by Ellie Pond
Sutton moved to the side of the bar in a clear signal that he didn’t want to sign autographs. They sat at a little table near the bar. Sutton waved at Kellen, who nodded and punched an order into the computer.
His mate hadn’t noticed him yet. She looked up at him, and her posture changed. The peaceful smile she had on her face disintegrated.
“Oi, cuz. I think you have your work cut out for you.” Gunnar picked the darts out of the board and tossed them at the bull’s eye with annoying accuracy, even while drunk.
“I’m fine. We’re fine. We’re fine,” he said to himself as he glanced over again. Tad crossed the bar directly to Elizabeth. “Doc,” he said as he slid across the bench next to her.
“Mr. Larsen.” Sutton leaned back in the booth seat. “This is your mate, Elizabeth? Not what I pictured.”
“And what were you picturing?” Tad sat next to her, his shoulder brushing Elizabeth’s, the heat radiating off of her soaking into him.
Kellen put two plates with burgers and fries in front of Elizabeth and Oliver.
“Thought you would look smarter, paler, perhaps? See this burger here? I make her do this once a cruise. So she’ll eat before midnight and see people who aren’t bleeding. Right?” Oliver said to Elizabeth.
“Oliver likes a good charity case.” Elizabeth bit into her veggie burger. “It’s tradition.” She shrugged. Tad remembered her savoring the chocolate cake at their first meeting, where he stupidly told her they weren’t going to mate.
Kellen dropped off a vanilla milkshake in front of each of them.
Oliver took stock of the couple. “How is this entire thing going for the two of you?”
Tad turned to Elizabeth at the same time she turned to him and their faces were inches away from each other. Tad leaned in and kissed her. He kissed her until she opened for him, let out a soft moan, and pulled away. Tad sensed and smelled her desire. This entire thing would be fine if the two of them could get out of their heads, which he found a little easier since his trip to be vision-exorcized by Violet.
“Have you told him?”
“Told me what?”
Sutton raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth. She took another bite of her burger. The man and his eyebrows were infuriating.
“The captain is promising her a top-notch research facility. She will be able to research multiple topics. She won’t ever have to leave the lab.”
“Really.” Tad put his hand on her leg. She leaned in. He couldn’t hope for better news. She would have a great lab. Hopefully, it would be on the eastern coast somewhere close to his family. “Where is the lab?”
“Here.” Sutton put five fries in his mouth at the same time.
“The Leeward Islands?”
“Think more mobile.” Sutton wiped his hands.
“What? How would that be possible?”
“He’s going to knock down a few of the crew quarters and build it across from the clinic,” she finally spoke. “It’s an amazing design; there’re only a few things I would want tweaked.”
It might be a decent plan, but he could make it better. The captain had listened to him. Partially. He’d tried to steer him away from dual research projects. But Elizabeth didn’t need to know that he’d had a chat with the captain.
“You’ll do it?” He was so far ahead of himself. She still hadn’t told him that she would mate him. And last night he’d lost his shit, not exactly proving to her that he was one with his wolf.
Her eyes flashed at him. “Why would it matter?”
“I’m not sure; aren’t you going to stand up to him and tell him you can’t abandon your own research?”
“I wouldn’t be abandoning my research. I would add his.” She poked him in the chest.
“And seeing patients and teaching class. When will you have time for your research?” He grasped her finger in an odd pull-my-finger way.
Sutton pushed off the bench, leaving the little of his food that remained on the plate, but grabbed his milkshake and sauntered towards Gunnar and the dartboard.
The two of them barely noticed.
“I can make the time.”
He cocked his head at her. “And make your research viable.”
“He’s giving me three research assistants. So, yes. I think so.”
“I don’t see it going well for you.”
“No, I think what you are saying is you don’t see it going well for you.”
“I didn’t say that.” He could feel his wolf eyes flash at her.
“You need to get control before we can talk this through. That’s what you told me. So that’s what I’m waiting for.” She slid all the way around the horseshoe-shaped bench to get out and thundered out of the pub.
Tad took his full milkshake to the other side of the bar. Sutton threw his last blue dart at the board.
“That didn’t go as I expected,” said Tad.
“No, no, it did not,” Gunnar said, throwing a dart at the board.
Oliver turned to leave. “Hey, wait,” Gunnar called after him.
Oliver stopped, his feet shoulder-width apart and his arms crossed at his chest.
“Right, thanks. Maybe what Theodore here needs is a good old reconnection with his wolf.”
“And?” Sutton took a step back towards the cousins. “How do you think he gets that done?”
Gunnar punched Tad in the shoulder.
26
Big Brother
She couldn’t comprehend her anger. With her legs shaking, she sat on the edge of her office chair. Samples waited to have tests run on them in the lab, for her research. As she prepped the samples and put them in the spectrometer, the day was a blur that played over and over in her head.
The day started with an emergency appendectomy that led into other passengers with broken bones and stomach aches. And she still had to check on the twins. Being busy was a blessing—it meant less time to think about Tad.
