Chapter 2

Chapter Two

N ight had swallowed all light except the artificial one that beamed so brightly over Mulan's house that it lit up Fiona's cottage as well.

It was nearing ten and dark as I headed to the grove with both guardians flanking me. I wouldn't have avoided them tagging along so I'd simply invited them.

I briefly explained the situation and asked Henry to fix Ben a meal that he could eat around his fangs. He'd burst out laughing in our now empty foyer and walked away from me without saying another word. Regrettably, I hadn't asked about food for Dylan and me, and we both missed dinner. I might have to invade the kitchen later.

Now that Ben was here with us, Dylan had retired to his room and laptop to do research. When I asked why he hadn't consulted his artifact, Dylan informed me that he had. The stone told him Ben wasn't a real gorilla and strongly suggested Dylan needed to leave him alone.

Maybe I was too blindly tired to see the danger but Ben hadn't scared me yet.

Rasmus turned his head as we walked to glare down at me. "Why didn't you involve us earlier? We would have gone with you."

I huffed as I walked. "Why didn't ya tell me Ben could transform into a monster? Being omniscient and all, I'm sure ya knew it the moment ya met him."

"No, I didn't know."

My eyes were wide. "How did ya miss it? Ya seem to always know those things about a person."

"Because I didn't take time to study his essence. Ben carries no guardian blood inside him. Only you and Jack do. My concerns were narrow at the time."

I refused to have this debate at this moment. I also refused to discuss my or Jack's guardian connections.

I glared at Rasmus in the dark. "When ya see him, it's plain that a demon's magic was used to create Ben. His witch wife made a talisman necklace for him that's suppressed his changes. Someone stole it from him today."

"And that could be another reason. The magic in the talisman his mate made may have been too strong for me to read him through it."

I halted and grabbed Rasmus's arm to get him to stop. "Hold on. Did ya just admit there was something on planet Earth that could block yer majestic abilities?"

Rasmus sighed as he glared down at me. "I'm simply pointing out that I'm not familiar with the type of magic Ben's wife practices. I'm sure one of my brethren knows all about it. Once I learn it, I'll be able to understand it."

I grunted, let go of him, and started walking again.

Both guardians were much taller than me, but Rasmus towered at nearly seven feet. Yet even he was going to freak when he saw a twelve-foot-tall Ben. I wish I dared to take a picture of his face when he got a look. It was probably too dark for a photo, but it still might have been worth trying if I knew how to use my phone for it.

We stood by the firepit and scanned the trees over our heads. They looked up and couldn't see a thing. Ben was as stealthy in monster form as he was in his human one. That spoke to how well he functioned as a beast. Did he see it that way as well? I doubted it. Given his first instinct had been to hide, it was obvious he'd never made peace with what he was.

"Are you sure this person obeyed you about coming here?"

I turned to glare at Zara in the dark. "Ben is my superior, not the other way around. I didn't order him to do anything. He told he was strongly drawn to trees, probably because he can hide his monster form more easily in them."

When Zara stared at me with a bored and disbelieving expression, I shrugged and rolled my eyes. The female guardian kept accusing me of being some aggressive bitch who ordered everyone around. She was probably projecting her urges onto me, but there wasn't much I could do about it without coming clean and taking her head off.

The female guardian eventually laughed. "You command a demon to do your bidding. You turn ancient, powerful creatures into statues. Just what kind of creature do you consider to be a true monster, Aran?"

I couldn't see Zara's lips clearly in the dark, but I felt the female guardian smirking at me. "Have ya looked in the mirror lately?"

"Aran..." Rasmus said in a warning tone.

A nearby thump shook the ground as Ben in his monster gorilla form dropped from the trees. He stretched out his long forearms and knuckle-walked to us with intimidating speed. Ben may not have assumed his beast form in a while, but the man had excellent control of his movements while in it.

Thinking of the stories he'd shared with me, I tried to do the math in my head of how many years had passed since they had transformed Ben.

Then another thought struck. Would Jack have adapted to his monster form if Rasmus hadn't forced him to change back to human? The thought of other man-made creatures roaming around looking like Ben gave me a shiver. If Zara and the military scientists had their way, there would be thousands of them roaming the planet.

Ben's hello grunt revealed his gorilla side.

Rasmus tensed beside me and straightened as he took in Ben's enormous size. I wanted to laugh at the guardian's startled reaction but settled for grinning in the dark. Rasmus hadn't reacted to the giant trolls this much, and they were nearly as big as Ben.

