“I recognize that voice.” Brock’s voice drifted from the back of the club. “Hands off, Billy Boy, he’s mine.” Brock appeared, tall and no different than when William had last seen him. Again, he thought it didn’t look like a year had gone by.
“I wouldn’t touch his or your dick with a barge pole.” William stood to greet the other bear shifter. After a quick, manly hug, the two looked each other up and down.
“I do agree with my other half,” Brock said. “You look good. Sorry to hear about your mother, man. Our sincere condolences.”
William gave a small nod in acceptance, the bear’s words hitting him hard in the heart again. “She chose her time, and she went with peace in her heart.”
“You back for good?” Brock asked, moving to stand next to his mate, his and Cole’s hands entwining seemingly automatically.
Yeah, he was back for good. Like any other dragon shifter, he had enough money and gems to live very comfortably for the rest of his life, but he needed something to do, and owning his own company didn’t appeal to him. He loved Dragon’s Heart. He adored the people and the family atmosphere.
“Yep. And congratulations to the two of you. We will all have to get together so I can meet these women,” he said, looking at his friends. “If I remember correctly, it was a female that was missing from your trio, right?” he asked Brock and Cole. From what he had learned from the bears, they mated in trios because their kind was getting close to extinction, or something like that.
“Yes, and she’s all female,” Brock replied, looking starry-eyed. It was almost comical. “You’ll get to meet her later. She works here too, but she won’t for much longer...we are with cub.”
“Goddess, you all move fast. Congratulations.”
The bear shifters grinned at each other. Love and pride shined in their faces.
William looked up at the clock behind the bar. “Looks like this mothers’ meeting is about to end. The club is due to open soon.”
Troy glanced up at the clock too. “Time to work, you slackers,” he hollered out.
Again it hit William just how glad he was to be back at work. At least it would take his mind off his mother. He watched the men that had gathered disperse in all directions. Troy was the last to leave.
“I’m around if you need me. We should get together soon. I want to introduce you to my mate and whelp.”
“Boy or girl?” William realized he hadn’t asked when Troy had mentioned it earlier.
“Boy.” Troy beamed. “Named him Sajan.” The pride of mentioning his son filled Troy’s face. William felt another pang of jealousy.
Time to find mate, William’s dragon whispered in his mind. William felt a flow of emotion from his dragon—longing.
Yes, my friend, maybe it is time to search out a mate.
But first it was time to get to work. William strode up the three flights of stairs to the security room and picked a hand-held CB with an earpiece attached. He equipped the radio unit and nodded to the three men in the room who were watching the countless television screens. Once he was set and sure the unit he carried worked, he headed down the stairs toward the foyer. For the rest of the evening he would wander around the club watching for any sign of trouble.
* * * *
Porsha ambled into the staff room, absently moving straight to her locker, the music from her iPod filling her ears. As she turned it off and curled the earphones around her fingers she scented a most delicious aroma.
She lifted her head and inhaled deeply, trying to locate where the spicy bouquet was coming from. Her nose came within inches of another locker to her left. The scent seemed to be coming from inside the silver box. Realization of what she was doing had her quickly looking around. Relief flooded her seeing no one else was in the room. She sniffed again, the aroma filling her nose and mind.
Her dragon lifted its head inside her mind and hooted loudly. Mate. I scent mate!
Porsha suddenly felt faint. Could her mate really be here of all places? For a few horrifying moments she wondered if she should run. What if he demanded she give up work? What if he wanted to dominate her as her parents had done?
In the two short months she had been working at the club she had gained quite a bit of self-confidence. The thought of going back to being treated like an unseen mouse mortified Porsha. She’d just begun to get comfortable and enjoy unrestricted life.
“Evening.” A deep voice disturbed her thoughts. She spun around, surprised. She’d been so interested in the appealing aroma she’d missed someone entering the room.
“Jaxon,” Porsha said through a heavy exhale.
