Hunting Season: Werewolf Bodyguard Romance (Guarded by the Shifter Book 1) by Kate Rudolph (e novels to read online .TXT) 📕

it?" Stasia asked. It hurt her to think that it could have been Owen lying on that table. She didn't know the rest of them very well but they seemed nice enough. Now she understood why they couldn't go to a hospital.

Rowe nodded. "It's mostly been cuts and bruises," he said. "I have enough medic training to handle that. And we heal fast enough that I usually don't need to. There was a bout of food poisoning, too. But again, we get better."

"You have. So far. But what if I hadn't gotten that bullet out of Vega?" She didn't know if the bullet could have killed him. She didn't know anything. But already her doctor brain was working hard to think about the things that this pack needed. And an actual trained physician could do them a lot of good.

"Maybe you should talk to Gibson about that," Rowe suggested. "I'm going to go talk to him about the bullet now. Do you two need anything?"

They didn't. Rowe left them alone and Stasia sat back down. Maybe it was time to think about how to put her skills to use in a new field.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Owen was ready to tear the office apart looking for Stasia. First he demanded that Rowe tell him where she was, but Rowe didn't know. Em was by herself in the kitchen, and no one else had answers.

Owen's wolf threatened to take over and use his superior senses to hunt her down, but he wasn't about to do that. Not right now. He had a feeling that Stasia had enough of wolves for one day and she wouldn't be eager to see him in his other form.

That did not make his wolf happy. But he didn't have time to soothe the beast. Later. He just had to find Stasia and then everything would be alright.

She wasn't in the bedrooms upstairs. Gibson had insisted on building the sleeping quarters just in case they needed to house a client or crash in the city, and today it finally made sense.

Finally he checked the warehouse. They didn't use it for much, though it did make a good training area with all that open space. He found her sitting on a stack of pallets, her legs swinging back and forth, and the pallets rocking precariously with each movement. But Stasia didn't seem too concerned about falling over. She gave him a wan smile when she saw him.

Owen walked up to her, but he made himself leave some distance between them. He wanted to gather her up in his arms, wanted to hold her close, and kiss her, and claim her, and fuck her until they both forgot their names. His wolf knew it was the right thing to do. The man wasn't so sure.

"Enjoying the scenery?" he asked. He wanted to ask her if she was okay, but he had a feeling she might scream if he did. They were all concerned about her well-being. And if she was sitting in an empty warehouse rather than in any of the furnished rooms, he had a feeling she was trying to escape that concern.

"This is really the best New York has to offer, isn't it?" Her tone was wry, but she gave him a little smile.

She was joking. That was good. She didn't joke that often, and certainly not when things were incredibly serious.

"I don't know. There's a dumpster out back that the tourists can't get enough of." He couldn't resist taking one step closer, but he didn't touch her. If he touched her he didn't think he was going to stop.

"I'm fine," she said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "I can see that you want to ask. The shoulder doesn't really hurt that much. I took a couple ibuprofen and that seems to have helped. I don't seem to be growing any weird fur. And I don't feel the need to chase squirrels." She shifted on the pallet, but the pallets shifted under her in return so she hopped off of them to keep from falling.

"That's not why I came out here," Owen said. She was so close that he could nuzzle against her. Would she stop him? He was practically vibrating with the need to close the distance between them, but he tried his best to hold still.

"Then why did you? Obviously you're all concerned that I'm about to turn into a werewolf." She shook her head in disbelief. "How is this my life?"

"I should have told you." He didn't know how she wasn't steaming mad at him right now. It was the biggest secret he had to keep, and it had never occurred to him to even mention it to her. Only when he was driving her to come look at Vega had he wondered if he should say something. But they didn't talk about it to outsiders.

But Stasia wasn't an outsider.

"If you had told me, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have thought you were crazy. But I guess I understand why you couldn't take Vega to the hospital."

"I'm still sorry."

"Okay. So why did you come out here?"

"I just wanted to be by you." He wasn't one to hide his emotions. He felt what he felt and wasn't ashamed of it. He never wanted to leave Stasia's side, and the hour or so that they had spent apart today was more than enough. Did that make him clingy? He hoped not. It was all too new between them for him to want to walk away yet.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, face scrunched up as if she were trying to solve the problem.

He wasn't hiding the driving need inside of him well enough. "I want to kiss you." They hadn't kissed in hours and he was starving for it.

"That doesn't sound like a problem."

"If I kiss you, I don't know if I could stop." The honesty was raw, ripped right out of his chest and leaving his soul there for her.

"That doesn't