Vulfen Bodyguard's Mate [Vulfen Cadre 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Vulfen Cadre 8

  Vulfen Bodyguard's Mate

  Emma needs a bodyguard to help keep her safe from a drug dealer trying to set up shop in her neighborhood, but tall, gorgeous Kuhr is miles beyond the bored retired-cop-type she is expecting. The heat Emma feels when his eyes rake over her makes her hormones sit up and beg for man candy.

  When vulfen warrior Kuhr Valcov aids in a daring rescue, he takes one look at tiny, fierce Emma and knows that she is his fated mate, and fate has been kind.

  But how to convince a human female to give a battle-hardened vulfen male a chance without blowing his cover and destroying the secret of centuries? And when a vulfen female tries to come between them, and Emma bolts into the forest, will his wild dominant nature get the best of them both, or will Emma find a way to tame the raging beast?

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 26,928 words

  VULFEN BODYGUARD’S MATE

  Vulfen Cadre 8

  Laina Kenney

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance ManLove

  VULFEN BODYGUARD’S MATE

  Copyright © 2015 by Laina Kenney

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-426-6

  First E-book Publication: May 2015

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  VULFEN BODYGUARD’S MATE

  Vulfen Cadre 8

  LAINA KENNEY

  Copyright © 2015

  Prologue

  Kuhr Valcov glided through the darkness like the predator he was, guided by scent and the faint compelling light of the rising moon shining through the fog of Boston.

  Silent, he followed his Vulfen Cadre comrade, Egan, into an unknown danger as he had done on many other nights. He walked as a man, but the heightened senses of his vulfen heritage provided much more information.

  He approached the stately house and inhaled deeply, scenting fear, drugs and blood and…something more. Something extraordinary.

  As his feet slowed, his wolf ascended, pushing him to transform, fighting for control. His fangs dropped and claws itched against his fingertips. He halted and breathed deep, shocked at the strength of the vulfen energy surging through him, battling back his wolf when every breath of the delicate female scent pounded through his blood like an irresistible summons.

  It was something that had never happened to him before, but the signs were unmistakable. He bit back a snarl that wanted to become a howl as ancient instinct became knowledge. A wave of rage boiled through him and shook him to the core.

  His mate was in that house, and her blood had been spilled.

  Chapter 1

  Emma rolled over again and groaned as the larger burn scar on her arm brushed against the blanket. Pain or perhaps only the memory of pain shot through her, and her head throbbed. It had been a couple of months, and she wasn’t certain sometimes if the tiny cuts and burns still hurt, or if she just thought they hurt because they had hurt for so long.

  It was a process. She knew that, and she was improving. Her mother constantly talked about how thin she was now, but she had even gained back a pound or two of what she had lost that first week when she was too nauseated to eat.

  She pulled her long blonde hair back but let it go again when she didn’t see an elastic band on the nightstand. She stood too quickly, and it took a moment for the dizziness to subside.

  “Whoa.”

  It reminded her, as everything did lately, of her ongoing nightmare, of the men who had drugged her, the feeling of being dizzy and nauseated and just plain itchy in her own skin. And because of the street drugs, the doctors hadn’t dared to give her anything for the pain in case of an accidental overdose.

  She didn’t even drink alcohol unless it came in the form of a dessert trifle, for heaven’s sake, but how she had suffered, coming down off a drug high.

  The phone rang, and she grabbed it without looking at the display.

  “Oh, hi, Mom. What? No, I was awake.”

  Man. If she had any sense, she would have just let it go to voicemail. She really didn’t want to talk to her mother again tonight.

  “No, Mom, I’m okay,” Emma insisted. She wanted to shake the phone, to just tell her mom to stop asking if she was okay, to say anything to en
d the call. “You’ll be late Thursday? Oh, no, that’s fine. Talk to you later, then. Bye. Yes, bye.”

  Emma hung up the receiver on a surge of relief so strong she actually felt dizzy. Her mom cared, and she meant well, but she was driving Emma nuts calling three and four times a day.

