Purrfect Protector (5 page)

Kale almost gagged.

Officer Hadley instructed Aleksi to get off Barry and the shifter did so without comment or complaint, looking for all the world like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But it was too late for calm innocence. Both officers were wary of the enormous shifter. Kale would bet that one wrong move might get Aleksi shot.

“Step over to the wall.” Officer Hadley was careful to keep out of Aleksi’s reach as Aleksi did as he’d been ordered.

Kale swallowed the snarky remark on his tongue.

Officer Hadley was too focused on Aleksi slowly moving to where he was directed and Officer David was too concerned with groping him to notice that Barry had gotten to his knees.

Just as Kale shouted a warning, the man jumped up and ran out of the door. Both cops startled.

Aleksi moved as if to go after him.

Drawing her weapon, Officer Hadley said, “Don’t move.”

Kale couldn’t bite his tongue this time. “Why are you pointing the gun at my body guard? The culprit is getting away.”

“I decide who’s the threat here,” Officer Hadley snapped, her eyes cold as she pointed her gun at Aleksi.

“Let’s see if you can explain that to your boss then, shall we?” Aleksi said, speaking for the first time since the police had entered the hotel suite.

Officer David removed his hand from Kale’s ass and stepped away from him. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“I’m talking to someone who will be lucky to scrape their career off the bottom of my shoe when I’m done with him.” Scott McCade entered the hotel room, calm and put together. “The chief won’t be pleased to know that you let the suspect get away and harassed the victim and his protection detail.”

Kale hoped he wasn’t the only one thinking how the hell the man knew what had happened. The two officers froze.

“I had cameras installed right after the contract was signed. I was watching from the elevator on the way up. You two”—he gestured to the officers—“just royally screwed up a case your chief—and my poker buddy—ordered you both to wrap up quickly. Hell, we set the whole thing up for you so all you had to do was arrest him, but you even blew that.”

“You can’t talk to us like that,
shifter
. You’re nothing, so it doesn’t matter what you say you saw. It will be our word against yours about what happened here. The other shifter caused a problem and became violent so we had to subdue him. Ain’t that right, Hadley?”

“Sounds accurate to me, David,” Officer Hadley agreed, not moving her gun away from Aleksi.

“Unfortunately, I’m the odd one in my family. I’m not a shifter,” Scott said calmly.

Scott’s expression changed but Kale didn’t know the man well enough to judge whether it was a good thing or not.

“Did you hear enough, Chief?” Scott asked.

Kale glanced at Aleksi to see if he had any idea as to what was going on. Aleksi’s face remained stoic, but as the shifter sensed Kale’s attention on him, Kale saw the tiniest of smirks starting to emerge before shifter blanked his expression again.

Another man entered the room. With an average build, high cheekbones, short, dark hair and a neat goatee, the guy looked to be in his late forties. “Yes, I have. Thank you for your help, Scott. I’ll see you on poker night. Mr. Andrews and his protection detail are free to go. I should tell you that I have additional uniforms waiting at the exits. The suspect was picked up and is currently being transported to the station.”

With that, they were all clearly dismissed. The chief, closely followed by the two disgruntled and sweating police officers, left. Scott nodded to Aleksi and Kale then he exited as well.

Silence descended for a few minutes as Kale watched the police and Scott walk down the corridor and around the corner, out of sight. “Does this mean you have to leave too?”

He didn’t want to think about why the idea of not seeing Aleksi again bothered him so much. They’d only been together a few hours. But the way the shifter didn’t take any of his shit, then teased him while making him feel safe and protected—although Kale had said he didn’t need nor want protection—was something he hadn’t experienced before. It felt nice.

Chapter Four

Aleksi’s cat was deadly quiet as they observed Kale. The model was a strange contradiction between a fashion diva, who used his looks for his own agenda, and a young man with a sharp wit and an even sharper sarcastic tongue—when he dropped the diva act. He got the feeling the real Kale was a genuine mix of the two personas he’d witnessed so far and probably had many more traits that would intrigue his beast.

“No. I’ll stick around until charges are filed,” he said with a shrug, playing it off as if it was no big deal.

