The Protector's Heart.

Wilde Creek Three.

By R. E. Butler.

I'd like to thank Alexis Arendt for editing this story.

Much thanks to my best sisterfriend Joyce Bange for beta-reading and for always being there.

Thanks to Sh.e.l.ley Chastagner and Jackie G. for their beta-reading help.

Many heartfelt thanks to my Aunt B.L. and my husband. I love you both.

Chapter 1.

Malachi Slattery sat in the living room of his alphas' home on Monday morning and waited for Brynn, the alpha female, to be ready for work. Malachi was a protector, a highly ranked member of the pack whose sole job was to keep the pack members safe. He'd been chosen by Acksel as one of Brynn's personal protectors, for those times when Acksel couldn't be with her. Malachi enjoyed being Brynn's protector, and it had absolutely nothing at all to do with the beautiful human woman, Nila, who worked at the doctor's office where Brynn was a receptionist.

Liar.

He mentally told his wolf to shut up and glanced at his cell, wondering what was taking Brynn so long. Just as he'd decided to play a game on his cell to occupy himself, he heard the bedroom door open and Brynn said, "Stop making that face, I have to go to work."

"No you don't, love. I can easily support our family. Stay home."

Brynn made a happy sound that made Malachi think that she was going to be really late, and then she said, "d.a.m.n it, stop using your wiles to tempt me."

Malachi snorted inwardly as Acksel demanded to know what she meant by that and she rebuffed him, storming down the hallway.

She brightened at seeing Malachi, switching gears from annoyed to happy in two point two seconds. "Hi Mal. Sorry for keeping you waiting."

"It's no problem, Brynn," he promised. He stood and tucked his phone into his pocket.

Acksel came into the family room and greeted Malachi. "Don't you think your alpha female should be home resting?"

Before Malachi could ask Acksel not to rope him into a personal squabble, Brynn threw a nearby pillow at Acksel's head. "As if you would let me rest, you big old horn dog. I'm going to work." Her scowl softened and she moved quickly to Acksel, kissed him, and said goodbye. She strode to the door, and Malachi looked at Acksel, who said the same thing he said every morning Malachi drove her to work. "Keep my mate and my pup safe."

"Will do, alpha," Malachi promised.

He followed Brynn out into the frigid December morning, saying goodbye to Sam, the theto of the pack and the leader of the protectors, who was standing guard outside of the home. Malachi opened the door to his dark green SUV, Brynn climbed into the pa.s.senger seat, and he shut the door. Glancing toward the house, he saw Acksel watching from the open door and nodded at him, a second, silent promise to keep Brynn safe.

Malachi considered it an honor to be one of Brynn's personal protectors. The pack only ran well when everyone could do their job. If Acksel was worried about Brynn's safety, then he wouldn't be able to lead appropriately. The personal protectors helped to alleviate some of the stress of the alphas being apart, because Acksel trusted them to keep his mate safe. Some of the lower-ranked wolves thought that the personal protectors were nuts for accepting the role to watch over Brynn. Failure came with a hefty price tag. If something happened to Brynn, Acksel would go on a rampage and the ones responsible would suffer greatly. That didn't worry Malachi, though. He had no plans to let a hair on Brynn's head - or her baby's - be harmed.

As he pulled away from the curb, Brynn sighed.

"How was your weekend?" he asked. Their engagement party had been Sat.u.r.day, and the pack had gathered at Luna's, a restaurant in town, to celebrate.

Brynn said, "Okay, I guess. Acksel's getting weirder and weirder about me leaving. Do you think it's the baby?"

Mal glanced at her. "Possibly. Males are protective of their females and their pups, though. It could be a combination of things."

She hummed in her throat and then said, "I'll probably quit working before the baby is born and take some time off to raise him or her, but I can't see myself actually stopping working."

"So why don't you tell Acksel that?"

"I did. When I tell him about going to work he...distracts me."

Malachi grimaced, hoping she wouldn't go into details. He'd known Acksel his whole life, but that didn't mean he wanted to hear about the intimate details of their life. Fortunately, she skipped over Acksel's method of 'distraction' and said that while he was busy rewriting hundreds of years of pack law with the elders of the pack every day, she found it powerfully boring and didn't want to help.

Malachi pulled the SUV into an empty s.p.a.ce in the parking lot of the Family Clinic of Wilde Creek, where Brynn was a receptionist. The small doctors' office was run by Frank and Kimmi Channing, and served not only the human population of Wilde Creek, but also the wolves when they needed things like physicals for sports, school, or work. Wolves didn't naturally get sick, but they still needed proof they were in good physical condition.

"If you don't want to quit right now, then don't. He's just a male who wants his mate where he can see her. He trusts me to keep you safe, but he trusts himself more."

She gave him a long look, her green eyes searching his face. "The wolfy instinct stuff is a pain in the a.s.s sometimes."

