Chapter Two
A part of him was tempted to shift into his other form. He would be able to move faster if he did. The only thing that stopped him was that seeing a wolf would only scare Tessa. The shifter world wasn’t the best kept secret, but he had no idea if Tessa knew anything about his kind. Either way, his world wasn’t safe for a human, especially not a pretty, shy cleaner.
The moon hung heavy in the sky, and it called to the beast inside of him. He did his best to ignore it. The urge to break the front door down nearly overwhelmed him, but for the moment he held onto his control. Tessa was probably fine, but he wouldn’t be able to calm down until he saw her with his own eyes. He ran down the alleyway looking for a window he knew was there. It was only accessible to shifters. Nobody would think of entering that way.
Crap. There was glass on the floor.
Tessa told him she liked to listen to music as she worked. There was a chance that she hadn’t heard anyone breaking in. There was a chance that she wasn’t the intended target since they didn’t know she was there. Raw and unbridled rage flowed into him. An energy like the shift filled every part of him, and he jumped, grabbed the edge of the window twenty feet up and pulled himself into the room. Sharp stabs of pain went through him as glass bit into his skin. Hot blood welled up and dripped down his hands. The flow stopped quickly as his shifter healing ability kicked in, and he rubbed his hands across the seat of his jeans.
It was still light in the club. Henri closed his eyes and let go of the breath he’d been holding. Tessa had to be in the building somewhere. A scrap of a chair on the floor. Something knocking into something else. A grunt of pain … a male grunt of pain. Henri careful walked down the catwalk. Only a shifter or someone supernaturally inclined would have been able to make a jump like that. Silently he made his way down the stairs, keeping an eye out for Tessa. As the cleaner, she knew every nook and cranny of the Golden Goose. She had to be hiding somewhere.
Glass hit the ground.
A barely audible feminine gasp reached him, and he whipped towards it, jumping over the metal railing. He barely made a sound as his feet connected with the ground.
“I’m going to have fun when I get my hands on you.” A man’s voice, one that Henri didn’t recognize, cut through the air, and Henri caught the smell of fear. “You smell good, girl. You’ll be in such a mess in the morning even your mother won’t recognize you.”
Stay still, Tessa. He wants you to run, but if you stay still, you’ll make it harder for him. He just wants you scared so you make mistakes.
Henri looked over at the direction of the voice. Time was running out. It wouldn’t take much longer for the other shifter to sense him. He moved in the direction of the man’s voice and the stairs. Henri crouched under the empty space under the stainless-steel steps before he closed his eyes again and spread his senses out like a fisherman’s net. A scrape of a chair against the floor to his right made him snap his head towards the sound. It wasn’t Tessa. No, there was another jolt of fear which didn’t come from that direction. Tessa.
Henri moved from his hiding space and darted for the bar, keeping low to the ground. He leaped over the bar with one hand on the oak surface, and he landed nimbly on the other side, right next to Tessa. The moment he laid eyes on her, he paused, surprised. Her cupid’s bow mouth dropped open in shock. I need you to be quiet. Strands of dark hair lay against her pale skin. and he reached out, tapping his fingers against her lips. His message was clear.
She nodded, her relief palpable. A long crack of something heavy against wood made her yelp, and the relief was quickly replaced with terror again. Tessa shivered next to him.
“Stay here.” He mouthed the words at her and went to stand. He glanced down to see Tessa had a firm grip on his arm. A smile tugged at his lips. He didn’t need her protest or protection. Even if he couldn’t shift into a wolf, he knew how to fight. I’ll be fine. She looked doubtful, her grip not lessening in the slightest. The beautiful human shook her head again.
The other shifter stepped closer to the bar. “Stupid bitch. I bet you’re so scared you can’t move. I’m so fucking hard right now, and you’re going to help me with that since you put me in this state.”
Henri carefully uncurled her fingers as rage flooded through him and stood.
The man opposite him frowned. “Who the hell are you?”
Henri walked around Tessa. “Stay there, promise me you won’t watch.” The human girl nodded. There was something about her scent that tickled at his instincts, but there wasn’t any time to ponder it. Instead he studied the man. Tall but skinny, a pale face with watery blue eyes. Not a wolf. Henri’s own beast snarling inside of him didn’t recognize him. A hammer hung from his hand attached to a leather strap around his wrist. “I’m Henri Tull. Does the name mean anything to you?”
He frowned. “Should it?”
Henri got all the way around the bar and gave Tessa one final look before he stepped out of her line of sight. “Yeah, it should. I’m the Alpha of the Coldwater Pack, and you’re in my backyard. Which is a huge mistake.”
This got the other man’s attention. “You’re a wolf?” He bowed slightly, an acknowledgement. “Then you can have first go at her, just leave a little bit of life in her for me.”
“I heard what you wanted to do to her.”