I looked up at the guardian. "Now, ya know how I feel every time I see ya coming toward me, especially when ya have yer wings out."

The guardian turned to look down at me in surprise. "If my larger size intimidates you, it doesn't show in your expression."

"That's because of my excellent training," I said and narrowed my gaze. "Intimidation is felt by degrees. With size, it's purely biological. This is especially true for shorter humans."

I stopped lecturing and looked around. "Speaking of my fellow shortie—where is Mulan hiding? I thought she and Conn would have been waiting for us in the grove. I don't want to put Ben through his explanation twice."

Mulan and Conn emerged from their house as if they'd heard my question. The grove was located right behind their home. They crossed their patio and the small yard beyond it in less than a minute.

Conn merely chuckled at the sight of monster Ben. I walked over and smacked Conn on the arm when he was close enough. "Do not make fun of him. This is nothing he can control."

Conn laughed at my rant. "I wasn't planning to make fun of anyone. I was just noting how enormous he is and wondering how in the world you got him here in your tiny, decrepit car."

I glared at Conn. "He's here now and in one piece, isn't he?"

Conn smirked at me worse than Zara had. "The man smells like a demon more than a primate. Is Jack involved in scientific mischief again?"

I rolled my eyes at the snideness of Conn's tone. "No. Jack's evil scientists didn't do this to Ben. His transmutation happened years before Jack and his grand scheme. But it was the military who did this to him. They told him it was to save his life."

Ben grunted and held up one of his clawed hands. "Can we move on to the solution portion of this conversation? Someone stole my beast suppression charm, and I can't change back. That means I will be stuck like this for three days to a week."

Mulan crossed her arms and looked him over. "You look like monkey creature from horror movie. We have no tall blonde woman to calm you down. If you get rowdy, I will use Shaman staff to tame you."

Ben's soft growl was guttural and low. "I'm not going to get rowdy. Is my problem not clear here?"

Mulan shrugged at his growling. "We see strange creatures every day. Shifting forms is not a real problem."

Ben blinked at Mulan. "It would be helpful to get my charm back so I can shift."

I rubbed my forehead. All this chatter was giving me a headache. "Who knew ya well enough to suspect ya were hiding this secret, Ben? I remember ya said Ezra knew and had offered to help ya learn how to control it on yer own."

A gorilla speaking with a Southern accent was hard to take seriously when your head hurt as much as mine did.

"Everyone on the Shadow Breakers hiring committee knew I possessed a beast form. We discussed it before they offered me the job. Ezra was among the group, but he wasn't the only stranger who heard the whole story."

I nodded. "It's could ya talked to them. They would had dug until ya told them. Trust me."

"None of them asked me to shift into my beast to show them, and I didn't volunteer because it's a painful process. That's why I refused to list it as an asset when I took their job offer. They decided not to see my reluctance to use my beast form as a problem."

I blinked in surprise. I'd always known Ben was hiding something. The Shadow Breakers hiring a human never made sense to me. "Do ya remember the names of the others ya spoke with when ya were hired, Ben?"

He shook his giant gorilla head. "I'm sure they introduced themselves to me, but who memorizes all the folks on their hiring committee? Plus, we did it online instead of in person. Once it was a done deal, I never gave it another thought."

I covered my mouth to hide my giggle. His alter ego did not diminish Ben's snarky authority. "I just have to ask ya this, Ben. Is it hard to talk with those fangs? Ya look positively prehistoric with them."

"I do occasionally puncture my lower lip, but I manage."

I giggled a little louder. "I'm only teasing ya. Ya're talking just fine." Then I sobered and sighed. "Is there any chance the military might have stolen yer talisman to see if ya turned into something after all? Maybe ya didn't hide yer talents as well as ya thought."

Ben braced his knuckles on the ground and sank back to rest on his gorilla haunches. I covered my mouth with my hand again to hide my smile. Zoos would be off-limits for me in the future. I could never see real animals now without seeing the shifters I worked with. It was an odd side effect of my paranormal career.

"With my background, there is always that possibility. I've lived every day since you found me caged, wondering if someone was going to come after me again. The people your ex-husband worked with no doubt knew some of my background. The group of men I had with me were part of a special group specifically trained to fight paranormal creatures. The average human might not know much about what's going on in the real world, but the military is very aware that normal humans are not the most powerful creatures on this planet."

I turned and glared at Rasmus. "I don't suppose ya made Jack's military scientists forget Ben's history when ya were re-programming them to forget the guardians, did ya?"