Somewhere around noon, Anna informed her she’d kicked Tad out of the waiting room. Not that he’d done anything but sit and wait for her. She’d gotten the message he wished he could help but he’d made a visit to the Bjørn Bar earlier. He’d wait for her until she was free. Like a reasonable person.
She’d tried to find him last night, even going to his cabin. But no one answered. She wanted to tell him about the captain’s new research lab designs when Oliver showed up to take her out for their standing lunch reservations, three hours late. Oliver must have known about the appendectomy as well. She thought talking with a male shifter could bring her perspective on things. Instead, Oliver ambushed her mate. Sutton was her friend, and he was trying to do right by her.
If she were her sister, she would throw her hands on the table and scream. But that wasn’t what she did. Never. Instead, she would pull out some paper and make a list. With pros and cons. But here, she didn’t want to. Because something said the cons might be long and might make more sense. And what was the question she wanted answered? To mate? To leave the ship and do her own research? Too much at risk. That was what she kept thinking about, so instead she dug into the data she had from her last round of research blood work.
Papers littered her desk, and her computer desktop had twenty or more tabs open.
“Hey, didn’t you hear me knocking?”
“What?” Elizabeth pivoted to Anna in the doorway.
“I’ve been knocking for two minutes. I thought you might be asleep. I didn’t expect all of this.” Anna motioned to the mess on her desk and the area around it. “Have you been to your cabin yet? Did you sleep at all?”
“I put my head down for a minute on the desk. I’m good.”
“We’ve docked. Mike’s going to take the appendectomy patient to the island.” Anna looked remarkably awake.
“Right. Let me sign the paperwork. I should go with her.”
“No, that’s okay. Katie did it already. Mike’s taking her. You need to get some rest.”
“Okay. But I want to say goodbye to her and her
parents.”
Anna stood in front of the door and moved with her as she tried to get around.
“Anna, move, please.”
“You need to look at yourself first.”
“What?” Elizabeth pulled the clip from her hair, finger-combed it, and put it back in.
“That’s a start. Seriously, look at yourself.”
Elizabeth closed the door and stared at her reflection in the mirror on the back of it. A long sharpie line ran from her chin to her ear.
“I was taking notes.”
“On your face? Again?” Anna handed her an alcohol wipe from her pocket.
Elizabeth scrubbed most of it off. She said goodbye to the patient and her parents and went back to her office.
Katie pointed her finger as Elizabeth walked down the clinic hallway to her office. “What are you doing here? I’m covering for you now. Go get some rest. I’ve had one gastro and three stitches. Nothing serious. I’ve got this.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not that tired.”
“Sure, it would be fine, but don’t you have better things to do or someone better to hang out with?” Katie asked.
“No.” Not yet.
Katie put her hands on her hips. “All right, you can cover me now, but I’ll be back at six if you’re going to be stubborn about it. And I know you, so you will be.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Okay. Get out.”
Elizabeth closed the door and dug into the e-mail files on her computer. She hadn’t checked to see if what Phillip told her at the port was true. Matthias said it was. She didn’t doubt it.
In a junk folder that she hadn’t set up were e-mails from the university lab, along with two inquiries from other labs from six months to two years old. She wished she was a dragon now—she would burn him down.
She jumped up from her desk, but the tube holding the vellum plans sat in the chair next to the door and it stopped her. What he wanted her to do wasn’t an awful thing. How he acted on it was crazy, narcissistic, and characteristic of several other personality disorders. His hand now out in the open, she would have to thank Phillip. She could play the captain’s game if that’s what she wanted. But what did she want?
She opened the plans for the additional research space and spread them out over her desk. She traced her finger over and around the plans, studying them.
Next, she turned her attention to the job offer, the job she had applied for. Did she trust the dragon? That was a question she needed to ask herself. She didn't trust Phillip—too full of his own agenda. Where her feelings lay with Tad, she questioned. Hesitation hung in her throat. Three men, all asking for something from her. No, not all of them. Tad hadn’t asked her for anything—maybe that was the problem. It differed from every other relationship she’d ever had. Phillip didn’t want her around unless he needed her; he never understood when she had obligations.
What was enough? The guy who grades your papers better than you? Who waits for you when you need him? Who gives you space when you ask for it?
And what did she give him? Doubt about his own wolf. She had criticized his wolfness. Crap.
She created a new email account on a free site—different to the one the dragon had hacked—and then composed a letter to the head of the research department asking the pertinent questions and if the job was filled. After triple-checking that her résumé contained her contact information, she sent it off. How it was missing from her application, she didn’t know. But she suspected the captain had something to do with it.
Frustration filled her. How did she respond to an email from months ago, and in some cases years ago, without diminishing her own credibility? Phillip had said they were eager to contact her. But that was Phillip. She opened the e-mail from the research lab on the west coast. She may not want the job, but they needed to know that she hadn’t intentionally ignored them. Elizabeth picked up the phone and began the first of many difficult conversations.
