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

He checked the clip of his gun and took cover, hoping he could get off lucky shots and take these guys out.

One on four were terrible odds, especially since he was wearing street clothes and only had one clip for his gun.

But he had to win. It was the only shot.

Stasia screamed again.

"What's wrong with her?" a male voice demanded, one of the kidnappers.

"We better not have gone through all this trouble for a dead bitch," said another.

Owen growled.

And then he felt something at the back of his consciousness, an awareness that he only felt on nights of the full moon. It wasn't his wolf. It almost felt like someone else's. Two other people.

The front door burst open and the four attackers screamed as a hail of bullets showered them. It was loud enough to drown out Stasia's screams. Andre and Vega entered while the kidnappers took cover.

Andre found Owen quickly. "Go to her. We've got this."

"How did you know to come?" Owen didn't have time to ask, but he had to know.

"Gibson wanted us to watch your back. He had a bad feeling about this."

Gibson was right. Owen didn't waste anymore time talking. He ran up the steps and went to the bedroom and then into the bathroom. Stasia was still screaming and her body looked wrecked, caught between human form and another.

He didn't know how she was going to survive this, but he would sell his soul to make sure that she did.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The pain was tearing Stasia apart. She screamed, but her mouth made no sound. She would give up anything to have it end. She didn't know it was possible for a person to feel like this.

Was she still alive? It couldn't hurt this much to die. Or was she being sent to some sort of eternal damnation where she was doomed to feel like this for the rest of eternity?

She never thought it would end. The fire ripped through her and rolled around and made it impossible to think.

But between one breath and the next, it did. Something rippled over her and her body shifted, her limbs finding a new shape, fur growing from her skin, and her senses sharpening in a way they had never sharpened before.

Stasia breathed deep and caught scents she didn't know were possible.

Was that blood?

That was a smell she recognized, human or wolf. And that was what she was now, a wolf. The bite had taken hold. She had shifted.

She didn't have time to think about it before the need to move overtook her. She bounced up and realized that she was sitting in her bathtub and Owen was right there beside her. But he was human.

She gave a small bark and watched as his face lit up in joy. She wanted him to shift with her and run, but he just ran his fingers through her hair and said something she couldn't quite understand. Her senses were all firing at once and it was hard to make sense of anything.

She climbed out of the bathtub, which took a little bit of work to figure out, and then she pranced into her bedroom, but when she tried to leave the room Owen wouldn't let her. She growled at him, demanding that he move aside, but he said something again and didn't move.

Stasia ran in circles around the room and made herself dizzy. The room had seemed big when she bought the house, but it was still just big by New York standards and she barely had any room to move.

But the burst of energy burned itself out almost as quickly as it came and after only a few minutes, Stasia climbed up onto the bed and collapsed in a tired heap of fur.

She didn't know what the blood smell was. She didn't know why Owen was so scared. But she was too tired to really think about it for long and sleep claimed her. The last thing she felt was Owen combing his fingers through her fur.

She shifted back to human some time in the middle of the night and woke up on the bed, completely naked, but covered by her sheets. She didn't see Owen anywhere but she could hear someone moving around the house. A glance at the clock told her it was early, really early. The sun was barely peeking out through the windows, definitely not fully risen yet, and the normal sounds of the city from outside were muted as they often were in the early morning hours.

Stasia took stock of her body. She was a werewolf. She remembered the pain from the night before and the change, but there was something missing. Her mind had been so focused on what was happening to her, but she could feel an emptiness, something she didn't know. Something that had to do with this scent of blood that was permeating her house.

She stretched her muscles and tried to decide if she felt much different. There was an awareness in the back of her mind. Her wolf? The pack? Maybe.

But she still felt like herself. She didn't feel like someone who was bound to turn into a raving monster and rampage through the city on the search for fresh blood. She just felt like Stasia Nichols, doctor and werewolf.

Doctor to werewolves?

Maybe that too. But she was pretty sure everyone would give her at least a day to think it over.

Stasia put on clothes and headed downstairs. The first sign of trouble was the blood on the walls. And then there was the broken glass.

Had she done this? She didn't remember moving around. She remembered Owen blocking the door after she shifted. Had she rampaged through the house before the change took hold?

But a few steps more showed more blood and it definitely wasn't hers. If she had lost that much blood she would have known it.

There was a draft coming down the hallway and she took a few steps toward the