Caught in the Middle

by Desiree Holt

  Stafford stepped in closer to him. “Are you telling us Jasmine has no say in this?” he asked coldly. “Surely it is up to the lady to decide who she belongs to?”

  Mr. Washington looked from one of them to the other. “Very well,” he said eventually. “She can have a free choice between you.”

  Stafford and Hayden looked at each other as Jasmine stared past them at Mr. Washington. Jasmine could practically see the tension ratchet up between them. Mr. Washington wasn’t an idiot. The rest of the council might think everything would be fine between the two young men forever, but Mr. Washington had to see as clearly as she did that there was no way they were ready to compete with each other, over a woman or anything else.

  Each man nodded their head, accepting his terms, and it was obvious each was sure she would pick him.

  “But, it will be a free choice,” Mr. Washington said. “Each of you will go to a different room in the hotel. When she has made her decision, she will go to whichever man she selects to be her master and that will be the end of it. You will both accept her decision without comment or recrimination towards her or the other man.”

  Stafford moved to stand in front of her. He touched her cheek and tilted her head back so he could look her in the eye. “If you don’t feel safe with him, I won’t leave you on your own with him,” he said, glaring across at Mr. Washington.

  Hayden came across and crouched down to be at her eye level.

  “I’m fine, sir,” she said to both of them.

  With clear reluctance, they eventually took her at her word. A few minutes later they were dressed in what was left of their clothes and had left to wait for her in two of the bedrooms where other members of the council had spent the night. When the door closed behind them, the senior members of the council lost interest and filed out too.

  Jasmine stared at the floor as possibilities rushed through her head. If they both wanted her to belong to them then… for the first time in as long as she could remember, she actually thought about accepting a man who offered her a place under his protection.

  “Do you have any injuries to report?”

  Mr. Washington’s question dragged Jasmine out of her thoughts.

  “No, sir,” she said.

  “Very well, then. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  She looked up at him, all protocols tossed aside. “You told them…”

  “And when you don’t arrive at their door, they will each believe you have gone to the other man.”

  Jasmine stared at him, at first unable to work out what he was telling her. “Sir, you said…” she trailed off.

  “Are you questioning my orders?”

  Jasmine shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand…you said.”

  “Do you believe that I will look after you, that I have your best interests in mind when I exercise my control over you?” he asked.

  Jasmine nodded. “Yes, sir, but…”

  “Then you will do as you are told,” Mr. Washington said.

  Jasmine closed her eyes for several long moments. He had always given her a free choice before. She knew the older man wouldn’t order her away from someone who offered her a place in his house on a whim. None of that made it any easier for her to obey him right then.

  Finally, she forced herself to nod. “Yes, sir.”

  It took more effort than she would have ever believed possible to put on her clothes and leave the room with Mr. Washington right then. On the way out of the hotel, she looked at each of the bedroom doors they passed, wondering if she was walking past one of the rooms Stafford and Hayden were waiting in.

  She shook her head at herself. Mr. Washington was right—she’d been crazy to think she could go to either of them. She forced herself to remember the truth of the matter—they’d been more focused on each other than her—it was only novelty and a competitive nature that led them to have even a passing interest in her.

  That would have faded away in a few days and what would have become of her then? She glanced across at Mr. Washington as she got into his car. He turned his attention to her for a few moments and studied her carefully.

  “Sir?” she asked, when the depth of his focus on her became uncomfortable.

  “Take a few days,” he told her with surprising gentleness for a man who never forgot who the master was during a scene.

  “Sir?” she said again, panic suddenly bursting inside her.

  “I’m not disowning you,” he chided as he saw the worry in her eyes. “You spoke about visiting your family for a few days a little while ago. Take a few days to put both men out of your mind. Sometimes the paranormals can get inside a submissive’s head far more easily than a human master. Caught between the two of them all night, it’s no wonder you’re off balance. Take a few days, see your family, and come back to the club ready for the weekend. We’ll discuss everything then.”

  He was right. She was off balance.

  In that condition, Jasmine clutched onto the order like a lifeline.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Three

  Stafford stormed through the club. As hard as he tried to focus on the women swarming through the shadowy rooms, they really didn’t appeal to him. It had been three days since his last feeding and still, all he could think about was how the hell Jasmine could have picked the damn wolf over him.

  The man had no idea what he was doing with a woman. He had no idea what he was doing full stop. He was an idiot. Stafford could barely close his eyes without imagining Jasmine’s fate.

  Perhaps Hayden would treat her as well as he knew how, the vampire allowed. After seeing how careful he had been with Jasmine, he didn’t think the wolf was capable of real cruelty, but what of the other wolves in the pack? Hayden seemed very happy to share his lover with him, what if he didn’t have the sense to keep Jasmine to himself now she really belonged to him?

  A low growl was Stafford’s only warning before someone launched himself at him. Stafford just managed to put his hands out in time to avoid going face first into the wall. “What the hell!” He swung to face his attacker. Hayden loomed between him and the room.

  “You couldn’t stay faithful to your mate for one week, could you?” the wolf demanded.

