“Whoa.” Ellison came fully awake. “Did you just say please? Must be something bad.”
“It is. Get here.”
“Sure thing, friend. Want me to call Dylan too?”
“That’d be good. Thanks.” Spike clicked off the phone to Ellison’s startled exclamation that Spike was saying thank you, and started up his bike.
* * *
Spike caught up to Myka and the car that followed her when they both turned out of Shiftertown. Spike rode as quietly as he could, without his headlight, until they turned onto a main thoroughfare.
Traffic was light at this hour, but in Austin, never truly gone. Spike flowed with the cars on MLK, keeping Myka’s truck in sight. The car that followed was a generic sedan—every car company made a plain, inexpensive model, and Spike couldn’t distinguish this one. If it had been a motorcycle, he’d have known every detail about it, but sedans were all the same to him.
Myka drove through the heart of Austin and out the other side to a neighborhood along the bluffs near Shoal Creek. She turned onto a street holding a row of modest houses and pulled into a driveway, using an automatic door opener to enter the garage.
The car halted across the street and killed its lights. Spike pulled up right behind it, leapt off the bike, and started for the car. The guy behind the wheel saw him, gunned the car, and took off down the street, tires squealing.
The noise brought Myka out of her garage. She stood in her driveway, hands on hips, exposing herself to any and all danger.
Spike killed his bike’s engine and rolled it quietly across the street. Myka whirled and saw him.
“Spike, what the hell?”
Spike stopped her words with a hand on her lips. “Close that door.”
Myka gaped for a second then hit the control to lower the garage door, while Spike parked his bike next to her car.
“Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked, unlocking her back door.
Without a word, Spike shoved himself past her and went inside, checking the small back hall then moving on to the kitchen. He turned on no lights, using his Shifter sight to look over the house, room by room. He felt Myka close behind him, smelled her warm scent, tinged with anxiety.
Spike lowered blinds and closed curtains, checking every room and making sure every door was locked before he said that she could turn on a light. He didn’t need one, but light comforted humans, so he’d heard.
Myka didn’t turn on the light. “Spike, what is it? Who was in the car?”
“I didn’t recognize him, but Gavan is dead meat.”
“He had someone following me? What for?”
“To let me know he can have eyes on you any time he wants. I didn’t like the look on his face today when I didn’t immediately kiss his ass.”
Myka frowned in the darkness. “What a butthole. What about Jordan? Is he okay?”
“Ellison and Dylan are on it. You haven’t met Dylan, Liam’s dad. No one will get past those two.”
“Well, thanks for chasing the other guy away. I didn’t even see him following me.”
“He was good.” Spike went to the window in her living room and cracked the blinds to peer out. The street remained empty, but that didn’t mean Gavan didn’t have Shifters sneaking around the back. “I’m staying here.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s either that or you come back to Shiftertown with me.”
“I can’t. I have that meeting tomorrow . . .”
“That’s why I’m staying here. There’s more room, and you’ll be comfortable in your own bed.”
“Spike . . .”
“Eron.”
She fluttered her hands in exasperation. “If you’re name’s Eron, why does everyone call you Spike?”
“Long story.”
“We have all night.”
They did. The darkness held silence and stillness. Nothing moved in the front or the back, and Spike scented no other Shifters.
Didn’t mean they wouldn’t return, possibly in the small hours of the morning, when Myka would be asleep and at her most vulnerable.
“My grandmother almost died when we were first moved into a Shiftertown,” Spike said, looking out the window to the front yard. “She was already sick, she’d never lived anywhere but the middle of nowhere before, and living in a city with other Shifters was making her sicker. To distract her, I got a VCR and some tapes, and we started watching television shows. Over and over again. The only thing that kept her going was looking forward to getting up and sitting on the couch in front of the television with me every day. We watched the tapes and whatever was on the few channels we got until she started to recover. A couple different shows had a character called Spike, and that character was always some bad-ass dude—or thought he was a bad-ass dude. I said one day that if I were on a TV show, they’d probably call me Spike. Grandma thought that was funny and started calling me that, then everyone in Shiftertown picked it up.” He shrugged. “It was a joke at first, but it stuck. I’m a fighter. It fits.”
He delivered the story swiftly, without inflection, trying to hide the pain and fear he’d tasted every waking day and in every dream, that his grandmother would go to the Summerland and leave him alone. Spike had lost everyone in his life—mother and father, grandfather, as horrible as he’d been, cubs his mother had brought in who’d died as infants. Everyone but his grandmother, and the roundup and move to Shiftertown had started taking her away too.
He’d have done anything to save her, and watching videotapes of inane television shows and a new nickname had been a small price to pay.
Myka was watching him. In the dark, her eyes shone, and he saw a second later that they were filled with tears.
“What is it?” he asked softly, turning to her.
“I don’t think anyone in the world realizes how wonderful you are.”
The words were a whisper, and every one struck Spike’s heart. He stepped closer to her, right into her warmth.
“You don’t have to call me Eron if you don’t want to,” Spike said, resting his hands on her waist. “I’m used to Spike.”
“I like Eron. It’s cool.”
“Don’t tell me . . . you train a horse called Eron.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you. Or about the one called Spike.”
“You’re a little shit.” Spike’s mouth pulled into a smile, the widest one he’d felt in a long, long time.
“A lot of people say that.”
“And you smell good.” Spike bent to her. “And taste good.” He swept his tongue across her lips.
Outside the house, the wind started to rise. Good. Maybe a rainstorm would come up to soak any assholes spying on Myka. Or send them back home.
Spike slid his hands under the hem of her tank top. He found her flesh nice and warm, the smooth curve of her waist.
Myka’s hands went to his shoulders, fingers digging in again, as though she wanted to hang onto him. Fine by Spike. He kissed her parted lips, sliding his palms up her waist to her breasts, the clingy fabric of the tank top bunching tightly over Spike’s hands. He pulled the top all the way up and off, finding a tiny bra beneath it, thin like the cotton of the tank.
Shifter women didn’t wear bras, and Spike had little experience undoing them. The hooks in back were tiny under his blunt fingers, evading him. He fumbled. Myka twisted one hand behind her and opened the catches for him.
The gesture of acceptance, of trust, thrust his need high. He wanted their clothes off, her skin against his, sweat on sweat.
Spike shoved the bra off and out of the way as he sought the weight of Myka’s breasts. He lifted them in cupped hands, his lips finding hers. He was drowning in heat. He licked across her lips, then down her throat, wanting again the feel of her nipple in his mouth, but bare this time.
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