“What are you doing?” he asked, looking puzzled. She was still standing beside someone else’s locker.
“Oh, I ummm…” It was no good telling a lie; Jaxon, as another dragon shifter, would be able to tell. “I could smell something nice and followed it.” She shrugged and turned back to her own locker. She could hear Jaxon’s animated sniffing behind her.
“I don’t smell anything.”
“Just me then.” She smiled, quickly depositing her small bag in her locker, and hurried out of the room. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. Standing outside the room, she stopped to gather her wits.
Go back. Smell mate. Porsha’s dragon pushed against her skin, trying to get back to the tantalizing smell.
You’re joking, right?
No joke. Mate scent nice. Go back.
Later. I will go back at shift break.
But male might be gone, her dragon argued.
If he works here, he will be back. Please, you pushed me to be independent, to stand on my own two feet. Look at us. What if our mate wants us to submit?
No submit, we are mighty as male. Porsha’s dragon snorted. Smoke curled from her nose inside Porsha’s mind. We prove! Porsha’s dragon stopped its urgent need to shift and find its mate. Find soon though, but no lay down, we stand strong.
Yes, soon. And yes, together we will be resilient, Porsha agreed.
Porsha had a sudden thought as her dragon relaxed; if the male was working there, how had she never come across his scent before? He couldn’t be a regular. Perhaps he was new?
Enough. She mentally shook herself. She wasn’t going to worry about this now. Although his aroma was alluring, she didn’t have an overwhelming urge to seek him out.
Taking a deep breath, Porsha placed one foot in front of the other and got started with her work. The male, mate or whoever he was, would have to wait now until break time or home time if he found her. She wasn’t about to get sacked or leave this job without a fight.
Chapter 3
Porsha had been assigned VIP room four for the night. Some international big wig had come to London for a high-class meeting and decided to visit the club. Her unique understanding of languages helped as he and his party all spoke Italian.
She was halfway through her shift and was already sick and tired of their antics. The important male and his cronies had really been letting their hair down. Most of them were already half-drunk. The room was filled with skimpily dressed females falling over the males, and the men had their hands in places they shouldn’t in a public place. She was sure that if the group had been in a motel or somewhere secrete it would be a full-out orgy. She was getting very close to calling a bouncer up to the room to assess the situation.
She trudged up the last few steps and headed toward the room. All the VIP rooms were in the shape of clear glass bubbles. A long seat coated with red velvet ran along the inside of the arched walls. Clutching the silver tray she was carrying, she walked to the center of the room and placed a new bottle of champagne on the table, along with several clean flute glasses.
What she assumed by the scent was a male slid up behind her, placing his hands on her waist. Porsha focused on keeping her body relaxed. Turning around, she carefully removed his hands from her waist. The male was tall, and the black suit he wore was expensive. A dragon shifter knew cheap and nasty, and the suit was definitely n
ot cheap. He scented heavily of perfume, and of aftershave, but it didn’t hide his true scent—he was a wolf shifter. Kinda strange really; shifters didn’t normally wear anything with a heavy scent attached to it. They liked to go all-natural.
“Scusate signore, ma tu non sono permesso a posto il tuo mani sopra il servendo personale.” Sorry, sir, but you aren’t allowed to place your hands on the serving staff.
The man looked down at Porsha. She followed the line of his sight over her right breast. He looked irritated when he saw the white oval circle with DH inside it. Porsha was surprised he didn’t already know she was an employee. She wasn’t exactly dressed for clubbing. She wore the normal waitress uniform—knee-length black skirt with the DH t-shirt and black sensible shoes. He must be a flaming idiot...or blind. Or perhaps he was baiting her for a fight; this wolf shifter did seem rather arrogant.
“Tu lavoro qui? Ma tu siamo cosi piccolo.” You work here? But you are so small. The man bent down toward her neck and animatedly sniffed. “Tu odore di no maschio o, dove e il tuo protettore?” You smell of no male either. Where is your protector?
