by Becca Van
Sara showered and then climbed into bed. She had a feeling that it was going to be a long night.
* * * *
Sara had been working away at her computer on one of their major accounts and even though she was getting through her work quickly, the hair at the back of her neck felt like it had been standing on end for hours. It was like someone was watching her, and not in a good way. Every time she turned around to see if anyone was looking at her, she didn’t see anyone, and she began to think she was getting downright paranoid.
She looked up in time to see her boss, Barry, heading toward her with another man following behind him.
“Sara, I have a job for you.” Barry handed over a file full of papers. “This is Spicer Owens. Spicer heads up the finance department of the Mt. Vernon newspaper and wants our help to go over their books. Spicer, this is Sara Wise. She knows the ins and outs of business accountancy. You two can organize when you can meet. I’ll leave you in Sara’s capable hands, Spicer.”
“Thanks, Barry.”
Barry walked away but for some reason Sara wished she could call him back. She didn’t like the way Spicer was looking at her, but she pasted a professional smile on her face and shook his hand when he held it out to her.
“Pull up a seat.” Sara pointed to the chair near the far wall and hoped Spicer didn’t see her cringe when he pulled it closer to her. There was something about this man that made her skin crawl. He was handsome in a rugged way but she wasn’t attracted to him, and he was built but she felt threatened by his muscles, not turned on, although she’d never let on that she was uncomfortable around him.
She flipped open the file and got to work. An hour later she had asked the appropriate questions and gained the necessary answers, and she had set up a meeting with Spicer two days from now. She’d also given him a list of everything she’d need to do the books.
When he stood up to leave she became really wary because he just stood staring at her, looking at her as if he could see through her clothes.
She pushed her chair back and moved away from him, able to breathe a little better since there was more distance between them.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Sara. I would really like to take you out to dinner.”
“In your dreams, asshole,” she muttered under her breath, but when she smiled at him courteously and met his gaze, she saw anger in them and began to wonder if he’d heard her. She gave a mental shake of her head. There was no way he could have picked up on what she’d said. She’d barely breathed the words.
“Thank you for the offer, but I never date my clients.” She walked toward her open office door and was glad when he followed her. “It was nice meeting you, Spicer. I look forward to working with you.”
The look he gave her sent tendrils of trepidation shooting up her spine, but she kept the fake smile in place. He finally turned away from her and walked away. Sara walked back to her office and when the hair on her nape stood on end again she turned to look over her shoulder. The look that Spicer gave her just before he disappeared made her think of evil incarnated, and even though she tried to tell herself that she was imagining things as she walked back over to her desk she couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling deep in her gut.
She didn’t like Spicer Owens one little bit and wasn’t looking forward to seeing him again.
* * * *
Chase’s wolf had been unhappy since the moment Sara left their cabin, and so had he. He was snapping and snarling at everyone and he was so damn tired he wanted to sleep for a week. It had been three days since Sara had gone back home and no matter how hard he tried to get his wolf to calm down, it seemed to be an insurmountable task. It didn’t help that Tony was just as angry and unsettled as he was.
They’d called Sara the last two nights and talked to her for over an hour on speaker phone, and even though that helped to calm their inner beasts while they were talking to her, as soon as the call ended his wolf paced and pushed at him from inside. For the last three days his wolf had been chanting three words over and over again. “Mate. Claim. Mark.”
He’d have been lucky to have had two hours of sleep a night and it was wearing on him. Auspiciously enough he and Tony had been out patrolling the grounds and didn’t have to make nice with anyone, because he didn’t think that was possible right now.
“I can’t take much more of this.” Chase glanced over at Tony.
“Yeah, me neither,” Tony replied. “My wolf just wants to rip everything apart and it’s getting harder and harder to control him.”
“Mine, too. What do you think about going to visit Sara tonight?”
Tony stopped and turned to look at him. “When do we leave?”
Chase tilted his head up and looked at the position of the sun. By his estimation it was close to five in the afternoon. “We can leave right now.”
Tony spun on around and started racing back toward the cabin. Chase took off after him. They needed to shower and get dressed, after being in the wolf forms all day, and then they would be out of there and on their way to see their mate.
* * * *
Sara had just dressed into comfortable three-quarter pants and a T-shirt after having a shower, and she sighed as she tried to think about what to eat for dinner. She hadn’t felt hungry over the last few days and the incessant ache in her chest seemed to get worse every day. She was also finding it hard to concentrate on her work and often found herself staring off into space, thinking about Tony and Chase. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get them out of her head or her heart. Every time they crept into her mind she started shaking, but not just from unrequited lust, although that didn’t help the tremors wracking her body. It was like she was having withdrawals like some drug addict, and she didn’t like it. How could she crave their presence and miss them so much after only spending a few hours with them? Was it because of their mating musk? Was that like some sort of aphrodisiacal drug they emitted to entice their mate, and one whiff of their delectable scents was enough to get her hooked?