He cocked his head to the side, a purely animalistic look that twisted his face into something far from human. “A guy has needs. You’re not going to fight me for her, are you? Come on, she’s only human. There’s no need to spill blood.” He smiled. “At least not ours.”
“She’s my human,” Henri roared, and the man flinched.
The beast wanted to overtake him, and he growled, letting it in. Power flooded through him, coursing through his veins, and his body popped as his arms became longer, more muscular, and a hell of lot hairier. Hands turned into claws. As an Alpha, he had the ability to stop mid-shift. The form let him keep his mind but gave him a strength that surpassed his human one. The cocky look on the man’s face vanished. His stance changed and his hands curled into fists, tightening around the handle of the hammer. If he was smart, he would run.
There was only a split second of warning before the man swiped at him with the hammer. Pain exploded against Henri’s arm as the hammer connected with a force that would have shattered a normal man’s arm. Without breaking his momentum, the intruder ran for the table and jumped over it. Henri roared and chased after him. He threw the table out of the way, and it flew across the room, hitting the bar and shattering.
Tessa yelped from the bar, but Henri couldn’t worry about her now. He had to trust that she would do as he told her.
****
Tessa knew she promised she wouldn’t look, but she peeked around the corner and saw the table flying through the room. She yelled as it connected with the bar, a few inches from her head. Pieces of wood scattered across the floor, and she jerked back behind the bar.
What the hell? She hadn’t seen many fights. The bouncers in the club usually shut down fights quickly and with little fuss. No one chucked tables. They were too heavy. She risked a peek over the top of the bar and scanned the room for Henri and screamed. A wolf stood in the center of the room, breathing heavily. It wasn’t a true wolf. No, it looked too human for that.
Suddenly the truth hit her. She slammed her hand against her mouth.
Oh crap, shifters do exist.
They weren’t a secret, but she’d never seen one before, at least she didn’t think she had.
Henri’s a shifter.
It made a twisted kind of sense. She’d never met anyone with such an animalistic energy about him. Plus, those eyes of his were a shade of blue that reminded her of a wolf. Without the knowledge, he was a shifter she wouldn’t have put two and two together, but it was hard to deny what she could see with her own eyes. She waited for fear to hit her, but after the initial shock it didn’t come. There wasn’t time to worry about Henri being a shifter. She needed to get to the office and out of the way while Henry dealt with the dangerous man.
Henri growled something behind her, and she risked a glance over her shoulder. The man had reappeared and was running towards her, Henri close behind. Tessa turned on her heels and ran for the stairs. The man’s face was twisted in rage, and he moved faster than was humanly possible. Suddenly there was a pressure across her shoulders, and she fell to the ground. They hit a table, and it shattered beneath their combined weight. She rolled onto her back as her body screamed in protest and the man snapped down at her. Tessa shielded her face with her arms.
“Tessa!”
One second the man was on top of her. The next Henri ripped him away from her. Through a haze of pain, she watched as the man flew across the room, hitting the side of the bar. A sickening thud made her want to throw up. Henri knelt next to her looking like himself again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have moved.” Tessa managed a groan, curling up next to him. “I just wanted to get somewhere safer.”
“I would have kept you safe.” He brushed some strands of hair away from her face. “Did he bite you?”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t know. Oh God, what the hell is going on?” Henri put an arm underneath her legs and another under her arms. In one fluid motion, he stood. Tessa half expected a groan of effort, but when it didn’t come she looked for the other man. “Did you kill him?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get one of my men to check on him after I get you out of here.”
With measured steps, he walked across the dance floor and to the back door.
“Are you okay?” She didn’t know how to talk to him about what she saw. Her whole body hurt, but he didn’t seem to be having any trouble in moving.
He smiled, but there was a real worry there. “He managed to hit my shoulder with that hammer of his, but I’ll be okay.”
Tessa wriggled out of his grip, and he let her down. Every part of her hurt, but she couldn’t see much of the damage, only the blood that spread across the sleeve of her top. As her feet touched the floor, she wobbled. Henri reached out and grabbed the top of her arms, holding her in place. “You shouldn’t carry me, not if you’re hurt. I can walk.”
“Damn, you’re stubborn.”
“You’ve already done too much for me,” she protested.
“Do we really have to argue about this now?”
She peeked up at him. The security guard looked odd, fuzzy around the edges like she was looking at him from beneath water. She blinked a few times, but he didn’t snap back into focus.
“Tessa?”
Suddenly her feet didn’t want to carry her, and the pain vanished.
****
Henri had called one of the guys from the factory to check on the body. There was no doubt in his mind he’d killed him. Tessa didn’t need to worry about that. All it had taken was to see him on top of her, hurting her, for him to unleash the full strength within his half wolf form. She’d made a stupid mistake. Not following his order to stay still and keep out of the way meant she’d been hurt. Now she lay bleeding in his arms.