“Do you forgive me?”
I had firsthand experience with the charming ability of wolves. He wasn’t an alpha, but Hairy knew how to wield the sensitive sexy angle. “I’ll put you on probation.”
His eyes narrowed.
I opened the cordon, entering The Dens.
Leroy flanked me immediately. “Boss wants to see you in his office.”
“No,” I replied, heading for the bar.
“Don’t make me drag you in there,” he said.
I squinted up at him. “Where exactly did I shoot you last night?”
Instead of scowling, the wolf smiled, snatching my sax case off my shoulder.
“Leroy,” I hissed, hurrying after him—as fast as my sleeve dress would allow.
He disappeared into the staff quarters, and I burst in after him.
“Come back,” I was far too sore for this.
Glaring, I moved past Leroy into the office. My sax case rested on the desk, and I ignored the man sitting there.
My saxophone was okay.
I faced Leroy, ignoring his wide grin. “Please don’t ever touch my saxophone again. It’s very important to me.”
His smile faded. The werewolf nodded. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” I spun on my heel as he closed the door.
Sascha took me in. Honey all but dripped over the missing panels at either side of my torso as his gaze skated the bared skin. I’d picked up my fair share of bruises last night and this was my most concealing dress. Wedges, hoop earrings, and a wavy ponytail completed the look.
“You’re breathtaking.” Sascha Greyson rounded the desk and extended his hand.
“What’s that for?” I glowered at his massive palm.
“I’ve never been taken out in Grids. Well played.”
In that case. I took his hand. Mistake. He gently tugged me towards him.
“It’s right that you’d be cunning and strong to match me,” Sascha murmured, his thumb stroking my wrist and eliciting a body-wracking shiver.
He considered me shooting him a good thing. This was more breeding-call bullshit. He was thinking about my genetics.
Jesus.
I freed my hand from his grip, curling my fingers against my stomach. “You realise I shot you five times.”
“I counted eight.”
“If I shoot eight darts into your balls next time, will you leave me alone?”
Sascha threw back his head and laughed.
I turned for my case, but the werewolf spun me back, circling an arm around my waist.
Warmth melted me from the inside out. Oh my god. What was that? “Let me go.”
“If you really want that, I will,” Sascha said low. “Or you could admit that your hangover is disappearing and accept the help.”
I blinked. “Is that really happening?”
“You tell me.”
My slight headache was ebbing, drawing back from my temples and the base of my neck. I sucked in a breath. “How is that possible? Magic?”
Maybe this crap had one perk.
“No more magic than I am. For breeding pairs, feeling better when touching, hearing, seeing, and smelling each other just is.”
“That’s a pretty lame explanation.” God, this felt incredible.
He held my gaze. “Our knowledge of pack origins is poor at best. Much was lost when my father brought us here.”
“Were you around to personally witness that?” I pressed closer to him as the slight churning in my stomach faded.
“What will you give me if I tell you?” He drew me closer still.
“I’m only here because you’re curing my hangover, Sascha. Down, boy.”
“This feels right. You can’t deny it.”
“Because of the meets,” I replied. “This is no indication of how I might have felt if magic wasn’t involved. Or Luther juju.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
His body was hot against mine, heat searing everywhere we touched. He was enjoying this.
A lot, judging by what I could feel.
I placed my hand against his chest and stepped back. He caught my wrist and my eyes flew to his.
Sascha inhaled. “When you’re turned on, I want to rip your dress off as much as I want to look at you in it. It’s the most exquisite torture.”
My breath hitched. “I’m not turned on.”
He stalked forward. “A wolf’s nose never lies. I’ve catalogued your scents. Lies, half-lies, concealment, joy, and grief.”
There were smells for all that?
“Is that because you’re a sigma?” My back hit the wall.
His arms caged me in, and his head dipped. I arched my neck to the side, and a deep purring chuff echoed through him.
“Not a sigma, Andie,” he growled. “The sigma. Rules do not apply to me.”
Sascha disappeared, and I nearly staggered forward at the slight cold.
“Tell that to Herc,” he said, riffling through papers on the desk. “Maybe in exchange you could tell me something though?”
I scoffed to cover how truly shaken I was and returned to the desk to snatch up my case. “How about you just solve our problem and get your wolf under control?”
“He grows more demanding with each passing second. Especially when you smell this way. So ready.”
My mouth dried. “You’re scaring me, Sascha. I want you to stop.”
His jaw clenched. The Luther dropped his gaze to the desk. “I know, little bird. I’m scared too.”
I moved around the desk. “Then, please, just stop.”
The werewolf lifted his head, and I wished he wasn’t so fucking handsome. He was a monster. But he walked and talked, and my mind couldn’t always hold onto that truth.
“Even with the world against us,” Sascha said to me. “Even with such impossible odds. This can only move in one direction.”
He blurred, cupping the base of my head and forcing my head back.
“Then what are we going to do?” I whispered in defeat, throat bared. “How can we outsmart this?”
