CHAPTER SIX

Kendrick couldn’t move. Addison stood like a sharp blade of grass, or maybe a strong young tree, ready to face the world and not be broken by it. Fragile and not knowing she was.

Human women couldn’t defend themselves like Shifter women could. A female Shifter could kick a male Shifter’s ass, and everyone knew it. Human males over the centuries had subjugated their females until their women believed themselves weak.

Addison was human, and vulnerable. The thought of her wandering in the dark, open to every person driving by, made him furious. “You won’t have to walk away alone,” Kendrick said, his voice edged. “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

“And then where will you go?” Addison looked pointedly at the boys’ bags Robbie had readied and lined up, waiting to be loaded onto the motorcycle in case they had to go. Which they did now.

“Far from here.”

Addison met his eyes without fear. Humans weren’t supposed to be able to do that. Kendrick was an alpha, a Guardian, and few were his equal. Most Shifters dropped their gazes or looked away to avoid his stare.

Addison simply looked at him, unimpressed. Her blue eyes caught him, and he saw in them a spark of lightness that his life had forgotten.

He’d known her only a brief time, and they’d barely spoken, but Kendrick knew that if he said good-bye to her tonight, he’d grieve. He should send her away from him, safe and free, but the very selfish part of him, the one he’d never been able to indulge, wanted her close. Wanted her where he could put out his hand and touch her.

“You mean you’ll never tell me,” Addison was saying in her cheerful voice. “You won’t get in touch or let me know how the kids are doing or come into whatever diner I work in next for a slice of pie.”

Kendrick cleared his throat. “It has to be so.”

Addison took a step forward. “Why does it?” She drew a breath then blurted out the next words. “Take me with you, Kendrick. Wherever it is you’re going. You need someone to look after your kids . . . I mean, your cubs. Right? If you’re going to be fighting people, you need someone to take care of them. And I need a job. So . . . how about it?”

Kendrick stopped. “So you want to, what? Be my cubs’ nanny?”

“Sure, why not? You can pay me a little salary, I’ll look after them, and you keep the cops from putting me in jail. You owe me, since they suspected me of robbing the place because of your overzealous generosity.”

She was serious. Addison stood there, quivering with optimism, and with worry that he’d walk away from her, like he should.

“You have no idea what you’re offering,” he said, voice hard. “No idea of the danger.”

“Probably not. But people shot at you, Kendrick. I won’t sleep easy thinking that your kids—cubs—are in that kind of situation again. I want to know they’re safe.”

She didn’t mention it, but it was also Kendrick’s fault she was now jobless. If Kendrick had kept himself away from the diner and not given in to the temptation of seeing her, she’d be happy and well, at home with her sister, anticipating another day waiting tables.

Again, his anger stirred. Addison was watching him, eyes wide, still wearing the ugly salmon pink one-piece dress that hung shapelessly on her body. The dress was supposed to hide her—though nothing could ever truly hide her beauty.

She should be in lovely clothes that complemented her curving body, with jewels on her wrists and at her throat. A man should be taking her out in a luxurious car, showing her off to the world. But no, she was in a dingy motel room, with a man who had the money to give her everything, and didn’t dare.