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He handed her a paper towel and scooped up her jeans and panties, passing them to her as well, before turning away. He’d do a walk through the house, double check her security. That would be first. Then he’d check outside access and key in on all lines of sight for the interior.
Running like a damn chicken shit.
Killers, psychos and hunters couldn’t make him run. But fuck yeah, he was running now. He couldn’t run fast enough to escape his own skin. He’d learned that hard truth years ago.
The walk through the house was uneventful. Her cottage was a nice little place, neat and well organized. And the windows were relatively small with only two entrances, the main at the front and the kitchen patio doors in the back. Both were secure. As for line of sight… there were only two places a sharpshooter could aim from. He peered out the primary window in the living room to the street below. The curtain was sheer, too easy to see through. The other line of sight was the kitchen. The damn patio doors were all glass and open season from a dozen angles.
Shit.
He’d just keep her from the kitchen and living room.
“Zeven?” Harley asked from the end of the bar. She was back in her jeans and shirt, but he could easily see she’d skipped the bra. The sight of her breasts through the thin cloth hardened him in a rush.
“What?” He barked and regretted it immediately when she flinched. Even his wolf rumbled low in reprimand. “What’s up, Harley?”
“Is everything alright?”
Was it? Hell no. It was, but also it absolutely wasn’t. His whole being had shifted. He felt off balance and unsure. It wasn’t a feeling he’d had to experience in nearly a decade. His wolf was restless. It didn’t accept change easily. Becoming alpha of his clan had been tough on him and damn near traumatic on his wolf.
Was this need to run the same feeling that Harley had always lived with? Was this urge to flee from the change something he had to fight against or just accept? Either way, he needed just a little time and space to let his wolf figure it out. Being on edge with his own instincts wasn’t going to allow him to be at his best.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Wait here. I need to get some things from my car.” Just a few minutes would do wonders. He dropped his Beretta on the little stand beside the sofa. “I’ll leave my gun here. Don’t shoot me when I come back inside.” He didn’t wait for a response, just hauled ass and bolted for the open air. He had made it a point to never run from a fight. To prove to himself and his wolf that they were strong enough to never have to run.
Yet now, faced with his own explosive, impulsive emotions, he was confused, and he was running.
No, not running. Because he didn’t run. And since he didn’t run, he’d just call this… regrouping.
* * *
Quintin LeBlanc wasn't the kind of man to have doubts. After nearly eight hundred years of life, he had the basics down and had a good grasp on understanding just what kind of life made him content. Now he led a small government agency where he and his boy got to be the good guys and police the not so good ones. He was satisfied with the current status quo. This life that he had now was as close as he'd ever been to finding a sense of purpose and attaining a type of inner peace. Polar opposite compared to his misguided, angst filled youth.
So why had he impulsively leaked intel to his best operative that might just lead the boy astray?
And why was he now wondering if his own actions might tear apart his little makeshift family?
Just a few hours ago he'd intentionally left a file open on his desk while debriefing D regarding the new intel on the current case involving a murderer in the Las Vegas area. D wasn't the kind of operative to miss a single detail and he'd been sure to notice the photos. Once he'd seen that little reveal, he'd be sure to find a way to read the whole file.
Not that he'd made D work hard for it. He'd closed the file and left it there when he left the room with a fairly thin excuse.
He knew D about as well as any man alive. The boy would surely go to confront the subject of the file. He was too desperate to find those kinds of ties to the past. He'd never be able to let it go. What happened after that... well it could end badly. The man in question had a reputation bad enough to even be on their radar as a possible removal target. It could go violently wrong.
D wasn't the sort to go down easily. He could hold his own with the best of them. But this particular individual, Zeven Ochoa might just be... No, he wasn't going to dwell on what could be. He'd just have to trust his boy to do what needed to be done.
His first instinct was to keep tabs and step in to help if it went sideways. After all, he'd been supporting the boy for a long while. Ever since he'd dragged his saltwater soaked hide out of a cage and certain death. He'd taken on the responsibility somewhat unwillingly, but once he had, D had become something irreplaceable in his life of wandering. It was possible, completely within his abilities. He could happily step in and sort it all out by force. But that wasn't what D needed.
So as hard as it might be, he was going to keep his ass here at headquarters, behind his desk. Waiting.
If somewhat anxiously.
Chapter Nine
Zeven left the house from the back door and used the shrubs to stay out of sight while checking the perimeter. At first there was nothing obviously out of place. But when he opened up his senses, he caught the smell of another wolf.
Changing his location, he was able to triangulate the direction of the wolf. The shrubs of the house across the street. A single male. Most likely the one meant to keep watch on him. Which wasn’t unexpected and probably wasn’t a threat for now. Still… Should he do something about that one or would killing the man put Harley in more danger than just letting him watch the house?
And then a car turned the corner into sight.
Something about it didn’t fit the setting. Black, newish BMW, with after-market tinted windows. It just didn’t fit in cruising through this older, fairly humble set of suburbs. And the way it slowed down as it passed Harley’s home. And even slower as it passed by the Charger.
