Dragon Fixation

by Amelia Jade

  They had come out from the back and were headed toward the lunchroom, talking in hushed whispers she was sure they didn’t intend her to hear. But as a consequence of growing up around werewolves, her hearing was more acute than many would suspect. After all, when they spent years trying to talk quietly so that she wouldn’t hear, Willow had been forced to grow very adept at understanding even the faintest murmurs.

  Eventually the pair moved out of her hearing range, but she’d heard enough to allow a quick smile, before clamping down on her emotions. Willow wasn’t entirely sure why she was so happy that this newcomer had survived, but the elation wasn’t fake. She was genuinely happy.

  Odd.

  The chime went off to indicate the front door had opened. Sparked from her daydream by the harsh sound, Willow glanced at the clock. It was almost noon.

  “Hey Rachelle!” she said, getting up and going to greet the mail carrier. “Anything besides junk mail today?”

  “Nothing fun, but I think there might be an envelope or two in there.”

  The pair giggled as Willow grabbed the thick stack of mail that was always there. Her father refused to get with the times and do things such as electronic billing. Which meant she was forced to deal with piles upon piles of paper ones. Life was just fantastic sometimes.

  “See you tomorrow,” Rachelle said as she departed with a wave.

  “I hope not!” Willow called back in their familiar routine. The door chimed again while she went back to her desk.

  “Bill, bill, bill, junk mail, bill. Credit card offer. Bill.”

  The offer went straight into the shredder before her father saw it. He also didn’t grasp the concept of credit cards, and thought of them as free money. Her father, for being so smart, was rather naïve when it came to money.

  “Huh.” Willow stopped sorting mail. There was an envelope, hand-written and addressed to her father. That was odd. He almost never got personalized mail at work. It all went to the pack house. He refused to conduct pack business while at work, and vice versa. He was very strict about his employees enjoying personal time and not having to worry about their jobs while off the clock, and he lived by that formula as well.

  There was no return address. The inside didn’t feel like it was stuffed with cash, which had happened a time or two. She could feel the card, but there didn’t seem to be a whole lot else. Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe a check? It wasn’t his birthday or any other occasion, and to her knowledge, he didn’t have anybody who would send him such things in the first place.

  Willow could just leave it in his mail slot and let him grab it the next time he came through reception. Or, she thought, getting up from her chair, I could go take it to him. A walk through the back was just what was called for she decided. And if I happen to catch a look at the new guy, who can blame me for being curious, right?

  Decision made, she snatched up the letter and started walking into the back. The big doors opened under her push. They were heavy to keep the sound out, but her father insisted on ensuring everything was well oiled and maintained, so they swung open easily. The sound of the working floor washed over her, but after having been there for so many years, she was used to it.

  Her father’s office was off to the right, giving him a full view of the sorting and storage area. Her heels clicked off the floor, announcing her presence before she could knock on the open door.

  “Willow? What brings you back here?” He set his pen down and gave her his attention.

  “You got a letter in the mail today. It doesn’t have a return address and it’s handwritten.” She tossed him a wink. “Too skinny to be a bribe unless it’s a check, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  Stephen smiled at her as she held out the baby-blue envelope to him. “It’s not my birthday, is it?”

  “The only person who gets you a card for that is me, Father, and I send it to the house, remember?”

  “Of course.”

  She shook her head. He didn’t remember. His mind was all work and nothing else. “No, it’s not your birthday or any other special occasion that I’m aware of. Which is why I figured I would bring it to you instead of just leave it for you to grab.”

  While she was talking, Willow had turned so she could lean against the inside of the door frame. Arms crossed, trying to affect an air of disinterest, she surveyed the floor. The new guy, Aiden, stood out like a sore thumb. Not because he was doing something wrong, though she could tell from his movements he wasn’t entirely sure of everything he was doing. No, it was the way he simply captured her attention without doing a single thing. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t even noticed her yet, but somehow she was drawn to him like a magnet.

  His face turned in her direction and she saw his lips quirk. He had seen her! Not only that, he’d noticed she was staring at him. And if he could notice, so could others. Willow quickly focused her attention back on her father.

  “So, who is it?” she asked as he pulled out the folded paper from within.

  But before her father could reply she found her eyes pulling her head around to look for Aiden once more. Damn, what was it with that man that made her unable to look away while he was around? She saw him lift a box, and after setting it down atop a conveyor, hold his side briefly. An injury from that morning, perhaps? Or had he just hurt himself then and there? Did he need help? First aid? Before Willow realized it she was ready to go over to him and see what she could do to help.

  “It’s from the drivers’ union.”

  She looked back at her father, who was frowning at the paper.

  “What do they want? And why a hand-signed hard?”

  “I guess they’re appreciative of the boost in business we’ve been giving them the past six months,” he said carefully, folding the paper up and stuffing it back into the envelope.

  Willow frowned, but didn’t say anything. As the main receptionist and administrator she knew all of the goings-on, and she’d noticed the uptick in shipments for the past half year. It wasn’t a growth spurt she’d been expecting based on their normal annual growth, but nobody was complaining about it on either side. Sometimes these things just happened.

