Defender Hellhound (Protection, Inc: Defenders Book 3) Read online

  As for Ransom, those eyes of his made her think life had kicked him around plenty already. If they got together, maybe her death would be the last straw. Maybe it wouldn’t only break his heart, but break him.

  Natalie shot to her feet, then turned her back on him and began folding the parachute. Without looking over her shoulder, she said, “Nice meeting you! Goodbye.”

  Chapter 2

  Ransom prided himself on control. Self-control. Taking control of a situation. It was something he’d practiced long before he’d become a Marine, and he was good at it.

  But his control had started cracking years ago, and time had only widened and deepened those cracks. The last six months, he’d felt like he was holding himself together with Scotch tape.

  In the last ten minutes alone, he’d barged in to rescue Natalie when she didn’t need rescuing, and ruined his chances of saving her from otherwise certain death. When she turned her back on him, he felt like he was watching her prepare to jump again, but this time without a parachute.

  All his careful planning went out the window, and he blurted out, “No, wait! You don’t have to die! I can save you!”

  Her small, clever hands ceased their rapid movement. It was like his words had turned her to stone. Then she whipped around, so fast that it sent her hair flying around her face. Her expression was so fierce that he expected her to shout. Instead, she spoke with a quiet intensity that drove every word home.

  “I had an accident at the circus.” There was no self-pity in her words, only a straightforward recounting of facts. “I touched a live wire, and I got a shock that damaged my heart. I’m sure you’ve read stuff on the internet about how everything can be cured by magnets or eliminating mold or drinking a tea made from mold or visiting a magical tree in Sardinia, but so has everyone else. Half the reason I’m not telling anyone is that I don’t want to spend the last year of my life being pestered to wear healing rocks and give up gluten.”

  “Every complicated problem has a solution that’s easy, simple, and wrong,” Ransom said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Also, I think you should eat all the gluten you want.”

  Unexpectedly, Natalie laughed. She had a lovely laugh, high and clear as her voice. Like a windchime. “Good idea. I’ll add it to my list.”

  “What list?”

  “My bucket list. All the things I want to do before I die.” She reached for a fanny pack she had clipped to her belt, and took out a folded piece of paper and a pen. Unfolding the paper, she glanced around, presumably looking for a surface to write on, then spotted a flat stone by the cliff edge and headed for it.

  He went with her. Since her gaze was on the rock, not on him, he couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to observe her.

  Be honest, he thought. To drink her in.

  Natalie wore garnet-red leggings, a black tank top, and black ballet slippers. It had all been chosen for practicality, he was sure, but it showed off her body to perfection.

  She was short and slim, with narrow hips and small breasts. When she moved, he could see the strong muscles of her shoulders and arms, her back and legs; unsurprising, as she was a trapeze artist and an acrobat. He’d experienced that strength for himself when she’d fought him. But the overall impression she gave was one of lightness: a small frame, dainty little hands and feet, quick graceful movements. She walked lightly too, as if her feet only touched the ground by her own choice.

  Her face was sharp-boned, elfin; her eyes were tilted like a cat’s. Her hair was short, tousled by the wind, but he suspected that it always looked that way: it had been exactly as rumpled in his vision of her in the doctor’s office as it was right now. But in that vision, she’d been in a green medical gown, sitting under white lights that cast a sickly glare on her skin, dulled her hair, and washed out her eyes.

  In reality and in the fragile light of early morning, her rainbow-dyed hair was almost impossibly vivid. Scarlet strands blew in the wind, now making a brilliant pop of color against a wave of gold, now merging with a sunset streak of orange-pink. She brushed a deep blue lock out of her eyes.

  Beneath that riot of color, her eyes shone clear and knowing. At last, he could see their color. They were blue, a light gray-blue like a misty morning.

