Alpha Guardians Books 1-6

Chapter 4

4

“Asher! Asher, let her go. Don’t make me zap you!”

It wasn’t that Asher couldn’t hear Echo screaming in his ear. It was more that he didn’t care, or couldn’t. Not about Echo. Not about Rhys, whose fingers now gripped the back of Asher’s neck. Not about Mere Marie, who was likely about to do a lot worse than zap him.

Asher’s bear was fully in control, and at the moment Asher’s bear was only interested in crouching down and guarding Kira from the presence of every other living thing on the planet. It was some kind of delayed gratification, maybe. Asher had denied his bear the sight, touch, scent, and taste of his mate for almost fifteen years.

Now, his bear was going to have his fill. No matter that everything around them was chaos. No matter that the petite, deliciously curved ash blonde stunner in his arms was struggling, and had slapped him only a moment ago.

Asher buried his face in her neck, unabashedly licking the sensitive skin there once or twice as he held her in a crushing embrace.

“Asher!” came Kira’s strangled cry. She writhed against him, making his body harden dangerously. Reminding him of just how affected he was by her very presence. “Asher! Put me down!”

Kira growled when Asher scooped her up and barreled through the rest of the Guardians team. He didn’t understand a bit of what was going on, why she was here, how this was possible. But the bear in him didn’t care, and at the moment Asher was inclined to agree. Asher and the bear both felt that Kira should be safe and sound in his new bedroom in the Manor, and so that was what would happen.

Asher half-sprinted into the Manor’s main foyer, taking a sharp left and running straight toward the wall. The bolthole that Mere Marie had created a few days ago opened in response to his presence and Asher went straight through, knowing that none of the other Guardians could follow. The bolthole was magically attuned to him, providing him with his own suite of private rooms to match those of Rhys, Gabriel, and Aeric.

Kicking the door to his bedroom open, Asher didn’t stop until he sat Kira on the edge of his bed. Pushing her knees apart, he moved to stand between her thighs. He gripped her chin to force her defiant gaze up, giving him access to what he wanted more than anything else: to look deep into Kira’s dazzling winter blue eyes.

The second their gazes connected, Asher was transported to the last time she’d looked at him just this way. Beautiful nineteen year old Kira, wrapped nothing but a sheet from Asher’s bed, tucked up close against his body. She’d looked at him with those big blue eyes, her lush pink lips tipped up at the corners, and that’s when Asher saw it.

Love. Real, true love. Not just the mate bonding stuff, though they’d only been together a few months. No, Kira was looking at him with that unique and unmistakable combination of affection, arousal, and amusement. That look that offered her faith, her acceptance, and a promise for the future.

A better man would have lived up to that promise.

A better man would have taken all that Kira Louise Hudson offered and run with it. Built on it, cherished it, given it back to her tenfold.

Not Asher, though. He’d taken one look at her, realized he could never live up to that kind of love, and then destroyed it all.

“Asher,” Kira said, bringing him back to the present. “Stop it. Let me go.”

She pushed at his hand and he released her, but when she tried to push him back a step he held his ground.

“I don’t— I don’t want you so close,” Kira said, scowling and scooting back a few inches on the bed. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Why are you here? Why am I here? Did you… did you have me kidnapped?”

Her last words carried a heavy dose of fear and suspicion, and Asher felt the accusation like a physical blow.

“I would never do that,” he growled, crossing his arms and taking a step back before his bear could rear up and take control again. His bear was desperate to touch her, taste her. Didn’t much care about Kira’s opinion, no matter how low it might currently be. Asher fought back his primal instincts, trying to focus on the word kidnap. If something had happened to his mate, he’d damned well better get to the bottom of it. “Tell me what happened.”

Kira’s accusatory expression crumbled. An instant later tears filled her eyes, her lower lip trembling.

“I… I’m not sure,” she managed. “I was walking down the street in Baton Rouge—”

“Baton Rouge?” Asher interrupted, nonplussed. “Why weren’t you in Union City?”

He had a well-paid shifter employee in Union City, contracted to keep an eye on Kira, keep her out of trouble.

“I’ve lived in Baton Rouge for three years,” she snapped. “Not that you would know, but my Grandma Louise passed a few years back and there was nothing else holding me in Union City. Besides, people were starting to notice that I wasn’t aging anymore. You can’t just be twenty five forever and hope no one realizes it. Living in the same town for half a century, you can only blame good genes for so long.”

Asher was sidetracked by that for a moment. Kira looked older than his memories of her, of course. She was right, though. It had been nearly fifteen years since the night he’d told her he was joining the Marines, and that he wasn’t coming back for her.

Shaking off that line of thought, he pushed on.

“You were taken off the street,” he prompted.

Kira gave a short nod.

“They put me in a van, kept me in a basement.” She grew more and more visibly upset as she spoke, and Asher couldn’t help but reach out and snag her hand. Lacing their fingers together, relishing the chance to touch her, he kept going.

“How long?” Asher said. “I need to know everything.”

“Four days, maybe five.” Kira lifted a shoulder and swallowed, the delicate column of her throat working as she fought to stay calm. “Then the van again, and… then I was here.”

“Who did you tell about me?” Asher said, his mind jumping all over the place. “Don’t leave anyone out.”

Kira huffed a humorless laugh.

“Uh, no one,” she said, clearly put off by his question. “There’s nothing to tell.”