  “What the hell are you talking about now?” Stafford snapped, pushing the larger man away from him. He looked around, eager for the sight of Jasmine and already wondering if he could convince her to change her mind. “Where’s Jasmine?”

  Hayden growled and pushed him back against the wall. “You can’t even keep track of her. How the hell are you supposed to be her alpha if you can’t even…”

  “What are you on—she picked…” he faded away at the same time as Hayden. “She didn’t come to your room?” Stafford realised.

  Hayden frowned down at him, the hand against his chest stopped trying to push Stafford through the wall.

  They held each other’s gaze, each waiting for the other man to blink, each hoping the other man would confess he was in the club screwing around behind her back, just so he could know Jasmine belonged to one of them and was safe.

  “I wouldn’t be here looking for blood if she’d come to me,” Stafford said.

  Hayden stepped back and let him move away from the wall. “Where is she?”

  “Washington,” Stafford remembered. “The human’s name was Washington.” He stormed toward the exit. In moments he’d pushed past the crowds and was outside in the cold night air, throwing himself into his sports car. Before he could even slam his door, the other door opened and Hayden folded his bulky frame into the small space on the passenger seat.

  Stafford stared across at him. He bit back the order to get out of his space and out of his car. It was just possible a wolf might be useful if everything came down to brawn rather than brain.

  “We find her and we bring her home,” Stafford said. “We’ll sort out whatever the hell is going to happen between you, me and her later. Deal?”

  Hayden nodded and slamme
d the car door.

  Stafford turned the key and put his foot down. “Washington owns a club on the other side of town,” he told the wolf.

  Hayden nodded again.

  Stafford cast a glance at him. Hayden’s normally over cheerful countenance was conspicuously absent. In fact, the guy looked ready to kill. “We’ll find her,” Stafford said.

  Hayden nodded once more.

  “And when we find her, you’re going let me do the talking,” Stafford went on.

  “You talk,” Hayden agreed.

  His tone of voice said everything he needed to say. While Stafford was talking, Hayden might well occupy himself by ripping the throat out of whoever Jasmine was with now.

  He looked across at Stafford. “She is our alpha female. Our pack. She wouldn’t walk away from us unless she had no choice. If someone has hurt her, I will kill him.”

  Stafford stared out of the windscreen and made no comment. Maybe the werewolf wasn’t as stupid as he looked. It sounded like a damn good plan to him.

  By the time they reached the club there was a low persistent growl building in the back of Hayden’s throat. For some reason, the bouncer took one look at them and waved them through without a word about the queue of people they’d walked past.

  Mr. Washington stood on the far side of the club. In the darkness, it took a vampire’s night vision to pick him up, but Hayden obviously wasn’t reading the room with his eyes—he took one sniff of the air in the club and he was off across the room.

  By the time Stafford caught up, Hayden had picked Mr. Washington up by the neck and had him pinned to the wall, his feet dangling several inches off the floor.

  “Where is she?” Hayden demanded.

  “Perhaps he’ll answer you more readily if you release his windpipe,” Stafford said, from a few paces behind him. Cold amusement dripped from his voice—if Jasmine was not at stake, he imagined it might be a great deal of fun to play bad cop to Hayden completely-bloody-psychotic cop.

  Hayden reluctantly lowered the man to his feet. Stafford stepped in close to him, crowding the man into a corner.

  “Jasmine left the hotel with you. Where is she?” he demanded.

  The human was far more resilient than any other Stafford had met. He didn’t look the least bit impressed with their interrogation technique.

  “Neither of you have any claim on her,” he said calmly. “She signed a contract. She belongs to me.”

  Hayden began to growl low in the back of his throat again.

  “Where is she?” Stafford demanded, leaning in close to the human man so he had no space at all to breathe.

  “She went away for a few days. She’s staying with family. I don’t know where.” He sounded incredibly bored by the conversation.

  Hayden’s growl escalated.

  Mr. Washington looked from one of them to the other. “Grow up both of you—she’s no toy for you to play your petty games with. And do stop trying to play above your weight—I’ve been dealing with vampires and werewolves since long before either of you were born. Neither your parents nor your grandparents scare me, you two aren’t about to either. Especially not when I remember you as a scruffy little pup, and you as a bawling baby.”

  Stafford cleared his throat, suddenly feeling rather like a child who was about to be sent to bed without his supper.

  “And I remember both of you before you hit puberty and decided to hate each other—apparently for no good reason other than to annoy your parents.”

  Stafford opened his mouth, he closed his mouth, then he pulled himself together. “Whatever you remember of us, neither of us is a child any more—Jasmine belongs to us.”

  “No, she does not. Neither of your species has ever had any idea how to keep a human submissive,” Mr. Washington said. “Your lot always go back to your pack and your lot never keep one of your ‘human pets’ around for longer than a few feedings. Jasmine deserves a damn sight better than either of you.”

  “She is my pack,” Hayden snarled.

  Mr. Washington stared back at him, obviously not the least impressed with the show of temper.

  “You sent her to us,” Stafford reminded him.

  “She’s been rather annoyingly able to remain detached from every damn master I’ve tried to place her with up until now—who could have known she’d be foolish enough to take an interest in two childish idiots.”

