When she’d told her Uncle Marvin about it, he’d been dismissive as usual, so she’d footed the bill for the contractor before they lost customers to the summer heat.

  How ironic, considering the bar, along with the not-broken AC, were just a pile of ash and rubble now.

  But for some odd reason, she didn’t want to tell all of that to Gunnar. The last thing she wanted was his pity.

  They turned the corner and finally reached her house. It was shaped like a box, only one story high, and the aged white paint was cracked and peeling practically everywhere. In front, the small yard was full of weeds she’d tried very hard last year to take care of, only to have them all come back again this year.

  Home sweet home.

  Gunnar stood next to her, and he looked at her humble abode, folded his arms, and grunted in a displeased-sounding way.

  She looked up at him, annoyed now, and saw his lips were turned down in a slight grimace as he continued to appraise her house.

  “Hey, I agreed to let you protect me, not make fun of me!”

  “This isn’t safe to live in,” Gunnar stated matter-of-factly.

  “What are you talking about?” She waved a hand toward the off-white structure, ignoring the huge splits in the sidewalk and the cracked windows and the loose siding along the walls. “It has… character.”

  After all, she’d been living here almost her whole adult life after moving out of her family’s attic back at their home. For years, her uncle and cousins had promised to fix the glaring issues with the place, but unsurprisingly, her problems had always taken a back seat to everything else in their lives.

  “How much does your uncle pay you?” He looked down at her with disapproval.

  She was silent at that.

  No reason to make him angrier than he already was.

  He waited for a moment, and when April didn’t respond, he let out a low grumble that seemed to come from his chest, not his throat. Then he extended a hand toward her, palm open. “I’ll fix your car first.” Then his fingers made a give them here motion, which she could only assume meant he wanted her keys.

  “What? You’re joking, right?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” The stern set of his thick brows, coupled with the slight frown on his face, only made him more intimidatingly handsome as it accentuated his high cheekbones and full lips.

  “I…” She stopped, hands hanging limply at her sides now.

  She wanted to be mad at him. After all, he wasn’t the boss of her.

  But then again, he was the only person in her life actually offering to do something for her rather than promising to help while leaving her hanging.

  “Fine,” she said, pulling her key ring from her pocket and unthreading the key to her old rust bucket of a car. When it was in his hand, it disappeared between his rough fingers, and he seemed to calm slightly even as she trudged up the steps to her house. “But just my car. And that’s it.”

  She felt afraid she’d fall for him too hard, too fast with the way he seemed intent on disrupting the status quo that always put her at the bottom of people’s worries.

  Gunnar watched her as she reached the top of the rickety steps and pulled on the screen door.

  Then, as if to make a point, with a metallic clank, it fell off completely as one of the hinges gave way, and April jumped in surprise as it clattered onto the ground.

  When she looked back at him, Gunnar was full-on grinning as if to say, Yeah, right.

  Smug jerk, she thought.

  She ignored him, unlocked the front door, and went inside before more things could break around her.

  Inside, the familiar musty scent of her house calmed her heart slightly, and she went over to the answering machine once she saw the little red light beeping on the front of it.

  Since her cell phone had only worked half of the time, she’d kept the old landline running in case it ever went kaput (though she hadn’t planned on Gunnar crushing it like he had).

  There were three messages, and she pressed play.

  The rasp of her uncle’s breathing came on a split second before his screech. “How dare you hang up on me, April? After all I—”

  Beep. April deleted it before Gunnar overheard it and came crashing through the front door to crush her answering machine as well.

  Not that the image wasn’t hilarious as it played out in her head.

  The next was from Tiffany, who’d left a long message thanking April again for her heroism and for saving her life.

  April hadn’t done it for the gratitude. She’d done it because it was the right thing to do.

  To her surprise, at the end of the message, Tiffany’s exuberant thank-yous turned to curiosity, and her voice came over the speaker in the secretive tone she always had when talking boys. “And by the way, did I see you walking home with that basilisk when you crossed Pine Street?”

  April rapidly hit the “next message” button, her face flaming with embarrassment.

  More like followed her home like a stalker.

  The last was from her neighbor, Carl, a half wolf who’d been her friend off and on her whole life and who just happened to be her neighbor, though their houses were a few hundred feet apart as the homes on the outskirts of town got farther and farther apart.

  In a hurried tone, he said he’d heard about what had happened and that he was coming over immediately.

  April sighed. Carl had always been nice. There’d just never been a spark, at least on her end.

  She smelled soot and ash and worried for a moment her house had miraculously been set on fire too, then quickly realized she smelled like the fire and made a note to take a shower.

  But first, she strode over to her fridge and pulled out a water bottle. Then, unsure if Gunnar would prefer water or something else, she grabbed a bottle of beer as well and took both outside, already curious to see if Gunnar had made any progress (not that she’d expected him to).

  Her expectations for people were pretty low these days.

  She’d only barely gotten out her front door, being careful to avoid the aluminum carcass of her fallen screen door, when she spotted Carl jogging down the sidewalk.

