Chapter 24
Kane stood in the yard while Knox tore around like he owned the damn place, nose to the ground, tail going a mile a minute.
Monica was inside cooking and had been since he brought the bags in.
She hadn’t looked at him once. She might think their earlier conversation was done, neatly wrapped and buried, but she was dead wrong.
They were finishing it later, one way or another.
He reached for the stick Knox dropped at his feet…
then froze. What the actual hell was wrong with him?
Since when did he stand around thinking about having a conversation after sex?
Normally, it was the woman who wanted conversation after sex, not him.
Never him. The realization that the tables had turned rattled the hell out of him.
With a curse, he threw the stick hard. Yeah, bringing up her quitting her job with Farrar right after they’d wrecked that bed hadn’t been his smartest move. But his protective instincts toward her had hit him hard.
Knox trotted back with the stick, and Kane tossed it again, jaw tight. The thought of Monica in danger had already been messing with his head, but then he had to go and sleep with her. Now it was worse. Now it felt personal. Too damn personal.
“Dammit,” he muttered, louder this time.
“Sounds like you’ve got something on your mind.”
Kane nearly jumped out of his skin when Theo’s voice came from nowhere.
“Sorry,” the old man added. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I called your name.”
Kane needed to get his shit together before he got himself or Monica killed. He should’ve heard Theo long before he got this close. Charger and the guys would laugh their asses off if they found out.
“You’re good,” Kane said, giving Theo a nod like he hadn’t just been caught slipping.
“I’m sure in your line of work, you don’t get to relax much,” Theo said, watching Knox bolt after the stick like a missile.
“No.” And the word tasted like failure for more reasons than one.
“Too much relaxing can get you killed,” Theo added, raising an eyebrow like he was reading Kane’s exact thoughts.
Kane didn’t answer. He just stared as Theo’s gaze drifted back toward Monica’s house.
“Listen,” Theo began, quieter now, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Monica. And I’m hoping it’s nothing.”
Kane went still.
“Every afternoon I go for a walk,” Theo continued. “I make a loop around both our properties.”
Knox returned with the stick, but Kane held up a hand, and Knox dropped the stick and sat.
“We had a little rain last night,” Theo said. “I found footprints. Man-sized. Behind Monica’s house, right at the tree line.”
Kane’s eyes snapped to the woods behind her place. “Hunters?”
Theo shook his head. “Doubt it. I’ve got No Trespassing signs everywhere. We haven’t had trouble with Hunters in over a year. There are forty-seven acres between us. I own most. Monica has the rest.”
“Any tracks on your side?” Kane asked.
“No.” Theo’s jaw tightened. “Just hers.”
Kane’s gaze cut back to the woods. Something in his gut twisted. “You carrying?” he asked.
Theo patted his side. “Never leave home without it.”
Kane nodded once. Decision made. “Why don’t you head in with Monica?” he said. “I’m going to take a run around the property.”
He glanced down at Knox. “Is he any good at tracking?”
“Son, that dog will do whatever you ask him to do,” Theo informed him as he headed toward Monica’s.
Kane headed toward the tree line with Knox at his side. The air grew quieter, heavier, as they moved farther from the yard, as if the woods went silent at their approach. Even the birds stopped singing. Knox stayed close, his ears up.
Theo’s words kept replaying in his head, low and unsettling. Someone had been too damn close, and that knowledge sent him into a slow-burning rage.
Knox moved ahead of him, nose low to the ground, tail stiff—not playful, but alert.
“You find something, boy?” Kane murmured, already crouching beside him. The prints were right there in the damp earth. Fresh. Too damn fresh. And way too close to Monica’s house.
A slow, cold burn lit up his spine.
“Find,” he ordered, not totally sure the dog would understand the command, but Knox dipped his head and followed the faint trail like he’d been trained for it.
Kane fell into step behind him, every instinct he had switching into combat mode.
His hearing sharpened until every crack of a branch and rustle of leaves hit him like a warning.
His jaw flexed hard. The footprints disappeared in the wet leaves. Whoever had been there was long gone, but that didn’t calm shit inside him. Kane scanned the woods one more time, the threat crawling under his skin.
“Come on, Knox,” he said, turning back toward the house after doing one last scan of the area.
