Harden
Sunday morning came too early for either of them. The light streamed through her bedroom window, located at the rear of the house. Neither of them had remembered to close it, and now they rose with the sun.
Perhaps “rose” was too strong of a word. Slithered, maybe. Or stumbled. Pried themselves reluctantly. Protesting the entire way. Pick one, and it would be more accurate than rose. He fumbled blearily with the curtains until they came closed. Turning, he essentially collapsed into the bed.
Sleep never came, though.
But I certainly did. Several times.
The testosterone-laden comment—not that he had any of that left either—made him smile. Using his fist, he rubbed sleep from his eyes and stretched with a yawn. A shower. That would make things better for sure. Or at least, less worse.
Erika stirred as he kissed her forehead, pushing hair from her face, but she soon snuggled back into the bed, the faint hint of a smile on her face. Satisfied, he searched through the hallway closet to find a spare towel, and then hopped into the shower. Warm water rushed over him, and he turned the temperature up warmer, until it slightly scalded his skin. Rubbing off the efforts of the day before, he stole a smidgen of her body wash from the shelf and used it to clean his junk and armpits. The former protested slightly at the treatment, while the other thanked him after his exertions the night before.
Refreshed and clean, feeling peaceful and calm at last, he dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. The morning may have come early, but he was in an amazing mood, regardless of the hour. Things had gone well with Erika the night before. Extremely well.
Moving into the front of the house where the living room was, he dropped the towel and tugged on his boxers.
“Maybe I’ll make breakfast for her,” he muttered to himself, happy with the idea. That would be one way to ensure she wanted him to stay over again.
Without warning the front window exploded inward in a hail of glass shards that pelted his body, opening numerous minor cuts. Something thumped down onto the ground. From the bedroom Erika screamed.
“Stay there!” he roared. “Lock the door!”
The instant he heard the door slam he threw himself through the window. There hadn’t been any engine sounds from outside, which meant that someone on foot had tossed the stone that now lay in the middle of Erika’s floor.
He ran across the tiny lawn and onto the sidewalk. Shoes scuffed to his right and he set off in pursuit, bare feet slapping against the hard concrete, rubbing them smooth as it abraded the soles. Harden’s arms pumped and he accelerated after his quarry. The target was wearing black shorts, a lightweight gray hoodie, and bright white shoes. Sneakers. He was fast, but he was only running in fear.
Harden was fueled by his anger. Anger at whoever had dared to threaten Erika. At the person who had woken her from such a peaceful slumber. The one who had disturbed his calm morning. His feet barely touched the ground as he closed in on his prey. Whoever they were, they tried to avoid him, taking turns without warning. At one point they crossed a front yard, jumped over a fence that surrounded the tiny backyards of the little units, and kept running.
Right behind them came Harden, growing angrier by the moment, his legs powering him closer. He cleared the fence without breaking stride, simply jumping up and soaring through the air in a leap that would make any human high-jumper fly into a jealous rage. He landed and rolled back to his feet, pushing off in pursuit once more.
“I’m going to catch you,” he growled as the distance closed.
The hoodie finally blew backward and into his range. Harden snagged it, and the pair fell, tumbling across a lawn and onto a sidewalk. The roll scraped a large chunk of skin from his forearm and his quarry’s face.
He didn’t even bother to see who it was. So enraged by that point, Harden pulled back his fist and drove it square into the other person’s face. Blood started to flow where he’d opened a cut. His fist rose and fell again. And again. And again. At some point his target stopped resisting, but he didn’t care. Anger fueled his rage and he pummeled the other shifter into unconsciousness, and beyond.
The blows stopped abruptly as a hand caught his wrist and hauled him to his feet with a casual ease. Harden snarled and spun, his fist heading to where he expected his opponent’s face to be.
“No.” The simple command came a split second before the grip on his wrist used it to toss him to the side, his punch turning into an impotent flail as he hit the ground, bounced onto the grass, and rolled several times.
Normally Harden would have come to his feet, ready to continue the attack. But in the brief second before he’d hit the ground, the face of his supposed attacker had come into view. It was the same shifter with the grayish-tinged hair and interesting brown eyes that had walked him to the ball two nights past.
“You,” he said slowly. “What are you doing here?”
The other shifter shrugged. “I think the better question is, what are you doing here?”
Harden pointed at the other shifter. His face was a ruin, but his chest still rose and fell raggedly. “He threw a rock into someone’s apartment. That’s a threat to their person. I chased him, he fled. That’s fleeing arrest or whatever. “
The bear shifter nodded. “And the beatdown you were giving him? What was that exactly?”
“A deterrent,” Harden snapped, feeling surly at being questioned.
“Right. Looks more like unnecessary violence to me.” The bear shifter shrugged. “Now, you know you won’t get in trouble, especially since he’s not dead. But if you really think that’s going to get him and his little gang of friends to leave you alone, then you’re wrong.”
“How did you know about that?” Harden snapped.
“Doesn’t matter. But I do. That’s not important. What is, is the fact that you were ready to kill him for throwing a rock.”
“I was not!” he protested, but the words rang hollow and false.
Shit. Had he really been ready to kill him? Harden glanced down at the shifter once more, only belatedly realizing that it was the younger brother. Aww hell. Angelo was going to be pissed. The youth’s face was a wreck. Broken bones everywhere, numerous cuts, both eyes swollen shut, jaw clearly dislocated.
Harden had done all that, without recognizing who it was he was attacking. The kid had never stood a chance. A single punch, maybe two, was all it would have taken. Instead he’d laid the kid out with blow after blow, hitting him as hard as he could.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered. “I just…I was back in Kronum for a moment.” He looked up at the bear shifter, noting that his black shirt had a logo on it the same color of purple as the tie he’d worn. “You don’t know what it was like,” he said softly. “You had to fight, it was either them, or you. No quarter was given, and none asked.” He shook his head. “We did things. Things you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’ve seen war, son,” the shifter said, squatting down next to him. “I fought in the one that just happened. I saw things, did things that still give me nightmares. Images in my head that will never, ever fade. I see them sometimes with my eyes open during the middle of the day. It’s terrible. I understand, I truly do. But that’s no excuse to beat a kid to death.”
Harden looked away, ashamed of himself.
“I don’t want to be like that anymore,” he said, terrorized by his own demons. “I didn’t use to be this…this angry.”
The bear shifter nodded. “Have you talked to anyone about it?”
His mind flashed back to the night before, to sitting in Erika’s arms, on the verge of breaking down, of spilling everything. He’d come so close to telling her about his pain. About the way he often couldn’t sleep at night, or how he would wake up drenched in sweat, lungs clamped tight so he couldn’t scream. But he hadn’t.
“I’m working on it,” he said more harshly than he intended. “It’s hard,” he added, trying to soften the words.
He frowned as another thought came to him. That morning he’d awoken early, yes, but he wasn’t drenched in sweat, at least not any that hadn’t been there when he’d finally fallen asleep the night before. Racking his brain, he tried to recall living through the nightmares that usually haunted his sleep. Nothing came to him.
Could Erika be the source of his peaceful sleep? It had to be more than just the sex and physical exertion. Deep within him, something stirred. He couldn’t be positive, but was it—
“I’m working on it,” he repeated, sounding more confident.
He needed to explore that more. To understand what was happening to him, and how she affected him.
“Good. In the meantime, let’s take this punk to the embassy.” The bear shifter grinned evilly. “I doubt Andrew will like to hear that he was terrorizing the human women who are under his protection.”
Harden couldn’t help but grin, falling in step with the shifter.
In the back of his mind though, something niggled at him. Trying to remind him of something. Something he was forgetting…