“Oh, okay.”

Kale copied Aleksi’s tone but Aleksi could scent the man’s relief.

“That was some performance back there.” To be honest, Aleksi had half believed it himself until he’d scented Kale’s disgust and embarrassment when Officer Dickhead had got too touchy-feely. Aleksi had come across his fair share of intolerant cops before and recognized Officer Dickhead for what he was—a trigger-happy bigot.

“Bite me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he murmured.

Awkward didn’t begin to sum up how…well, awkward it was as they stood there in silence, not looking at each other. Aleksi wasn’t sure what to do and he hardly ever doubted himself. It was part of his cat nature to be self-assured, but Kale threw him off balance.

“So how about that beer?”

Kale startled but recovered quickly and walked in the direction of the kitchenette. “I have light beer.”

“That’s nothing to brag about,” Aleksi growled teasingly, following him.
Damn, the male has a nice, firm ass. Those pants are practically painted on him too.

He leaned against the counter and watched as Kale reached down into the fridge for two bottles then put them on the counter. Kale bent over to reach for something else. At that moment, Aleksi wanted nothing more than to strut over to the man and grab those two tight denim-covered globes of flesh. In his opinion, Kale was in the perfect position for it. All it would take was for him to let his claws out and carefully slash the back of Kale’s jeans and Aleksi would be treated to an unfettered view of what was no doubt a drool-worthy ass.

“Aleksi!”

He shot his gaze up to meet Kale’s amused, flushed face.

“The beer was the only thing I offered you.”

The words were harsh, but again, Aleksi thanked his nose. Kale was embarrassed, yet interested. There was a spice of anger there too, so Aleksi backed off and held up his hands in surrender.

“Shame. I’d even choke down the fizzy alcho-pop crap if it would get me a feel of that backside.” He kept Kale’s gaze and let the heat of his attraction show. Kale was technically no longer his protectee. No matter what he’d told Kale, the protection contract terms had been met when Barry had been arrested. Even so, Aleksi found himself willing to drink light beer in order to have an excuse to stick around.

“That must be quite the compliment coming from a manly man like yourself.”

“Ah…but I’m
not
a man, though, am I?” Ordinarily, Aleksi never gave a shit what people thought of him—especially ignorant assholes like Officer Dickhead and his partner—but the little act, where Kale saved him from having to dig a bullet out of his ass, rankled his fur more than he cared to admit.

Kale froze and blushed but didn’t drop his gaze. “I didn’t mean it. I just didn’t want you to get hurt. That guy was itching to shoot you,” he defended with a tone Aleksi couldn’t identify.

It might be shame, but what does the man have to be ashamed of?

The young man twisted the cap off one bottle and threw it in the sink before taking a big gulp.

Aleksi pinned Kale with a hard stare. “You let him touch you.”

Kale cocked his head, furrowing his brow. “That bothered you?”

“Maybe,” he admitted grudgingly.

He made himself stay perfectly still as Kale put down his beer and tentatively stepped in front of him. Breathing wasn’t an option as Kale raised a hand to touch his hair.

“I…uh… Would you—?”

The moment was broken when Aleksi’s phone buzzed.

Instead of crushing the damn thing, he accepted the call. “Scott?”

“Aleksi, you need to get out of there with Kale—
now
. The suspect escaped in transit, killing two officers—and there’s more. When the police arrested the guy and patted him down, they found a box with a vial and a full syringe in it. Forensics are still testing it, but I recognized the name on the label. It’s a powerful sedative. Whoever takes it appears conscious, but there’s no one home and they have no free will. We ran the prints on the paper from the letters and the ones on the box. I had a bad feeling so I called in a favor to have them rush it and the prints match.”

“Yeah, so?” What his boss had said was bad enough. But he could tell there was something more.

“
So
, it wasn’t a match for Barry Mallett. Chief Morrison sent a unit to Barry’s house and found the man tied up
dead
in the basement. I replaced the brother’s cell and I know you took Kale’s. His suite isn’t safe. You need to find another location until we come up with a plan. We underestimated how far Not-Barry is willing to go.”

