Page 2 of Royal Protector

Despite the ache, I don’t even flinch, glaring at Romano with my deadliest gaze.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathes out, eyes widening in recognition. “You’re the Hellhound, aren’t you?”

I crack my neck to distract from the pain of the silver’s poison flowing through my arm.Hellhound. What a stupid nickname, one I would have quashed if it didn’t give me such an advantage against the villains of the underworld we face daily.

For some reason, my stoicism in the face of danger has turned me into some sort of immortal mercenary legend that led to the name Hellhound.Ridiculous.

It doesn’t matter for Romano, though.

In the time that he realizes who I am, Harper has shifted into her wolf form and lunged for his jugular, ripping a great bloody chunk of flesh from him and spitting it out again. Blood spurts onto the dirty cement floor, followed by Romano’s solid, limp form.

Harper shifts back to human, Romano’s blood still dripping from her teeth. “Sorry,” she lisps through fanged teeth. “Are you okay?”

I glance at my injured arm. The bullet hit my humerus bone, which is already knitting back together, and I can see the tip of the silver projectile. With an exasperated sigh, I elongate my nails into claws and reach into the mangled flesh to pluck out the bullet.

Instantly, my skin starts stitching together, closing around the tender muscle, though it will be hours before it is fully healed, and longer than that until I can’t feel the silver’s burn in my bloodstream.

“Fuck,” Harper says, her face pea green as I toss the silver bullet aside. “How you can touch that stuff is beyond me.” She swallows and gags a little.

“I’ve been shot with silver enough times,” I say, giving a non-answer. Truth is, I have a high tolerance for pain and a low tolerance for inefficiency. There’s nothing special other than that. Nothing that deserves the nicknameHellhound.

“Let’s get back to base.” I hide a pained grimace from her. It’s definitely time for that Advil, and not just because of the headache anymore.

We’re trudging back to my black Jeep parked in a nearby alley when I feel a sharp pinch deep in my chest. The pain is minuscule at first, but it grows and twists in an agony that feels as if someone is raking their claws through every muscle, one by one.

I fall to my knees, grunting and clutching at my chest, pushing at my sternum as if it would relieve the pressure, but it doesn’t. If I were human, I’d say I was having a heart attack, but I’m not. I start gasping for air, anything to relieve the torturous pain.

“Boss?” Harper drops to her knees beside me, small hand on my shoulder. “Is it the silver? What’s wrong?” She has her cell phone out and is already dialing. Someone picks up, and she orders whoever it is back at the base to come to our location before I can stop her.

“No,” I say through bared teeth, my limbs shaking. “Not an injury. Need—don’t need—no help. No help.”

She stares at me but doesn’t cancel the call for help. Another cascade of pain hits me, and I fall forward, my muscles spasming. My elbows crack as they hit the dirty cement, and I bury my face in my shaking hands. The pain has an undercurrent of familiarity that frightens me more than the actual pain.

“What is it, boss?” Harper pleads with me, rubbing a hand down my spine, trying to comfort me. My stomach roils, and it takes all I have not to vomit in front of her.

“My pack,” I spit out through descended fangs. “Something’s wrong with my pack.” Fur begins to sprout along the back of my hands.

Her eyes widen, and she falls back on her heels. “You . . . you have a pack? I didn’t know.”

Her surprise is warranted. None of us at Alpha Solutions have a pack, allegedly, but I never officially denounced mine. While the other employees have broken their bonds with their home packs, I simply let the pack bonds fade to a whisper when I left to look for adventure and danger on my own.

But by the twisting agony in my chest, it seems danger has decided to call on my pack instead.

* * *

Three days later,I’m headed east in my Jeep, my meager belongings filling the back seat. Amazing that a decade has gone by, and I can still fit my entire adult life into half a vehicle. I work my way out of the urban sprawl of Los Angeles, across the winding foothills of southern Cali, and begin the long, hot drive through the desert-bound for the wetlands of Louisiana.

It had taken an entire day to reach anyone back home in the Bayou, and when I finally heard my best friend Jack’s voice on the phone, I wished I hadn’t.

Rogue vampires had attacked the pack from the Louisiana family, and the village nearly burned to ash. The Alpha—Jack’s father—was dead, and Jack had taken his place, his Mate at his side. So the rogue vampires had been taken care of, for now at least, though the threat wasn’t truly gone.

In addition to the Alpha, his second-in-command had also died a similar gruesome death, which meant Jack had no advisor. As the title stated, the Alpha’s Second was the second most crucial role in a pack. Though it had been years since I’d seen him, Jack had asked me if I would come back and take my place at his side.

And I had agreed. Foolishly, I had agreed. So now, I was speeding through New Mexico to the one place I never wanted to go back to, and taking on a responsibility I had never aspired to.

I loved my pack, don’t get me wrong. I still love them in the way that someone loves their childhood hometown. They had raised me well, and Jack was like a brother to me.

Unlike the others at Alpha Solutions, I had no major grudge against my pack, no painful backstory. But after my parents passed away in an accident, I had begun to feel restless, and the politics and everyday mundane routine of pack life—yes, even werewolves could be mundane—was too much for me.

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