  Emma hated all the calls because her mom’s questions kept forcing her to say that she was okay over and over, when she really wasn’t okay. She didn’t know when she would be okay again, when she would just be Emma again and not have nightmares and sudden episodes of sweat and shaking terror.

  She moved her head and grimaced. Her hair smelled like flowers from her shampoo, but she still thought she could detect the scent of blood sometimes. She had spent hours in the shower in the past few weeks.

  She sighed and rose to sit on the edge of the bed. She tried to shove the emotion back, to think, but her memory was a little fuzzy on details.

  Surely she had imagined the gorgeous man with the chiseled features who had stroked her cheek so softly. He was the one good thing about that night, but he couldn’t be real.

  No man who looked like that would take a second look at Emma Wetherall.

  But her hand stole up to her cheek, and she pressed the softness hard against her teeth. She might have been flying high on waves of pain and hallucinogens, but her imagination wasn’t quite that good. Maybe she would never see him again, but the man was real. And he had smelled wonderful, better than any man had a right to smell in the middle of a crisis.

  The tenderness of his touch had soothed her, and his deep, accented voice settled into her soul like a miracle. In spite of her pain, she had known bone deep that she was safe the moment she was in his arms.

  Emma walked over to the window and stared out between the heavy curtains.

  From her window, she could see the street and the green side hedge and just a corner of the driveway, the purple twilight lit by the glow of streetlights. The city still hadn’t replaced the light at the corner, so the line of twinkling artificial stars had a visible gap of darkness.

  She didn’t know what she was looking for, but when a tall figure of a man detached from the black shadows and stepped onto the dimly lit path, she pressed a hand to her chest to cover her suddenly pounding heart.

  It was the man who had cut her free.

  “I knew it.”

  She couldn’t see his face, could barely make out the shape of him in the darkness, but she knew. It was him.

  Several times in the past weeks, she had been certain she had felt him there with her in the night. She had never caught even a glimpse of him until tonight, but like the tingle of a limb awakening, she had felt his presence.

  It didn’t make any sense, and it made her feel silly, but she couldn’t deny the strength of the awareness. She didn’t know his name, but she recognized him on a level that was deeper than black hair and eyes as blue as the ocean.

  She normally didn’t believe in any hocus pocus like that, but she knew him. She would know him anywhere, and it didn’t matter what he looked like or how short or tall he was. The fact that he was a tall, gorgeous specimen of manhood was more intimidating to her than if he had been just some regular guy with a crooked tooth or a bald patch, but it didn’t change anything. They were connected, and had been somehow before they had even met.

  Watching intently out the window, Emma felt the connection between them even now, when she was utterly alone in her bedroom.

  She gave her head a shake, but the impression lingered. She knew beyond question that if she opened the window and called, he would come to her. No matter what, he would come.

  But she didn’t even know his name.

  In the darkness, doubt crept in. Maybe he didn’t know her name either, and it was all just in her head. But no, she was sure, even through the drug haze of the night that he had whispered her name as the ambulance doors had closed between them, separating them.

  Emma sighed at her own folly, but her traitorous heart insisted. That look on his face, as though she belonged to him, as though her pain had hurt him, too, and nothing in the world could keep them apart now that he had found her.

  Outside in the darkness, he moved, and she lost sight of his dark figure.

  She reached out for him without thinking. The word mate swirled in her head, and for a moment she could feel him inside her heart as a clear physical presence, and then he was gone again.

  She put a hand to her mouth to muffle her whine of protest. Alone in her room, she crawled into her bed without closing the curtains. Her heart was pounding, but it wasn’t fear for once.

  Physically, she couldn’t reach him, but somehow, beyond any explanation, she knew that he was still out there.

  Chapter 2

  Officer John Commander entered the house on her second invitation, and Emma wanted to stand to attention. Tall and straight backed, he was one of the city’s top cops, but there was just something about the man that demanded respect.

