Reverence (Southwestern Shifters) by Bradford Bailey

Author:Bradford, Bailey [Bradford, Bailey]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Total-E-Bound Publishing
Published: 2012-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Val’s world had been turned on end, or rolled over, turned on its side—he didn’t have enough clichés to toss around. He’d gone from moving away from his pack under order from his Alpha Anax to finding out the man he was supposed to guard unobtrusively was most likely his mate. Not to mention he’d blown Harley, and fought another shifter—“Shit!”

“What?” Harley asked as he jumped back like Val had poked him. “We don’t have to do that. And I told you, I haven’t exactly been safe, or I don’t know if I have been. I planned to get tested tomorrow.”

“It’s not that,” Val said as he waved a hand in the air. “I got this,” he touched the knot on his head, “when the shifter we saw attacked me. He’s huge, and I don’t know him, and he seemed, I don’t know, odd. Odder than we usually are,” he corrected quickly, because Harley probably already thought he was off his damn rocker.

“I came back because I didn’t want you facing him alone.” Harley came closer until he was standing toe to toe with Val. “Not because I think you’re weak or anything, but because I’ve seen how vicious shifters—some shifters, I mean—can be. And that scared me. I didn’t want you hurt, and you got hurt anyway.”

“Not bad,” Val murmured, touched by Harley’s concern. “It’s probably down to a little bump now. The thing is, he can scent me, I’m sure, and he was looking for you, I think. He said some weird shit, I can’t remember exactly. I think the hit to my head rattled my cage more than I first suspected it did.”

“If he finds me, he’ll find us, and we won’t let him hurt either one of us, okay?” Harley said fiercely.

He made it sound so simple, but Val was still worried. That shifter had been damned big and strong. “Maybe you should start carrying a gun. Would you do that?”

“No,” Harley answered immediately. “No. I won’t carry a gun. Maybe a stun gun or something like that. I’d be more likely to shoot myself with a gun, I’d be so nervous.”

“Okay. Okay.” Val made a mental note to call and talk to Alex, the leader of Marcus’ guards. Unless Alex had gone off with Marcus and Nathan, then he’d talk to whoever was left in charge and ask about what options he had excluding guns without explaining why he needed to know.

“My place has a better door, and more locks.”

Val canted his head at Harley’s almost timid admission. Then he remembered, Harley had been abducted out of his apartment. What had happened in there before that? He believed Harley when he said he hadn’t been raped exactly, but Dobson had violated him, in many ways, including making him fear his own home.

“I don’t like being there at night, because that’s when it happened. I thought Dobson was just a one-off and when we got to my place, it was bad.” Harley looked at the wall, as if he could see into his apartment on the other side.

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