Chapter 17 Cassie
Cassie
Icouldn’t remember the last time I had such a restful night of sleep.
Maybe it was the feeling of sleeping with my mate cuddled against me.
Maybe it was because I’d had an orgasm that was so strong I nearly blacked out.
Or maybe I was just exhausted from fighting my vampire.
She’d been pushing me all night to sink my teeth into Ruby’s neck and make her ours forever. The vamp wasn’t big on patience.
We’d get there, I was sure of it now. It might have been the first time we’d had sex, but it was obvious that Ruby was as affected by it as I had. The bond between us was growing, even without an official claiming, and I could more easily feel my mate’s emotions the longer we were together.
She was as affected as I was. Her feelings for me were strong, but something was still holding her back.
Maybe it was me being a vampire. Maybe it was just her being a human who’d been told her entire life that it was a bad idea to rush into a relationship.
Whatever the cause of her reticence, it wouldn’t last too much longer, I knew that instinctively.
Once this stalker issue was taken care of, I wouldn’t rest until she was mine.
There was a part of me, some small part, that was terrified by the thoughts I was having.
I didn’t know how to be in love, or how to have a healthy relationship.
My parents weren’t good role models in that area.
Then there was my father’s temper. Was it hereditary?
I was usually even tempered, and my years in the military had taught me to control my emotions even more.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something fundamentally flawed about me, some genetic disposition to be a bad mate.
I knew I’d never purposely hurt Ruby, but I wasn’t sure I could give her everything she needed either.
I wasn’t good at sharing my emotions, preferring to show my feelings through action, but I knew that part of a relationship was being open about your feelings.
My job took me away for weeks at a time, and she traveled a lot too.
Plus I was ten years older than her. We were complete opposites.
How could we make this work? I took a shuddering breath, promising myself that I’d try my best to be the mate she deserved.
After all, fate had matched us with each other for a reason, right?
The alarm sounded, making Ruby groan as she snuggled in closer.
“Time to get up, sleepyhead.” I pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Coffee. I need coffee.”
With a smile, I slid out of bed to figure out the hotel coffee machine.
Once we’d had our caffeine fix we took a shower together.
We crowded together under the spray, and I held Ruby against the wall while she rode my thigh until she broke apart then she dropped to her knees and made me come my brains out before we finished our shower.
We made it to the team bus just in the nick of time, Alexei and Eleanor right behind us. As we settled at the back of the bus, I noticed the mate mark on Alexei’s neck. I guess Ruby and I weren’t the only people getting busy last night.
“Congratulations,” I told my friend. “I’m happy for you guys.”
Ruby leaned over me to look across the aisle. “Happy about what?”
When Alexei just pointed at his neck I whispered, “Alexei and Eleanor are officially mated now.”
Ruby pushed past me to kneel on the seat in front of them, leaning over the back to look at Eleanor.
“How did this happen?” she asked. “I thought you said you didn’t want a mate.”
“He’s got a magic dick,” Eleanor mumbled, looking the tiniest bit embarrassed.
“This is true,” her new mate said proudly. “Is magic.”
“Are you happy?” Ruby pressed.
I appreciated that she was so protective of her friend.
Eleanor glanced over at her mate before meeting Ruby’s gaze. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I am.”
“Then I’m happy for both of you,” Ruby said, leaning across the seat back to give Eleanor a hug.
“Thanks.” Eleanor inhaled deeply, then her gaze bounced from Ruby to me and back again, telling me that the wolf could scent us on each other despite our long shower. “Maybe I’ll be congratulating you two soon.”
The next three days passed quickly. Seattle and Portland played three games in three days, with Portland winning two of them. When the team wasn’t playing they had a busy schedule that included yoga, massage, watching game film, and various workouts.
I’d almost forgotten how much work went into being a professional athlete.
Of course I’d grown up watching my father work out day and night, always focused on the game to the exclusion of his family.
Most of the time that worked out better for us, because when his attention was on us, it was never good.
Gradually we came to understand that my father didn’t have as many practices and workouts as he pretended to.
When he had downtime he’d stay over at his long-time girlfriend’s house, spending time with her and the son she’d given him.
My mother’s inability to produce a son was a huge disappointment to Dad, one he never forgave her for.
The more my father pulled away, the more clingy and needy my mother became. My father’s time at home increasingly involved yelling, insults, and when he was drinking, the occasional beating. I learned to stay away from him, enrolling in the military the day after I graduated from high school.
My mother continued to cling to him, even to this day. No amount of cheating or abuse was enough for her to cut him loose. Her obsession with him, coupled with her need to defend him, meant that she and I rarely spoke.
I couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to be saved.
As for my father, rumor had it that after he retired from professional football he took up with yet another woman he’d put up in an apartment in New York City.
None of these women were his fated mate, but then again, Dad thought that fated mates were just silly bedtime stories supes told their kids.
And the truth was, so did I, until I met Ruby.
Now I knew fated mates were real. It made me wonder how different my life would have been if I’d been raised by fated mates, if I’d grown up in a household filled with love instead of strife.
Normally I wasn’t one to dwell on the future, but listening to Ruby talk about her family really drove home for me how dysfunctional my own upbringing was.