  He’d been struck by her beauty in the vision, but that had been nothing compared to seeing the living, breathing, moving woman in real life, close enough to touch. It was like watching a black-and-white film change to Technicolor. And even that was nothing compared to being in her presence, feeling the heat of her body, having the full force of her personality strike him as hard as her elbow had struck his ribcage.

  She’d left a mark on him, and in more ways than one. They’d only met a few minutes ago, and already he felt changed.

  But he also remembered the terrible knowledge his power had given him when he’d used it to ask if he could save her life:

  She could be saved... and only he could save her.

  He didn’t know how he could do it, nor was it at all certain that it would happen. It was only a possibility, and a small one at that.

  And along with that possibility came a certainty: if he saved her life, that would somehow cause his team to learn his terrible secret.

  At that time, when he’d only ever seen her in a vision, he hadn’t been certain he could bring himself to go through with it. Could he really give up everything he had and make everyone he cared about hate him, just for a tiny chance at saving the life of a woman he didn’t even know?

  But he knew her now. She wasn’t “a woman,” she was Natalie Nash, who laughed at death and jumped off cliffs and dyed her hair into a living rainbow. He couldn’t walk away if there was any chance of saving her, no matter what it would cost him.

  The image came to him again, of his shattered pieces being held together with Scotch tape. Natalie was like a whirlwind. Could he save her if it meant shattering himself?

  She stopped walking and held the paper to the rock. He quickly moved his gaze from her body to her list. It was written in several different colors of ink, sometimes in pencil, and once with a paintbrush. She had a bold and jagged hand that wasn’t easy to read.

  BAND LUMP—no, that had to be BASE JUMP—was near the top. As soon as he deciphered it, she struck a line through it.

  “Done!” Natalie said triumphantly. She glanced up at him. “Did you enjoy it? What did it feel like to you?”

  “The BASE jump, you mean?” As she nodded, the memory of it returned: the sickening horror as they fell, the rush of understanding and relief when she pulled the pilot cord, and the split second of relaxing into the warmth of her body before they touched down and it was all over. But he couldn’t remember the sensation of free fall, only his conviction that the last thing he’d ever experience was the knowledge that he’d failed to save her.

  “I’ve parachuted before,” he said. “I haven’t BASE jumped. I feel like I still haven’t. There was too much going on inside my head for me to really experience it. What about you?”

  “Oh, it was wonderful.” Her eyes shone. Without moving, her entire body seemed to lift. The memory of it alone made her radiant. “Exactly what I’d hoped it would be.”

  “You weren’t distracted by having a mystery attacker literally hanging on to you?”

  “Not really. But then again, I’m—I mean, I was—a trapeze artist. You have to focus on the moment no matter what else is going on, or you’ll fall.”

  Natalie bent again, scribbling on her list.

  “EEL GLUTTON?” he read aloud.

  She laughed. “EAT GLUTEN. Like you suggested. Not that I didn’t before. But I could always eat more of it. You’re right, it’s delicious. What’s your favorite type?”

  “Of gluten?”

  She nodded.

  He’d never thought of it before, which was unusual for him. Sometimes he felt like he’d thought of everything, a thousand times over. “Fresh-baked bread. What’s yours?”

  “Cream puffs. Now I’m h
ungry. Got any gluten stashed in your pockets?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “What a shame.” She folded the list up again and tucked it away. When she straightened up, a lock of forest-green hair fell across her forehead. Her bright eyes now seemed a light gray-green, like lichen on stone.

  Gray, he thought. Her eyes are gray. They take the color from whatever’s nearest to them, or from the light.

  It felt like an important realization. Everything about the meeting felt important, imbued with some deeper significance than was on the surface. Natalie’s eyes. Her list. Her rainbow hair. The folded parachute on the wet sand. Himself, standing on the beach beside her, trying to figure out how to convince her to trust in a power she didn’t believe in, wielded by a man who wasn’t worthy of anyone’s trust.

  “You were raised by shifters,” he said. “So you know there’s more to the world than meets the eye.”

