Hunt Mates

by Mary Hughes

  Locked onto a warrior’s muscular prowl and a prince’s noble profile.

  Her body froze, her eyelids blinking rapidly. Where had that thought come from?

  The man passed her on his way to the home entertainment area. Her wolf caught his scent.

  Her whole body went on the fritz.

  Every nerve, organ, and cell lit up as if she’d been plugged into a wall socket…or as if he’s my mate.

  Shocked, she snapped straight. Couldn’t be. Wolf mated wolf, and Gabriel Light smelled all-too-human, though deliciously masculine.

  He walked away from her, revealing powerful shoulder blades and narrow hips. Her pelvis ached with need, her thighs desperate to wrap around those hips, and she had a sudden desire to find out if he was as well-muscled as she thought—by stripping those slouchy clothes from his big body with her teeth.

  She clenched her jaw against a silent groan. Human. Shifters, even of iota caliber, were unusually strong and highly sexed. He’d never keep up.

  He’s big, though. That size? He might be able to handle me and my iota.

  Her inner wolf began wagging its tail. She took an involuntary step after him, her mind already catapulting to what she’d say, what he’d say.

  “Hi, sexy. Come here often?”

  “Hi. Are you the woman I had no say in hiring?”

  She stopped cold. Barking idiot. I need this job. If that was Dr. Gabriel Light, and she was pretty sure he was, he was her boss. At best he’d think any proposition from her as forward, and at worst, he’d think she was trying to sleep her way into a permanent position.

  The rest of the employees were gathering around the home theater section. Emma wedged the headset into the first available space and joined them around a raised platform.

  The big man mounted the platform, a mega-screen television behind him haloing his thick head of hair. As she neared, she realized the man wasn’t just big, he was a giant, around six and a half feet.

  “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Gabriel Light, store manager. Let me say how great it is being back. It takes seeing the mess of another family to make you appreciate your own.” He launched into a short speech, the other employees listening attentively.

  The closer she got, the more gorgeous he was to her. Perfect jaw, chiseled lips, strong nose. Her stomach shimmied.

  “I’ve always thought my people were the best…” His head turned—straight toward Emma.

  His gaze locked with hers. His eyes consumed her, deep blue-green irises shot with startling silver. Those star-shot gaze zinged straight into her sex. She throttled a groan.

  He cleared his throat and switched his gaze to the person beside her. “I’ve always thought you are the best of the best, but now I know it.”

  Without his gaze tethering her, her brain began working again. Had he paused? She frowned. Strange, when he was so fluent before. But she wasn’t really sure because she’d been so discombobulated by his amazing eyes.

  “I’ll finish by welcoming our new hire. Now, let’s go have fun!”

  Welcome the new hire…? That’s me. Emma got a glow of belonging, quickly suppressed. He was just being diplomatic. He wouldn’t want to undermine Carol’s hire in front of the rest of the employees. He might still fire Emma in private.

  But it still felt so nice to be included.

  The meeting broke up. Emma stood there, torn. She wanted to meet Gabriel Light with an urgency that shook her. But if he saw how attracted she was, that might be the first step to job suicide.

  Might not, her inner wolf yipped.

  Mom needs the money I earn, she scolded herself. Now’s not the time to indulge in fantasy.

  The stream of people heading back to work pulled her with them. She needed this job, and she wouldn’t have it much longer standing there, mooning over her boss.

  Forcing herself to move, she turned away from Dr. Light’s commanding presence.

  Only to see a panicked Carol running back toward them.

  “The wrap-phone prototype is gone. It’s been stolen!”

  Chapter Three

  Shock iced Emma’s lungs. The Wrapphone was gone? While she’d been facing stock one aisle over?

  Had a thief taken it under her nose?

  Puh-lease, her inner wolf sniffed. She stifled a laugh. Under a wolf’s nose? No way. She’d have smelled something off.

  “Keep calm, everyone,” Dr. Light said.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him stride purposefully off the platform, headed toward Carol. Emma scooted out of his path, along with a handful of other employees.