We’d spent the last three nights exploring each other’s bodies and having long conversations about our lives while snuggled together in bed at the hotel.
Even though my vampire side had claimed her at first sight, my human side was fully caught up now.
I was hopelessly in love with Ruby and while I sensed that she felt the same way, she never mentioned the future.
Even when we talked about Alexei and Eleanor mating, there was no conversation about what that meant for us.
I wasn’t going to push her though. Ruby would get there eventually. Hopefully.
“All right team… and guests, let’s head out.”
The coach clapped her hands as she tried to herd us all out of the hotel and onto the bus for the trip back up north. Cora Del Real was a no-nonsense tiger shifter who’d played women’s soccer in Europe before transitioning into being a coach.
I was pretty sure she knew who my father was but couldn’t quite place me. I’d caught her staring at me several times. Or maybe it wasn’t about my father at all. She might have just been suspicious about my cover story and my sudden relationship with her star player.
We drove for about ninety minutes before making a rest stop in Centralia, a small town along the I-5 freeway. The bus pulled into the parking lot of a coffee shop, and we all filed out to get some coffee and use the restroom.
Half the team was already back on the bus when the first shots rang out.
My training kicked in instantly. Tossing my coffee out of the way, I pushed Ruby to the ground, shoving her underneath the bus. Next to me, Alexei did the same thing with Eleanor, who growled in protest. The bus driver slammed the door closed, and everyone took cover.
“Where are they?” I asked Alexei, crouching next to the bus with my gun in my hand.
The bear shifter squat walked to the front of the bus while I watched his flank.
“Behind trees,” he said, pointing at a clump of trees at the far end of the parking lot.
My mind raced with the possibilities as shots continued to ring out, riddling the side of the bus and nearby cars with bullets. From the sounds of it, there was one shooter. If they knew that Alexei and I were bodyguards they might be trying to draw us away from the bus to get to the players.
“How many are there?”
I looked around to see Cora squatting behind me, her claws and fangs out as she held a half shift. That was a difficult thing for most shifters to do, so I was impressed with her control.
“One, as far as I can tell.”
“Cassie, you cover me. I will shift and investigate.”
“No Alexei, you’ll be shot!” Eleanor’s panicked voice sounded from underneath the bus. “Let’s call the cops.”
“The cops can’t help with a rogue shifter,” I reminded her.
“I’ll shift too and we’ll zigzag,” Cora told Alexei. “They can’t shoot us both.”
“Yes, but follow my lead,” Alexei ordered. “Cassie will guard the bus.”
The sound of popping filled the air as both Cora and Alexei shifted.
Bones broke, lengthened, and reformed as their skin was replaced with fur, fangs and claws appearing as their bodies grew.
They both dropped to all fours and took off towards the trees, Alexei in the lead while Cora moved behind him.
The gunman got off a few shots, and I saw Alexei jerk as a bullet grazed his shoulder. Not that it slowed him down. It would take a lot more than a bullet to stop the giant bear shifter. Based on the cry of fear coming from Eleanor, she’d felt his pain through their mate bond.
There was a roar as Alexei hit the trees, then we heard a sharp growl from Cora’s tiger, closely followed by a yelp that sounded like it came from a dog or a wolf.
“Cassie, what’s happening?” Ruby called.
“Shhh.”
My mate fell silent as we all waited for an update from the shifters. I moved around the bus, making sure that no one was sneaking up on us from the other side while we were all distracted by the shooter.
After what felt like forever I saw Alexei come out of the wooded area. He was back in his human form, holding a scrawny looking wolf by the scruff. Cora, still in tiger form, prowled behind them. When they reached the bus, Alexei dropped the wolf onto the ground, where it lay still.
Cora shifted back to her human form, giving the unconscious wolf a little kick that made him twitch.
Eleanor slid out from underneath the bus, racing over to Alexei, not at all worried about her own safety.
“Alexei, you’re hurt.”
She popped up onto her toes to examine his shoulder, which was bleeding.
“This is flesh wound,” he said solemnly. “Do not worry.”
The wolf made a low growling noise, then shifted back to his human form as he regained consciousness.
“On your knees!” I ordered, training my gun at his head. “Cora, see if the driver has any tape or rope in the emergency kit.”
We tied rope around the wolf. It wouldn’t hold a healthy shifter for long, but the wolf was undernourished and injured.
He started babbling in a language that sounded like Russian, something that was confirmed when Alexei answered him.
Russian was one of the five languages the three bear brothers spoke.
“He claims he doesn’t speak English,” Alexei translated.
The rest of the team rolled out from underneath the bus as Alexei interrogated our prisoner.
“He is contractor. Someone pulls him from prison in Siberia, brings him here to help kill players,” Alexei continued. “He is one of many. They give no information why there is a hit. This wolf only wants to escape prison and have the new life they promised.”
“So whoever wants to hurt us is either a shifter or able to control them, and probably not from the U.S.,” I surmised. “Ask about who hired him.”
After a few minutes of back and forth Alexei said, “He does not know the name. He gets assignments by text, then money is transferred through app.”
I sighed. That was no help at all.
“I’d better call this in to Lois. Someone is bound to have called the cops by now.”