Katie Reus - His Untamed Desire

Hector found Daphne outside on the front wraparound porch leaning against one of the pillars with her arms crossed over her chest. She pushed up and scowled when she saw him. “Done having your all-boys talk?” Sarcasm laced her words.

“I wasn’t leaving you out to be rude or because I didn’t think you shouldn’t be privy to our conversation. What I needed to talk to Angus about was private. Not pack business and nothing to do with the missing shifters. Don’t forget, he’s my boss.” Okay, their conversation had had nothing to do with work, but Hector didn’t want to lie outright.

“Oh.” Her shoulders relaxed a fraction, but he could still see questions burning in her eyes.

He held up his bike keys. “I’ll let you drive.”

“You fight dirty.”

“Hell, yeah.” He tossed her the keys.

She caught them with a smile and turned away from him, sauntering down the drive with a not-quite-subtle sashay of her hips that drove him insane. He was sure she was intentionally teasing him and he didn’t care. He loved watching her move like that.

The drive back to her place was slightly torturous considering how close he was pressed to Daphne and unable to do anything about it. But the second she turned his bike off, his entire body went on alert. That familiar scent of danger lingered in the air.

It wasn’t something specific, but he’d sensed it the other night when Troy had shown up out of nowhere. The scent reminded him of darkness, like something greasy and oily lingering in the air.

“I smell it too,” Daphne murmured and he looked down to find her gaze on him.

“We need to sweep your house.” If that bastard Troy was in there, Hector was taking care of this right now.

“I’ll go in from the back, you can take the front,” Daphne said quietly.

If it was any other shifter, he’d say yes. But his jaguar wouldn’t let her out of his sight. “We’ll go in the front door together.”

Her jaw tightened in annoyance, but she nodded. Slowly, they crept toward her townhouse. The scent faded the closer they got, but it still lingered in the air. Something else mixed in with the danger smell—blood. Coppery and distinctive.

Daphne shot him a hard look, telling him she smelled the same thing. As they neared the front door, he realized it was open a fraction. He couldn’t smell any explosives residue or typical ingredients that went into bombs so he carefully toed the door open with his boot. He kept an arm out to shield Daphne, but she gasped at the same time he froze.

The mirror in her foyer had been smashed so that glass littered the tiled area, the foyer table was ripped apart, and there were smears of blood all over the wooden balustrade staircase. That was all Hector could see from their limited perspective and he wasn’t about to let Daphne go in there. When she made a move to squeeze past him, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest. “I’m calling Angus. Let him and whoever he brings deal with this. You don’t need to see what was done to your house.”

He thought she might argue, but she just turned and wrapped her arms around his waist. She buried her face against his chest and he hated the shiver that snaked through her. Someone had just trashed her home and he didn’t even want to speculate where the blood had come from. If there was a body inside, Hector definitely didn’t want Daphne seeing it. Not because he didn’t think she could handle it, but why put her through it? Since he didn’t hear a heartbeat inside, if there was someone in there they were dead. Whoever had done this had violated her belongings and her safe haven.

“Call him,” she finally murmured. “If this was Troy, this has to stop.”

Hector pulled out his cell with his free hand, tightening his grip around her as he slowly walked them away from the home. He didn’t want her anywhere near the house until it was cleaned up. This was ending now, before Daphne was in any more danger.

Five days later, Daphne was about to go crazy. Her boots clicked along the sidewalk as she strode with Saul toward the Full Moon. The city lights twinkled around them and the music and boisterous excitement from people out enjoying their lives was incredibly grounding. Hector needed to work and she wasn’t about to monopolize all his time as her babysitter, but he’d asked her to come see him tonight and she wanted to get out of the mansion. Ever since her home had been trashed, there hadn’t been a peep out of Troy—if he was even the person who’d done it. Deep down, she was pretty sure he was. He certainly wasn’t returning her phone calls, which was pretty damning in her opinion.

And for the last five days she’d been cooped up in the pack’s mansion. She and Hector had talked every day and he’d been by to see her a lot, but they hadn’t had more than a moment of privacy. Plus she’d been attending school like normal—well, with an escort at all times. There was no way in hell she was going to let some psycho take that away from her. Now she was sexually frustrated beyond belief and had decided that tonight was it for her and Hector. She was pretty sure he felt the same way, though he was hard to read sometimes. He’d been really weird that morning when they’d talked on the phone, but she didn’t know if that was about her or the whole situation and she hadn’t wanted to analyze it.

“So what’s the deal with you and Hector?” Saul asked.

Yeah, like she was going to tell him anything about her feelings for Hector. He was the biggest gossip of the pack. “We’re friends.”

Saul snorted. “Yeah, I make out with all my friends too.”

“If you had any female friends, you probably would.”

“You’re my friend and I don’t make out with you.”

“But you would if I let you.” Of that, she had no doubt. The man would hook up with anyone.

Grinning, Saul just shrugged in that charming manner of his. While she loved him and understood why females flocked to him, no one got her heart racing the way Hector did.

Music and laughter spilled from the bar as they approached. Saul went in ahead of her, as was male shifter custom—they had this thing for checking for possible danger—and stopped so suddenly she ran into his back.

He swiveled and looked down at her with pity. What the hell? He tried to stop her, but she peeked around him and saw some tall blond female plastered against Hector, her mouth pressed against his. And Hector’s hands were on her shoulders . . .

The sight was like a punch to her stomach. No, worse than that. Unwilling to watch the horrid display—or worse, start crying in front of half her pack—she turned on her heel and stalked down the sidewalk. If it had been any other time, she would have marched up to him and probably punched him in the face. But the last week had left her raw and overly emotional and right now she didn’t trust herself not to make a scene in front of shifters and humans alike. Some kid had developed a sick obsession with her and she was worried she’d somehow caused it. Add to that her growing feelings for Hector and—damn it, she was such an idiot. She refused to cry in front of anyone. It was the only reason she was hauling ass away from here.

Saul hurried beside her. “Daphne, he—”

She turned and shoved him in the chest, wishing it was Hector instead. She didn’t want to hear some bullshit excuse from her own packmate. What was that anyway, some sort of male solidarity crap? Maybe she took Saul off guard because he stumbled back and sprawled on the sidewalk. He let out a yelp as his ass kissed the pavement.

Using those precious moments of freedom, she sprinted across the street and jumped into the back of an idling taxi that a man had been attempting to get into.