Hunting Season: Werewolf Bodyguard Romance (Guarded by the Shifter Book 1) by Kate Rudolph (new reading TXT) 📗

Fuck.

He considered calling Gibson back, but stopped himself. He had no proof that Hill had been there that night. All he had was half a memory and a sense of foreboding. With his wolf going haywire, he didn't want to give Gibson more cause for worry.

Were they the only werewolves in existence?

His mind snagged on what Gibson said, and he had to wonder. They'd been turned into werewolves deliberately… for some reason. Presumably whoever had done the turning knew it would happen. So was that the first time? Or were there other groups of people running around thinking they were the only werewolves on the planet?

And what if there were werewolves that weren't created by magic? None of the books and TV shows worked that way. Were werewolf bites contagious? They'd all wondered, but there was no ethical way to test it out.

Focusing on the mysteries of his existence would drive him crazier than his desire for Stasia. But he needed answers about at least one of the mysteries of his life, or he feared his wolf would tear out of his skin and start looking for answers himself.

Chapter Ten

Stasia had to stop thinking about Owen in the sexy way. Her body was hornier than ever, and her mind kept concocting schemes to make it okay to have her way with him. She didn't do things like that. She didn't think things like that.

And yet she'd woken up panting—twice!—while in the middle of dreaming about what Owen could do to her.

That man looked like he had a wicked tongue and she wanted to find out if it was true.

She had to forget about those dreams and lingual speculation. He was her employee, her bodyguard, even if she wasn't paying for him, and she wasn't going to take advantage. She wasn't sure how many times she had to tell herself that to make the resolve stick. Ten thousand? Maybe the number didn't exist.

She was screwed.

And not by Owen.

She spent her morning doing her best to ignore him. The morning began with yoga and a healthy breakfast and ignoring that Owen was right down the hall. After breakfast she looked over some papers that her accountant had sent her regarding the month's charitable donations.

And then she ran out of stuff to do.

Stasia hated being bored. She thrived in the emergency room, the chaos of hurt and healing circling her. On a morning like this, she could kick herself for leaving her last hospital. It had sounded all noble, sacrificing her position rather than lose another doctor or some nurses to budget cuts.

But she needed to figure out what to do next.

Surely some other emergency room in the city needed a doctor. Not that she was going to apply when someone was trying to kidnap her. But it was time to start getting her name out there again.

Even if she wasn't sure that was what she wanted to do with her life.

That was the part about quitting she didn't think of too much. Yes, she thrived in the chaos, but she hated hospital politics. Sacrificing her job to save another person's paycheck hadn't been an entirely selfless act.

But what were her other options? Private practice? Another humanitarian trip? Med school had not prepared her for this career crisis.

Or maybe she had ignored any help there was to offer. Her father had always called her too independent for her own good.

Leaving her office meant seeing Owen, but thinking about the future of her career was enough to drive her crazy. She'd rather deal with the bodyguard at the moment.

Her house was big by New York standards, but that didn't actually make it large. Every time she stepped out of a room, Owen was there. Sure, it was his job, but that didn't make it any less annoying.

Why had she agreed to this?

She tidied up for a little while. Normally she had someone come in and clean once a week, but that was another thing that had needed to be canceled once she was in danger. She trusted the service she hired, but it was such an obvious infiltration point that she'd canceled this week's service before Owen even showed up. She wasn't completely oblivious to the trouble that was following her.

But Stasia was already relatively neat, and there wasn't much to tidy. And Owen was right there.

She gave up. There was no ignoring him, and she couldn't make tasks appear out of thin air. She turned to Owen, who was sitting on one of the library couches. "Want to watch something?" She picked up the remote and pressed the button to open the cabinet where her TV was discreetly tucked away.

He jerked in surprise at her acknowledgement. "I thought you were coming in here to read."

Stasia felt strangely defensive. "I watch TV. I'm a normal person."

Owen tilted his head to the side and gave her an assessing look. "I've never met a normal person like you before.”

"What's that supposed to mean?" Stasia sat down on the other side of the couch. She didn't want to sit next to him if he was going to be mean, but she did want to look at the screen.

He flicked his items off on his fingers. "Billionaire dad. Nine half-siblings. Actual career despite being a rich girl. Humanitarian mission. Should I keep going?"

She couldn't tell if he was trying to insult or compliment her. If she didn't have the day before to go on, she would have taken the last bits for compliments. She didn't know how to handle him if he was going to be nice. She could handle their antagonistic banter. But her knees would go weak if he turned out to be decent.

And she was trying to ignore her feelings.

Owen smiled as she kept quiet and his eyes started to sparkle. Was he really so cheerful? Had she read him wrong? It would be easy enough to ignore. All Stasia had to do was turn on the TV and end the