Page 1 of Royal Protector

ANTOINE

Ifucking hate the smell of magic.

The old abandoned warehouse on the south-side of Los Angeles stinks of diesel oil, smoke, rotten fish from its days as a seafood storage unit, and magic. That, along with the buzzing hum of the fluorescent lights overhead only serves to make the headache I’ve been nursing all day even worse.

I hate working with a headache. It’s tough to take out a target with a kill shot from a hundred yards away when all you can think about is where to find some Advil.

The security company I work for had set up a sting for a magical smuggling ring, and our weeks of stealth observation and research had paid off at last. A dozen arrests were made this morning for trafficking and distribution.

We brought in all the perpetrators except the kingpin himself, one Mr. Bradley Romano, a ghost of a man who has arranged some of the biggest drug runs in the country but manages to always keep his hands clean.

This time, we finally had the evidence against him, but Romano had slipped through our traps, and if it weren’t for one of our guys on the street giving us a tip-off, he would have gotten away completely.

So now, we were in a standoff—Romano on one side of the abandoned warehouse he worked out of as a secondary location, and me and my newest trainee, Harper, on the other.

Two werewolves against one skinny middle-aged guy should be easy, right? But, unfortunately, Romano is a witch and not the good kind like that pink lady in the bubble.

He deals in cursed objects and spelled herbs—the magic equivalent of street drugs—on the black market, so he’s well-versed in all dark arts. But, right now, he’s got a manic gleam in his bloodshot eyes that hints to me he’s sampled a few of his own herbs.

“You’ll never get me!” he shrieks in a high-pitched tone as if we’re in a 1920’s gangster film, the echo of his voice bouncing off the rusted steel rafters.

I sigh loudly at his dramatics because there’s a bottle of Johnny Walker in my apartment that would be much more fun to spend my Saturday night with instead of a hopped-up magician with delusions of grandeur.

“We’ve already got you,” I say carefully, although I don’t think any of the soothing words we learned in negotiation class will calm him down at this point in the night. He’s gone too far on the adrenaline and drug train to see any reason, even his own. “You should just come with us quietly. Stand down, and we’ll consider it as good behavior.”

“You’re not the cops,” Romano snaps, a glowing fireball forming just under his knobby fingers. “You’re just a bunch of vigilante werewolves.”

I mean, he’s not wrong.

“Can I kill him, boss?” asks Harper, cracking her knuckles and brushing a strand of wild dark curls from her face.

I shake my head, just as disappointed as she is. “We want to take him alive if we can. Never kill the perp if you can bring them in alive.” Usually, the effort to keep them breathing wasn’t worth it, but those were the rules.

Despite Harper’s nickname, I wasn’t the boss at Alpha Solutions, the private security company we worked for, so I didn’t make the rules. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted responsibility like that.

My boss, Pierce, was much better at that sort of thing. I just liked to get in, grab the bad guy, and get out again. Bonus points if I got the job done and still made it to see the end of the Chargers game.

The growing fireball swirling at Romano’s fingertips glows as bright as a supernova, and I grab Harper’s arm, yanking her down just as it flies over her head and explodes. The scent of singed hair is added to the mixture of urban stench and magic, and I gag slightly.

Harper curses and looks to me for approval, and I nod my consent. To hell with the rules.

Within seconds, she has flown at Romano, who is trying to conjure another fireball in his sweaty palm. We’d be worse off if he’d spent more time honing his magical skills instead of smuggling, but his timing is poorly developed.

He lets out a moist choking sound as Harper’s arm crushes against his windpipe, and she shoves him into the brick wall with a heavy bang.

“How am I doing, Antoine?” she growls through gritted teeth, her fangs descending with her anger. “Am I doing this right?”

“Not bad,” I say, stepping back to assess her form and position. “Flex your knees a bit more. You don’t want to lose balance if he breaks loose.” She adjusts her stance, and Romano swears loudly, thunking his head against the wall.

“You’re using me for training?” he snarls, attempting to wrestle away from Harper’s grip, but she holds on tight.

“You’re not worth much else,” I say in a bored tone.

Suddenly, he snaps his head forward and bites Harper’s ear, drawing a spurt of blood.

Shocked by the bizarre, and frankly gross, move, Harper’s arm loosens, and he takes the change to reach into his back pocket. A metallic flash blinds me for a second, and then searing pain hits my left bicep.

Goddammit, the guy shot me.

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