  That, and she was damned grateful that he was working on her case, because she got the strong impression that he didn’t give up.

  “I got most of the details of the story from your neighbors upstairs, Iselle and Balke, with some of the juicier parts from the always pathetic drug dealers. I’m sorry, but I still need to go over a few details that only you can fill in before I go before the judge again. I’m trying to keep them in jail until the trial, and I need all the help I can get. I’m damned sorry,” he said, and Emma could tell that he was genuinely sorry to bother her.

  “It’s okay,” she said. It wasn’t okay, and she knew that he knew it, but she would do it. There was no other choice for her that would let her keep her self-respect.

  “Thank you.” He got right down to business, asking each question and going over the answers. He was quick, but he wasn’t cold. She could hear the kindness in his voice, and it made her feel stronger, somehow. She knew that if she asked him to stop for a minute, he would, and it gave her the strength to continue.

  It didn’t take long at all.

  Officer John flipped his notebook closed and tucked in the pen.

  “I appreciate you being willing to testify, Emma. This organization is larger than those four men, three of whom we have in custody. I think the rot has spread upward to some of the most influential officials in this city.”

  Officer John’s eyes were cool and hard.

  Emma nodded woodenly. Drugged or not, from some of the things that the men had said, she pretty much knew that. And that idiot Xander who had been her neighbor was no criminal mastermind. He didn’t have the courage, for one thing. More than once during the interminable hours they held her prisoner, she had looked at Xander and had the bizarre but unshakeable thought that he was as scared as she was. There had to be someone pulling his strings, and she said so to Officer John.

  “Let me be honest,” Officer John said. “You need protection. I don’t want you to think this is over. We got three small-time players, and they’ll be off the street for a long time with your testimony. But—”

  Officer John sighed, and Emma’s heart sank.

  “I frankly don’t have the manpower to assign a bodyguard,” he said. “One look at my budget is enough to make you cry. We’ve been keeping a rotation of volunteers patrolling your street, but we can’t keep it up indefinitely.”

  Emma tried to clear the tightness in her throat. “I understand.”

  She tried to keep calm and hide her response from him. It wasn’t his fault that she was plunged into terror by a budget statement.

  Officer John shook his head. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

  “Well, don’t start worrying yet. I called in a favor, and you will have a bodyguard. He’s not a cop, but I’ve had occasion to work with him before, and you couldn’t have a better guard. He’ll patrol outside and not bother you, but you’ll be one of the safest women in Boston.”

  Just then, a high-pitched giggle sounded from outside. Emma started at the sweet, al
most flirtatious sound. Surely that wasn’t her neighbor? Mrs. Wallace was eighty if she was a day.

  Officer John grinned and shook his head.

  “That’ll be him,” he said and raised his voice. “Women fall all over him, wanting to kiss his handsome face. Can’t recommend it, myself.”

  Before she could rise to open the door, a dark laugh sounded from the hall. She heard Balke’s greeting and another man’s answer.

  His strong deep voice caused a tingle to travel down her spine.

  Emma’s stomach fluttered with anticipation. There was no earthly reason to imagine that she would recognize the man who came around the corner, but some part of her was certain that she knew who it would be.

  When the hall door opened slowly, she nearly shrieked with the excruciating buildup of tension in her muscles.

  And when she saw the wide shoulders and the glint of his brilliant cobalt blue eyes, she knew.

  “It is good to see you looking so well,” he said, and his accent awakened a flare of interest.

  Eastern European, for sure, but that’s all she could pinpoint. Russian, maybe? She couldn’t be sure, but whatever it was, it suited him and thrilled her.

  “Thanks.” Her voice was soft, breathy. She felt her face heat at the blatant invitation in the tone, but it couldn’t be helped. He was sex and power personified, and she was just female enough that her hormones loved him.

  “Are you two friends?” she asked.

  The two men looked at each other, and both men laughed.

  * * * *