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you’re feeling okay. I don’t like not being able to go back out tonight either. But I understand their reasoning. We’re too pumped up right now, the cats are too close to the surface, ready to pounce. We need to lay low for a minute.”
    “Your minute consists of one day while mine is a week. How is that fair, Eli?”
    “It’s fair because you’re the one who had a stab wound that went so deep that bastard nicked your bone!” he yelled at her. “You lost a crap-load of blood and … and…” He couldn’t finish because the memory was too clear, the pain searing through his body at the sight flicking through his mind once more. It was too much to bear.
    “Look, just hang around Havenway and do what he says for the week. I’ll be following up on some things with the Sanchez brothers and I may need your eyes and ears here,” he told her, suddenly exhausted from the events of the day, from this unnamed emotion rippling through his veins like an infusion.
    “I’m a guard. I fight for these shifters every damned day,” was her solemn retort.
    Eli looked at her then, stared right into her light brown eyes and felt like her gaze was reaching deep inside of him, pulling something out he’d long since buried. “You’re a damned good guard and you do fight for the shifters every day. I’ll be first to vouch for you. But part of being a good fighter is knowing when to sit and wait.”
    When she didn’t respond Eli took a deep breath, letting it out in a whoosh and dragging his hands down his face. “I’m going to grab a shower,” he said, turning away from her and heading to the bathroom door. He had no idea why he stopped and couldn’t really bring himself to turn around, but before going inside he said, “I don’t know if I can protect you if you go back to your room. If you need me in the middle of the night … I just don’t know,” he admitted, his voice so quiet he didn’t even think she’d heard him.
    “Ask me to stay, Eli,” she replied.
    He gritted his teeth then, his cat scratching at his insides as if eager for his human mouth to let the words slip free. He didn’t know how to ask, what to say, how to do this male-and-female dance with her. All Eli knew for certain was that when he came out of the bathroom, he wanted to see her sitting on his bed. When he lay down to go to sleep, he wanted to feel her beside him. And when he awoke in the morning, he wanted to roll over and see her there.
    “Stay,” he finally replied, not waiting for an answer but going into the bathroom and closing the door quietly behind him.

CHAPTER 11
    “This is where the signal stops,” Brayden said, coming up to the bushes at the backside of the estate they were looking for in Prince George’s County.
    “Do you know who lives here?” Aidan asked, walking around his brother, flattening his hands on the brick structure and leaning forward to look into the window. “Lights are on in this hallway but I didn’t see any cars in the driveway.”
    Caleb stood back from the others, tilting his head upward to look at the second floor of the structure. “No lights on upstairs. Probably some type of alarm system though. We’d have to disarm it before going in. Either that or get in and out in about ten minutes before the alarm company can dispatch the police.”
    Eli stood farthest from the brothers, looking around the entire space. To his right was a thick line of trees about forty feet away, lush grass all around. To the left was the same scenario. Directly in front of them were patio doors, the windows Aidan had looked through, heading to the left side of the house. Above was a deck that wrapped around the right side. Behind them, an in-ground pool, more grassy acreage, and a thicker line of trees, tall and full for privacy. The driveway was in the front, going to the dead end part of the block, where they had parked and walked down. This was a pretty secluded neighborhood, high-end, but not gated.