He grinned. "It's also totally awesome."

She snorted. "Time to go before Dr. Kimmi fires me for being late."

"As if she'd fire you. She loves you."

They walked to the building and Malachi held open the door for her. She took her bag to the breakroom while he walked to the small office that was being used to house the security system and sat down behind the bank of monitors. When Brynn had been kidnapped and nearly killed in October, the perpetrators - a small group of rogue wolves - had s.n.a.t.c.hed her at work, which was why Acksel insisted she be driven to work and that a protector stay with her. Malachi was the natural choice. He had a background in security and was good with computers. He had a side business with his best friend, Lucian, setting up security systems, although lately Lucian had been out of the country working at his real job, and Malachi had been running the company by himself.

As he reviewed the recordings from the multiple cameras inside and outside of the building, he heard some very familiar footsteps and his whole body went tense, his wolf alert. He watched the open doorway. Nila Caruthers, a nursing a.s.sistant, raced by, her dark blonde hair flying behind her. She was running late again. He could guess it was because of her son and a situation at the daycare. Either the little boy was having a bad morning, or something had happened with her ex. His wolf snarled at the thought of that male, who didn't deserve to breathe the same air as Nila, let alone have had access to her gorgeous curves.

He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, picking up her naturally sweet scent. She smelled like wildflowers to him and his beast. He forced himself to stay in his seat and not stalk to her and make sure everything was okay. She did not like wolves, because her ex-husband was a total whack-job wolf. He'd mistreated her and her son more often than he'd been kind to them. Even now, she was still technically married to him. According to Brynn, he refused to sign the divorce papers.

Malachi thought it was quite cruel of fate to give him a mate who hated what he was at the core of his being. He'd win her heart eventually, he was sure, but the problem was he couldn't even get close to her without her defenses going up. He'd only been around her for a little over a month, but he was certain she was meant to be his mate. He just needed to convince her of that.

Turning his attention back to the monitors, he mentally flipped off whoever was in charge of werewolf matings and tried not to think about the alluring woman with the pretty brown eyes.

By the time the work day was over, Malachi was no closer to figuring out how to deal with Nila than he'd been the first day he met her, when she was crying in the closet of the doctors' office because her ex had beaten up a teacher at her son Jack's daycare when they'd refused to allow him to take the boy.

"Mal?" Brynn asked as he drove her home.

"I'm sorry, Brynn, what?"

"You're like a hundred miles away. What's up?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. It's Nila, right? Tell me what's going on, maybe I can help."

He looked at his alpha and she smiled encouragingly. "I just need her to see that I'm not like her ex."

"Anyone with half a brain would know that. He's a total nutcase."

"She doesn't want anything to do with me on principle. Her ex is a bad wolf, so for her, all wolves are bad. I can't show her I'm different because she won't even give me a second glance."

"I don't know about that," she said.

"What?"

"When we were coming back from lunch today, she'd gone to have lunch with her son and came back a little before us. She stood at the front desk and stared at us while we walked into the office, and then she darted off like her b.u.t.t was on fire."

His wolf practically cartwheeled in his head. "Really?"

"Well, she sure wasn't looking at me. I know I'm pretty, but neither of us swing that way. So yeah... I think she likes you. You're fighting an uphill battle, but you're not going to back down."

"Any advice rattling around in that head of yours?" he asked hopefully.

"I wish I could tell you a way to handle things with her that would guarantee success, but I can't. It might be enough eventually for her to see you watching over me while I'm working, but I think her ex was really nice in the beginning. It wasn't until they were married that he changed and began to mistreat her."

Malachi growled.

"I know you'll figure it out, Mal. If you're really mates - and I believe you are from what I've seen - then she'll see the truth of what you are. She just needs time. You can prove you're not like her ex and take care of her the way I know you're dying to."

"How'd you get so smart?" he teased as he pulled the SUV along the curb in front of her home.

"Just naturally brilliant." She grinned at him as Acksel opened her door and helped her out.

"Thanks, Mal," Acksel said.

Brynn tried to say goodbye to him, but Acksel swung her up into his arms swiftly and kissed her. She waved at Mal, and he shook his head with a chuckle and headed home.

The place he called home had at one time belonged to his parents, and then Brynn had rented it for a few years. The three-bedroom house was in a development in Wilde Creek, on a cul-de-sac, surrounded by homes owned by wolves in the pack as well as a few humans. Brynn hadn't done any interior redecorating when she'd lived in the house, but she had planted some shrubs outside that smelled like cinnamon. He was glad when she asked Jeremiah, one of the pack omegas, to transplant the shrubs to her new home with Acksel.

