Five

Mac

I was still in a shitty mood from my ten hour flight. My wolf, Aries, absolutely hated being out of touch with solid ground and stuck in a metal contraption that was an airplane, soaring thousands of feet in the sky. Each time I had to take a flight, it was a constant battle of wills inside me, and even though I usually had my way, Aries never gave me a moment’s peace during the entire flight, making his displeasure known in my head until I was an irritable, miserable fuck by the time the plane landed.

Because of this, I avoided taking flights whenever I could. Lucy usually would go on those business trips that necessitated flying. But a trip to Washington for the quarterly shareholder meeting was something that requires my presence and was unavoidable if I wanted to keep the funds flowing.

Added to that, the meeting had been a bloody waste of time and I’d hated every minute of the time I’d spent trying to convince those stodgy farts to shell out the funds Gen Pro needed. All these combined had put me in a less than charitable mood.

Not that me being in a bad mood was anything out of the ordinary. Depending on who you asked, I was either a mean bastard, or a short-tempered asshole or - the best one - a miserable sack of shit trapped in the body of an adonis. That last one was courtesy of Blake, my beta.

And now, this situation was starting to piss me off. The image of those wide, light brown eyes accompanied by that whispered ‘please’ had been going around in my head since I’d barged into Lucy’s office.

The edge of panic and desperation behind her words had gotten to me and I’d relented on the job.

She was good at dishing out the pitiful look.

I had to give her that.

She was so fucking good at looking desperate that she’d fooled Lucy - the last person to fall for that sort of thing - and me, the miserable sack of shit. I did not get fooled, not by anyone.

Period.

I was good at sniffing out people’s bullshit, could detect when people were not being entirely honest by the scent of their fear and if there was one thing I was a hundred percent certain of, it was that Blair Gaines was not being truthful.

Still, she had looked so… vulnerable. Like a frightened doe caught in the glare of the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. When she’d trained those eyes on me, I’d been reminded of the small prey I sometimes went after when I shifted. I never killed them, but would chase them down for the thrill of the hunt. The fear in their eyes when Aries loomed over them, the way their little bodies curled in on themselves as they waited for the killing strike that never came… that was the same way Blair had looked.

Eyes filled with fear and hopelessness, the scent of desperation and terror oozing out of her in waves. Because of that, I’d given Lucy the go ahead and left them to it.

Speaking of scents…

I leaned forward in my chair and placed my arms on my desk. There was something off about Blair’s scent, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She smelled human, the slightly tangy scent of blood and flesh untainted by the Lore, but there were moments when I caught a whiff of something elusive. It was usually gone in a flash, but it left me discomfited, especially when Aries had such a strong reaction to it.

And it wasn’t just the weird scent. In the three days she’d been working here, I’d noticed that every time her name was mentioned, it seemed to take her a second longer than usual to respond, like she wasn’t quite used to it. I was convinced she’d lied about her name.

And what the hell was in that bloody backpack she always carried with her?

The damn thing was tattered and dirty but it never left her side, even when she was going on errands. It was like an extra body part for fuck’s sake. I wondered what she was hiding in there that made her so jumpy anytime someone so much as glanced at it.

Then it hit me like a dash of cold water.

Could it - was it possible she carried something illegal in there? Drugs? Was she a user?

My lips curled in disgust. If she was, then that would explain the wasted, emaciated look and skittish, suspicious nature. She looked like a grunge emo teen high on something, what with that stark black badly cut hair and heavy liner. All that black made her look even more sallow and undernourished. I’d had a look at her resume and was surprised to discover she was actually twenty three and not eighteen like I’d assumed, unless of course, she had lied about that too.

Seriously, what the hell had I been thinking in letting her keep the job? This woman was 'Trouble', with a capital T and any sane person could see that. Okay, I will admit that in the last three days, she’d pulled off quite a feat by setting up the SAS system and showed the lab techs how to use it, which did make things much easier around here. But seriously, we could have just hired her temporarily to set it up and paid her off once it was done.

Now, I was stuck with an employee who made the worst tasting coffee on this side of the planet and who wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Perfect.” I said in a tone filled with sarcasm.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket and I grabbed it, needing a distraction.

“What?” I growled into the speaker, rising from my seat. I crossed to the tall window and leaned against it, staring absently down at the view.

“Hello to you too, you miserable asshole.” My beta said in his normal cheerful tone.

The bastard always sounded like one of those cheerful fuckers marketing insurance, which always set my teeth on edge. I would bet my last dime that he did it on purpose to rile me up.

“I heard from the grapevine that you’re back in town and I was wondering if you had somehow managed to forget you have a sworn duty to let your second in command know? We are supposed to finalize the plans for the expansion today, or did you forget that too?”

I checked my watch, and seeing it was already past seven am, I swore under my breath. Shit. I had forgotten. My mind had been filled with this Blair issue that I’d thought of little else. What the actual hell? I’d only dropped in to work this early so I could check on my ongoing projects before meeting up with Blake.

We’d recently purchased a large ranch, secluded, close to the woods and large enough to accommodate my growing pack. The old place - a four bedroom house, which I’d inherited from my grandmother and converted into a space for my pack, could barely hold our fast growing numbers.

“Has the contractor arrived?” I asked, raking my fingers through my hair in frustration. Barely three days and the damn woman was causing this much trouble.

“Not yet, but he texted that he’d be late due to some heavy traffic.” Blake paused, and when he spoke, the cheeriness was replaced with concern. “What’s up man? You sound more stressed than usual.”

“I am stressed.” I grumbled. “Your bloody mate lost her damn mind and hired some grunge emo chick off the street without consulting me first and I’m almost sure the kid’s high on something, lied about her age and to top it all off, she makes the worst damn coffee I’ve ever tasted.”

Blake’s laughter made me glare at the screen. The fucker was lucky he wasn’t in the room at the moment or I’d have decked him for laughing at his alpha.

My instincts told me I was no longer alone and I spun around quickly.

Fuck.

Blair stood blinking at me in the open doorway, a mug of coffee in hand. I lowered the phone, while in the background, I could hear Blake chattering on about how Lucy probably had a good reason to hire the woman currently engaged in a staredown with me.

“... and if you’re so hung up about the terrible coffee, how about making your own or getting some from the coffee shop, you entitled fucker. And while you’re at it, buy a cup for the newbie and try to make her feel welcome.”

“Your coffee.” The words were a mere whisper as the newbie in question hurried into the office, head lowered, white knuckled hand curled around the mug. She set it on the desk and without another glance, hurried out, pulling the door shut behind her.

Well, shit. Now I felt like the world’s biggest asshole.