Porsha pulled away from the man, her temper rising. She was sure that whoever his mate was, or would be, the female would be locked up in a tower and never seen again. Well, she wasn’t his mate and she never would be. But instead of telling the man to take a flying leap and lose her job, she plastered a smile on her face.
“Io sono abbastanza capace di in cerca dopo me stessa.” I am quite capable of looking after myself. She dropped the smile off her face and looked up at him with a stern expression. “Se tu mettere il tuo mani su di me di nuovo, mi piacerebbe amore mostrare tu.” If you put your hands on me again, I’d love to show you.
The man stared at her for a long moment. Porsha held her breath and waited to see if he would actually challenge her. But a second later, he held his hands up in a surrender motion and gave a curt nod. Porsha lifted the edges of her lips into a smile and walked out of the VIP room, her heart thundering in her chest.
Why did men think she couldn’t look after herself? Growling low, she walked over to the wall and stood against it for a couple of seconds, waiting for her ire to subside. Her dragon was growling too, wanting to go back and show the man just how well she could defend herself.
Leave it, princess. Imagine putting that in your mouth, you’d be sick for days. Porsha inwardly chuckled, trying to calm her beast.
Her dragon curled up with a disgruntled look on her face. When Porsha finally managed to breathe without wanting to rip the male’s balls off, she headed back into the room to take more orders and remove their dirty glasses.
* * * *
“Hey, William, check out VIP room four. From my office it looked like one of our servers just had some sort of altercation. It looks like she’s handled it, but I want to make sure.” Troy’s voice came low and deep through William’s earpiece.
William could hear something in Troy’s voice, but wasn’t quite sure what. It was as if he had wanted to say something more but refrained. Troy was protective of all his staff, but this seemed different. William wondered why. Was the server human?
“Will do,” William replied and headed up the east side stairs.
The sweet scent of sunshine and lavender drifted toward him. All evening he’d been catching the slight tint of that same aroma, but couldn’t place where it came from. Whoever it came from moved around a lot, their essence mixing in with all of the other bodies, making it hard to pinpoint. But as he climbed the stairs, it grew stronger. It was potent enough his cock thickened and rose.
His dragon lifted its head and hollered loudly in his mind. Mate!
Well, shit! William couldn’t believe it. His mate was really here? He paused on the stairs in disbelief and surprise.
“William?” Troy’s voice broke through his reverie.
“Yes?”
“You seem distracted, old man. You’re standing on the stairs, not moving.”
“I think I’ve just found my mate.” He could hear his shock in his own voice. Silence was the reply he received. Looking up toward Troy’s office, William knew his friend was watching him, but he couldn’t see Troy through the tinted glass.
“Congratulations,” Troy finally said. “You lucky bastard. First day back as well. Fucking hell, that means more time off, doesn’t it?”
“Hell, she might not like him yet. Give a girl a chance.” An unfamiliar feminine voice came through William’s earpiece.
“Bobbie, get off this channel. You’re supposed to be on channel four.”
“That channel’s so quiet and boring! This one has all the action.”
William’s eyebrows shot up. This female had spunk talking to Troy like that.
“I got this, boss,” another voice said.
William knew that voice, it was Jaxon, a fellow dragon shifter. He hadn’t been working at the club for as long as most, but he had fitted into the family real well. Was this Bobbie Jaxon’s mate? Another question he’d have to ask later. William realized he’d missed so much in a year. He needed to do some more catching up with his friends.
“Hey, you don’t hav—” The woman’s voice disappeared.
“Letting things slip around here for someone to be joshing you around like that, Troy,” William taunted his friend.
“You have no idea,” Troy growled back. “Now go check on our server while I deal with a member of the staff.”
William had no idea who this Bobbie was, but it would seem she was a handful. There had to be a special reason for her to still be working at the club. William knew Troy was a fair boss, but he was also a man who loved his club and wouldn’t take any shit from his employees.
