My Shifty Bodyguard (Shifters of Cedar Run #4)

Chapter One

Dax

I leap to my feet, frowning. I have not even broken a sweat.

“What’s wrong?” Nero demands, standing up.

“No can do.” He glances his watch. “Also, my mate is waiting for me at home.”

“I thought you were going to spar with me?”

He shakes his head impatiently. “Did you hear that I said that my mate is home waiting for me? We’re trying for a baby.” He grins and jiggles his eyebrows.

“You just had one,” I point out, frowning at him in puzzlement.

“Yes. We had a boy. Now we’re hoping for a girl.” He flashes me a grin, then pivots on his heel and lopes towards the long driveway that stretches from my cabin to the main road.

His boots crunch on the gravel, his broad shoulders bouncing with smug satisfaction.

I let out a low, rumbling growl. It’s so hard to find shifters with a sense of duty these days. Won’t gain 100 pounds to help a friend, won’t choose sparring over mating. I mean, she’s not even his fated mate. What’s the urgency?

Not all of us meet our fated mates, of course. I clearly am not looking for a fated mate.

I will mate for political advantage, to strengthen the Moonstone pack, as my parents did.

My parents already have their eye on an appropriate match for me, some woman from a pack in California.

My father’s choice of my mother as a mate gained us a trade alliance with my mother’s pack, who live in Kentucky, where they are visiting this month.

My older brother moved halfway across the company for an arranged mating with a shifter pack who own a trucking company that now gives priority to transporting our livestock and produce.

Duty to the pack is the most important thing in life. Pack comes first, last and always. It’s the Rowan clan creed.

My shoulder mike crackles.

“Dax?” Our Alpha Jesse says. “I need you back here at headquarters, for what we talked about earlier. I’ll be in the meeting room.”

I instantly snap to attention. This morning, Jesse told me that an assassin has tried to take out someone from the family of an Alpha diplomat in Colorado, where the National Shifter Council is headquartered.

He’ll want me to hunt down the assassin, no doubt.

I yank off my clothes and let the shift roll through me.

Bones crack and reform, and heat floods my veins as muscle stretches and reshapes.

My vision sharpens, and the world snaps into crisp focus as my wolf surges forward.

Fur bursts across my skin in a rush, paws hitting the earth with a thud that vibrates up my legs.

Then I’m off—launching myself into the trees, every stride devouring ground. The wind tears through my fur, and my mind slips into perfect clarity as I calculate the possibilities ahead.

Along with the assassin, we’d also discussed the Frostbane pack, who seem to be ramping up their a-hole behavior.

Last week they cut down trees on the Shadowpine pack’s property, and our pack had to mediate.

If they’d cut down any trees in groves that the Shadowpine pack considered sacred, they’d have started a war.

Maybe our Alpha wants me to take the Frostbane Alpha out.

Assassin, pack war, death match…it’s all good.

Up ahead, the Moonstone headquarters rises out of the clearing, solid stone and heavy timber. Broad windows catch the sunlight and throw it back in sharp flashes, and the tall pines cast spiky shadows.

My paws hit the packed earth of the path, kicking up the familiar scent of pine sap and mulch.

Whoever decided on the red mulch around the building had probably meant for it to make the place feel welcoming.

Same with the sunflowers, marigolds and irises planted in bright, unnecessarily cheerful bursts along the foundation.

Myself, I’d have gone with thornbushes for additional security, but nobody asks my opinion about these things.

I’m not sure why. My ideas are excellent.

The benches and lanterns lining the walkways nod toward hospitality, but the headquarters still radiates authority. Even from here, my wolf feels the hum of pack energy threading through its walls—history, hierarchy, responsibility.

I stride into the lobby and snag the spare clothing that I’ve stashed in a box on the shelves by the door. Many of our pack members have clothing there, since we have the habit of shedding our clothes and running through the forest on a regular basis. Our wolf nature compels it.

I quickly pull on khaki slacks, a camo t-shirt and boots. Alpha wants me. Mission incoming. Our pack secretary, Adele, is sitting behind a desk clacking away on a computer. She nods at me and returns to her task as I head down the hallway to the left.

An odd tingling sensation sweeps over me as I approach the meeting room, a feeling I’ve never experienced before. A faint hint of perfume tantalizes my nostrils. It smells like roses and sunshine.

The meeting room is large, built to accommodate up to a couple of dozen of us.

The walls are built from thick timber boards, polished to a mellow shine that carries the scent of pine sap and old woodsmoke.

A long slab-table—more tree trunk than furniture—dominates the center of the room.

You could bounce a Frostbane warrior off it and not leave a dent.

That’s the theory, anyway. Nobody will let me try.

Soft light spills from the lanterns mounted along the walls, giving everything a warm, golden glow. A few maps hang beside them—territory lines and hunting grounds.

Jesse sits at the head of the table, elbows propped wide, fingers steepled. His posture is relaxed, but his eyes sharpen the second I step in. Not tense… but definitely in “Alpha brain mode.” The kind that makes the air vibrate with quiet authority.

He nods once, in greeting. “Dax. Good. Shut the door.” I obey, and incline my head towards him.

“Alpha,” I acknowledge.

“I’ve got an assignment for you and at this point we don’t know how long it’s going to last. It involves the Everpeak pack, and the assassination attempts on the Alpha’s wife and daughter.”

I sit down, listening intently.

