Bodyguard (Shifters Unbound #2.5) by Jennifer Ashley

Olaf and
pulled the cover over her, kicking her loose shoes to the floor.
Olaf snuggled back against her and looked up at Ronan.
    "Stay too," he said.
    Ronan heaved a sigh. "Becks is spoiling you.
Fine, big guy. We'll both stay."
    He collapsed onto Scott's empty bed, which
creaked under his weight, then shucked his belt and shoes and
pulled quilts over his big body.
    Olaf fell asleep quickly, but Elizabeth
remained awake next to him, still feeling the imprint of Ronan's
kiss. Her life was changing dramatically as she watched, and she
needed to make decisions.
    Ronan, up most of the night before, all day
at the store, and then again tonight, fell asleep quickly. He
snored. Rebecca hadn't been kidding. Not snorting wet-sounding
snores, but deep, steady ones, his breath going all the way to the
bottom of his lungs and coming all the way out again.
    The sound didn't bother Elizabeth. It was
comforting. A huge, strong man slept near her, on hand to defend
her. Ronan was a swift, silent killer, and a protector, and beneath
all that, he had a heart of vast generosity. Elizabeth in the past
had been duped by people who'd pretended to be kind, but Ronan was
kind while pretending not to be.
    Elizabeth drifted off to sleep so gradually
she didn't know she was doing it, but all through the night, she
heard the solidity of Ronan's snores, and knew she was guarded.
    *** *** ***
    Sundays, Elizabeth always closed the store
but went to work in the back, getting ready for the week to come.
Ronan went in with her, and Ellison and Spike came to fix the
bear-shaped hole in her door.
    Rebecca had returned while Ronan and
Elizabeth breakfasted with the ravenous Olaf, Rebecca looking tired
but pleased with herself. She was wearing a "Keep Austin Weird"
T-shirt that hadn't been on her when she left.
    "Good shopping trip, I take it?" Elizabeth
said, licking honey from her fork.
    "Oh, yeah." Rebecca yawned, stretched, and
went upstairs to shower.
    Scott came home before Elizabeth and Ronan
left, as did Cherie and Mabel. Cherie and Mabel were chipper; Scott
mumbled something and shuffled upstairs to his bedroom.
    Olaf wanted to see the store, but Elizabeth,
uncertain that Marquez or his friends wouldn't return, said no.
Olaf was disappointed, but he agreed, with surprising cheerfulness,
to wait until Ronan thought it safe.
    "He trusts you," Elizabeth said as she and
Ronan headed out for Ronan's motorcycle.
    "Olaf? Mostly. He just gets scared at night.
You sleep okay?"
    "Yes." She had. In spite of the late night
and early start, Elizabeth felt refreshed. In the room with Olaf
and Ronan, she'd let herself completely relax for the first time in
. . . well, forever.
    Spike and Ellison were waiting outside the
store when they arrived. Ellison lounged on the hood of his pickup,
a long, tall Texan if Elizabeth ever saw one, though Ronan had told
her he'd come here from Colorado.
    Spike looked pure urban biker. He leaned
against the wall outside the store, skin well inked, sunglasses
against the glare, and motorcycle boots and grease-stained jeans to
Ellison's cowboy boots. This morning, though, one side of his face
was purple and black, and when he took off his sunglasses, his left
eye definitely sported a shiner.
    "What happened to you?" Elizabeth asked.
    "Fight club." Spike shrugged tight shoulders.
"Don't tell Liam."
    Elizabeth wanted to ask, but other store
owners were looking out their doors at the Shifters. Elizabeth got
the store unlocked and them inside as quickly as she could.
    "Fight club?" she asked Ronan as Ellison and
Spike carried toolboxes to the torn-up wall. The two Shifters
started pondering how to fix it in the universal male way of
standing back and staring at it.
    Ronan didn't look very surprised at her
question. "Liam gets pissed off, because he says it's glorified
cock fighting, and he's right. But he doesn't stop Shifters
going--the fights allow us to let off steam. Fight clubs are
privately arranged bouts between Shifters, no holds