  “What?” Hayden blinked. “You’re her alpha…”

  “I’m her trainer,” Mr. Washington said coldly. “I have no interest in the girl.”

  “Right,” Stafford said—as if any man could ‘train’ Jasmine and not give in to the temptation to enjoy what she seemed to offer far too freely.

  Mr. Washington smiled slightly, amusement dancing in his eyes for a moment. “You two are both far more my type than she will ever be,” he informed them.

  It was Stafford’s turn to blink.

  “Sir?”

  Stafford turned around, a young man stood near them with a tray of drinks. He looked from them to Mr. Washington and back again.

  “It’s fine, Stewart. These are the two gentlemen I told you about. They’re looking for Jasmine.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Stafford demanded.

  The young man looked him up and down with more haughtiness than he had ever seen in someone who wasn’t one of his own species. “She’s not here. And my master says you’re not good enough for her.”

  Mr. Washington chuckled, genuine affection warming his voice. “Now the boy starts listening to me.”

  Hayden turned and looked over his shoulder, then he looked back to Mr. Washington. “He is your pack,” he observed. “He’s your mate.”

  Mr. Washington nodded.

  “Jasmine is our pack,” Hayden told him seriously. “She is our mate. She belongs with us, just as he belongs with you. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Both of you?” Mr. Washington asked.

  “Yes,” Stafford said, without even thinking about what he was actually saying.

  The human looked back and forth from one to the other of them. ”She’ll be here tomorrow,” he said. “It’s her choice if she will accept you or not.”

  “You said it was her choice before.”

  “If you hadn’t come to get her now, you wouldn’t have been worth choosing. And she was in no condition to make the choice right then.”

  Stafford narrowed his eyes. “If anyone has hurt her, we will kill you.”

  Mr. Washington didn’t seem at all impressed with the threat.

  Stafford stepped back, seeing nothing else to be done with the human. “Tomorrow,” he said and turned away.

  Hayden followed along behind him and got into his car as if it was obvious he would be welcome there.

  Stafford started the car and considered his options. He wasn’t about to leave the wolf on his own, so Hayden could go off and search for Jasmine without him. “You can stay at my place,” he offered.

  ———

  Stafford’s bedroom door swung open. Hayden stood framed in the moonlight, just visible as a shadowy outline.

  “What?” Stafford demanded, leaning up on his elbow. After finally getting the other man to go to bed in the early hours of the morning, he was damned if he was going to get up before noon. He glanced at his watch. “It’s four o’clock—you haven’t even been in bed an hour!” God, it was like babysitting a damn toddler!

  Hayden calmly walked across the room and got into the bed next to him.

  “Get out,” Stafford demanded.

  “Wolves don’t sleep alone,” Hayden said, making himself comfortable in Stafford’s bed.

  “Well, vampires do!” Stafford informed him.

  “You didn’t sleep on your own a few nights ago.”

  “That was different—Jasmine was with us then.”

  “We aren’t a proper pack without Jasmine,” Hayden said sadly.

  Stafford hesitated when he saw the pain and the worry in the other man’s eyes.
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  “We’ll find her tomorrow,” Hayden said. It sounded suspiciously like he was trying to reassure himself, not Stafford.

  Stafford sighed. “I suppose I can put up with you for one night if I have to. Just stay on your side of the bed.”

  Hayden turned his head on the side. “Why?”

  “I’m not used to sharing my bed with another man.” He would have felt a hell of a lot better about it if Jasmine was sleeping in between them.

  “Packs always sleep together,” the wolf explained.

  “Fine—here are the rules. You stay on your side of the bed and you keep your hands, your tongue and all other parts of your anatomy to yourself. Understand?”

  “You think I want to have sex with you,” Hayden observed. “Like Mr. Washington and Stewart.”

  Stafford hesitated. He really didn’t want to have this conversation on top of everything else, but perhaps it would be better to have everything sorted out between him and Hayden before Jasmine got back and got caught in the middle of this mess as well.

  “Do you?”

  Hayden shook his head. “You are not my mate. Jasmine is my mate. You are a member of my pack. It is different.”

  Stafford tried to fit that idea in with a grown man getting into bed with him in the middle of the night.

  “Packs usually sleep closer together,” Hayden observed after a little while.

  “You’re in my bed, don’t push your luck, pup.”

  Stafford watched the wolf warily as he thought about that. Reaching his decision, the other man pushed the blanket back and climbed on top of the covers. Moving firmly onto Stafford’s side of the bed, he crouched over his legs.

  Before Stafford could even decide what curse word best fitted the situation, the man began to morph. In seconds Stafford was looking down at a perfectly formed wolf.

  Yawning to work his jaw into just the right shape, Hayden stretched and settled himself comfortably close to the only available member of his pack. Stafford looked down the bed at the other man… at the wolf… at Hayden.

  He supposed it was a compromise of a sort. Humans let dogs sleep at the bottom of their bed all the time. Vampires didn’t generally get on well with animals they couldn’t eat or bite, but as he met the wolf’s eyes he saw how much the other man was trying to make him feel better about the situation.