“In his position as emissary from the National Council of Shifters, Jasper Carmichael has made plenty of enemies. He has to make decisions about pack territory, pack wars, arranged matings where things have gone wrong, requests for pack placement of shifters with special talents, trade disputes, Alphas gone rogue. Two weeks ago, someone put poison in his daughter Violet’s oatmeal.

Of course she smelled it, and didn’t eat it.

Every single person who works in his kitchen was questioned by a Truth Mage.

Either they fooled the Truth Mage, which is unprecedented, or none of them are guilty. ”

He leans forward, tenting his fingers as he continues.

“The week after that, as his wife was in the forest on a run, in her wolf form, someone shot a silver-tipped arrow at her. It missed her by inches and stuck in a tree. There was no scent on it that even their most skilled trackers could trace. Then someone mixed silver in both the stepmother and the daughter’s perfume.

The stepmother smelled it before spraying the perfume, and she ran in to check the daughter’s perfume and discovered it. So no harm done. Yet.”

I scowl. “Whoever did this is both a coward, attacking women and doing it in indirect ways, and they’re also incompetent.” I shake my head. “I’m not sure which is more embarrassing.”

Jesse nods. “Yep. Thank God they’re lousy at their job.”

“I am ready for your assignment. Do you want me to go to Colorado and start investigating?”

Jesse shakes his head. “In an abundance of caution, Emissary Jasper Carmichael is sending his wife and his daughter to two separate locations where they will remain until the assassin is identified. We’re not being told where the wife is going. The daughter is coming here.”

A sudden sense of unease crackles through my veins.

“Why is she coming here?”

“So we can guard her.” Jesse heaves a sigh. He taps a fat stack of papers that sits on the table in front of him, and then slides them over towards me. “Her father sent us a list of her food preferences, and other instructions for her care.”

I stare at the papers in distaste. “Her care?” I echo. “Is she a chihuahua?”

“If this list is to be believed, yes, but slightly more fragile. Her father claims she is very accident prone and requires 24-7 supervision. Her stepmother Drusilla, however, has contacted our pack secretary and assured her that we can ignore the list, since Violet’s father tends to be a little over-protective. ”

“A little?” I snort.

Then I frown at the papers. “You’re not telling me that I…”

“Yes. You are her bodyguard and protector until the assassin is caught. She can not leave pack grounds, and she can not leave your side. She will be staying in your cabin. I can’t emphasize how important it is that we keep her safe.”

“But I-” I strangle on the words. Never in my life have I voiced an objection to my Alpha’s order.

Then again, never in my life have I been ordered to be a glorified babysitter for a pampered, spoiled brat. Up until now, the Alpha has respected my talents more than that.

“Yes?” Jesse arches an eyebrow at me. “Are you up to the task?”

I nod my head dutifully. “As you command, Alpha.”

Jesse smiles sympathetically. “Listen, I know this isn’t your usual thing.

The Everpeak pack requested that we have our best, fiercest, strongest, most competent fighter watching over her.

He asked that I choose the person I’d have watching my own child.

” He and his human wife Lane are expecting.

She’s seven months along. “And that’s obviously you. ”

He is attempting to soften the blow, but he’s telling me things I already know. Obviously, I am the best, fiercest, strongest, most competent fighter in our entire region. Everyone knows that.

“I don’t need to remind you of how incredibly important this is for inter-pack relations.

Also, we can’t tell her why she’s here, because her father doesn’t want to upset her.

She thinks that we’re just watching over her because her father has to take most of his security team with him on a diplomatic mission and he doesn’t feel she’d be safe on the pack lands without them. ”

“But she already knows about the assassination attempts,” I protest.

“Not really. She was told that the silver in her oatmeal was an accidental mix-up, and she was not told about the arrow attack or the silver in her perfume. She is not to know why she’s here. That’s a direct order.”

“Yes, Alpha. Of course.” I incline my head in respect, exposing my neck. I would do this for no-one other than my Alpha.

Then I stand up glumly.

The door swings open, and our pack secretary Adele ushers in a curvaceous young woman with wide violet eyes, a small heart shaped mouth, and hair that cascades halfway down her back in black ringlets. She’s wearing a denim skirt and a white and blue polka-dot blouse, and white leather boots.

Violet Carmichael tilts her head at me and stares, her eyes widening. “Is that my bodyguard?” she asks Adele. “Why does he look like a sexy murder statue? And why do I suddenly feel really funny? I wonder if I’ve been poisoned. What does being poisoned feel like?”

I freeze where I stand, and for a heartbeat the world tilts.

My chest tightens, my muscles coil like springs, and heat roars through me, raw and demanding.

My wolf claws at my mind, desperate to break free, to mark, to claim—but I force it down because control is everything, and I will not lose control in front of the Alpha.

Every fiber of me recognizes this woman, even though I’ve never seen her before.

My pulse spikes, every nerve ending singing.

Her scent is layered—earthy, warm, faintly sharp with something uniquely hers—and it pulls at my wolf in a way that’s immediate, undeniable.

My limbs feel both heavy and electric at once.

I taste adrenaline and something else, something intimate and private, that has nothing to do with fight or flight.

I glance at her—those wide violet eyes, the small curve of her mouth, the way her ringlets catch the light—and my wolf howls silently inside me.

There are only two possibilities for what’s going on right now.

One possibility is that I’ve been been hexed with a spell that’s about to knock me dead – and I really hope that’s what is happening right now.

Because the other possibility is that Violet Carmichael is my fated mate.