  “Well, that’s nice of them. You should write back and ask them to send Joe more often. I like him.”

  Her father laughed and tucked the envelope into a drawer. “You just missed him actually.”

  “What? Why did nobody tell me!” she complained, stomping her foot like a petulant child.

  Joe was her favorite werebear driver. He was one of the senior drivers for Gear-Shift Cartage, the company that they outsourced the actual deliveries to, and just a general all-around great person. He was a redneck shifter, which sounded like it should have been at odds with itself, but in reality it wasn’t. Willow just loved it when he came by.

  “He was here and gone. His truck was unloaded and he pulled out.”

  Willow knew her father wasn’t nearly as fond of Joe as she was. Although all of the drivers were shifters, many of them were werebears and other types who preferred a solitary living, for whatever reason, he’d never come around on Joe. Which was a shame.

  “So rude,” she said lightly. “I’m going to have to give him grief about that when he comes back.”

  “Indeed.”

  “So, you kept him?” she asked, pointing to where Aiden was moving up to a loading dock with a pallet jack as one of the others guided another truck in. “I hadn’t expected to see him around again.”

  It was a struggle to keep her voice from betraying her interest in him, especially from her father, who probably knew her vocal mannerisms better than anyone else. The distant, annoyed expression that replaced the neutral look on his face made it fairly clear she’d succeeded. If he was irritated, his mind would be elsewhere, and not on what she was saying.

  “Yeah. He bested Patrice and Deckard in quick order. Rokk beat him of course, but he’s got some potential. If he hates Mack as much as I do, then maybe I can bring him around. I could do with
an extra hand here.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Father,” she said, mildly surprised at his calm dissection of the situation.

  “Oh, if he messes up or tries anything stupid it’ll be the final straw. Fuck Mack for thinking he can saddle me with his problem children, that uppity bastard.”

  Willow just smiled, looking out at the work floor. Aiden had just emerged from the back of the truck, and as he wheeled the pallet around she saw him glancing up in her direction. Trying not to blush, she smiled back at him briefly.

  “Now now, Father. We all know your dislike for Mack. No need to go on a rant about it.”

  Her tone was gentle and chiding, but she was deadly serious. His hysterics about the regional Alpha had gotten worse and worse over the past few years, and lately they’d become tirades to the point that she feared being in the same room as him if he went off. It wasn’t good.

  Not that he would ever challenge Mack either. Stephen didn’t want the position and responsibilities Mack had. Yes, it was a status increase, but she knew the workload the other Alpha shouldered, and it was immense. Her father would crack under the pressure, she was certain of it. Willow didn’t want to see that, and so she did her best to try and keep him calm when discussing Mack.

  It seemed to work this time, but she knew that was far from an everyday victory on her part.

  Flint went by, wheeling a pallet of white boxes out of sight into a side room. Willow had seen those sorts of things before, but she’d never asked what they were. To see Flint handling them was odd, considering the fact that as the pack Second he was usually in charge of supervising everything, leaving the manual labor up to others. She wondered what it was all about, but couldn’t be bothered to ask. Her father knew how to handle stuff back here, and she could deal with paperwork. They made a good team.

  On the floor two of the shifters, neither of them Aiden, suddenly snarled and sprang at each other, a brown box tumbling to the ground forgotten. Willow winced as something broke inside of it. The sound of clothing ripping was unmistakable. Neither were the barks and yips that followed.

  “For fuck’s sake.” Her father stood up and rushed for the door. “Not again, dammit.”

  Willow just sighed. She was going to have to order some more overalls after this. They could never keep enough of them in stock.

  Five

  Aiden

  He slapped at his cell phone, the alarm going off like an emergency buzzer in his ear.

  “Stupid piece of shit. Just shut the fuck up already. Fuck, let me sleep!”

  The noise kept buzzing. He fumbled with the phone again, but it dropped to the floor at the side of the bed.

  “Sonofabitch!” he cursed, rolling over and picking it up, sliding his finger upward in an attempt to get it to sleep.

  It kept blaring.

  “For fuck’s sake. If you don’t shut the fuck up I’m going to break you in half you insufferable piece of technology!” His voice was still low, but it was infused with anger now as his eyes opened and he focused on the screen.

  “Shit.”

  He’d forgotten he’d set it so that he had to solve a math puzzle to get it to shut off. What the fuck kind of sadistic person had Last-Night-Aiden been to come up with such a horrible idea? That jerk. If he ever found him, This-Morning-Aiden promised to lay a beating on him. Puzzle solved, he tossed the phone back onto the nightstand.

  It was too late though. He was up and awake.

  “Fucking hell.” He tossed the sheets back and stretched out his limbs. Muscles and tendons creaked, joints popped, and his nearly five-decade-old body came alive at his command.

  Thankfully Aiden didn’t feel like he was closing in on fifty. He could reasonably expect to see his hundred and fiftieth birthday, which meant he was closer to a human in their late twenties in terms of age. And his body responded appropriately upon awakening.