Sascha rested his forehead against mine and even with my hangover long gone, the contact felt so good that I shoved away the shouted warnings of my heart.
His lips moved to my ear. “I don’t want to outsmart anything. In case it wasn’t clear, Andie Booker, my wolf wants you. And I trust my wolf implicitly. You are a match for me. You will be mine.”
His grip in my hair was borderline painful.
The werewolf studied me intensely. “More than anything I’ve wanted in ninety-five years.”
Ninety-five years old.
Jackpot.
The wolf eased his hold, massaging the base of my skull gently before freeing his hand from my ponytail. “There’s just one last question I need answered, and then my wolf will be ready.”
I became aware that my legs trembled. My breaths were shallow and fast. My lips moist.
I had nothing. No witty quip. No furious remark.
“Get to work,” Sascha said gruffly, returning to his seat. “And you can be sure I won’t underestimate you in Victratum again, little bird. You’re a worthy foe.”
I mustered as much dignity as possible, grabbing my sax case.
“Before you go, I haven’t asked you my deep question for the day.” He hummed.
I almost asked what he meant before recalling our conversation yesterday. I stiffened, dread seeping through every part of me.
“What is it?” I said, a definite bite in my voice.
Sascha inhaled deeply, searching my face for a time. “Tell you what. Let’s call a truce today.”
25
I rolled down the window as Uncle Herc drove.
“Ninety-five years old,” he said.
A frequency generator sat between us, something I’d only recently noted the stewards had in their cars. I’d have to remember to take the one Wade sent out with me.
“Yep. And he said he’s the sigma. That status mustn’t be a common thing.”
“Then how is he leading a pack?”
Herc focused on the road out to the timber mill where Rhona waited. Hanging out with them beat sitting around all day. I’d trained, cleaned the apartment, completed my pre-readings for the first lectures next week, and done the grocery shop.
I missed Mum.
She filled the empty spots just by living in the same house. I’d thought that people weren’t for me, but I’d lost my person a month ago, and a void remained that, instead of closing, seemed to stretch wider as time went on. I’d coped so well in those first two weeks—but looking back, I didn’t have time to be upset. I ran from Queen’s Way, discovered my family here, got a job, broke up with Logan, found out about werewolves, started training, nearly drowned.
I hadn’t stopped once.
And I didn’t like the feeling I now had.
“We need more on him,” Herc said. “I become more uneasy each day you work there. The Luthers flocked to the West on Wednesday. They’ve never done that before.”
“Yeah. But it worked.” They’d systematically flushed out each team. West, South, East, and North.
“It could be that. But why did Sascha end up so close to you? A fluke or by design?”
Ah, shit. “I was with Rhona when the wolves saw us and howled. One howled again on a second sighting of us. When we split up, they stopped howling. Leroy found me in the tunnel.”
“The big blond? Greyson’s second-in-command.”
Is he? “What do you think it could be?”
“Perhaps it’s Rhona they’re after. Or both of you. Which is highly concerning, but my gut tells me whatever his reasoning, it has to do with offering you a job at The Dens. Or getting even with you for what you’re doing—he can’t attack you outside of the game after all.”
Herc was far too smart. It made hugging Sascha two nights ago all the more stupid and irresponsible. Headache Andie had a lot to answer for. She fell for the hangover cure gimmick.
Billy the player sounded like a far safer option. He could work out a few kinks and remind me other men could bring comfort too. Human comfort.
A blur of brown caught my eye through the trees as Herc turned the car into the timber mill. My chest tightened.
Another flash of brown. That better not be—
A huge form leaped between the trees.
I faced forward, breathing thinly. That. Fucker.
Sascha was here.
“Here we are,” Herc said. “This timber mill has been around for over a century.”
For once, his words flew in one ear and out the other. “Is Rhona here already?”
My uncle frowned. “I can’t see her car. She shouldn’t be far away.”
I fell into step with him a moment later. My back was tense as I resisted the urge to search for the wolf. Because I knew one thing for a fact.
The bastard let me see him.
He was toying with me. Again. He got a kick out of knowing I was aware of his presence. Why tell me about the capture meet at all, if not? Or that he’d catalogued my scents?
What the fuck did that even mean?
It meant Sascha Greyson wanted me to feel vulnerable.
To my memory, only one of us had ended up with a tranquiliser dart in the kneecap so far. Yet his grip in my hair. His forehead pressed to mine. Honey. My shaking legs.
All of that told me I should be worried.
There’s one last question I need answered. Then my wolf will be ready. He hadn’t asked his Thursday or Friday question since our meeting.
What was the last question? The thought had kept me up until the early hours ever since—in addition to the expectation Sascha would burst through my bay windows at any second.
We stopped outside a small office that read Reception.
Herc popped his head in. “Hey, Missy. Has Rhona been in?”
The rosy-cheeked and very pregnant woman beamed. “She left not long ago. Said she had a top-secret strategy meeting to attend.”
I pressed my trembling lips together.
Herc thanked her and shut the door, pulling out his phone. “Rhona.”
“I’m sure she just got caught up.”
