“Okay.” He rubbed a hand through his thick hair. “Here’s the deal, and you’re not going to understand it. But from now on, you’re under my protection. If anybody threatens you, if anybody comes after you, you use my name. Promise me.”
She coughed, her mind spinning. “I’m. A. Cop.” Why the hell did he keep forgetting that? “I protect you, badass biker buddy.” Just how dangerous were King and those two boys?
Kellach pulled the car up to the curb in front of her apartment in record time.
She gaped. “How did you know where I live?” As a cop, her address was unlisted.
“I have my sources.” He jumped into the rain and hustled around to assist her from the car.
For the briefest of moments, she was tempted to wrestle him to the ground and arrest him. But for what? Sure, he’d taken her gun, but she really didn’t want to admit that one, did she?
He frowned at the closed Thai restaurant and then looked around at the dingy, dangerous neighborhood. “You live here?”
Her spine stiffened. “I do now.” She’d sold her house to pay her mother’s medical bills, and so far just kept going deeper and deeper into debt. That was none of his business. She held out her hand. “My gun.”
He finished perusing the neighborhood and looked up at her apartment. His body stilled. Then, slowly, he pressed the gun into her hands. “Stay here, darlin’. There’s somebody in your apartment.”
Kell ran up the stairs toward Alexandra’s apartment, his senses on high alert. Three heartbeats. Tuning in, he could make out their locations. Spread out, waiting to strike.
Fucking bastards.
He reached the door, and Alexandra shoved him aside.
Damn it. He’d told her to remain downstairs.
She gingerly slid a key into the lock, her gun out, total focus on her stunning face. He paused to give her a signal, and the woman darted inside. She yelped and jumped to the side.
Electrodes pierced his chest, and voltage zipped into him.
His breath caught and he staggered, reaching out an arm to the wall.
Alexandra leaped in front of him, hitting a moving man dead center in a hard tackle. They went down, crashing a wooden coffee table into splinters. Then the woman fought. She scored two sharp punches to the guy’s nose, and then scissored both legs around his neck, quickly incapacitating him even though he was twice her size. A closer look revealed the prick to be Duck.
Holy fucking damn it.
A second man, one Kell didn’t recognize, tried to jump into the fray.
Kell shook his head to clear the electricity and leaped over the grappling duo and rammed the second guy into a wall. The human fought back, and well, punching Kell in the gut and then the face. Kell twisted, wedging his elbow beneath the man’s jaw, jerking his head up and against a print of a tranquil lake. Another quick punch to the nose, and the man went down, spraying blood.
“Freeze,” Alexandra yelled from behind him.
He turned just in time to see her jump up and run out the front door, gun out. Kicking free of the tangle of limbs at his feet, he hurried after her, taking the stairs four at a time. At the street level, he ran into her.
She turned around, her gaze sweeping the street. “See anybody?”
A car flared to life two blocks away and spun out. Kell’s shoulders relaxed. “No.” His heart finally slowed, and he curled both hands over her shoulders to turn her around. “Are you all right?” Beneath his palms, her pulse beat wildly.
“Yes.” She panted out air. “Ticked we lost the third guy.” Lifting her head, she winced and then tugged electrodes from his chest. “How are you even standing?”
“Not enough juice in the stun gun, I guess,” he lied. He brushed the hair from her face, irritation filling him when he spotted a bruise near her temple. “How’s your head?”
“Good.” She tugged a phone from her back pocket. “I need to call this in.”
Yeah. And he needed to go fight with the King of the Realm.
“I’ll wait for your backup to arrive.” Turning her, he headed back inside. “Next time we face danger, how about you let me go first?”
“Why?” She flashed him a grin. “You took the charge instead of me.”
He rubbed his smarting chest. “Good point.”
“Did you see the third guy?” she asked, nudging her door open with one foot.
“No. He was off to the side and slid away while we were fighting with the other two.” Kell nodded toward the two men who lay unconscious still, and smiled. “Where’d you learn to fight, sweetheart?”
She’d been a pleasure to watch, however briefly.
She shrugged. “Junior High. Where else?”
Where else, indeed. He eyed her ruffled hair and bright eyes. There was a lot more to Detective Alexandra Monzelle than he’d initially thought. “How about you let me question these two guys for you— just until your backup arrives?” He could awaken them easily and with minimal burning, considering they were just human, as was the guy who’d escaped.