Apex Basilisk, page 7
But just the effect he had on her worried April. No one got under her skin like he seemed to do effortlessly. And worse, he seemed to enjoy it entirely all too much.
Strangely, it did nothing to quell her interest in him.
He shrugged, deciding he didn’t need to answer, and grabbed an empty coffee cup off the counter and pressed a button as dark, fragrant liquid came freely from the now-fixed machine. Just then, a customer came in, and Raven took their order as April hurried about setting up the rest of the shop and preparing their drink.
However, she was in the middle of pouring cream into the person’s coffee cup, her gaze fixed on a smug-looking Gunnar who stood in the corner, arms folded, when Raven came up beside her.
“I think that’s a little too much cream, dear,” she said, and April looked down to see the cup was overflowing with liquid, to the extent it was running onto the small saucer beneath.
Dang it, he was distracting her too much.
So she did her best to ignore Gunnar while she remade the coffee and focused on work for the next half hour, hoping there wouldn’t be any further incidents to disrupt her already-hectic day.
However, fate was not on her side.
It was only a little past ten when a small group of wolf shifters strode into the cafe, the four of them (two boys and two girls) in their mid-twenties. Old enough to be full shifter adults, too young to likely be more than lackeys in the O’Dell pack hierarchy.
“Hey, you see her? That’s the lady everyone says did it,” the blond-haired boy said to his friends.
“No way. The coffee lady torched the bar?” his companion responded incredulously.
Gunnar was standing next to April in an instant, and as before, she didn’t know how he’d even crossed the cafe to be next to her so quickly. He made her jump as he growled at the incoming wolves.
She put a hand on his chest placatingly. “You promised you wouldn’t scare customers off,” she whispered, hoping the wolves couldn’t hear.
Since most of their pay was based on tips, if they didn’t have customers, she and Raven wouldn’t make a whole lot.
“No, I didn’t.” Gunnar frowned even as he impressed her by calming slightly and backing away a few feet, still watching coolly but not looking like he was on the verge of starting a fight as he had a second ago.
Raven took their order while April prepared it, ignoring the secretive snickers the wolves shared between each other and the way the two men leered at April while she just tried to work.
Water off a duck’s back, she reminded herself. It wasn’t the first time people had been cruel or judgmental toward her. It certainly wouldn’t be the last.
She took the tray with their orders out to the table, on guard as they all stared at her openly with suspicion or interest.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, trying to not grate her teeth. She could practically feel Gunnar growling from ten feet away, though she couldn’t hear it.
“Actually, yes. This coffee has a hair in it,” the blond man said. And she watched as he pulled a hair from his arm, put it in the coffee, and handed it up back to her. His grin was mean as he glanced over her.
“I’m not taking that back,” April said.
“What, the Keller family’s personal servant is suddenly too proud to take care of clients?”
“I can think of something else she can take care of… in my pants,” the brown-haired one said, licking his lips.
A hand appeared suddenly between her and the wolves, and it slammed a fifty-dollar bill on the table as all the wolves sitting pulled away, startled by Gunnar’s sudden appearance.
“Get out,” Gunnar growled, setting aside the bill as if paying for the order while demanding they leave. April could see his hands and arms tensing like it was taking everything he had to hold back.
The two men hid their fear in an instant and instead looked past Gunnar toward April, then back at Gunnar.
“No, I don’t think I will. After all, we already know plenty about you basilisks. All growl and no bite at all,” the blond said.
Gunnar’s frown deepened, and he looked at them like a shark deciding whether to tear a small school of fish to shreds.
She didn’t even blame him. The wolves in Clawson’s Creek were expert harassers, and this wasn’t the first time this same group had come in acting like they owned the place with their lewd comments.
“Leave. Now,” Gunnar said. Only, his voice was eerily calm, and it scared April to wonder what would happen next.
“The O’Dell pack runs this town. So as we see it, this human is our property, and we’ll do or say whatever we like.” He made a dismissive, shooing motion toward Gunnar, then looked over at April and winked suggestively.
He regretted it immediately.
With the ease of someone plucking an orange off a tree, Gunnar’s hand was on the man’s throat in an instant, pulling him up off the ground. The man kicked, knocking over the chair he’d been sitting on a moment ago with his gasping and flailing.
Then Gunnar’s other hand came up to the man’s face, and long claws extended from his fingertips, glinting with a hard, cold reflection as though they were made of blue-tinged obsidian that was razor sharp.
“You fucking look at her one more time, and I’ll tear your throat out,” Gunnar’s voice boomed through the cafe, shaking the windows, and April’s whole body clenched with terror.
To her shock, both of Gunnar’s eyes were a deep, glowing red, and she didn’t want to know what it would be like to be on the receiving end of his glare. Or of his ferocious, dominant, destructive power.
The jerk bag wolf looked ready to piss himself. And when she looked from him back to Gunnar, and Gunnar wasn’t backing down, she feared he really would kill him just for a few gross comments.
No human had ever stood up to the shifters in Clawson’s Creek. Ever. Even the policemen in town wouldn’t respond to trouble if it involved shifters.
