The Shepard's Agony

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Chapter One

“
Stop th
at!” David Shepard roared.

H
is brothers, the twins, stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. “What? Why?”

Shepard
rolled his eyes. He was a
hunter
; he wasn’t supposed to sympathize with vampires, werewolves, whatever, but enough was enough. He couldn’t take watching them pick and poke at Jacob, the vampire who was helping them with their tracking. They stabbed him with sharp sticks and threw the occasional rock at him for laughs. At the moment, it looked like they were getting ready to start a real fight with him if Shepard didn’t step in.

Jacob sighed,
clearly grateful to have the twins off his back. He was a vampire and prisoner. If he so much as mouthed off while he was getting rocks thrown at his head, he was dead.

“
We have a job to do and you idiots
are playing around, laughing like a bunch of kids and making noise. It’s a miracle no one heard us from across the lake.” A definite miracle since they also got Shepard into the noise making now, too. That, and their targets were across the lake. Their targets and
her
.

Shepard shook his head to remove the images of naked skin and the sound of gentle pleading from his mind. There wasn’t time for that.
There was no room for error
. Andrew and Allen were about to argue when Garrett, their father, cut in. “He’s right. Cut it out already and check your guns. I want no mistakes.”

You and me both.
Shepard checked the clip of his gun a third time with the efficiency of a man used to handling deadly, cold steal. It was empty, just as he’d left it. Good. Good. Good. He still had his knives and daggers on him, but they were only for show tonight.

Unlike the clip in the gun he held, the other semi-automatics did have bullets in them, so did the guns his brothers
carried
, and they would be using their blades and other assorted weapons.

Christ, even the sword that his father had on his back was making Shepard nervous, but there was nothing he could do about any of that. The only person he could control in this situation was himself, so that was what he had to focus on. None of the guns that Shepard carried would be fired. Not that his father or his brothers needed to know that.

Jacob rubbed his
jaw, trying to
hide his little smile while he was being scowled at by the twins. He was told to wait where he was and listen for anything that could be useful.

Garrett
squeezed Shepard’s shoulder before moving on to ensure everything was in place.

The man was pushing
sixty
, but was still in the shape of his
life
. Surpassing his own sons in speed and stamina, h
e
could shoot a vampire bat in the dead of night at fifty yards, cut a werewolf in half with that mean looking sword of his, and still have enough energy left over to chew out his sons about how sloppy they had been in their own fights. The man had a look that reminded Shepard of Sean Connery, only, no accent.

“
As
if you care what happens to him,” Allen muttered, and went back to cleaning his rifle with Andrew, who was eyeing Jacob like it was somehow his fault that Andrew could no longer torture him.

Jacob, despite the layers of clothing he wore and hood over his head to protect him from the sun, stood still while trails of smoke snaked from his heated body. Shepard would have to get him mor
e sun lotion before the attack.

“
I
don’t care,” Shepard muttered back.

Jacob knew how to talk his way out of most situations but without Shepard
, the twins usually did whatever they wanted to him. Andrew and Allen were always like that, sadistic angels. On the outside, by looks
alone
, a person would never guess what they were capable of. Blond haired,
blue
-eyed devils with wide shoulders and muscular bodies.

Shepard went to stand by his other brother Jimmy, who was kneeling in the shrub
s close to the
water
, watching the targets across the lake through binoculars. His clothes were camouflaged to blend in with the twigs and leaves, as were everyone else’s.

Jimmy
had
blue eyes like his brothers, but
his
hair is as dark as their father’s used to be before it started getting silver streaks. Jimmy believed in what they were doing enough to carry out the orders he was given, but not enough to participate in the torture of anything they
caught
. This was why he learned to mostly ignore the twins when they were in the middle of playing with their catch.

“
Weird,
” he mumbled, shaking his head.

“
Let me see
.” Shepard snatched the binoculars to look for himself.

“
Help yourself,
” Jimmy said, leaning back against the grass and rocks.

Shepard couldn’t see anything that looked like strange behavior. Children splashed in the lake under the careful watch of their parents, men stood over barbeques with metal tongs, and couples chased each other around the
trees, shrieking with laughter.