Rasmus sighed loudly and glared back. "No. We've discussed this many times, Aran. I didn't make them forget anything. I planted a suggestion in their minds that their experiment using my blood had been a failure. I took no memories from them."

I huffed, exasperated all over again to hear the replay of his half-ass efforts when he had been allegedly helping me. My gaze returned to Ben. "Then I'm guessing the military is back to thinking genetic alterations might be the way to go."

Ben nodded his gorilla head and snuffled loudly.

"But I couldn't say that for sure," Rasmus said.

It was more like Rasmus wouldn't say or even make an educated guess, but I would not debate this in front of Zara or Ben. What was done or not done wasn't the actual issue.

"If it's the military, we can't do anything until they outright come after ya, Ben. Ya can stay here and be safe until ya revert to normal. What can we do to make ya more comfortable?"

"I'll be safe hanging out in your trees tonight. We can talk about this again in the morning."

Back in our bedroom, I looked around at my creature comforts and felt sorry that Ben had to spend the night in the grove. He'd fought wars and served his country. The man deserved better than to have to sleep in trees, no matter his form.

"I'm trying to understand, Aran. What did I do wrong this time, and when did I do it?"

I stared at the obtuse guardian. Rasmus had been smart enough to remove his shirt before pressing me into a serious conversation. He'd learned the value of distracting me, yet he wasn't smart enough to figure out how his overly neutral interference might have caused Ben's predicament.

The facts were plain to me and probably to Conn and Mulan as well. Neither of them had bothered trying to get him to see it, though, but I was stubborn.

I was also foolish enough to let it matter to me. Why? Because I wanted the man I was sleeping with to be on my side and not just give lip service to wanting to be.

I looked away when Rasmus went for the snap on his jeans and fought a sigh when I heard the rasp of his zipper moving down. No other man had ever reduced me to this air-headed version of myself merely by watching him undress. It wasn't fair.

Fiona had laughed at all my warnings about the allure of non-human men, but Rasmus was proof of my wisdom. The guardian could make me weak in the knees without laying a hand on me. Once he touched me in that intense, passionate way he had, my determination to educate him about evil humans became nothing more than wishful thinking.

"Why is it hard for you to understand? Zara understands. She might not remember her thoughts as clearly, but she still has a good grasp of human motivations. Most people are restless and curious and selfish, Rasmus. For some people, this means seeking money above all else. For others, it's about power. For scientists, it's about knowledge and fame. Regardless of what a human seeks, they won't stop seeking until they have either acquired it or had a massive change of heart."

"Precisely," a completely nude Rasmus said with his most serious expression. "I solved your problem with the military scientists at the moment it was happening. I stopped all the killing and redirected their energies to something productive. That bordered on interfering with their free will, but it was the only way I could see to help you."

My sigh was loud because I was tired of hiding how much he frustrated me. "Every interaction one being has with another affects the free will of both. Some philosophers even argue that free will is a myth. They say it's just a word we assign to the natural push and pull creatures have with each other."

"I'm still not clear on how what I did caused Ben's problem," he said, trying to pull my shirt off over my head.

I laughed at his efforts to undress me while we argued, but it was impossible to ignore his interest in getting me naked.

"Ya changed the minds of the scientists a little , Rasmus, but what would have happened if ya changed their minds a lot ? They might have gone off and become shop owners or janitors without a thought in their heads to harm anyone. Instead, they're back to studying how to make better monsters. They're likely after Ben now, so they can study him."

"I still don't see how I was wrong. Intervening is not something we randomly decide to do. The consequences are carefully considered before intervention occurs. I had no time to go through that process. My need to protect you overrode my wisdom. Indirectly, this is your fault. If I hadn't been so worried about someone killing you, I would have given the situation more thought, and perhaps Ben's situation could have been avoided."

I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes. "Talking to ya gives me a headache, Rasmus."

"That is regretful. My wish is to make you feel desired enough to desire me back. Is there anything I can do about your headache?"

My gaze fell to his erection and then raised to his sparkling eyes. "It's a metaphorical headache."

"That's the absolute worst kind," he said in a whisper. "I must think more about this discussion tomorrow. Tonight, I can no longer concentrate on your words."

He had to bend a bit to reach the snap on my jeans. I locked my knees so I wouldn't fall when he slowly undid the snap and slid down the zipper. His hands slid inside my jeans and lifted me out of them. He hoisted me up his body until my clothing fell to my ankles.

By the time our bodies hit the bed, I cared too much about the present to worry about the past.