Page 17 of Protector Unmatched

8

Once outside Daphne’s apartment, Pearce took a deep breath. Wow! This evening hadn’t gone at all how he’d expected. But he wasn’t complaining. Kissing Daphne hadn’t been part of his initial plan, but when it had happened and when Daphne welcomed him so openly, he’d barely been able to stop himself from ripping her clothes off and burying his rock-hard cock deep inside her until they were both sated. Only one thing had stopped him: the knowledge that Daphne was his would-be killer. He couldn’t trust her. Besides, he had her wallet in his jacket pocket and a dagger in his boot. Had they gotten naked, she might have seen either item.

So he’d played the respectful man who didn’t fuck a woman on the first night of meeting her, even though that was a difficult character to play. Shy computer geek had been a little easier—it came more natural, because, deep down, that’s what he was. He still couldn’t figure out why she’d invited him to her place, but once he was back at the compound, he’d run a full background check on her to see if it would help him understand her. But first, he had to return to Daphne’s office.

Entering the locked and guarded office building at night was much easier than it had been during the day, because this time he was alone and could make use of his skill of walking through walls. He remained invisible the entire time he was inside the building, and the night security guard was none the wiser. Nevertheless, Pearce had to be careful. A few employees burned the midnight oil on the floor Daphne worked on.

As quietly as possible, Pearce made his way to her cubicle and looked for a good spot where to leave Daphne’s wallet. It couldn’t be in plain sight, or she’d never believe she’d forgotten it in the office. The solution came in the form of a half-eaten bag of chips. He placed the wallet underneath it, only allowing a small corner to peek from it. Tomorrow, when Daphne returned to the office and wanted to snack on the salty treats, she would discover her wallet.

His work done, he left the building the same way he’d entered it.

When he entered the compound kitchen around midnight to grab another drink, he was surprised to see that he wasn’t the only one still awake. In fact, all his fellow Stealth Guardians—Aiden, Hamish, Manus, Logan, and Enya—had congregated in the kitchen.

“What the fuck, Pearce!” Logan greeted him.

“Somebody’s in a bad mood. What’s going on? Did we have demon activity?” Pearce asked, and glanced at the others. To his surprise, they looked just as surly as Logan.

“Where the fuck were you?” Manus growled.

“We’re your family, and you just let us wonder what happened to you?” Hamish added.

Fuck, the jig was up. But on the off chance that this wasn’t about the death vision, he played the clueless one, another role he had trouble identifying with. “Can you guys be a little less cryptic? I’m tired. I wanna go to bed.”

“You’re not going anywhere before we’ve talked about this,” Logan insisted. “You were gone for hours, without asking anybody to cover your shift, without answering your phone.”

Ah, shit, Pearce had totally forgotten that he was supposed to cover the late shift in the command center. In his defense, he’d thought he’d be back earlier. “So I forgot. And my phone was probably on silent.” Had he forgotten to put the ringer back on after his earlier excursion with Winter? Anyway, it didn’t matter. At least all his friends were pissed about was that he’d skipped a shift and hadn’t answered his phone. “Sorry, guys, but you’re really taking this all too seriously. Do you have any idea how many shifts I’ve had to cover for you guys? So, I miss one tiny little shift, and you give me crap. That blows.”

He marched toward the refrigerator to get a drink.

“You think this is about a fucking shift?”

Logan’s incredulous tone made Pearce look over his shoulder.

“This is about Winter’s vision.”

“Shit,” Pearce cursed under his breath, but they all heard him. It was time to go on the offensive. “If your wife could keep a secret for longer than two seconds—”

Logan already had him by the collar of his shirt. “Don’t you say one bad thing about Winter, or else! You should be grateful that she warned you! And that she was worried about you when you didn’t show up for your shift and didn’t answer her calls. So worried, in fact, that she confessed that she’d seen you die in her vision. But instead of heeding her warning, what do you do? You go out and chase after your killer! Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Pearce had heard enough. He pushed Logan off him and narrowed his eyes. “It’s none of your fucking business what I do. Yes, Winter warned me. But she also promised to keep the vision to herself. I thought she was on board after we identified the woman from her vision together and—”

“You did what?” Logan glared at him. “Are you saying you took Winter out of the compound to identify your killer for you?”

Pearce raised an eyebrow. Apparently Winter had conveniently left that part of the story out in order not to get into more hot water with her overprotective mate. Pearce hadn’t meant to rat her out; he’d simply assumed that Logan already knew.

“Oops.” When Logan growled, Pearce said, “Don’t blame her. I talked her into it. Besides, she was invisible the entire time. There was no danger of a demon spotting her. You can trust me on that. I’d never put your mate in danger.” He looked at Hamish, Aiden, and Manus. “Nor yours.”

“You’d better not,” Aiden grumbled, while Hamish only nodded.

Manus tilted his chin up. “You should have called a meeting to discuss how to proceed.”

“What part of it’s my business did you not get?” Pearce asked.

“Well, apparently none of us got that part,” Hamish said. “So why don’t you explain it to us?” He folded his arms across his chest and widened his stance.

“There’s nothing to explain. I’m gonna deal with it.”

“Without a Second? Out of the question,” Hamish said. “You can’t go out to eliminate her without backup.”