Page 21 of Hellcat

Chapter 13

Shit. This was not how he'd wanted tonight to go. Offering the lake house so she had somewhere to crash while she worked out her shit? Yes. Her becoming a target of anti-shifter radicals, and feeling like she had no choice but to stay here if she wanted to save her skin? Definitely not.

Rye didn't have to be such an ass about it.Was he right? Yes, undoubtedly. But he could have used kid gloves.

Their pride was too small to afford losing an enforcer full time. Ian might have tried to look after her in his spare time, but he didn't have much of that. Even regular pride members—who would have been strong enough to take care of a bunch of human assholes—had their jobs to do. Homeschooling, forestry, shifts at Ace's bakery, their individual occupations.

Knowing the cheerful mood at dinner was well and truly ruined, Ian said, "I'm gonna show you to the lake house."

Tania tried to smile. "Sure. Let me just find Princess..."

"No, it's best if he takes you on foot, so you know the way between the pride house and the lake house if you have to run," Ace explained. "I'll drive your cat up and drop her off with a few things."

Tania thanked the alpha before getting up. Right before leaving the room, she turned back, looking at the rest of the pack.

"Sorry I'm grumpy. I know it's not your fault. It's not even mine for posting. It's the anti-shifters who are the assholes in this scenario."

"Hear, hear," Luke called, tapping his glass on the wood table like they were in the middle ages. "Don't you fret, girl. No extremist will reach you here."

Ian could tell it wasn't her chief concern. As soon as they'd passed the front door, she asked, "What about work? I have shifts. The practice is already understaffed as is..."

"Rye assigned Jas and me to protect you, and we will," he told her. "It would just have been complicated to set it up twenty-four/seven. Now you're staying in our territory, the two of us only have to watch over you during the day; there are enforcers patrolling our lands at all times."

She nodded.

The California winter was cool, and Tania shivered. She wore a leather jacket that wasn't going to cut it at eleven at night. Ian shrugged off his coat.

"Oh, I don't need..."

"Shifter blood runs high; I don't need it as much as you. See?"

He extended his forearm, inviting her to touch it. She did, and his entire body froze.

What the fuck was this? While the fifty degrees Fahrenheit hadn't bothered him, her palm, light on his skin for the briefest instant, all but shut down his mind and body.

Tania silently accepted the coat and they set off through the forest.

"There's a path," he said, pointing east. "And if you can't remember the way, taking it from the back garden of the lake house leads right here; but I'm taking you the fastest way."

"I'm glad I'm not a heels type of girl right about now."

She was wearing lace-up knee-high leather boots that did wonderful things for her legs with those jeans.

"Always a good thing around shifters."

There weren't many occasions that didn't end in a stroll, or a run, through the woods.

"That's Daunte and Clari's place," he told her when they reached the first wooden cabin, on their left.

"If you're in trouble, any occupied cabins in these woods would work. We don't tend to lock the doors; you let yourself in if you need to."

She had the sense to be worried. "I thought you said that the territory was well guarded?"

"It is; well enough, for a handful of regulars. But if one of us, or something worse, decides to poke around—well, you never know."

They walked in silence for a while after that. She was probably considering how much danger a mere association with the pride put her in.

"Are there things...worse than shifters? More powerful, I mean."

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