  “Seriously? Still?” He glanced down between his legs and sighed in exasperation. There just wasn’t time for that! Aiden had gotten up early for a reason, and that most definitely was not it.

  Throwing his legs off the bed, he walked over to the bathroom, feeling the awkward side-to-side bounce between his legs. Going to the washroom was always an interesting adventure when he woke up like this. Leaning forward and over the bowl, he forced it down and away from him.

  Sometimes being a guy sucks. Nobody should be forced to take such an awkward morning leak.

  He perked up once he hopped in the shower next, the lukewarm water bringing his brain out of its foggy state, and helping encourage blood flow throughout his entire body, not just in one place. Nearly ten minutes later—an eternity for him in the shower—he emerged feeling awake and refreshed.

  One thing I can say is that Stephen got the water pressure right. None of this pissy dribble stuff. That water has some force behind it!

  Glancing in the mirror proved that shaving could wait another day. By then the stubble would be too long and he’d need to get rid of it. But it would be fine for today.

  Moving in to a new pack house had been a weird and unsettling experience. But Aiden was no longer welcome in Mack’s, so he’d had to move out immediately. It had been three days now, and he was getting used to it as best he could. There was one thing that made it more bearable, and had made the transition easier.

  It was that reason which had prompted his early morning, something Aiden was absolutely not known for. If a survey had been conducted about his attitude in the morning, it would probably have been a landslide victory for “Danger—Landmines—DO NOT DISTURB” or something similar.

  Essentially, he was not a morning person. Which is why his hackles rose when he glanced at the clock for the time and realized it said nearly seven thirty.

  Who the hell gets up at this ungodly hour? Not even wolves are awake right now.

  Truthfully, he knew next to nothing about the habits of his wild brethren, and frankly, he didn’t care. They could be wide awake right now. But that’s why they were wild. Intelligence came with the desire to sleep in, or so he told himself.

  Slipping his overalls on, he grabbed the keys to his room, locked the door behind him, and headed down to the common room of the pack house. Nobody else was awake, and knowing that his position was precarious enough without him agitating it, Aiden chose to move in as much silence as he could.

  “Ah!” Willow yelped as he stole into the kitchen on the pads of his feet, barely making a noise. Her coffee mug flew into the air.

  “Sorry!” he hissed, hand reaching out to snatch the mug. “Ow!” he sat the scalding-hot mug on the counter.

  “A coaster!” she whispered, pointing frantically at the counter.

  “It’s granite,” he said slowly, but doing as he was told. “You realize it won’t harm it, right?”

  Willow rolled her eyes as she rinsed her hand of the coffee that had jostled over it. Thankfully the cup had been mostly empty, so not much had spilled.

  “Make you a fresh cup?” he asked, pointing at the machine.

  “I don’t need it,” she said slowly. “But okay.”

  Aiden laughed and made her a fresh cup, dropping in a spoonful of sugar and two bits of cream as per her directions.

  This is why he’d gotten up early. Most of the pack would start to rise in half an hour, and when they did, the place would become an absolute circus. The raucous noise the pack created was more than even Aiden could sleep through. So instead of trying, he’d gotten up early the morning before out of pure spite, to get ready before all of them.

  Which was when he’d discovered that Willow did the exact same thing. She’d been heading out the door when he’d come down the stairs, and besides a brief exchange of glances, nothing more had been said. This time though, he was determined to do more than just look at each other.

  Finding out her first name hadn’t been a challenge. He’d heard it at least twice the first day. Learning more about her, however, had proven to be a bit more difficult.

&n
bsp; “Why are you up early this morning?” she asked, accepting the fresh cup and blowing on it gently before taking a sip. “Mmm, perfect, thank you.”

  “Beat the rush,” he said. “I am so not down with the circus life.”

  Willow laughed, the light notes reminding him of butterflies and the color pink, for whatever reason. She had a way of evoking random images in his mind, things he associated strongly with her for some reason.

  “Neither am I. You werewolves are something else.”

  He watched in amazement as she slid into one of the bar stools that were under the standing-height island that occupied a huge amount of space, which was saying something, considering how oversized the kitchen itself was. It wasn’t her ability to seat herself that had caught his attention though. It was what she was doing once there.

  “I didn’t think people your age even knew what those were,” he said, stunned as she opened the newspaper and began to read.

  “What?”

  “Newspapers.”

  Willow frowned. “Just how old do you think I am?”

  He shrugged, knowing full well the rough answer. “Early twenties?”

  Her warm blonde hair was hanging down loose this morning, and now it bounced lively as she gave a full-throated chuckle. Bright green eyes that had a very wolf-like demeanor to them, even if she was very much human, regarded him carefully.

  “You should try a little less flattery next time,” she informed him. “It might actually be believable then.”

  Aiden nodded. “Duly noted. Late twenties would have been the better option.”

  “Precisely. Then I could act flattered that you genuinely thought about it, instead of knowing you’re trying to get on my good side by saying an age that is far too young.”

  “Well, you certainly don’t look your age, that’s for certain.”

  Willow grinned. “Much better. Vague but complimentary at the same time. Perhaps you can learn.”