* * *
The phone calls weren’t as painful as she expected. And a few of them led to great connections for whatever research she would go forward with. She hadn’t reached the head researcher for the university lab, but his assistant said that she would call her back. The assistant recognized her name and gave off an excited vibe. That might mean good things?
“How are you doing?” Anna stood in the hallway supply area, inventorying and cleaning, a typical activity for a mid-cruise port day.
“I’m good,” came out automatically.
Anna planted her hands on her hips. “Really?”
“No. Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it? Katie will be back soon.”
Elizabeth checked her watch. Five hours—that’s how long she had been in her office. “It’s extra quiet tonight.”
“I took care of a couple of things. Stitches.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Want dinner?”
“I’d like that. I should help Katie with the pre-match checks.”
“No. You shouldn’t. Katie can do pre-match checks. If she needs anything, she’ll call you.”
“You’re right.”
“I’ll need a minute to clean up the mess I’ve made.” Binders and research material surrounded Anna’s feet. “I’ll come get you.”
27
Rocky
“Are you sure you don’t want Elizabeth here? I can’t help but think you’re making a tactical error.” Katie blinked at him. There was no denying the ferocity in the petite female shifter’s intense eyes.
“That’s astute of you,” said Tad. “But wrong. It could be right if I were doing this match for anyone but myself. If I were, say, trying to prove something to someone else. That’s making an egregious error. But this—this I’m doing for myself.”
Once the beer and ale cleared from his system, the revelation hit that it was for himself and not for his mate. Yes, his mate’s words had shocked him, pissed him off, and made him furious. But they were true. He wasn’t whole. He wouldn’t deny his wolf or his magic anymore. His magic—he couldn’t do anything about. Not until he had a long talk with his mother. But his wolf—he’d tackle that right now. Last night had been the first time he’d shifted in a year.
“You told her you’re doing this?” Katie held her stethoscope in her hand.
“I’m taking action. That’s the important thing here.”
“I’m not so sure about that. But you know best. I don’t have a mate.” Katie listened to his heart rate.
“How are the twins?”
“They’re adorable. Almost as cute as my nieces.”
“You’re an aunt?”
“Ten times over. Stick out your tongue.” She placed the tongue depressor in his mouth. With a quick prick, she took his blood sample. “As long as this comes back clear, you’re good to go for the fight tonight. As long as you’re sure you should?”
“I’ve been looking for the doc. I thought maybe she might be the one to do my exam.” He needed to admit that he was wrong. And possibly grovel.
“We take turns. If you want to see her before your match, she’s having dinner with Anna.”
“Do you happen to know where they went?”
“Sorry, no. They usually eat in her office, but Anna pulled her out of the infirmary as soon as I got back from my dinner.”
Tad waved at the last shifter waiting for a physical in the infirmary waiting room. The two of them had a pleasant discussion about Kunyon ball and their dislike for Philadelphia sports teams.
He’d walked more miles on this ship than when the subway was broken during a taxi-driver strike. With a pattern of searching that let him avoid using the elevator, he made his way around the ship. Not that he’d had any successful missions before. When he found Anna and Elizabeth having pizza on the deck, it shocked him. He’d only been to three decks.
Anna’s head swiveled as he approached her and Elizabeth from behind. “I’m going to go check on Katie.” She stood and nodded at him as he approached
their table. “She should be done with the physicals now,” Anna said.
When his mate saw him, she smiled. A positive sign, he hoped.
“Hi.” He slid into Anna’s chair.
“Hi back at you. Were you just in the infirmary? Looking for me?” Elizabeth dropped her napkin in her lap.
He took the second-to-last slice of pizza from the tray in front of her, but put it down on a spare plate without taking a bite. He paused. “I’ve been searching for you all day for the last two days. You’re a busy gal.” He couldn’t keep his hands off of her. With a tug, he pulled his chair closer to hers. He didn’t have control over his wolf or his magic. And neither mattered. His priority was her. He tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear and ran his finger down her neck.
“True.” She bit her lip and nuzzled into his hand. His wolf chanted mate, mate.
“I want to apologize for earlier. To be honest with you, I’m not used to not being the one in control.” He held her hand, his thumb running around the top of hers. She waited. “I’m not the alpha of a pack, and with my business I take input but the final decision is mine. That’s not going to work here.” He held her hazel eyes in his gaze.
“No, it is not. My career is important to me—I’ve been accused of being single-minded regarding my research.” She stiffened as she said it.
“I get it. I’m sorry.”
“Tad, after the captain showed me the plans, the first thing I wanted to do was run and show them to you. The time we spent together on the island—it’s precious to me. I want more of that. More time with you. Can you forget the fated mate part for a little? Forget that you’re a shifter? And see me as a woman that likes you?”
He leaned in and kissed her. His hands wandered down her back, the armrest of the chair sandwiched between their bodies. She squeezed his thigh. Until someone cleared their throat loudly behind them. Their lips parted, swollen and red.