It looked like a normal barbeque to him. He supposed Jimmy was muttering that it was strange because it
wasn’t
normal.

Shepard couldn’t see
her
anywhere either. He was eager for a glance of
her
; so eager that he stopped paying attention to what Jimmy was saying.

“
Make
s you forget they’re monsters.”

Shepard sighed.
“Yeah … just remember they’re killers. They’re not people.” To forget that was a dangerous thing, it brought down their
defenses
. Even though Jimmy was the older of the two of them, he was more prone to forget.
Unfortunately
, Shepard didn’t know if he believed it anymore.

“
I
know
.
But
, don’t you ever just look at them and think they look a little too human?” he asked, lazily waving his hand across the lake.

Shepard’s fingers clenched around the binoculars. Jimmy never asked him that before and he didn’t know what to say.

“
No,” h
e said finally.

Jimmy looked up at him and stood. “You alright? You look kind of sick.”

“I’m fine.” Shepard put the binoculars back to his eyes.

H
e did feel sick. Every time they were about to do this he felt
sick
. Jimmy knew that. It wasn’t something he found he could get used to. To kill in self-defense was one thing, but to surprise attack them in the middle of the day was another. He kind of wanted to warn them just so it would be fair.

Then
, he found her and was alert again. His breathing picked up and his heart started beating while his mouth became wet. A woman with white-blonde hair and barely fitting summer clothes ran out of the
cottage
. Shepard eyed her exposed legs and curvy frame with a barely hidden grin. He missed touching her. He missed her. Even though she was supposed to be dangerous herself.

H
is appreciation for the sight evaporated when a dark haired man a head taller than her followed her out.

Shepard zoomed in on her and clenched his teeth when the man wrapped his arms around her from
behind
.
With
his large hand touching her exposed stomach, he kissed her shoulder.

That
was not a casual, friendly embrace. It was
friendly
to be sure, but friends didn’t do that to each other.

She tensed as he spoke in her ear. Shepard wished he knew what was being said, but he wasn’t the gifted lip reader in the
family
. To ask Jimmy to tell him would be inviting him into something private. Not that he cared what two werewolves said to each other, but if it involved him then he didn’t want Jimmy knowing it.

What they were saying didn’t matter anyway, it was their body language that counted. The wolves didn’t know the
Shepards were across the lake and they were downwind to boot; if the animals suddenly shifted and took to sniffing the air then the mission would be called off until later for safety. Garrett would never put any of his sons into unavoidable harm, but they were doing nothing to convey the suspicion of their watchers, so they remained at their post.

Shepard continued to watch, cursing himself for not learning the skill Jimmy volunteered a million times to
teach
. When she turned and allowed herself to be kissed, he turned away sharply, his temper flaring.

“Let’s just get this done.”

***

When Gwen felt John wrap his arms around her, her first instinct told her to pull away. Some harmless flirting was one thing, but if she didn’t move away then she would be giving the impression that she welcomed his touch, which wasn’t entirely true.

But
, an even deeper area of her conscious spoke up,
David’s not here.

The thought didn’t make her feel any better. It crushed her.

There were times when she could swear he was still around, lovingly telling her that everything was going to be
alright
and watching over
her
. Even
now
, when she was out in the woods and it shouldn’t have been possible.

David wasn’t there, they’d made love and he left without so much as bidding her
farewell
. He wasn’t coming back.

Gwen’s dad wanted her to settle down with someone inside the pack, someone who could be trusted. The problem was that there wasn’t exactly a great big selection
.
And
, when she finally met a human she thought was
the one
, he took off after getting what he wanted.

It hurt, but maybe it was a sign that her father had been right all along
. The little voice in her head won the argument against her feelings, so she stood still when John nuzzled her cheek and spoke into her ear.

“
I know what happened with that other guy
, your dad told me.”

Gwen flu
shed. His voice didn’t hold the
I told you so
tone like she’d expected,
but
,
still
, not what she wanted to hear.

It figured he would tell
him
; her dad
was
the only person brave enough to go against her wishes.

John
must’ve felt her anger because he squeezed her.

“
Don’t be mad, he’s only looking out for you. If it’d be
en me and my
daughter,
I would’ve hunted down the bastard and killed him.”