  April could only barely see Gunnar, as his back was to her while he messed with things beneath the hood of her car.

  She didn’t even have time to take the drinks to him as Carl met her at the bottom of the steps, his medium-length red hair mussed, his blue-green eyes full of worry.

  “You didn’t call me back or answer my messages. I’ve been worried sick,” Carl said, running a hand through his hair.

  April supposed he might be considered attractive, with his boyish looks and approachable height, but she saw him more like an older brother than anything else.

  “Sorry. Something happened with my phone, and I haven’t had a chance to—”

  “Who are you?”

  April felt Gunnar’s presence behind her in an instant, his voice booming in her ears and making her jump on the inside as he came around and stood in front of her, appraising Carl with a literal growl.

  Dang, she hadn’t even heard his footsteps. He was either fast or could move eerily silent when he wanted to. Or both.

  Carl shrank back a few inches as Gunnar glowered, then tried his best to look brave, though the expression was more petulant than defiant.

  “I’m just her—”

  “Back off,” Gunnar said gruffly, and April had to run around in front of Gunnar just to stop him.

  “This is just my neighbor, Carl. We’re friends.” She pressed her hands, which still had a bottle in each one, placatingly on his chest.

  “Yeah,” Carl said from behind her. “Who are you, anyways?”

  Gunnar just huffed like it was none of Carl’s business.

  “It’s okay, Gunnar. Here, you have these.” She handed him both drinks, which he took. Then he stared at her, then Carl, then back down at her again. “We’ll just be talking over there. Nothing to worry about.”

  Gunnar’s gaze still blazed with suspicion toward her neighbor, but after a few moments of more prodding, he finally turned back toward her car at the other end of the property, still glancing over his shoulder at Carl.

  April was both annoyed and a little pleased at his crazy overprotectiveness, even though pulling him away from a fight was like trying to get an alligator to let go of something in its mouth at times.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help. I’ve been worried like crazy something happened to you,” Carl said, and April turned around to face him, wondering if at any moment Gunnar might show up again.

  “Thankfully, I’m all okay, as you can see.” After all, this wasn’t the first instance Carl had expressed worry on her behalf.

  “You should stay at my place. I heard the Clawsons and O’Dells are all over town, trying to make trouble and find out who started it all.”

  April groaned. Of course they were.

  “I’ll be just fine by myself tonight.” She could use a little peace and quiet.

  Well, assuming either peace or quiet were options with Gunnar around.

  Carl seemed to notice the direction of her thoughts, and he looked past her toward the direction Gunnar had gone. “He’s not one of those basilisk things the double dragons brought in today, is he?”

  She remained silent. It wasn’t his business either way.

  “You know they’re just monsters. I’ve heard about them. All they do is fight and crush things. They’re not human like you are.”

  She felt anger toward her neighbor rise in her chest in an instant. “You don’t know anything about Gunnar at all. He saved my life,” she said, her voice rising a little too obviously.

  April surprised herself with the suddenness of her response to stand up for Gunnar.

  It wasn’t like he needed her help at all.

  But she wasn’t going to let anyone, not even an old friend, talk bad about him while she was around.

  Carl backed off, but there was something in the glint of his eyes that made April nervous. “You’re right. I shouldn’t make assumptions like that. But everyone else is thinking it too.”

  “I don’t care what they think.”

  “So what will you do for work?” Carl asked, changing the subject.

  Thankfully, she still had her morning job at the coffee shop. At least now she’d maybe have some free time to catch up on the long list of things still waiting to be done around the house. “I’ll get by. It’s not like I was raking in the money working at Willie’s Corner anyway.”

  “I guess not.” At that, Carl asked if there was anything he could help with, and April told him cordially that no, there wasn’t. A minute later, he was gone, walking back down the long stretch of empty sidewalk toward his place.

  While April was wondering what could have come over Carl to suddenly be so jealous, the breeze wafted past her, filling her senses with a late-summer scent that promised the advent of fall any day now.

  “Your car’s fixed.”

  April squeaked, spinning around to see Gunnar standing behind her again, literally inches away this time, and he was grinning as she let out the rest of her pent-up breath.

  But even as her nerves calmed, her body began to warm at the sight of his huge chest and wide shoulders. At the confident, bordering-on-cocky expression he had as he rubbed grime off his big hands with a towel. She didn’t know where it had come from.

  If he kept scaring her like this, she’d have a heart attack.

  Or worse, lose control and want to do something really stupid with him.

  “What? How? Also, you can’t keep sneaking up on me like that!”

  “Loose spark plug,” he replied with a chuckle as he seemed to be more amused the more he caught her off guard. “It’ll need a new one, though, among other things.”

  Dang it, he was already being so helpful she didn’t know how to handle it.

  And every time he was this close, she wished he could pick her up in his arms again. Wanted to feel her body against his in lustful ways that made shivers go down her back.

  “Thank you, Gunnar,” she replied, walking past him toward the house. She needed a cold shower, fast.

  As she reached the steps, she figured she should at least invite him in for dinner. “Can I make you something to eat? What would you like?”

