” I stare down at him, allowing him to see the flicker of my wolf superimposed over my face.

He stiffens and moves away from me, pulling his neck from my grip. “I-I’ll double check the list.” He speeds into the guard house and slams the door shut, sliding the lock home before picking up a phone. I wonder if he’s calling more security, but after a minute he replaces the phone, opens a small sliding window and bends to speak through it. “You can both go on through.”

He slams the window shut and lifts the gate.

I climb into the car hoping he isn’t stalling while he gets the cops involved. I don’t have time to get myself arrested for a second time this week.

“Everything okay?” Vanessa asks anxiously.

I reach for her, sliding my hand under her hair and taking her neck in a much lighter hold than I’d done with the security guard. She relaxes into my grip as I run my fingers up and down the smooth column.

“Everything’s great. I’m officially your bodyguard now.”

“What?” she asks, surprised.

“It’s how I got in.” The more I push the idea, the more it sounds like the perfect way to keep me by Vanessa’s side. “Actors need bodyguards, right?”

“The famous ones,” she says with a nervous laugh. “And only if they’re out in public a lot. I’m not famous, Keenan. Like at all.”

I shrug, pulling into a parking spot. “Consider me your preemptive bodyguard.”

She nods, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Okay, yeah, I like that! Your presence as my bodyguard will help manifest a successful acting career. I just have to walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk and I’ll get to where I want to be.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I nod anyway, content with the part I’ve been given. I’m allowed to hang out with her, guarding her body.

“Okay, Keenan,” she says. “Let’s go nail this thing down.”

I take her hand, squeezing it before letting go. “You’ve already got the job; you’re just going in to tell them why.”

She beams at me. “Okay, bodyguard, let’s go tell them why!”