She was starting to get really anxious, too, and she’d never been a nervous person before. No matter how hard she tried to push her funk away, she couldn’t. Sara was so sad she felt like she was mourning the death of someone very close to her, and she didn’t know how much longer she could continue on this way.
She muttered under her breath when someone knocked on her apartment door. “Just what I don’t fucking need. Someone to entertain.” She thought about ignoring the summons, but when another knock came, harder than the first one, she found herself heading toward the door. She didn’t even bother to look in the peep hole. She was in the right frame of mind to give someone a tongue lashing and if she could vent on a salesman she hoped that she would feel a little better.
Sara unlocked the door and flung it open hard enough to crash into the wall. When she saw Tony and Chase on her doorstep, her mouth dropped open and then she inhaled their wonderful musky pine scent. She drew in breath after breath and each time she inhaled the ache in her chest lessened a little more.
“Sara.” Chase reached out and pushed her chin up, and she hoped she didn’t have drool running down her chin. “Can we come in, sugar?”
Sara wanted to scream yes, grab them by their T-shirts, and haul them inside, but instead she calmly moved aside to let them pass her. After closing the door she followed them from her small entryway into the cozy living room, and she was glad they took it upon themselves to sit on the sofa, because she was so shocked—happy but shocked, and she didn’t think she would be able to speak right now—to have them in her home.
“Are you going to sit down, baby?” Tony asked.
Sara’s legs were trembling and she carefully walked across the room to an arm chair and sank down into it.
“We’re sorry to disturb you but we needed to see you.” Chase shifted in his seat and looked at Tony.
“How have you been, Sara?”
“Terrible.” Sara’s voice cracked, and to her horror
tears burned the back of her eyes. She looked away quickly and blinked a few times, hoping they hadn’t seen the telltale moisture. “Did you drug me?”
“What?” Chase snarled his question. “Why the hell would you ask that?”
“Back off, Chase.” Tony snapped his command and then met her gaze. “No, baby, we didn’t drug you. What you’re feeling is natural after meeting your mates. As soon as we met there was an instant connection and mates don’t like being away from each other for long periods of time.”
“So I have no choice to feel this way? I won’t ever feel the same unless I let you claim me?” Sara’s noticed that her voice was escalating into a strident pitch, but she didn’t really care.
She was upset and she wasn’t about to hide the way she felt from them.
Chapter Five
Chase felt guilty over the way Sara was suffering but he and Tony were in the same boat as she was. She had dark smudges beneath her eyes from lack of sleep and she also looked like she’d lost weight. And even though he didn’t want to answer her last questions, give her the chance to walk away from them, he couldn’t lie to her.
“No,” Tony said, and looked at him with sad eyes, and he knew his brother was on the same wave length that he was on.
“The symptoms will slowly wane over a week or two if you don’t see us again, and eventually you’ll feel more yourself.”
Sara’s shoulders sagged with relief and Chase wondered if she was happy to learn she didn’t have to mate with them to circumvent the effects of the mating musk. If she decided against being with them, eventually their wolves would take over and they would be more animal than man, but she would also be sentencing them to a long, slow, painful death. Although it would be worse if they had mated her, and then she decided to leave. The rage would take over a lot faster and it would be more prudent for their pack members to put them down so they didn’t hurt anyone. And they would have to do that eventually anyway. Maybe they should just ask to be taken out right away if Sara was adamant about not being their mate.
“What about you two?” Sara asked.
Hope began to fill Chase’s chest at her question, but he needed to clarify what he thought she was asking.
“What do you mean, baby?” Tony asked before he could.
“If I refuse to…mate with you, what will happen to the both of you?”
“Sara, it doesn’t matter what happens to us. You’re the one who needs to decide whether you want to be with us one way or another. You don’t need to worry about us.” Chase had tried to keep his voice calm and even, but Sara was staring at them both with such an intensity he had a feeling she knew there was more to this than they had told her.
“I think it does. I want you to tell me what would happen to the both of you if I refuse to mate with you, and you’d better tell me everything, because all it would take to get the correct information is a call to Melissa.”
“Sugar…” Chase sighed.
“Tell me now, damn it.”
“Our wolves would eventually take us over. They’re already angry with us for letting you go,” Tony began to explain. “We would end up being in our animal form all the time and won’t be able to shift back to our human form. They will become more aggressive and the rage will be so bad that all they’ll want to do is kill.”
Sara covered her mouth with what looked like horror and tears began to flow down her cheeks, but underlying the terror was also sadness.
“Other members of our pack will have to kill us,” Chase said in a carefree voice, but inside he was tied up in knots. His wolf had calmed some, but his inner beast was still pushing at him to claim his mate. It was really hard to keep his animal under control.
“I won’t become a werewolf, right?”
