Guarded

Prologue

Five years earlier

Iris needed to put as much distance as she could between her relentless pursuers and herself. Her lungs burned as she raced into the forest of soaring, red-barked ponderosa pine trees. Not for the first time, she wished their branches reached the forest floor to afford more concealment. Intermittent greenery from low lying shrubs and ferns blurred in her periphery as she focused on the fastest route in front of her while jumping over rocks, streams, and fallen branches.

The sandy soil sifted through her large toes as her paws desperately dug in for traction, veering left to avoid the bullet she heard whistling through the air at her right. Bark flew as it imbedded into one of the towering pines a mere two feet away. The idiots were going to kill her this time.

Adrenaline coursed through her system and its numbing effects made her feel as if she were flying. Fifteen minutes, she just had to keep moving for fifteen more minutes and she'd be safe for another month.

The jeering and laughing carried to her on the breeze and she could hear them revving the engines of their dirt bikes on the edge of the tree line. Come on wolfy wolfy, you can run faster than that. They'd laugh and then someone shouted, Come on Iris! Give us some sport! Don't make it so easy!

She pushed deeper into the woods, zigzagging to avoid possible bullets. She had to find somewhere their dirt bikes couldn't traverse. After living this nightmare every month for the past four years, she should have the forest memorized with a planned escape route in place, but it was difficult to outrun a pack of wolves, even if they were in human form to make it more of a challenge.

Up ahead was a large pile of boulders. If she could climb those, she might be able to evade them, or at least her slate grey fur might blend into the shadows supplied by their nooks and crannies. What was she thinking? They'd be able to smell her if nothing else. It didn't matter, there wasn't another option available, and she definitely couldn't outrun them all on flat land. As her muscles strained with her effort their bikes grew louder; they were closing in again.

She jumped part way up the first rock and her toenails scrabbled for purchase on the hard surface. Her hind leg slipped and she landed painfully on her knee. She tried to muffle her yelp to avoid drawing attention to herself, but it didn't matter, they already spotted her. Her muscles bunched as she jumped higher up the mound, seeking some form of shelter.

Rock sprayed from bullets hitting nearby and the flying shrapnel cut her nose. They were toying with her; she knew they were skilled in marksmanship. There was nowhere to hide, no shadows to melt into for cover. This month she wouldn't escape in time.

The maiming shot came from an angle and hit her low in the back, ripping through her side and knocking the breath out of her. She felt herself fall to the hard surface of the boulder four feet below, but still a good fifteen feet above the forest floor. Her ribs cracked as she landed on the uneven surface, and as her mind inched its way back from the mind-numbing shock of pain, she realized the whining and whimpering she heard was her own. The sound of the shooter hooting in victory assaulted her ears through the fog in her head. She lay on the rock, bleeding and panting; immobilized by the damage to her body. She gulped a whimper when she realized the voice of the hunter was Brody. He was the one to win the hunt this month and the guys would all be buying him victory drinks at The Watering Hole later tonight.

Their bikes revved to life and they fired their guns into the air in celebration as they drove back to the pack, leaving her to heal alone and find her own way home, again.

The cloying, copper tang of blood permeated the air among the normal smells of dirt, stagnant water, small prey, and pine. She watched the ominous puddle of red against the hard, grey surface of the rock slow its growth, an indication her wounds were healing.

As the noise from the motorcycle engines faded in the distance, the sounds of the forest came back to life. The buzz of insects, the scurry of small game, birdsong, and the rush of a nearby river filled the air. She let the natural symphony calm her mind and offer the comfort she desperately desired.

These hunts took place every month since her 14th birthday. Today was her 18th and she doubted they even knew or cared of the date's significance. A small group participated in the chase, but the rest of the pack never defended her, in fact, she believed they encouraged it. It had been years since she last looked for any form of compassion or love.

They varied their tortures, but each chase took place somewhere different. They would have her run for a length of time of their choice, and if they didn't catch her within the allotted time, then she won. Although, the few times she did win, she still received the abuse of their intimidation and fists due to frustration at being outrun.

As she lay on the rock in pain waiting for her body to heal, she dreamed of running away and finding a pack that would value her. But that generally led to feeling sorry for herself, so she abruptly stopped that line of thinking and concentrated on the chores she needed to complete before this evening if she wanted to avoid another beating. It was her role to make the meals and keep the house clean, in addition to her job at Gear's Garage, the engine repair shop owned by the pack.

