Read Online Hear No Evil (Alpha Guardians Book 2) by Vivian Wood - Free Book Online

urge to claim her was growing by the moment, the need strengthened by touching her, watching her cry out and release at his hand. His doing. His mate.
    “Gabriel?” Cassie’s lips moved against his chest, her voice so quiet he could barely hear it over the sound of the music.
    “Yes, darling?” The word slipped past his lips for the second time in mere minutes, and Gabriel found himself wincing.
    “Take me home? To the Manor, I mean,” she said, letting her head fall to the side so that Gabriel could see her expression. It was different than what he’d seen on her before. Tired, but more than that… vulnerable.
    A tiny part of Gabriel shouted that he should flee, run away before he managed to foul things up, before he could hurt such a perfect creature. But the bigger part of him, the selfish, hungry, lonely part, just gave her a brittle smile and a nod.
    “Of course,” he said, lifting her up in his arms.
    Cassie clung to him as he swept her from the club, not even pausing to find his fellow Guardians before he hailed their car. By the time he’d climbed into the back seat of the SUV, Cassie was dead asleep in his arms, a smile on her lips.
    He was more torn than he’d ever been. Even in his lowest moment, signing away his life to Mere Marie in exchange for the life of his sister, he’d known what he must do. He’d been the one to kill his sister, playing with magic he couldn’t control; he would have given anything to save Caroline, and he’d paid for his foolishness in spades. His old life was gone, and now…
    Now, he was not a free man. He was a Guardian first and foremost. Choosing or discarding Cassie should be simple enough, a well-considered decision made after he factored in his past mistakes and his loyalty to Mere Marie.
    He shouldn’t have ever laid a finger on Cassie, mating call or no.
    But then, he looked at her, and something in him refused to push her away. In the space of a few days, he’d started to lose his sense of self, his sense of anything but a bear shifter desiring his mate. He wanted her, all of her, but he’d already once proven he couldn’t be trusted to care for a woman, no matter how strongly he felt about her.
    Gabriel had died, it seemed. That was the only way to explain the fact that he’d been given a mate, a rare enough thing in itself. But this mate, this delicate beauty, enough to tempt him to any level of sin -- death itself was the only explanation for the strange turn of events. The only problem was that, if he had indeed died, he wasn’t yet certain if he’d gone to Heaven or Hell.
    Looking down at the woman sleeping in his arms, Gabriel couldn’t begin to decide.

    “ L ook who’s finally up !” Echo’s teasing scold was the first thing Gabriel heard when he walked into the common room a day and a half later.
    After his little tete-a-tete with Cassie at the club, Gabriel ended up tucking her into bed in the guest bedroom on his floor of the Manor. When Gabriel returned to his own bedroom, he’d only managed to remove his bowtie before Aeric sent him a text alerting him to a Kith emergency. All hands on deck, Guardian-wise.
    Gabriel, Aeric, and Rhys were tied up with a Vampire attack, a report of suspicious activity in St. Louis Cemetery #1 that just turned out to be a bunch of human kids fooling around, and then they spent a good deal of time pursuing and containing an out-of-control werewolf on the loose near an elementary school. On top of all that, Gabriel only snatched a few hours before his patrol, so when he’d crawled into bed at dawn, he’d slept much later than usual.
    Gabriel looked at his wristwatch.
    “What, it’s only… two in the afternoon,” he told Echo as he walked into the kitchen area.
    He nearly stopped short at the sight that met him. Echo and Aeric sat on stools at the kitchen island bar, eagerly watching Rhys and Cassie, who wore matching blue and white polka dot aprons. The apron looked appropriate on Cassie, cute even, but