Yet here Gunnar was, unafraid to commit murder on her behalf.
She really didn’t know what to make of it.
“Never again. Pack’s promise…” the blond man choked out. His face was quickly turning purple, and like a killing machine with no off switch, Gunnar showed no sign of backing down whatsoever.
“It’s okay, big guy. You can let him go.” She went to Gunnar’s side, and when she brushed a hand over his arm, the muscle so taut it was like touching stone, she felt him calm slightly.
A second later, he dropped the wolf shifter unceremoniously onto the ground where he hit his ass, and he gulped for air. Then when Gunnar advanced just an inch on the group, they fled immediately, almost breaking the door off its hinges in their desperation to escape the rage of the basilisk.
For a long moment, Gunnar just stood there, taking long breaths, chest heaving as his face remained contorted in a snarl. Then gradually, the claws on his left hand retracted, and he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.
Holy moly, that was close…
“I’m sorry. I tried to stop. But I couldn’t stand listening to what they were saying…” Then he gazed down at her, and she noticed his right eye was blue once again, as it had been before. “Or stand having them look at you like that.”
Her heart almost stopped right there and then as she felt something like electricity coursing between them, only inches apart.
“If you ask me, those asshats had it coming,” Raven said from her spot behind the counter.
“Why… why are your eyes like that?” April couldn’t help reaching a hand forward to graze his chest, and she could feel his heartbeat thudding beneath her palm, rhythmic like a thunderstorm over the mountains.
Gunnar leaned in a little toward her, making the contact of her hand on his body even more intense as he loomed above her. “Don’t get too close, or you just might find out.”
Her curiosity roared with interest, and she almost had the wild idea to take the big man home right now so they could do something much more interesting, much more sensual, than serving coffee to half-awake customers.
But the door dinged behind her, interrupting her attention for a split second. And when she looked back up at Gunnar, he was already gone, striding toward his shady corner of the cafe.
Only his glare was on her now, not the front door.
In that moment, she knew there was something much more between the two of them than just Gunnar being her protector.
And as she worked, her mind raced with possibilities. Ways she could maybe find out how mutual his interest in her actually was.
Even if it put her up close and personal with the scariest man on the planet.
9
“You didn’t have to go this far, Gunnar. Anything off the shelf was going to be better than the dinosaur I had for a cell phone.”
Gunnar shrugged as April followed him out of the phone store that afternoon. Thankfully, there hadn’t been any further incidents that had required Gunnar’s attention.
Which meant his attention had been on her all day. Watching her smiles. Watching her furtive glances. The way she’d blush and look away whenever he caught her looking over at him.
What was he going to do?
The plastic bag carrying her new phone swayed in his hand, and once they were headed back toward April’s place, he handed her the weighty little box to distract himself from thoughts of what he wanted to do to her.
“I’ve never had something so nice. I don’t even know how to thank you,” she said as she fruitlessly tried to pry the clear plastic wrap off for a moment.
He took the box from her, extended a claw to slice a clean line through it, and handed it back to her. “Then don’t.” Her eyes went wide with confusion.
“How could I not?” April’s footsteps were almost at a jog, and Gunnar had to remind himself to slow down a little.
He waved a hand, grunting. “I did it because I wanted to. Nothing more.” He felt his cheeks go warm and looked away so she wouldn’t see.
And he had. The second they’d walked into the phone store, he’d growled at the salesclerk to bring the fanciest phone out for April, then bought it on the spot, with cash.
It helped that the basilisk’s benefactor, Reno, wasn’t hard up for money if it meant Gunnar could do things like spoil his mate like this.
He wanted to see her smile like this every day.
He wanted to see her come more than he wanted his next breath.
But he had to be careful.
They walked in silence, April only muttering off and on about Gunnar’s “going way overboard” or how she “was never going to be able to pay him back,” and he tried to keep from grinning like a damn idiot at seeing her so flustered by something so small.
At least small for a basilisk.
“Okay, first things first. What’s your phone number so I can put it in my contacts?”
He was a little surprised, and flattered, that she’d thought of him first.
Gunnar gave April his number, but when he saw her grinning secretively to herself as she typed in something else, he couldn’t help looking over her shoulder.
“What are you doing down there?”
“Just putting your name in… along with other important details.” Her grin was outright mischievous, and she turned her phone around to show him.
On the screen it said, “Name: Gunnar B. Basilisk.” And beneath, on a line beneath, he saw, “Company: Big Bad Basilisks.”
He didn’t know if he should be amused, annoyed, or miffed.
“That’s a stupid name for a business,” he said.
She gave him an adorable shove that did nothing to actually move him. “Hey! I mean, that’s what you are, right?”
Well, yes, they were big. And they were bad (to people that deserved it). And he was a basilisk.
“What the hell does the B stand for on my name, then?”
She flushed and stuck her phone in her back pocket, her eyes not meeting his. “It stands for big. Because… well… I mean.” She glanced down his body, then back up, eyes lingering a little along his chest and arms. And when he flexed the muscles there for her, Gunnar saw her visibly gulp and look away.