  Gunnar just grinned. “Fresh beef is my favorite.”

  Fresh? “How fresh are we talking here?”

  “Right off the hide.” And when his grin widened a little more, baring white teeth and long canines, April felt the blood rush out of her face at the stark reminder that Gunnar, for all his strengths, didn’t act like a normal person because he wasn’t a normal person.

  Then he shrugged nonchalantly. “But I’ll eat whatever’s around.”

  “How’s spaghetti sound?” she replied nervously, the tension in the air thickening by the second.

  “Perfect.” But when he licked his lips and his gaze raked down her, April got the distinct impression it wasn’t the thought of spaghetti noodles that made him look at her that way.

  Like she was a delicious meal and he wanted to eat her up personally. Slowly and thoroughly.

  Good heavens, what is going on here? she thought to herself as she hurried back inside. And for a minute, she watched through her peephole as Gunnar turned around to go back toward her car.

  Maybe Carl was right. She would do well to remember that she was on a different level of the food chain than Gunnar.

  But basilisk or not, she wanted him. More badly than any man she’d ever met in her entire life.

  And if she wasn’t careful, she just might fall for the protective, stubborn, sexy beast in her front yard right now.

  7

  Gunnar grunted with satisfaction as he tested the screen door a few more times before shutting it and putting aside the tools he’d used to repair the rusted hinges.

  After some grease and new screws, it was looking a lot better, though he’d probably send Diesel or Reno into town to get an actual set of tools he could work with rather than the odds and ends he’d salvaged from the dusty garage at the back of April’s place.

  During the summer, he and the other basilisks had spent their time repairing, refinishing, restoring, and otherwise taking apart and putting back together every vehicle, appliance, or building that had lain wasting back at Thunderwolf Ranch (which had formerly been owned by a gang of wolves known as the Copperheads who’d left the huge property and its contents to rust and rot in disrepair).

  So even though he wasn’t a trained professional, Gunnar knew how most things worked.

  Overhead, the afternoon sun had darkened as heavy clouds gathered, making the air muggy and thick with the scent of late-summer blooms and dry earth about to be soaked.

  His basilisk growled.

  Basilisks didn’t like rain.

  From inside, he could hear April moving around as the smell of tomato and pasta wafted outside.

  Mate, his beast grumbled, though Gunnar figured it was just his empty stomach.

  Just because he wanted her desperately didn’t mean he knew that quite yet.

  Though, his basilisk was rarely wrong about anything.

  The main door opened with a creak, and April’s gray eyes appeared from the shadows inside her house, watching him with curiosity (and something else) while he set things aside.

  “Dinner’s ready, if you’d like to come in.”

  He could still scent fear on her as well as jasmine and lavender she’d probably used when she’d showered.

  Damn, he wanted to get close enough to taste her, not just smell her.

  “Door’s fixed. For now.”

  “Oh my gosh, it is?” she said, marveling as she tested her screen door again. “I didn’t even get you tools or anything.”

  “I’m good with my hands.” He watched with amusement as she gulped when he looked over at her, and he could see her pulse go a little faster by the throbbing of a small vein at the base of her neck.

  “I can see that.” Her eyes darted away from him, and she moved aside so he could come in.

  Into April’s home.

  She’d changed into soft black lounge pants that hugged her curvaceous ass, with an oversized pink T-shirt he wanted to rip off so he could see all of her softness.

  His cock twitched as she walked past him toward the kitchen, so sexy and kissable she made his mouth water much more than whatever she had boiling over on the small stove.

  “I’ll get everything ready. You’ve done enough in one day to last me all year.” She gave a little smile over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.

  She was already acting a little less scared around him, though he didn’t know if that was foolish or brave on her part.

  Maybe both.

  He went to the bathroom to wash up. In spite of the disrepair outside, the interior of her small place was quite homey, with little splashes of color here and there intermixed with the variety of furniture that looked like it had all come from secondhand stores.

  Gunnar made notes on all the things he wanted to start fixing, varnishing, or otherwise improving for her while he checked in with Diesel through his thoughts.

  Any news in town? he asked.

  There was a pause, then the telltale rumble around his feet. Reno’s been busy asking around. Nothing yet, Diesel replied.

  Gunnar growled. Trouble between the Clawsons and O’Dells meant trouble for April.

  Tell him to keep looking.

  I will, Diesel said.

  What’s Ajax up to? As the third member of their crew, and the most standoffish, Gunnar always kept an eye on their red-eyed friend. Especially since Ajax was the least forthcoming with his intentions.

  Whereas Diesel was a little too forthcoming with his desire to find a mate sometimes. To the extent that he’d thought every woman was his mate when he’d first awakened.

  He’s still downstairs doing… whatever it is he’s still doing.

  For weeks, Ajax had sequestered himself in his room, only coming out for missions or to work. To date, neither Gunnar nor Diesel knew what it was all about.

  Gunnar asked if Diesel could bring a few things over for him in the morning and ended the conversation just as he left the bathroom and came back into the kitchen to see the table had been set for two.