  “I’ll look into it and if necessary, call the police. In the meantime, that shipment of new plasma screens has come in. I’d love to see them on the shelf before the store opens. Carol, could you see to it?”

  “Yes, sir.” The assistant manager nodded, panic leaving her body and suddenly all business. “David, Joy, and Emma, please clear the way for the forklifts. Ann, Joe, and Brant, come with me.”

  Emma was frankly admiring. He’d calmed all their panic and then put everyone into a productive mode with just a few deft actions.

  She’d already memorized the routes the forklifts used to bring product onto the floor. Starting at the doorway to the loading dock, she began sliding displays from the path to the home theater area.

  Minutes later, a forklift came roaring out of the back, a six-foot television carton atop the forks, careering near-misses with the heavily stocked shelves. Emma straightened with a sucked-in breath.

  At the wheel of the forklift was the gangly teen Brant.

  The vehicle swerved. A set of high-end cameras was on its way to being so much shrapnel.

  Emma didn’t think, she just acted, dashing out, waving and calling. “Brant! This way.” Her arms scissored like an Airforce signal officer or a demented puppet, trying to guide him in. When he headed for her, she leaped to shove clear the last few displays before he hit them. “Okay stop. Stop!”

  Half a foot from her, he squealed to a halt.

  She released a relieved breath—too soon.

  The pricey flat panel atop the raised fork began to topple off.

  Right over her head.

  Good packaging meant the TV would be fine. Her, not so much. Sure, her shifter nature could heal a few broken bones or concussion, but it would hurt like hell.

  She danced aside, choosing not to test her shifter’s healing.

  Footfalls rang along the carpeted concrete from behind the forklift, getting nearer. “Damn it in milk, he’s not supposed to be driving.” Gabriel Light’s voice, not the smooth baritone he’d used giving that speech, but deeper, hard and flat and determined.

  “I’ll fix it!” Brant jerked the steering wheel of the forklift. The box righted itself, wobbled…and started to fall the other way.

  Right to where she’d moved.

  An instant before she was smashed into a pulp by the plummeting television, strong arms scooped her from her feet.

  A muscular leap carried her safe from disaster. Or at least the smaller, Brant-sized disaster. She’d barely comprehended that she wasn’t hurt when she realized the full magnitude of the giant, Gabriel-Light-sized disaster.

  Warm arms, thick with muscle and strong as tree trunks, plastered her to a chest as hard as polished contoured marble. Male scent filtered into her nose, crisp and clean and better than her best wet dream.

  Her heart leaped and thudded. Slowly her eyes rose.

  Gabriel Light’s chiseled jaw was just a nibble away. Her tongue and teeth throbbed to take a taste.

  “Brant, get off that thing.” Dr. Light gazed sternly at the teen, a muscle ticking in his jaw. The man had insanely touchable-looking skin. “Ms. Singer, are you okay?”

  She swallowed past her need, pushing away thoughts of insanely touchable skin. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. Sorry about that.” Dr. Light’s gaze was still on the forklift as he shook his head. “Brant the Blundering strikes again.”


  A laugh bubbled up in her throat. Brant the Blundering? “Appropriate.”

  “Yeah. I’d do something, but the kid desperately needs this job.” His gaze shifted to Emma. Their eyes met.

  Electricity leaped between them.

  Her whole body went up in flames, as if a grain fire had whooshed inside her.

  His pupils dilated abruptly and he swallowed hard. Gently, he set her on her feet.

  She wobbled. His hands were instantly there, steadying her. She gazed into his eyes as if her soul was tethered to him.

  “I have to…the missing phone…” He released her and dashed away.

  Leaving her standing there, cold and shaken.

  * * *

  Wizard Prince Gabriel Light got the hell out of scent range of the pretty little she-wolf before she got a whiff of him.

  Before she could scent the testosterone pouring off him like Niagara Falls.

