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

The warlock gave a cry and the blue and red lights burst up in a tower of energy before swooping down again and attacking Owen and his fellow prisoners.

He could feel the power with the force of a punch that knocked all of the air out of him.

He breathed in, but his lungs were on fire and the pain grew more and more until he couldn't take it anymore and he passed out.

He woke up, but he was sure he was dead.

Was this heaven?

Maybe not. He hoped not. The US Army owned his body, but he had never signed away his soul. And he recognized the uniforms all around them. It was a smaller squad than he would have expected. They were checking with him and his fellow prisoners, and there was a medic there to give them oxygen and make sure they stayed alive.

Looking around, it didn't look like anything had happened. There was no altar. No torches. No warlock. Owen's bindings had been released and he reached up to touch the cut on his chest, but it was gone.

A hallucination?

He didn't have that strong of an imagination.

Things had proceeded very fast after that and Owen barely had time to think.

He had years left on his contract, but politics had a way of screwing up anyone's career, and before long, Owen found himself discharged with healthy severance and orders to keep quiet about the whole thing.

The Army didn't want it getting out that soldiers had been abducted off of one of their bases. And if they had any idea about what had been done to them, they weren't saying.

That was when Owen got to know Major Gibson. The man came to him first as they were debriefing in the States and suggested that maybe it would be a good idea for them to stick together.

Yeah. They were the only people who understood what had really happened. Sticking together seemed like a good idea.

One year and nine months ago

It wasn't the full moon. It was night and the moon was big, but it wasn't full.

In the past three months, they had begun to put together a private protection company. Gibson had contacts and he was putting out feelers.

But they were spending a lot of time on his farm in Pennsylvania. And that night they were all outside in the chilly air sitting around a fire and roasting marshmallows.

Hunter felt it first. She stiffened where she sat, putting the stick she was using to char her marshmallow down.

"You okay?" asked Jackson. She reached out a hand to squeeze Hunter's shoulder.

"I—" Hunter collapsed off the small bench she was sitting on and they all sprang into motion.

But what happened next was even stranger than the night in the German forest. Hunter screamed and pulled at all of her clothes until they sat in a heap next to her, and then her body started to shift, fur growing where it definitely shouldn't grow, face elongating until she had a snout, and teeth getting long and deadly.

She shifted to a wolf and howled.

And that howl was what it took for the change to rip through the rest of them.

Owen had no idea how long it took. It didn't hurt. Not that much. And once his body shifted from man to wolf, he didn't care about how it was impossible.

All he wanted to do was run.

And so they ran together, their first time as a pack.

And hours later, when they shifted back, none of them worse for wear, they huddled together and realized that whatever had been done to them in Germany was serious.

Present day

Owen looked down at Stasia and tried to read her face. He hated that he could still see the bandage from the stitched up bite on her shoulder. He could kill Vega for attacking her. It didn't matter that it wasn't the young man's fault. This was Owen's mate. He would die to protect her.

"I wish we could tell you more," he said. "But we've been figuring out this whole werewolf thing on our own. None of us were bitten. We don't know if that's real or not. And we don't know what's going to happen to you. But we, I, will protect you."

Stasia took a deep breath and nodded. Owen leaned forward and kissed her forehead. He wanted to do more than that. He wanted to hide her away from the rest of this group until they had more information about what was going to happen. But he had a feeling she wasn't going to allow herself to be hidden away.

Her face was completely blank, and then she blinked and gave him a brave smile. "So I might be turning into a werewolf. Great. Does anyone have snacks?"

Chapter Twenty-One

Stasia wasn't sure how much longer she could put on a brave face. Werewolves. Freaking werewolves. Her shoulder twinged in response to the bite she was trying hard not to think about, and she couldn't help but wonder if she would be howling at the moon soon enough.

She and Em escaped to the exam room to take a few minutes for themselves now that they had the story from Owen. Everyone else had agreed with his retelling, so she figured it wasn't too far off from the truth.

A warlock had turned them into werewolves in some sort of magic ritual in the Black Forest in Germany. She knew a fairytale when she heard one, but considering she had seen a man turn into a wolf with her own two eyes, she believed it. It didn't matter that her medically-trained brain was protesting that it was impossible. She'd seen it and there was no way it was a trick.

She sank down into one of the chairs in the exam room as Em leaned against the counter. Stasia couldn't stand for another minute. Her legs were shaky and she felt perched on the edge of a panic attack. It was only her