As William reached the last step to the second floor, a small female yelp and then a man’s groan were heard. If it wasn’t for his shifter heightened senses he doubted their sounds would have been heard over the club music. Moving a little faster than his normal bouncer stroll, he strode toward the VIP rooms. He glanced into the first one and was satisfied nothing untoward was happening in there, bar a few scantily dressed females who were sprawled over a feline shifter. The second VIP room had another set of females dancing close to each other, again nothing disturbing. The third bubble room seemed calm, but when he reached the fourth, a group of wolf shifters inside the room looked to be quietly surrounding something or someone.
The room also held the appealing aroma that William now associated with his mate. Immediately, both himself and his dragon were on alert. Within seconds he had scanned the room, sucking up as much info as he could about the situation. He also spied as many females as he could, and he was disappointed to feel nothing from any of them.
Striding toward the center of the room, he pushed past some of the men watching something between them in stunned silence. Amazement had him halting too. He now understood why the men were mute.
There in the center of the room was a tiny female no taller than five foot he imagined. She was kneeling on top of a six foot male’s upper back, who was stomach-down with an arm stretched up near his shoulders, his thumb being held firmly in a thumb-lock. She had long, reddish hair pulled up into a ponytail, a few whispery strands blowing on her face from her breath. Her eyes were the lightest blue he’d ever seen on anyone. She looked up at him, and surprise was the first emotion he saw, then worry, and finally she inhaled and lust registered on her face.
“William, what the fuck is going on in that room?” Troy shouted through his earpiece.
His shock quickly disappeared and he lunged toward the male on the floor and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
“Let him go,” he ordered the female, who promptly released the man’s hand and stood up, looking rather sheepish but also defiant.
William hauled the man up to his feet, but didn’t release the grip he had on the back of his neck. Red-hot anger flowed through his veins, but he had no idea why. This was a simple situation that could be quickly resolved.
“What’s goin
g on?” He raised his voice over the music to be heard, shifters or not. It was then he noticed the female was wearing a DH uniform, which meant she had to be the room’s attendant. He pressed the button just inside his sleeve. “Looks like our little waitress has it under control, but you might want to come down.”
He heard a replied curse from Troy and knew he was on his way. The room remained silent; no one seemed to want to speak. The tiny waitress looked up at him, tears shimmering in her eyes. He received an emotional blow to his chest. A low, pissed off growl escaped his mouth. The male had upset her in some way, and he and his dragon didn’t like that one bit.
With a deep inhale, he realized why he felt so fucking angry. He had found his mate. By the goddess, she looked too small to handle a man like him. She looked petite enough to be human, but breathing in her scent again, he knew she was a dragon shifter. The size difference between them was huge. She only came up to his chest. He imagined if his hands rested on her narrow waist that they would cover it entirely. She’d held her own though. By the scent of the male in his hands he was a wolf shifter. His little dragon shifter mate had taken a male wolf shifter down. If she could take down this wolf, he imagined she would be able to handle him.
His rigid cock pressed against the front of his work slacks. He hadn’t realized meeting his mate would be such a powerful thing. His dragon wanted to cart her away, shift, and mate her beast. Mental images of two dragons flying through the skies entwined together rose his ardor.
William ground his teeth, waiting for someone to speak. “I will ask again. What the fuck is going on? No one is leaving this room ’til I find out, so talk.” He tightened his fingers around the male’s neck and shook him slightly, showing he was clearly pissed off.
Several voices started to explain all at once, causing nothing but noise. Sighing, William growled low. Everyone went silent.
He looked at the male he had hold of and stared into his eyes. “What happened?”
The male pointed to the small waitress. “She attacked me,” he snarled. “All I did was mistake her for one of these lovely ladies.” He motioned to the other women present.
Untamed Shifter Love Page 18