Aleksi swore into the phone and promised to call Scott once he’d gotten Kale to safety, then he turned off the cell and removed the battery. He’d have spares at home. He wasn’t going to risk that Not-Barry was techie enough to identify and trace cell signals in a specific area. His phone was the only one still on in the suite, so it wouldn’t be that much of a leap if Not-Barry had managed to clone Kale’s phone to receive all the information about Kale’s schedule, location and communications.

“We need to leave.
Now
. Pack a bag with anything you cannot live without. You have five minutes.” He took Kale’s hand and pulled the man toward the bedroom, taking out his weapon and testing the weight of the 9mm in his hand as he did so.

Kale yanked his hand out of Aleksi’s. Aleksi wished the human would just go along with him until he got them somewhere secure.

“What the hell is going on?” Kale demanded.

“Barry isn’t Barry. He escaped and killed two cops. Plus the police have no idea where he is. So get in there and start packing. You have four minutes left to do it before I carry you out of here.” Granted, he might have been a bit harsh but Not-Barry could be making his way back there right now or planning to ambush them as they left. There were too many variables.

“You’re not telling me everything.” Despite the stubborn tilt to his chin, Kale ran to the bedroom.

Aleksi followed, clearing the windows on his way. It was unlikely Not-Barry could manage to get access to the tenth floor suite from the outside but he wasn’t going to take chances. Now that they knew Not-Barry was a killer, there were different rules to the game.

As it was, they were already behind and running a race without knowing where the finish line was. Aleksi dug his little black device out of his pocket, taped a few buttons to calibrate it to search for mics, cameras and other bugs, then tossed it to Kale.

“Wave that over everything you want to take. If it beeps, you can’t take it. Whatever it is, we’ll have to get it later.” He could see Kale was about to argue. Aleksi tapped his watch with the gun and added, “Three minutes.”

As he walked back into the main room, he heard Kale start packing. The suite was starting to feel like a lobster trap—easy to get in to and impossible to get out of.

There were only two exits he could see that Kale could take. The corridor then the stairs or the lift. Neither of those sounded like great options. It would be far too easy to set a trap to ambush them.

Aleksi could easily risk it and take out any threat that came his way, but not with his protectee. Not-Barry had already proven he was unpredictable and having his abduction scheme interrupted had probably pissed the man off. Or worse—it had made him desperate. Desperate people had nothing to lose.

It probably wasn’t the best security move to open the door but it would give him a clear line of sight down the corridor to the corner. Beyond that was the set of fire doors leading to the emergency stairs. If he were Not-Barry, he would either set up the trap on the stairs or around the corner so those were out as exit points, but the lift left them trapped in a metal box with no way to see out until the doors opened, leaving Kale vulnerable. Aleksi kept half his attention on the sounds of Kale packing. He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he heard a couple of beeps. Well, shit. Not-Barry had been in the bedroom as well.

Running through the possible strategies to get out of the hotel, Aleksi decided there were only two real possibilities. One was very risky. The stairs were a death box. The other…

“I’m done,” Kale announced, as he came out of the bedroom with a duffel bag.

Aleksi nodded. “Did you leave whatever beeped?”

Kale looked surprised. He clearly hadn’t been around shifters much if he still didn’t realize how heightened most of their senses were.

“I was going to but it’s the only photo I have of my brother. I took it out of the frame and scanned it again. It didn’t beep so I packed it.”

“That’s fine.” He was impressed Kale had thought to do that. Not that he thought Kale was stupid or anything, just that civilians didn’t tend to think along those lines and Aleksi knew most people would have left the photo or tried to sneak it with them regardless.

He was about to explain their options but a hiss drew his attention outside the suite. Gray smoke started clouding under the door of the stairs and was curling around the bend in the corridor wall. Their option to go upstairs was out and so was the previously discarded plan to risk the corner. He didn’t like being trapped but that was exactly what Not-Barry was doing.

The gas crept closer and Aleksi sneezed then swore as his fear was confirmed—tear gas. At the moment, it wasn’t close enough to do much more than make him sneeze and sting his eyes but it was getting closer.

“What’s that?”