Parking in the driveway, he got out of the SUV, walked up the sidewalk to the front porch and unlocked the red front door. He hung his keys up on the hook just inside the door and shut and locked it, toeing off his shoes before walking through the family room to the kitchen. He made a sandwich and stood at the counter. He had dishes, he just didn't use them. He looked at the kitchen table he'd purchased last week. The oval, gla.s.s-topped table had looked perfect when he'd seen it in the furniture store. Too big for one person, but just the right size for a family.

A pang of loneliness and longing hit him hard as he looked at the table and chairs that he'd bought with Nila and Jack in mind. He was really getting ahead of himself by buying things for her when she wouldn't even give him the time of day, but he didn't care. One day she'd be sitting at the table with Jack while he made them dinner, and she'd know that he'd cared about her from the moment they'd met. It was more than a physical attraction - he wanted to take care of her, protect her, and love her, and he wanted her to feel safe.

Someday he'd get beyond the walls she'd erected to protect herself and her son and he'd prove to her that he was the right male for her and would never betray or mistreat her in anyway.

Someday.

Chapter 2.

Nila hated being late. Dr. Kimmi was very understanding about Nila's situation, but her good nature could only be stretched so thin before Nila would be finding a new place to work. She shoved her purse into her locker and raced to Dr. Kimmi's office. Knocking on the open door, she said, "I'm sorry."

Dr. Kimmi looked up from the computer and smiled. "It's okay, hon."

"No, it's not." Nila shook her head. She felt like crying. h.e.l.l, she'd felt like crying just about every day as she'd battled against her ex, Damien, and his desire to make her life a living h.e.l.l.

Dr. Kimmi pushed her chair away from the desk and stood, coming to Nila and giving her a hug. "I've been where you are. You have my support and Frank's. Would it help to change your hours so you can come in less often?"

Panic tightened Nila's chest. "I need the money. Damien isn't giving me a cent in support and the daycare is expensive. I'm sorry I was late this morning and that I've been late a few times recently. Ever since Damien made that scene at the daycare, Jack has been terrified to be left there. It breaks my heart every day."

"I wish I could do more for you. Would it help to change daycares?"

"I can't find anyone nearby that will take him, and I'm afraid that if Damien causes another scene Little Tots is going to let us go, anyway."

Nila closed her eyes and tried not to let the weight of her problems settle heavily on her. She didn't need to break down right now, even though she would probably feel a little better if she had a good cry. The problems would still be there after she was done crying, though. They always were.

"I'll be more careful of my time in the future. Thanks for understanding."

"Of course."

Nila brushed at a stray tear that had slipped through her defenses and walked out of Dr. Kimmi's office. She stared down the hallway to where the reception desk lay. The desk had a tall counter on the side facing her, and she could see Brynn, the receptionist, checking in a patient. Even though she didn't want to look at him, her eyes couldn't help but see Malachi Slattery, Brynn's personal security guard, who was sitting behind her at the reception desk. Ever since Brynn had joined up with her mate, Acksel, Malachi had been coming to the office every day. He never said anything to Nila outside of "good morning," but she was very aware that he wanted to say more to her.

It had only been a few weeks since the day that he opened the door to the supply room and found her crying after Damien had beaten up one of the teachers at the daycare. She'd been so startled by him that she nearly fell off the stack of paper boxes she was sitting on. His strong arms had caught her and he'd pulled her close, the dark, spicy scent of him making her stomach flip and her mouth water.

She mentally shook her inner s.l.u.t and pushed the unwanted thoughts of the s.e.xy wolf into a dark corner of her mind. Wolf was exactly why she didn't want anything to do with Malachi. He was a wolf shifter, and wolf shifters were bad news. Just ask Damien, his father the alpha, or any of the other males in his pack who hadn't lifted a hand to help her. It didn't matter if Malachi had the most amazing blue eyes, or that he'd felt rock hard when he'd pulled her against him in the closet. There was nothing but trouble where that s.e.xy wolf was concerned. For everyone's sake, she needed to remember what being with a wolf had been like. Shivering internally, she ignored Malachi entirely and put her hands on the top of the counter.

Brynn smiled. "Hi, Nila. How's your sweet little boy?"

"Great, thanks. How was your weekend?"

As Brynn talked, Nila could feel Malachi's eyes on her, and she managed to not look at him but only by sheer force of will. All day long it would be the same. She'd come up to get the next patient and Malachi would watch her like a hawk.

Realizing she'd missed most of what Brynn said while she was trying not to think about Malachi, she froze when Brynn stopped talking and smiled at her expectantly. Nila felt put on the spot and she blinked and tried vainly to figure out what Brynn had just asked.

Brynn's eyes darted toward Malachi and she said, "I asked if you'd like to go to lunch with me this week."

Oh d.a.m.n. Malachi drove Brynn everywhere.

"Sure," she said, not wanting to disappoint her friend.

Don't look at him.

"Cool, how about tomorrow?"

Brynn pushed the first patient's folder across the counter and Nila said, "Sounds good."