They lived in a huge compound of several small houses. There were only 30 members, and out of the 30, there were three teenagers and two children under the age of ten, the rest were adults ranging from mid 20s to about 250 years old. Her parents weren't included in the count. A hunter killed them, or rather, a hunter killed her mother, and her father soon passed since they were true Kismet mates. She was a carefree and happy five year old at the time, unaware of cruelty in life.

Kismets are only found in the wolf shifter world. If a wolf is blessed enough to find their Kismet, their soul mate, they're mated for life. Kismets share their emotions and thoughts with each other through telepathy and are the perfect complement to the other. When one of the pair dies, the surviving mate shortly follows from heartbreak, as it was with Iris' parents.

Iris knew the only way out of her hellacious circumstance was to find her Kismet, and hope he was strong enough to fight for her. But since they never let her leave the pack, it wasn't likely she'd ever meet him. The outlook for her future was rather bleak.

Even though her future held little promise of happiness, she did have fond memories of her younger years, which were full of love. Her parents doted on her more than most parents did. Memories of her parents were blurry, but she remembers the feeling of safety and love. Shifters had a difficult time carrying babies to full term, so when a child was born there was always a massive celebration. Children were cherished.

Everything changed the year she turned eight. Gear, her Alpha, welcomed a human, Samil, into their fold. She never understood why a non-shifter was given pack status, but he was, and soon after his arrival, he gave everyone matching, magical tattoos. The tattoos were of a snake with a red and black diamond pattern on the inside of their forearms; even the young children were tattooed. She shuddered to recall the awful pain of the process. Luckily, years had dulled the memory of how horrifying it truly was.

Samil didn't live with the pack, but he would drop by several times a year. Every October, the pack would send one pack member to live with him. The pack members that volunteered never returned for a visit. No one ever knew what became of them, but each year, a new wolf was eager to be chosen by Samil. Iris couldn't stand him and never understood why anyone would want to head off to an unknown fate with the weasel of a man.

Sometime during Iris' ninth year, shortly after Samil joined them, she realized her pack mates had morphed into mean and abusive people; even the children were ruthless. They'd attack and pick on those that were weaker than they were. If they could torture it, they would. When Iris refused to join in on their sick games of pulling off frog legs and skinning housecats alive, or beating up the weaker human children in the area, they decided she would be the target of their cruelty as well.

It was a gradual change. At first, they taunted her for being a sissy when she didn't join them in their cruelty. Gear would half-heartedly reprimand them and they'd back off for a bit. But as time went by, the teasing became more frequent and Gear became less and less concerned for her well-being. The pack she relied on after her parents died became her worst nightmare.

As a little girl, she rode around on Brody's shoulders. She practically worshipped him and always begged him to swing her around and give her shoulder rides. He was her closest older brother in the pack and she always felt safe with him. He would even change into his shift and let her ride his back as if he were a pony. Focusing on memories of him tweaking her nose and ruffling her hair always made her smile, even at the worst of times, like now. She held out hope they'd be like that again.

When she was about six years old, a year after she lost her parents but before Samil's presence, she was playing by the river near their compound when she heard the hiss of a cougar. It terrified her and she froze, scared to move her feet. She wanted to call for help, but her vocal cords were too tight to obey her command. When she gathered enough gumption to turn toward the sound, she saw the cougar launching from its crouched position. With her feet frozen to the ground and eyes wide with fright, she watched in horror as Brody slammed into its body in mid-air. He fought the large cat and won, although he sustained several large swipes to his back.

He protected her, even at the cost of his own body. Now, he was the proverbial cougar. A tear slid down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away. She just wanted them to be as loving as they were in the past, as she knew they could be again.

After lying on the rocks for a couple of hours, Iris still couldn't feel her hind legs. It was now midday and she was exposed to the sun and incredibly thirsty in her thick coat. Panting wasn't enough to cool her body. The rock intensified the already hot 95 degree day. She decided to shift back to her human form in hopes that sweating would cool her down.

The change, however, was excruciating. As her spine began to reform into human shape, she felt the bones crunch and grind against each other. She'd never experienced a painful shift before and it terrified her. To add insult to injury, she still couldn't feel her legs. The intense pain in her back throbbed to the beat of her heart as she lay whimpering.

