Page 1 of Guarded By the Yeti

Chapter One

Kaelthar

My kind has a saying, “You won’t see it coming, you won’t know what hit you, until you’re crawling on the ice, begging for release, for a respite, on your hands and knees, and you only realize you’re in the middle of a lake when the ice breaks beneath you, and you fall... down, down, down... into the dark.” I know, that’s a long saying. The original is probably shorter but call me a poet. I like to distract myself with very descriptive thoughts, especially when I feel like... well, like the ice just broke under my feet, and I’m falling to my doom.

Because her eyes are dark. Two black pits I will lose myself in if I’m not careful.

She’s huddled in a corner, arms wrapped around her knees, shaking like a leaf, staring wildly around her while my team is searching the compound and stray bullets fly downstairs. My men – monsters, if I am to be accurate –are gunning down the last of the Draganetti soldiers who weren’t fast enough to make a run for it. The Draganetti family is one of the two mafia families running this shithole of a city. After tonight, they might be the only mafia family, since they’ve just killed the Carvassi boss and his wife in cold blood, right in front of their daughter’s eyes.

“What took you so long?”

I turn toward the annoying voice buzzing in my ear. It’s been buzzing for a few minutes now – “Where were you? You should’ve been here an hour ago! My father paid you for nothing. You’re too late! How am I supposed to salvage this?” – like an irate mosquito, and I’m tempted to swat at it with my big, furry paw, but that would mean breaking the Carvassi heir’s nose.

Artie Carvassi. I guess he’s in charge now, and since my team and I descended “too late”, yet just in time to save his sorry ass, it means the Carvassi mafia family isn’t yet gone completely. Doeshe care about his sister, sobbing and shaking in a corner? No. He’s in my ear, instead, giving me shit about a job done right, after all.

“You stupid ape,” he shrieks. Mercifully, he shakes his head and walks away.

I do not care for humans calling me an ape. Tale as old as time. As old as my species, in fact. I’d hoped that if I came to America, I’d find a world that appreciated me for my skills, that looked past my physical appearance and judged me for what I had to offer. In a world where monsters and humans mingle freely, where the US is the main hub for inclusivity, it seems I’m still viewed as no more than a stupid ape. Not by other monsters. Monsters are fine. But humans. Ooh, boy! The privilege and entitlement of humans!

Call me an ape. It doesn’t get a rise out of me. But ignore the tortured creature in the corner, who’s just seen her parents get chopped to pieces, and I might just snap.

I approach her carefully. Gently. As gently as I can, given my size. I know I’m not pretty to look at. I stand at six and a half feet tall, a stack of muscles covered in fur as white as snow. I come from the mighty Himalayas, and in the US, I stick out like a sore thumb. I crouch beside her, this frail human with long brown hair and deep dark eyes, and her gaze shifts to mine. She stares at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her lips tremble, and she parts them slowly, as if she wants to tell me something, but no words come out. Not even a sound.

“She won’t speak.” Her brother is buzzing in my ear again. “Not the first time it happens. You see, when you’re a Carvassi, you get your fair share of trauma, and Ysella... she has her own way of dealing with it.”

It’s surprising. I almost don’t believe it, but Artie’s voice takes on a note of compassion. I turn to look at him over my shoulder,and it’s etched into his features, too. After all, he cares about his sister.

“You must take her away,” he continues. “She can’t be here with this war going on. My parents should’ve known better, but they didn’t, and they paid the price. This war has been raging for too long. The Carvassis should’ve ended it before the idea got into the Draganettis’ dumb heads that they could take us down.”

He straightens his back and smooths down his shirt. He’s covered in blood from head to toe. When my team and I broke into the building, we found Artie and Ysella tied to chairs, gagged and dripping with blood. The Draganetti men did a number on Artie, and he has a split lip and a swollen eye. On second thought, the guy doesn’t deserve a broken nose too, no matter how annoying he is. The bastards didn’t touch Ysella. The blood she is covered in isn’t hers. God only knows what they had in store for her, if I hadn’t arrived in time.

“I will end this,” Artie says. “Once and for all.”

“There’s no one left,” I say, pushing to my feet. “Your men are either dead, or they betrayed you.”

A mafia family can only be taken out from the inside. The Carvassi boss was expecting it, and that’s why he hired Monster Security Agency in case things went south. My branch has been on his payroll for a year. Good money, and all we had to do was respond promptly if and when our client pressed the panic button. Which we did. I was appointed team leader, and when I got the call from the MSA, I assembled my men as quickly as I could. Still, I am no miracle worker.

“I’m Artie Carvassi,” he says defiantly. “I will get my army one way or another. Don’t you worry about that. Your job now is to take my sister as far away from here as possible.”

“That is not my job.” I cringe on the inside as I say it, because there’s nothing that I want more than to scoop this gorgeousmafia princess in my furry arms and take her with me, tuck her away forever. “My job here is done.”

I make to leave, but he grabs me by my biceps, and I look down at his dainty hand barely covering a quarter of the circumference. This time, he talks in a low voice, through gritted teeth.

“I am hiring you to guard her. You will not refuse me. I might be down right now, trampled on by those beasts with no honor, but I still have money. Power. Connections. I need you to protect my sister, so I can do my job and save my family and this city.”

Never mind that his family is as of a much a plague to this city as the Draganetti family is. I hum in reply, a non-committal sound that I hope indicates it’s time for him to let go of my arm.

“It’s not my decision to make,” I say. “You’ll have to talk to my handler at the Agency. I’m merely an employee.”

He lets go, finally, and nods. “Where’s my phone?” he yells, as if my men were his lackeys.

I roll my eyes and put some distance between me and the carnage. The windows are wide open – I saw Mason, the golem, march around the room and open them a few minutes ago – but the cold winter air does little to dissipate the stench of blood, guts, and spontaneously emptied bowels. I’m impressed that Ysella hasn’t thrown up. As vulnerable as she looks, maybe I shouldn’t forget who her family is. Or was. As Artie himself said, she’s seen her fair share of horrors. He also said she has her own way of dealing with the trauma, and now I’m wondering what that is.

Artie is on the phone, and I can tell he’s talking to my handler, Lucia. I pace around for a bit, trying to gather my thoughts. But Ysella is still being ignored in the corner, and that just doesn’t sit right with me. I go back to her and crouch to her level again, severely hunching.

“Are you okay?” I ask. What a stupid question. Of course she’s not okay, and I want to rip the throats of those who splashed her parents’ blood onto her baby blue dress.

She looks at me with so much emotion in her eyes but doesn’t answer. I reach my hand toward her – my big, fat, furry paw – and she doesn’t flinch, but she doesn’t have to. I know it’s not appropriate for me to touch her, even if all I want is to squeeze her shoulder and comfort her. I pull away and sigh. I feel the frustration building inside me. My nostrils flare, and underneath the odor of death, I can smell her unique scent. Something fruity. Something luxuriant. I need to turn away, because now I can smell her skin, her hair, the most hidden secrets of her beautiful, strong, young body. Her very fertile body.

---