  “I was raised by shifter con artists in an international crime circus,” she said. “So I know there’s lots more to the world than meets the eye. The cards are marked. The bowling pins are glued to tiny springs so they wobble but don’t fall over. The woman who asks you to watch her dog while she goes to a job interview is a con artist, and the dog is a shifter.”

  “Right. I’m a shifter too.” He’d intended to mention that only as an introduction to the story that he hoped would convince her. But she interrupted him.

  “Oh? What sort?”

  Ransom felt like he’d walked straight into a trap. Of course she’d want to know what he was—what he could turn into, he corrected himself, not what he was. He swallowed, feeling the dark presence of his beast stir within him. “A hellhound.”

  “Come on…” Then, looking into his eyes, she said, “Seriously?”

  “Yes. I’m not like your friends from the circus. I wasn’t born a shifter, I was kidnapped and experimented on. The people who did that didn’t only make me a shifter, they gave me other powers too. I see things. I know things. That’s how I know I might be able to save you.”

  “Uh-huh.” She looked extremely doubtful.

  It was only then that Ransom remembered his original plan. He had a very easy way to convince her, and he’d intended to lead with it. But between the shock of finding her at the cliff edge, the bigger shock of the unexpected BASE jump, and the disorienting, overwhelming, unpredictable presence of Natalie herself, it had fallen out of his head. “I had a vision of you, when the doctor told you that you only had a year to live. He warned you that any excitement could strain your heart. He told you to do tai chi and not watch any scary movies.”

  “Oh!” Natalie’s eyes—violet now under a lock of purple hair—opened wide. “Okay. I believe you. I mean, I believe in the visions. Probably. I guess you could have bugged the room.”

  “Why would I bug the room of a random doctor in the hope of spying on someone I’d never even met?”

  She shrugged. “Because a vision told you to?”

  “But if I have visions, then I wouldn’t need—” He broke off, realizing that she was teasing him. “Very funny.”

  She grinned. “I try.”

  “Anyway, that’s how I know I might be able to save your life. After I had the vision, I just… knew it.”

  Ransom expected a big reaction, so much so that he was also bracing himself for her disappointment when he explained the rest of it. He wasn’t sure exactly what she’d do—laugh for joy, be so overwhelmed by emotion that she’d have to sit down, do a cartwheel—but he knew there’d something.

  But there was nothing. Natalie was very still. The only movement was her hair, blowing in the ocean breeze, and the flicker of her lashes as she blinked. For the first time since he’d met her, her face was completely expressionless. He had no idea what she was thinking. Finally, she said, “You might be able to.”

  “Yes. I know I have a chance. I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to make it happen.”

  She hadn’t looked delighted when he’d said she had a chance, and she didn’t look disappointed when he underlined that it was only a chance. He didn’t understand it. She seemed so in love with life. She should be thrilled to learn that she wasn’t doomed after all.

  “If you’re planning to bite me and give me shifter healing, you need to know that it won’t work,” she said. “I already tried. Some people just can’t become shifters, and I’m one of them.”

  Shifters did heal better than normal humans, though they were hardly immune to illness and injury. But the thought of making her into a hellhound struck him with a bone-deep horror. What was the point of saving her life only to ruin it? “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “What, then? What’s the treatment you think might work?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure it is a treatment. I just know there’s something I can do, and it has a chance of working. A small chance. But small is better than none.”

  Natalie looked deeply unimpressed. He wished he hadn’t emphasized how small the chance was. But he couldn’t lie to her, especially about her own life.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “I tell you what. If and when you figure that part out, call and let me know. And thanks for… uh… everything!”

  Once again, she turned her back on him. She knelt in the sand and began packing the parachute into the harness.

  Ransom was clenching his jaw so hard, it actually hurt. This wasn’t how their meeting was supposed to go. All the same, he wasn’t giving up. Stepping in front of her, he said, “I’m a bodyguard. Protecting people is my job. Let me protect you.”