Iris suffered several severe injuries in her short life at the hands of Brody and his friends. She'd been shot, trapped, beaten, stoned, and burned. Her body eventually healed, except for some scars from the worst wounds; they were a daily reminder of their cruelty. This time was different though and she knew something was terribly wrong.

Dragging her body forward with the waning strength of her arms, she slid into a shadow created by the moving sun. Another tear slid down her cheek and dropped on the granite boulder before quickly evaporating.

A ground squirrel was eyeing her from his perch above her head, stretching forward to see her over the side of the rock he occupied. He jumped down and scampered across the large boulder, stopping a foot short of her prone body. Sitting on his back haunches, he assessed her danger quotient. Apparently, he decided she wasn't a threat, which surprised her - she was a shifter after all. He moved forward in a quick darting motion to pull a piece of hair free from her scalp with his tiny paw. It didn't hurt compared to the pain in her back, so she did nothing but eye him as he ran away with her hair clasped in his fist, presumably to his nest somewhere.

She realized that if a ground squirrel found her easy pickings, then a cougar or pack of coyotes wouldn't have any reservation about attacking her. She shuddered to think about running into a cougar without the ability to run or fight.

Judging from the sun, it was now mid-afternoon and she wasn't improving. Gear would be irate when she didn't arrive back at the compound in time for her chores. This day was only getting worse.

Gear's real name was Charlie, but due to his love of working on engines everyone called him Gear. He'd been the Alpha her entire life. He's only in his early 100s and his Kismet, Gloria, will have her 80th birthday soon. Since wolves live to be about 300 years old, they both have a long life still ahead of them.

Gear was her main father figure after her parents died. The entire pack worked to raise her, but he was especially diligent in her upbringing, maybe because he was Alpha and felt a large sense of responsibility. He let her hang around and watch him as he worked in his garage, aptly named after him. She was the one in charge of handing him his tools, much like a nurse for a doctor. He'd bark out commands of wrench, 3/4 socket, pliers, and she'd hastily hand them to him as he was lying underneath the car on his wheelie cart. She then cleaned the tool he was finished with before putting it away in its designated spot.

Gear's garage was meticulously organized. Every tool had its own place and you could find them there or in his hand. She remembered when some wolves came in and borrowed a tool without asking permission, and on top of that, didn't return it properly. She'd never seen a wolf so angry. They never made that mistake again.

Gear's mate, Gloria, was tough as steel, but had a softness and kindness in her eyes that seemed to understand the trials Iris went through after losing her parents. Gloria would often have cookies and milk waiting for them when they came in from a hard day of work in the garage.

With tears threatening to spill down her soft cheeks, Gloria would pat Iris on the shoulder and say, You're a gift in this house, the daughter we never had. Iris would smile and hug her, then she and Gear would grab their cookies and milk and see which of them could dunk their cookies in the milk longest without it falling apart.

Those were all fond memories of her young childhood though, before the pack changed and became the cruel group of wolves they are today. When Iris felt the most depressed and alone, she would dredge up the comforting memories and attempt to bandage the hurt in her heart.

As she lay on her boulder, the sun continued its crawl west and began to dip behind the Cascade Mountain Range. She was afraid to shift after the pain of her last transformation, but she needed to stay warm if she were to be staying here for the night, plus her wolf form was stronger and would help her heal faster along with scaring off any predators.

Steeling herself, she gritted her teeth and allowed her wolf to come forward as fast as she could, like ripping off a bandage. The pain felt like hot metal poured down her back. She cried out in agony and her wolf howled. She felt her face shift, along with her arms and legs, but her spine wouldn't change, so the mismatched appendages wouldn't coalesce into a new shape. She tried to force it, but it her body wouldn't budge. She melded back to human and lay breathless from the pain the attempt caused. She couldn't shift.

Her heart rate beat fast in her chest and panic began to engulf her. She'd never felt pain like that when shifting and her legs still wouldn't move. For some reason she wasn't healing, which was unheard of for shifters. The real fear of being permanently paralyzed began to set in. She had to think clearly. She had to contain her emotions. Closing her eyes, she took deep, slow breaths to calm her heart rate.

The pain and anxiety had taken its toll on her body and as she relaxed and gathered her composure, she didn't have any fight left in her to keep the exhaustion at bay. Her eyelids felt weighted and her body relaxed into the heat of the rock as she fell asleep.