Fuck. She was going to be his undoing, wasn’t she?
Maybe she already was.
Ours, his basilisk growled possessively.
They walked in silence again for a moment, the afternoon hotter today than yesterday since it hadn’t rained, the air muggy and sticky.
“I’m making hamburgers tonight. Does that sound good?” April asked tentatively as the sight of her little home came into view.
He nodded and did his best to not picture eating her out instead.
God, she was already too delicious to just look at.
So as she went inside, Gunnar spent the next hour repairing the barely-making-it front steps of her porch as he replaced the cracked wood slats with new ones. Even though they weren’t painted yet, at least she wouldn’t risk tripping or falling when one of the old steps gave out.
When she came back out, she’d changed into jean shorts that showed off curvy, mouthwatering thighs and a long-sleeved green shirt that hung slightly off one shoulder, and he wanted to nip the skin there just to see how sensitive she was.
“Inside or outside?” she asked with a grin, offering him a plate. Already, she looked more relaxed after her long day of work.
If he had his way, she’d never work another day in her life.
“Outside,” he said, and they went over to a space that had been cleared to the left of the entryway where there were two old plastic chairs and sat down to eat together.
As they ate for a minute, enjoying the quiet breeze and the sound of birds making their way home for the evening, Gunnar sat in amazement at how… human it all felt.
Basilisks were used to guarding the mountains and plains from roving monsters that once roamed the untamed wilds long ago.
Now he was sitting here eating dinner with a woman that made his body tighten with arousal every time he looked at her.
“So tell me about your tattoos. I’ve been curious since the moment I saw them,” April prompted. Though, when Gunnar looked over at her, she raised her hands. “I mean, not if you don’t want to, of course.”
“I didn’t say that.” Hopefully, she’d see how badass she truly was and not have to look so afraid all the time, even when asking a simple question.
Until then, he’d scare as many people as it took to ensure she was safe.
He thought for a moment, not sure what to say. He’d never had to describe basilisk things to humans before because he’d never been so close to one.
“They’re markings. Markings that are connected to my basilisk form.”
She dropped her half-eaten hamburger on her plate, enraptured. “How does that work?”
“It’s primal magic. The tattoos have always been there, and they keep the huge beast that’s a part of me contained when I’m in human form. Keep it from bursting out.”
“So like wards or runes?” she asked.
He waved a hand. “Something like that. When the monster is close, I can feel them change.” He focused on a specific thought, a memory of a terrible battle long ago that brought his basilisk to the surface, and when he flexed his arm, the pitch black of the tattoo swirled with red and orange for moment, like fire moving over the markings of his skin.
April watched in amazement, and when the tattoos went back to normal, her mouth hung open. “So cool!”
“It isn’t normally that easy to do.” But being around April, his monster was much closer to the surface.
Dangerously close.
April began to rapid-fire questions, but Gunnar deflected the other questions about his basilisk because talking about it only made him feel even closer to this fiery, frightened little woman that was stealing his heart more each minute.
So instead, they talked about what he’d been doing over the summer at Thunderwolf Ranch and how he’d learned to “be so dang handy” (in April’s words) around the place.
When they were done and dinner was over, it was still only early nighttime, the last hints of the sun dissipating in the indigo-blue sky above her house.
They went inside and cleaned up, and when they were done, April went into the living room.
“I’m not quite ready for bed. Want to watch a show with me?” April asked as she stood over by the TV, looking at him tentatively where he stood in the kitchen entrance.
Watching TV? With April?
Dammit, she was playing with fire getting close to him like this.
Someone would get burned.
But he couldn’t resist her cute smile as she plopped back onto one corner and put a pillow in her lap as classical music started playing from the TV.
“What are we watching?” he asked, moving over to sit on the opposite end of the couch. When he did, the opposite side lifted an inch off the ground, and April squeaked in surprise as she almost fell over before Gunnar shifted his weight and the couch sat flatly on the ground again.
Oops.
She pushed back several stray strands of her curly hair, which was loose tonight as it flared wildly around her face and down to her shoulders. “You certainly know how to keep a girl on her toes.” She giggled. “And we’re watching a show I’m still catching up on. It’s called Bridgington.”
“What is it about?” He had half a mind to sit on his corner of the couch hard enough to send her rolling downward into his lap, like a seesaw, then reconsidered it immediately.
“It’s about dukes and royalty and courtship. And scandals. And drama.” To the side, people in opulent clothing spoke to each other in the corner of some magnificent ballroom that looked like it belonged in a castle or something.
“Do they fight?” A man wasn’t worth shit in Gunnar’s mind if he couldn’t protect his mate.
She thought for a moment. “Well, they duel with pistols to defend the love interest’s honor.”
Gunnar grimaced. That sounded sillier than a grizzly going on a diet before winter.
But if it interested April, then it interested Gunnar too.
“Let’s see what they do,” Gunnar replied, folding his arms and watching the TV.
