Guardian's Mate Read online

  “For what?” Dimitri yelled, not sure he’d heard him over the crowd.

  The Lupine smirked and walked away, his shoulders back in arrogance, then he disappeared into the darkness beyond the arena’s flaring light.

  Another Shifter smacked into Dimitri, carrying him sideways. Dimitri gave up on the Lupine and rolled back into the fight.

  Jaycee was yelling at a couple of Shifters who were barely past their Transitions—their fighting blood would be at its hottest. Dimitri waded over to help her.

  Behind him, a truck was pulling up, a big thing, unmarked, with a water hose coiled behind it. Shit, where had a Shifter found . . . ?

  He stopped worrying about it. Dylan, the most powerful Shifter in South Texas; or his son Sean, a Guardian; or Kendrick, Dimitri’s leader would have the resources to come up with a water truck on the spur of the moment.

  Dimitri reached Jaycee and the overgrown cubs. They were Collared, from the Austin Shiftertown, and eager to fight.

  “Time to go,” Dimitri said. He swept open his arms, carrying Jaycee and the two younger Shifters out from under the old barn that was their arena and into the night.

  Behind him, squeals and howls rose as a hundred Shifters suddenly got very, very wet.

  “Jaycee,” Dimitri said.

  She turned from shoving the younger Shifters into the trees at the edge of the clearing, inquiry on her face.

  Dimitri wanted to yell at her, demanding to know what the hell she was thinking rushing into the ring like that, breaking every rule of the fight club. She’d endangered herself not only from the crazy Lupine fighting Dimitri, but every Shifter in the place.

  He thought about how she’d fought the wolf, almost casually avoiding his attack and then smacking him down into unconsciousness.

  “What?” Jaycee asked when he didn’t speak. “You mean, why am I such an idiot?” Sometimes she’d talk for him, so he wouldn’t have to struggle with what he wanted to say.

  Dimitri shook his head. He reached for Jaycee and dragged her to him, her fine flesh bare against his.

  He tucked his hand under her soft hair and turned her startled face up to him, his mouth coming down on hers in a long, hard kiss.

  Around them, chaos reigned, Shifters shouting and furious as the water truck cooled down the hot mob. None of that reached Dimitri, in a bubble of calm with Jaycee.

  Her mouth was hot, her body the same, her kiss holding her fire. She wrapped her arms around him and stepped closer, letting him know she could give into mating frenzy if he did.

  The chill in the air to either side of Dimitri kicked him out of the warm place into which he’d been sinking.

  He lifted his head to find Kendrick, his leader, a white tiger Shifter, on his left, the hilt of the Sword of the Guardian rising above his shoulder. On Dimitri’s other side was Dylan Morrissey, a Feline every Shifter around answered to.

  Jaycee lifted her head, color flooding her face. She kept close to Dimitri, hiding her body, her sudden shyness making Dimitri’s protectiveness surge.

  “Dimitri,” Kendrick said in his growling voice, which was deceptively soft. “Jaycee. We need to talk.”

  Jennifer Ashley, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shifters Unbound and Mackenzies series, and winner of a Romance Writers of America RITA Award, also writes as national bestselling and award-winning author Allyson James. She lives in the Southwest with her husband and cats, and spends most of her time in the wonderful worlds of her stories.

  More about the series and Jennifer’s books can be found on her website, jenniferashley.com, facebook.com/JenniferAshleyAllysonJamesAshleyGardner, and twitter.com/JennAllyson.

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