My uncle shot me a wry look, shoving the phone in his jacket pocket. “I appreciate the loyalty that makes you say so, but Rhona has a worrying habit of doing this.”
“Worrying?”
“She’s not taking this seriously enough. My father and mother were gone by my mid-twenties. Even after losing her mother, Rhona doesn’t understand that I could be gone tomorrow, and this will all land on her.”
“She’s serious when it counts.” I frowned. “The stewards respect her ability in Grids.”
Herc held up his finger. “Exactly. In the Grids.”
I remained mute, trying to remember how far werewolves could hear. This wasn’t a conversation for Sascha.
“I’ll speak to her tonight for all the good it will do,” he said. “I can still show you how things work here though. Unless that’s a boring uncle thing to do.”
“Not at all. I’m interested,” I replied truthfully. “I’ve been curious about the business side of the game.”
“Unsurprising with your chosen area of study.”
We walked side by side past reception.
“I start again on Monday,” I told him.
“I’m glad to hear that. I’m proud of you, Andie. Very proud.”
I waited for the hugging mall Santa feeling. I really did. Any second now I’d be smacked with that pants three sizes too small squeeze.
It never came.
“Thank you,” I said slowly.
He cocked a brow. “No need to sound so surprised.”
“It’s not that.”
I understood that people could be proud of one another. It’s just that somehow… inexplicably… I believed he was proud of me.
“You were a natural out there,” he said.
We strode through tall stacks of milled timber. Was Sascha crouched on top of one?
I shivered. “Not really. I got lucky.”
“You showed creativity. And thought on your feet. If there’s enough time around your studies, I’d like you to shadow my team leaders during meetings from now on. You’re a clear-headed thinker and like a puzzle. I predict that you’ll land yourself as a member of a strategy team in no time.”
Those people did not mess around. “It feels like there’s a lot to learn before that.”
“You have no trouble absorbing material. Information can always be rote learned. The ability to reason and reflect outside of your emotions is rarer, and the speed with which you’re able to do so at your age is promising. In time, with dedication and application, you’ll make the head team, I’m certain.”
He had to be messing with me. That was ludicrous.
“You don’t believe me,” he said, chuckling. “You’ll see. I protect one thousand stewards and you, my niece, are a gem on the gold pile.”
How was I meant to respond? Did he really think of me that way?
“Now, hold onto your seat. I’m taking you to see where the logs first arrive.”
I followed him, mind spinning. Herc was planning for me to be in his life for years to come. He expected me to enter his head team one day.
He valued me.
My family wanted me here.
Someone wanted me. And I believed they wanted me.
Inhaling deeply, I focused on his words, determined to commit them to memory.
Some of my clothes were missing. They’d disappeared as I slept after my third shift at The Dens. Jeans, a sweater, the forest green silk number, and some of my fucking underwear.
I flung open the bay windows, the demon’s name on my lips.
“Hey, baby girl!”
Stumbling forward, I choked back my furious roar. “H-Hi, Wade.”
“It’d be cute if you called me
baby boy,” he called up.
“Not happening. What brings you all this way?”
An elderly woman stepped around him, shooting a look between us.
“We’re Romeo and Juliet,” Wade called after her.
I waited until the woman was gone. “Did Romeo ever tell Juliet she didn’t make his dick twitch? I can’t remember.”
“Scholars are undecided.”
He was full of shit. And I really liked him for it. “You coming up or what?”
“Or what. It’s a new moon. We gather at the manor on the new moon for obvious reasons. I came to get you.”
I waited.
He eyed me. “Which you apparently don’t know. Okay. Grab comfy clothes, and if you have a pillow and blanket you like, bring them along. I’ll fill you in on the ride.”
Better than sitting in the apartment fuming about stolen underwear.
I changed into old sweats and a holey sweater that read Queen’s Way Little League. I stole it from a secondhand bin at fifteen. Thick socks. Scrunchie and ponytail. I smacked some moisturiser on, grabbing my pillow and queen blanket. Mostly because there was a damn werewolf thief in town who didn’t have boundaries.
“You own casual. Sexy as hell. If I was into you at all,” Wade told me as I tossed my stuff in his black Jeep.
I slid into the passenger seat. “Do you find Rhona attractive?”
“Oh, totally.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s so insulting! We look the same.”
“Guess your personality is the issue.”
Laughter burst from me. “You’re such an asshole.”
He darted in to press a kiss to my cheek. “You have a personality that my balls recognise I can’t do without.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ten percent sweet. Ninety percent gross.”
He ripped out of the park and I clutched the oh shit handle.
“Wade!”
“Turn on the frequency generator, would ya?” he asked, not slowing in the slightest.
“I’d need to release this handle to do that. And that will only happen if you slow down.”
Wade braked ever so slightly.
I pressed the button on the generator in the console, waiting for the light to flash green.
Wade punched into the phone settings on the console and called Cameron.
“What?” she answered.
Shifter Wars: Supernatural Battle (Werewolf Dens Book 1) Page 26