Asher disagreed on so, so many levels, but now wasn’t the time.

“Since I left Union City, you haven’t told anyone?” he asked.

Kira pursed her lips, then sighed and seemed to give his question more serious thought.

“Maybe my ex,” she admitted. “I didn’t tell him everything… Not that there’s much to tell—”

“Your what?” Asher gritted out.

“Ow!” Kira cried, pulling her hand from his. “Jeez, don’t break my fingers. My ex-boyfriend, Marshall Logan. You know who I’m talking about. Wolf shifter, sandy blond hair…”

Asher closed his eyes for a moment, trying to will away the haze of red filling his vision. He knew Logan all too well, as they’d served together in the Marines. Not only that, but Logan was the so-called employee that Asher had kept on the payroll with the intention of keeping Kira safe and sound. Safe and sound and away from other men.

There would be a reckoning, and soon. Marshall Logan was going to learn a thing or two about pain, and it was going to be a hell of a lot worse than basic training.

Asher forced himself to relax, unclench his fists and his jaw. When he opened his eyes again, he’d compartmentalized Logan and the phrase ‘ex-boyfriend’.

“I’m sorry this happened, Kira. I swear to you, I will protect you,” he said, watching her intently.

Kira arched a brow.

“I don’t accept promises from liars,” she popped off with a sneer.

Asher’s lips pulled back, and he had to struggle not to bare his teeth at her, at the word liar.

“I didn’t lie to you, Kira. I told you I wasn’t coming back,” he hissed.

“That was the only promise you didn’t break,” she tossed back. “All that stuff about being my fated mate, protecting me, forswearing all others…”

White-hot anger flashed through Asher’s veins, because he had kept all those promises, whether Kira knew it or not.

“You are my fated mate,” he said instead, his gravelly tone daring her to disagree.

“Hah!” Kira said. She was only being defiant, but Asher pounced on the opportunity to prove it to her, prove that they were connected on every possible level.

Asher was on her in a second, leaning her back on the bed and caging her with his big body. He speared his fingers into her hair with one hand, the other cupping her jaw, and he kissed her.

Hard. Demanding. Angry.

Asher fed all his hunger and frustration into the kiss, dissolving Kira’s resistance with his lips and tongue and teeth. Nipping, licking, nibbling, until she came alive under him. Kira writhed against him, her body cradling his weight, arms wrapping around his neck, fingernails raking his shoulders.

The tiny sounds of eager pleasure she moaned into his mouth, the crush of her breasts against his chest, the soft rock of her hips against his, the way she clawed at him like a wildcat…

This. This was the Kira Asher knew, the one he longed for.

Something shifted between them in the next moment, though. Kira froze, pushed him away. Asher tried to kiss her again, and she actually slapped him.

Hard, right on the mouth.

“Get. Off. Me,” Kira threatened. “Get the f**k off me, Asher. You don’t get to do this.”

Asher pulled back after a moment, wary.

“I need…” Kira started, then stopped. She stared hard at his hand, her gaze searing his skin. “What is that?”

Asher glanced down at his clenched fist, then flattened out his hand, palm down. They both stared at the thin swirls of black ink that spread from his thumb to his wrist. The tattoo was a delicately outlined swallow, a splash of beauty against the rugged backdrop of Asher’s body. It was often commented upon by strangers, and those strangers were always told to f**k right off.

“Tattoo.”

Kira arched a brow.

“That’s funny, because I have the same one,” she said, crossing her arms. “Right between my breasts.”

Asher regarded her without speaking, unwilling to explain himself.

“What’s more funny,” Kira continued, “Is that I got this after you left, and you’ve never seen it in person. Makes me wonder just how you have the exact same tattoo.”

What did she want him to say? That his spies had reported back her visit to the tattoo parlor? That he’d tracked down the artist, honestly considering the murder of the i***t fool enough to mark the one woman Asher could not? That he’d decided instead, a last minute impulse, to get himself indelibly branded with Kira’s hand-drawn design instead?

Yeah, he was so not telling her all that s**t.

“Fine. You know what? I don’t think it needs much explaining. You’re just as much an asshole as the day you left. So…” She climbed off the bed, putting distance between them, her expression gone hard. “I need to shower. I need to sleep.”

“So shower and sleep,” Asher said, giving her an odd look. Surely she knew that what was his was also hers?

“Alone,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I want to be alone. I— I just can’t do this right now. It’s too much.”

“There’s a guest bedroom,” Asher said, guilt setting in immediately.

“Which way is it?” Kira asked.

“Come on,” Asher sighed, his mind whirling, a thousand thoughts filling his head, the sensation nearly dizzying. He walked Kira down the hall to the guest room, showing her the private bathroom and all the amenities.

“Take your time,” Asher said as he stepped from the guest bedroom back into the hall. “You’re safe here. We can work everything else out later, so don’t worry about… you know, things between us.”

Hand on the doorknob, Kira paused for a moment.

“Asher, there isn’t anything to work out. There’s nothing between us anymore.”

Before Asher could utter another word, she closed the door right in his face. He was stunned. As he walked back to his room, the Marine side of his brain was already calculating, making plans to see to Kira’s safety.

His bear, however, was a different story. Kira’s words cut deep, much deeper than Asher had thought possible.

Could it be true? Had Asher lost Kira’s love forever?