Kane didn’t walk the last stretch to the house—he stalked it, the dominant, lethal part of him fully awake now. Whoever had crept around Monica’s home had crossed a damn line, and every part of him was ready to tear someone apart for it.
As the house came into view, Kane slowed, gaze sweeping every window, every shadow, and every angle a threat could hide in. Nothing moved. There was no sound except Knox’s panting beside him.
Reaching the back of the house, Kane stopped and turned, staring at the tree line with his hands curled into fists. How many times had someone stood out here, watching her home? Watching her? Once was too damn many.
He forced himself to move, circling around to the front. She needed better protection when this was over—real protection, not just Knox. The dog was great, but she needed a system with cameras, sensors, the whole works. He needed to talk to Duncan about making this place more secure.
His hand closed around the doorknob, but he froze when her laughter floated through the door. He’d never heard her laugh like that, and it hit him dead center in the chest with an unfamiliar pull that made him grit his teeth.
“I am seriously fucked,” Kane muttered. Knox snorted beside him as if he agreed. Kane glared down at him. “Shut up.”
He opened the door, and the rich, mouthwatering smell hit him first. Then his eyes landed on Monica, holding a steaming dish like she’d been made to be a wife waiting for her husband to come in from a long day. That smile she shot him… punched him straight in the gut.
She’d make someone an unbelievable wife. The thought blindsided him, and a low growl rolled out of his chest before he could stop it. Knox bolted past him into the house like he wanted no part of whatever the hell that growl was about.
“You’re right on time. Dinner’s ready,” she said, completely unaware of the mental warfare happening inside him. “Hope you’re a meat-and-potatoes guy.”
“Yeah,” he managed, because apparently his brain had decided to take the night off.
“Good.” She nodded toward an empty chair. “Have a seat. I’ll get the rolls.”
He walked to the table, eyes glued to her as she moved. It wasn’t until a chuckle cut through the fog in his head that he tore his gaze away.
Theo sat there, grinning like he knew every damn thing Kane wasn’t saying.
“What?” Kane snapped, narrowing his eyes.
“Oh, nothing,” Theo said, barely containing another laugh. “I always wondered what my face looked like when I first met my Sally. Now I know.”
“You have no clue what you’re talking about,” Kane grumbled and reached for his water. His mouth was so dry it felt like dust had settled on his tongue. What in the hell was happening to him?
“If you say so,” Theo said, but the smirk said otherwise.
Monica returned with a bowl of rolls. She frowned when she looked at their empty plates. “Why are your plates still empty?”
“I never touched the food Sally cooked for us until she was sitting next to me,” Theo said warmly.
Kane watched her smile dim, just a little. Monica was pretty good at hiding her emotion, well, except for last night...that thought had a manly smirk playing across his lips. But seeing the shift now in real time hooked something inside him.
She touched Theo’s arm. “Sally was a very lucky woman,” she whispered. “Every woman deserves to be loved the way you loved her.”
“I was the lucky one,” Theo murmured, memory softening his features.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kane said, and he meant every word.
He thought of his brothers and their mates, of the kind of love that gutted you if you lost it.
He knew without a doubt that a vampire losing their mate was like a death sentence, which was one of the reasons he steered clear of any type of attachments to women.
But now, as his gaze slid to Monica, her expression full of sympathy and understanding for the older man, he wanted to pull her close and comfort her. Something he had never felt for anyone.
“Alright, that’s enough of that,” Theo said, shaking off the moment. “Let’s eat. I’ve been waiting all day.”
Kane stayed quiet while they ate, lost in his own head. But he damn sure noticed that Monica could cook. The steak was tender, perfectly seasoned, and cooked rare—exactly how he liked it. There was no way she could have known that.
Her laughter pulled his attention again. She tossed her head back, smiling at something Theo said, and when her eyes flicked to him, that same smile aimed right at him…
At that moment, something locked into place.
No one was getting close enough to touch her.
Not Farrar. Not his cronies. Not whoever had been creeping around her property.
If anyone wanted Monica, they’d have to go through him.
Kane was one mean son of a bitch when he protected what mattered, and she was starting to matter more than she should. More than he was ready for.