  Holding her warm, curvy little body, smelling her sweet, wild scent…he’d ignited in a bonfire of lust. He could smell it.

  And if he could, she certainly could.

  He strode from the store proper into the back area, making straight for his office. There, he locked himself in and activated the wards.

  Throwing himself into his chair, he dragged exasperated hands through his hair. Scrambled eggs and damn. What do I do now?

  While he was out of state last week, Carol had texted him about the new hire, and on paper he agreed with her scooping Ms. Singer up. He’d been prepared to ratify his assistant’s decision this morning as soon as he’d seen the small woman working so industriously. He went toward her to introduce himself, opening his third eye on her just as a matter of routine—and had been astonished to see her pulse with magic.

  A shifter.

  That changed things. Shifters didn’t care much for witches. True, she wouldn’t know he was a witch, as magic was only visible in a thing or being of magic, like a talisman or shifter. Witches, as manipulators of magic, weren’t visible to the third eye.

  He didn’t intend to mislead her, but he couldn’t have mundane ears overhearing him when he told her. Regular people didn’t, couldn’t know about magic. Magic was all about manipulating the power of possibility. If everyone knew it was real, magical possibility would become concrete and collapse into mundane reality. Poof, no more magic.

  So he’d decided to tell Ms. Singer in private, and had passed her to give his glad-to-be-home speech, meaning to call her into his office later.

  Then Carol had shouted that the Wrapphone was missing. He’d called the police and had been busy searching the area when Brant caromed out on that forklift.

  Gabriel was rarely rash. He kept a belt of talismans for just about every eventuality, from calm spells for pissed-off customers to a find spell for lost children. He’d reached under his vest for a discreet Slow when he’d seen Ms. Singer in imminent danger.

  Something primitive inside him went from zero to sixty in two seconds flat. He’d abandoned spells to dive in personally, leaping to her rescue like he’d grown tights and a cape.

  The instant he felt her curvy warm body and smelled her soft femininity and fell into her big brown eyes he started spurting testosterone like a gorilla. But, holy cereal bombs, the new hire was the most beautiful morsel of a woman he’d ever seen…and as he stood there, wanting her with every fiber of his being, he realized he was a crunchy-in-milk idiot.

  Witch. Shifter. Huge taboo.

  If the Witches’ Council, the magical community’s governing body, found out he was insanely attracted to a shifter, they’d have his head.

  Literally.

  Ever since an insane werewitch king had tried to take over the world, witch/shifter sex was declared illegal, immoral, and fattening—as in, we’ll remove ten pounds instantly, not with liposuction but with an axe.

  For himself, he might have risked the headsman’s axe to try for a coffee date, or for dinner and a movie followed by a little meaningless sex… His groin wrenched with need. He dug his hands deeper into his hair, pulling the roots, hoping a little scalp pain might keep him from dashing right back out there for more caveman rescuing.

  He forced himself to remember it wasn’t just his life on the line. Ms. Singer would also get penalized, and the Council’s Enforcers usually hit the female with the worst of the punishment.

  He couldn’t stand the idea of one hair on Emma’s head being harmed.

  Emma?

  I mean Ms. Singer.

  He’d have to tell Ms. Singer everything. If she wasn’t attracted in return, problem solved. If she was…well, maybe between the two of them, they could figure out a way to deal with it.

  Except she might not care what the Council thought. Shifters often didn’t. And she was a wolf, highly sexed. She might not only not say no to a coffee date followed by a little meaningless sex, she might throw him to the floor, throw one leg over his hips and…

  He clenched his eyes. His groin was on fire simply from imagining she’d want him. Much more of this and he’d be coming in his pants. Imagine if she actually told him she desired him, too?

  Then how could he keep her safe? He found himself filled with a fiery need to do just that.

  Change of plans. Don’t tell her any of it. Don’t tell her I’m a witch, don’t tell her I want her so badly I’d risk the headsman’s axe just to steal a kiss.

  And especially don’t let her smell the desire wafting off me.