  “I can protect myself,” Natalie said. “I even gave you a demo!”

  “Not like that. I meant that if I’m with you, whatever it is I can do to save you, I’ll have a chance to do it.”

  She blew out a breath, sending her hair fluttering. He couldn’t stop looking at it. There were so many colors, and every time she moved or the wind blew, it changed. Like her eyes. They were pure gray now, like a storm.

  “Let me show you something.” She took out and unfolded her bucket list. He couldn’t read the scribble below BASE JUMP—it looked like RUSTPROOF FEMINIST—but she skipped over it and pointed to the words below that. “See that?”

  “TALL MOTEL?” Ransom hazarded.

  Natalie snickered. “TAJ MAHAL. Which is in India. My flight is tomorrow morning. So unless you want to follow me there…”

  “I’d do that,” he heard himself say.

  The amusement dropped from her face, replaced by sheer shock. For the first time, he realized, she knew how committed he was.

  For the first time, he knew how committed he was. Would he really leave everything to follow her, a woman he’d met once in real life and seen once in a vision, just for the smallest chance of saving her life?

  In his vision, he’d seen her learn that she was dying, and face the news with a courage that had stunned him. The doctor had told her that any shock—even any strong emotion—could literally kill her. He’d advised her to extend her life as much as possible by living quietly, free of all excitement and stress. She’d told him that wouldn’t suit her, and had left to ride a roller coaster!

  She had to stay in this world. She had to.

  Natalie reached out her hand to him. She had such small hands. They looked dainty and fragile, but he’d felt their startling strength. Her nails were clipped very short, and her palms were as callused as if she did manual labor all day. The trapeze looked glamorous from a distance, but it was hard, physical work.

  He reached out to her. His hand was trembling. So was hers. In a second, they’d clasp hands, and then his whole life would change.

  He felt a heart-stopping jolt as her fingertips brushed his. And then she yanked her hand away like she’d been burned by his touch, leaped backwards, and landed with a very final-sounding thud.

  “No!” Her shout made the cliffs echo. Lowering her voice, she said, “No. Look, I get that you believe that you can save me. When I was waiting in the doct
or’s lobby, this woman was telling her friend that going on a macrobiotic diet would save her life, and she absolutely believed it—”

  “Drop the stuff about internet miracle cures,” he interrupted. “You and I both know that’s not what I’m talking about. This is real. Anyway, what do you have to lose?”

  Natalie looked at him steadily. The sunlight flickered across her face as clouds scudded in the wind, making her eyes shift from light gray to dark. “More than you know.”

  What she has to lose is enjoying the last year of her life. The deep growl of his inner hellhound scraped against his mind like sandpaper. You’d ruin it for her by being there.

  The words hit like a punch to the solar plexus, taking his breath away. As he stood silent, she gave him a wistful smile.

  “Good-bye, Ransom.” She walked away across the golden sand. Her rainbow hair floated in the breeze, and the rippling waves drowned out the sound of her footsteps.

  “You said I could call you if I figured it out,” Ransom shouted after her. “I need your phone number!”

  Her clear voice floated back to him. “You’re the psychic!”

  Chapter 3

  The Rutabaga Festival was a huge disappointment.

  Natalie wandered disconsolately through its less-than-teeming crowds, wondering if the problem was it or her. She’d returned the rented parachute and harness, then headed straight out to the festival, so maybe she’d tried to cram too much into one day.

  Or maybe rutabagas were an uninspiring vegetable. The History of the Rutabaga stall consisted of nothing but a few posters and a short, unenlightening pamphlet. The rutabaga toss was a basic—not even interestingly rigged—toss stall with rutabagas instead of tennis balls. Even the unintentionally creepy leafy-wigged mascot in a rutabaga costume did little to lighten her gloom.

  She tossed her half-eaten skewer of roasted rutabaga chunks into the trash, got herself a cone of rutabaga ice cream, and was dismayed though unsurprised to find that it tasted like rutabaga.