Chapter 1

Present day

Jason sat at Garrett and Riley's dining table, with one arm draped casually over an empty chair to his left and his other hand resting lightly on the tabletop. He studied his reflection in the dark windows. His posture with his outstretched legs conveyed a calmness he didn't feel. The index finger of his right hand ran over the ridges of the wooden table repeatedly; the only outward indication he wasn't completely relaxed.

The whole gang was there. Riley sat to Garrett's right, holding their sleeping son, Zander. Ryan, Sam, Chase, and Jasper took up the other chairs. Even the dogs, Wolf and Rio, were lying a few feet away in front of the fireplace, snoring peacefully after their full day of playing.

It was Sunday night and they had just returned from a long weekend training session with The Guard and were sharing a meal together before dispersing to their own homes. The plates had already been cleared and everyone was enjoying the last few moments of each other's company.

The Guard, or Vakten as it was called in the olden days, was reestablished almost two years ago when they found Serena, a Siren that was breaking the laws by murdering humans and flaunting her power where humans could see it. They all knew the punishment for showing their true nature to humans was death. She had kidnapped Sam, Riley's best friend and now Ryan's wife, in a jealous rage. Serena had her sights on Ryan because he is Rapha. Rapha are rare and gifted healers who can't be swayed by the allure of the Siren, so Serena found him to be a worthy conquest and worked to get Sam out of the way, even though Sam was Serena's estranged daughter.

While planning Sam's rescue from Serena, Garrett was named Alpha of The Guard by the Wolf Shifter Elders. In addition, Ryan found he could wield Rapha Fire, a deadly power that most thought was myth, and saved Sam's life with it by destroying Serena.

Jason's head still throbbed when thinking of all the chaos during that time. Since then, The Guard had been practicing together and honing their skills in case another threat came their way. Garrett allowed the members to live in whichever pack they chose and he was only considered Alpha when it came to The Guard activities.

Jason secretly assumed the Wolf Shifter Elders appointed Garrett as Alpha to have the appearance of being in control of him. They knew that Garrett's wolf was stronger than their own and were fearful of him leading a rebellion against the Elders. Jason assumed they hoped Garrett wouldn't do so if they gave him a pack. Jason and Garrett had been best friends since childhood and Jason knew Garrett didn't have any lofty aspirations of running a pack. His only goal was to keep Riley, his Kismet, and now their son, little Z, safe from harm.

He watched the banter between his friends, almost as if he were in a haze, not really hearing the conversation. He was feeling edgy and needed to get away for a while, but wasn’t sure where to go or how to bring it up with everyone. He didn’t want Garrett worrying about his mental stability. It wasn’t normal for a wolf to feel edgy with a need to travel or leave his pack so he was already concerned about his mental stability enough for both of them.

Jason realized Sam was talking to him when she said, Jason, did you hear anything I said?

He felt like an idiot, but tried to feign being tired instead. Sorry. I was zoned out. Guess I didn’t sleep well while we were away at training. He didn’t miss the puzzled face Sam gave him, but he ignored it and she was polite enough not to question his stupid excuse. Wolf shifters had great stamina and she knew his excuse was a cover-up.

Well, I was asking if you wanted to come over to our place next Friday for a party, she explained.

Oh yah, sure. I’ll be there, he answered without enthusiasm. Why didn’t he feel like going to a party? He was usually the first one to show up and the last to leave. In fact, he was usually the host.

The only thing that seemed to ground him was holding Zander. Riley was kind enough to pass him around and give everyone a chance to hold him. He was a brawny little guy for being just a few months old. He had Garrett's brown eyes and Riley's pert little nose. He glanced up at Garrett and saw the tension in his shoulders. Jason knew that Garrett trusted all of them, but he still had a hard time when Zander was in someone else's arms.

Jason chuckled and shook his head. Don't worry, Dad, he's safe with me. Garrett replied with a half growl, half sigh as he relaxed his shoulders. Riley laughed and put her hand over Garrett's and gave it a squeeze.

No one was sure if Zander would be a shifter. They knew Riley's Rapha ability wasn't hereditary, so it's a possibility he'd be human with a very short life compared to their own. They wouldn't know until he was nearing his twelfth birthday.

After a few minutes of letting a happy, cooing baby slobber on his fist, he passed him over to Jasper's eager arms.

At ten o'clock, the group began to split up for the night. He, Jasper, and Chase began to head back to the house they shared when Sam stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

Can I talk to you for a moment? she asked with a