  Resolutely he stood and reached under his sweater vest for his belt of ready talismans—he wasn’t just a wizard prince, he was a battle mage and always kept his belt stocked.

  It took a lot of raw power to throw a spell, which was why most witches prepared talismans in advance. Like a battery versus plugging in, talismans were easy and quick but limited, whereas a witch’s personal well of power, while easily depleted, eventually recharged.

  His office was innocent-looking enough, his desk, his executive chair, two guest chairs, a set of filing cabinets, and a supply cabinet. A credenza lined most of one wall, the area over it tiled with beaming photographs of all his employees.

  But underneath the ordinary was the magical, just waiting to be revealed.

  Finding the talisman he wanted, he touched it, releasing its prepared spell. The air above the credenza shimmered, revealing his cauldron and other spell-casting paraphernalia sitting atop.

  He couldn’t let Emma—Ms. Singer—smell his desire, therefore he had to magic a way to keep the stink hidden.

  Considering his options, he took down several talisman blanks and got to work.

  Chapter Four

  Choice Buy’s doors opened to the public at nine. Emma wasn’t trained in customer service yet, so she retreated to the public workbench near the checkouts, which they called the Techie Titan Base. The horseshoe of neatly stacked equipment and paperwork was cut in half by a freestanding wall, the front half public, the back half private.

  She lifted the gate to enter Base, grabbed the top couple work orders in the stack, and retreated behind the wall to begin setting up the first laptop.

  As Emma worked, she chewed over Dr. Light’s rescuing her. And hadn’t his heroic save made her belly swoop delightedly? But then he’d retreated like she’d suddenly sprouted boils. She was at a loss as to why. What had happened? Had he seen the desire in her eyes and been uncomfortable, or worse offended?

  But she’d sniffed the barest dusting of testosterone in the air.

  If he’d been offended, surely she wouldn’t have caught that trace of desire.

  Well, in the final analysis, it didn’t matter why he’d retreated, only that he had retreated. If he hadn’t, she might have considered asking him out for coffee, or a date, or a little hot man-on-shifter action… She clenched her eyes briefly. He was her boss and she needed this job. Let him make the first move if there was a move to be made. She’d just have to ignore her attraction in the meantime.

  Work like hell to earn his respect.

  She’d ju
st resolved this when a voice said from the other side.

  “Hello, ma’am. I’m Your Name. I mean, I’m Brant. How can I help you today?”

  Emma popped to her feet. What was the saying—bad things come in threes? After the broom incident yesterday and the television incident today, this was a disaster in the making.

  She came around to see Brant grinning at a red-faced customer holding a laptop without a case.

  “This piece of junk doesn’t work. Your store sold me this crap, and I want my money back.” She slapped it down on the counter.

  “Um…” Brant stared down at an open binder on the desk just below the lip of the counter. Emma sidled closer until she could just see the top of the page, where “Hello sir/ma’am. I’m Your Name. How can I help you?” was printed.

  Emma figured it must be a decision tree manual.

  Brant started flipping pages in the manual. Each page was labeled with a large cause, like Problem With Billing, Problem With Finding an Item. He stopped at Problem with Computer.

  The first paragraph read, “Have you tried turning it off and back on?”

  Brant raised his gaze to the customer with a grin, ill-advised from the blood coloring her face and the vein pulsing in her forehead. “Have you tried turning it off and back on?”

  “Yes,” the woman ground out. “Several times. It won’t turn on at all! It’s a defective piece of crap even a toilet would reject.”

  “Um, okay.” Brant threw a “help me” glance toward Emma.

  She wasn’t trained in customer service, but she couldn’t leave the poor boy helpless. “Hello, ma’am. I’m Emma, and we’ll do everything we can to get your problem resolved. If you’ll just let me find a senior Techie Titan—”

  “Look at it! It’s so obviously defective even I can see it.” The customer grabbed the laptop and flipped it over. “It’s got this huge hole in it!”