“No, baby. As we told you before, the only reason a were changes his mate is if she is dying,” Tony said.
“You can’t live away from your pack, can you?”
Chase sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “We could, but our wolves would always feel that something was missing. Wolves are pack animals, and even though we have separate houses we like to be close to our family and others of our own kind.”
“What about my job?”
“Sara, you don’t need to work. We have more than enough money for you to buy whatever you want,” Chase said.
“Fucking idiot.” Tony glared at him. “That’s not what she meant, Chase. Sara wants to work, don’t you, baby?”
Chase looked back at Sara and saw that she was scowling at him. He hadn’t meant to misconstrue her question but it seemed he was destined to piss their mate off more often than not lately. Hopefully, if she agreed to be with them, to mate with them, they could spend hours talking and getting to know each other properly, but he knew if she did accept them that they wouldn’t want to surface from the bedroom for at least a week.
Sara’s peaches-and-cream scent was stronger than before, and all he wanted to do was strip her down and lick her right up. He’d had a hard-on to rival all hard-ons since the moment she’d opened her apartment door, and he wanted to fuck her for hours on end or until they all passed out from exhaustion.
“Yes. Are there accountancy firms around Sugar Creek?” Sara asked. “I’ve spent years working hard to get to where I am and am this close”—Sara held her hand up with her thumb and index finger only millimeters apart—“to being offered the position of the head of the business department with my firm. I don’t want to throw away everything I’ve worked so hard for.”
“I’m not sure but we could investigate for you,” Chase said, hoping that she wasn’t pissed off with him anymore. He wasn’t a chauvinist and if Sara wanted to work then she could work. He’d misinterpreted her question, but he wasn’t sexist. But maybe he needed to let Sara know that. “I’m sorry for misunderstanding your question regarding working. I didn’t mean to make you angry. If you want to work, I’m fine with that. I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t necessary if you didn’t want to.”
“Okay, thank you. I’m sorry for getting pissed.” She looked from him to Tony and back again. “Do you think we could find out now?”
“What’s that, sugar?” Chase asked.
“Whether there is an accountancy firm close to your place?”
The hope which had begun to wane from his heart came back in full force. It was all he could do not to ask her if she was agreeing to mate with them, but before he did that he needed to make sure she would be fulfilled in her work life. He removed his cell from his pocket and did a quick search online for the closest accountancy firm to their place and wasn’t happy when the only one he could find was in this town. But then another thought occurred to him.
His Alpha and Betas were often stuck in their office doing all the paper, book, and account work, and he’d heard them grumbling about that stuff taking their time away from their mate, especially now that she was carrying their pup. Maybe they would like to have a full time accountant working for them?
Chase rose to his feet and headed for the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Just give me a couple of minutes to check something out.”
He walked into the kitchen and dialed his Alpha’s phone, and was pleased when Lucien answered right away. “Chase, what’s up?”
“How would you feel about having a full-time accountant working for you?”
“If we had an accountant pack member they would already be doing the job, but we can’t hire a human for obvious reasons.”
“What if the human already knows about us and is hesitant to accept mating because she wants to continue working?”
“Are you talking about Sara? She’s an accountant?”
“Yes, she is.”
“She’s been working her way up in the ranks and is about to become head of the business department of her firm.”
“If you can persuade her into accepting you then we will hire her in a heartbeat. Now that Tessa is carrying our pup, I want to spend more time with her. Rafe, Gabe, and I are b
ecoming resentful of all the time this paperwork crap keeps us away from our mate. If you can get her onboard I’m willing to pay her a very generous wage.” Lucien named the amount and even Chase was shocked at how much he was willing to pay their mate if she decided to accept Lucien’s offer.
“Are you…”
“I know how much she’s worth, Chase. I’d already looked into hiring someone, but with our wolf tendencies and the threat of being exposed to the human world, I decided against it. That would have been what I would have had to pay someone outside the pack.”
“Okay. Thanks Lucien.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Go and coax your mate into accepting you both and don’t worry about the pack security. I’ll get Rafe and Gabe, as well as Damian and Luke, to organize everything. Take as much time as you need.”
“Thank you, Alpha.”
“You’re welcome.” Luc disconnected the call, and after taking a couple of deep breaths to try and calm his excitement, to get his emotions under control, Chase headed back to his mate and brother.
“What did Lucien say?” Tony asked, using their mind link, and Chase told him.
“Sara, if you want to, there is a job already waiting for you. I just spoke to Lucien and he would be very happy to have you doing all the books and paperwork from the various businesses the pack owns.”
“I don’t want charity.” Sara crossed her arms beneath her chest, and it was very hard for Chase to drag his eyes away from those lush globes.
It didn’t matter that she was wearing a bra and T-shirt. He’d already seen her naked and it didn’t take much for him to remember what those ripe berries tasted like. He pushed his carnal thoughts aside and tried to remember what his mate had just said.
