Page 3 of Callen's Captive
“I’m a friend of Anna’s,” he said, hoping that would be enough to get them through the next few minutes.
“You’re one ofthem?”
“I told you I borrowed—”
“I mean a shifter,” she whispered. “I saw a wolf back there. . .”
“That was me.” He hated taking his eyes off the street, but he had to gauge her mindset.
Big brown eyes almost seemed to smile now as she took a deep breath and released it as quietly as she could. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
* * *
KATE
Kate had been running scared for a week. It seemed everywhere she turned, the WSSO found her. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to disappear off the grid, but the WSSO simply had too many eyes on the ground, hands in too many local pockets. . . government, law enforcement, and ordinary people who feared shifters.
She couldn’t trust anyone, yet this tall man whose hard body pinned her to a wall in an alley hadn’t done anything to hurt her. He spoke with confidence. She could use a dose of that right now because fear was all she’d known since the WSSO had stormed her small apartment. She’d barely grabbed her go-bag and made it out of the window and down the fire escape in time.
If this guy was a shifter as he claimed, then the WSSO was his enemy, too. For the moment, she had an ally.
Her eyes quickly darted over his form, pausing as she noted his heavily muscled arms. He backed away from her, giving her a chance to get a good look at him at last, and not just his feet from under a table.
He was a head taller than her, bald and clean-shaven, with rich, dark skin and some very impressive muscles beneath the black shirt and pants he had ‘borrowed’ from one of the mercenaries trying to kill her. This dreamy guy had low cheekbones and a wide nose that seemed to balance his face really well, but it was his eyes that captured her attention. Not the yellow flecks swimming in the fields of deep brown, but the softness she saw there as if all those hard edges he exuded were nothing more than a facade he used to protect himself.
He threw an uneasy glance her way as he split his focus between her and the street at the end of the alley. She really hoped Anna had sent him because the only reason Kate had to trust him was the fact that he hadn’t killed her yet. That didn’t mean much, not if he wanted her for something else. No, she wouldn’t let her mind go there, not until she got away from those trigger-happy mercenaries.
“We’re going to head back through the bar,” her new ally said.
“Are you sure about that? You sort of stand out in there,” she said, knowing there was no delicate way of stating the obvious. He had been the only black man in a bar full of bikers, most of whom were covered in tatts, and not the cute or soulful type with poetry, cats, and dragons. She still wasn’t sure how he’d made it out of there unscathed, especially after he’d gotten into a fight with a few of the assholes inside.
From her limited view under the table, she had watched her shifter enter the bar and move through the crowd with a confidence that had both awed and frightened her. She was positive he would end up stabbed and bleeding out on the floor. When he had taken out those bikers one-handed, she had sensed a foreboding about him. But that wacky smiley t-shirt he’d been wearing had made her wonder about him. That shirt had been too incongruous with all those nicely sculpted muscles and the way he held himself.
He had definitely gained her attention, not that she would have approached him earlier, even if the bar had been the civilized type where a girl could get to know a guy and not worry about getting killed in the process. She didn’t have that much experience with guys, especially ones that could break her in two with one hand.
“I think our chances are better out here,” she said, remembering how she’d hidden under the table when he’d approached. Her whole body had woken up at the sight of him. She actually wondered what it would be like to touch him, to have his hands glide down her body.
Her fantasies about him had stopped the second he had asked the woman screwing the biker where she’d gotten the jean jacket, Kate’s jacket, the one she’d given the woman to keep quiet about where Kate was hiding.
At the time, Kate had thought this guy was just another man the WSSO had sent after her, definitely not someone she’d want to get to know better. And here she was, back to admiring his body when she should be finding another way out of this mess, one that didn’t involve returning to the bar full of bikers he had royally pissed off. The psychos inside would be on him—and her—the second they entered.
“Out here, we’ll be up against guns,” he said.
“They have guns in there, too.”
“They’re not as likely to open fire in such a confined space. They’d end up shooting each other.”
“Assuming you’re right, we’re still vastly outnumbered. I’m sure you’re strong and all, but there were at least thirty bikers in there, not including the women and some of them are as mean as the men. How do you propose we get past them? It’s not like that dump has a fire alarm to pull.”
His brows lifted. The way he was watching her as if she were a source of amusement was downright frustrating. She wasn’t playing games. Maybe he was. She really had no idea why he was here.
“Follow my lead.” He grabbed her hand and led her back into the bar.
The moment they entered, an eerie hush came over the bar. The women moved toward the restrooms as the loud scraping sound of tables being shoved aside pierced the silence. That was a bad sign, a really bad sign. Facing guns in the alley sounded better every second.
A line of six bikers blocked the entrance. Kate moved in closer to the shifter whose name she didn’t even know. With his hand securely holding hers, he walked through the bar as if he owned the place, and no one was calling him on it, yet.
Another line of bikers formed behind them, cutting them off from the exit to the alley. Now it made sense.
