HR wasn’t a place Sue had been particularly looking forward to going again so soon. The elevator doors opened with a ding and she reluctantly stepped off. She kept trying to tell herself that they had probably only called her back down because there had been a mix-up with the paperwork she had signed that morning or something, and not because she was going to get fired.
She rounded the corner to the Human Resources department and stopped in her tracks. Coming out of the office was Knight West, looking unfairly hot in his dark gray suit and pale blue shirt. He looked seriously pissed-off about something, probably Sue, as he ran his hand through his dark hair.Their eyes met and Knight visibly flinched. He looked pained to have to be breathing the same air as Sue, which was just plain rude. She frowned. What is his problem?And without another word, Knight walked past Sue, making sure to keep as much space between them as he could in the hallway.Sighing, Sue shook her head and knocked on the door softly, taking a deep breath as she waited. She was startled though when the door opened from the other side, revealing the same woman she had dealt with that morning.“Ms. Andrew.” The HR woman greeted her with the same over-the-top level of enthusiasm she had that morning. “Thank you for coming down again.”She motioned to the chair opposite her desk and she took a seat, trying for the life of her to remember her name. She was pretty sure it was Barbra but not nearly confident enough to call her by it.“So, how’s your first day going?” she asked her as she sat down behind her desk.“Um, well, it’s only been a few hours,” she told her, fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat.“Right. I just wanted to invite you down here to talk about a few things.”Here it is, she thought. I’m getting fired.“We’ve been made aware of the fact that you might have been made to feel a little unwelcome on your first day here, and we wanted to check in with you and make sure that you don’t feel uncomfortable in the workplace.”Sue stared at her, completely flabbergasted by the fact that she saw her as a possible victim, as opposed to the one conducting inappropriate behavior.“No,” Sue insisted. She slumped back in the chair and put her hands to her face, then shakily put it down her lap, still shaking. “Look, I’m sorry that I sent that email. Sarah and I have been friends for years. I just wanted to email her, and let her know how my first day was going so far. I didn’t realize that the emails were monitored. I know it was really unprofessional and it won’t happen again, I swear. ““Ms. Andrew, with all the new human hires that we’ve had here, incidents are bound to happen. That’s why I think it’s a good idea for an office relations workshop,” she said.Given the way she was smiling, Sue could tell that she had been itching for an excuse for this. Sue slumped further down in the chair.Great, she thought. Just what I need, everyone hating me for wasting their time.* * * *Knight could have really done without family night. All he wanted to do was go back to his apartment, pour himself a glass of scotch, and find a game to watch on the TV.Instead, he had to see his whole family for dinner. The first Sunday of every month, the family usually got together at Knight’s grandparents’ house just outside the city. The dinner had been pushed back a day due to Jared’s fiancée being out of town. Sarah had been in New York buying pieces for a few upcoming photo shoots and had flown back to Seattle just that afternoon.Knight parked his car on the gravel driveway outside of his grandparents’ large country house. He got out of the car and locked it. He really wasn’t looking forward to this, especially as Sarah was friends with the new girl. Knowing Leslie, she had already told them all about the way his wolf had reacted to the woman’s scent. He saw that most of his family was already there as the driveway was cluttered with an array of cars.“Knight,” his grandmother, Eva, greeted him warmly. “Sweetheart, you get more and more handsome every time I see you.”Knight couldn’t help but smile when faced with his grandmother. He had always been particularly close to both his grandparents. He wrapped the old woman in his arms, squeezing her tightly.“Well, Grandma, that’s because I take after you.”Eva laughed and gently swatted him on the shoulder. “How you’re still single, I will never know.”Knight laughed and followed his grandma into the house. The house and the surrounding grounds had been in the family for generations. Every member of the pack spent time there, whether they were family or not. In the summer, they had cookouts and pool parties, in the fall they had bonfire parties, they went all out for the Christmas season, and in the spring, they put on Easter egg hunts for the kids.It could be a pain in the ass having so many people around, all of them thinking they had a right to butt into his business, but it could also be pretty great.He followed his grandma through the foyer and into the kitchen, the real heart of the house. His mom, Julia, was with Leslie standing by the counter. Leslie looked like a younger version of his mom. It was kind of spooky, actually. She looked more like Knight’s mom than she did her own. The two women were pigging out on some of the food his grandma had already made.“Leave some for the rest of us,” Knight joked before going over and placing a kiss on his mom’s cheek. It was just the two of them in their immediate family. With his mom being a West, Knight had taken her last name as opposed to his father’s.Given that the man hadn’t been in the picture since Knight was nine, he had to say that he was glad of that.He raised his eyebrows at Leslie, as if daring her to mock him some more for what had happened earlier. His cousin just smiled at him sweetly.“Where’s Grandpa?” he asked, turning back to his grandma. Even when his dad had still been in the picture, Knight had always looked to his grandpa as a role model. He was the one who had taken Knight fishing on the boat and taught him how to control his shift.Eva rolled her eyes. “Probably in his office. I keep trying to get him to slow down, but you know how stubborn he is.”“Please,” Julia said as she took a buttered bread roll and bit into it. “The day Daddy slows down is the day we bury him.”Knight had to agree with his mom there. His grandpa had so many different business ventures and he worked so hard to ensure that they were all a success. Knight thought the old man loved it, though.“I’m gonna go say hi,” Knight told the others. He kissed his mom on the cheek again and went in search of his grandpa. As he passed the living room, he saw his cousin Jared with his fiancée Sarah sitting on the sofa. He waved and said a quick hello before he kept going.“Grandpa,” he said as he knocked on the door to the old man’s office.“Come in, Knight.”He let himself in and smiled when he saw the old man. The man was sitting in his lounger with a glass of scotch and a cigar hanging out his mouth.“Don’t tell Eva. She hates having the smell in the house.”Knight shook his head in amusement and went to sit in the chair opposite his grandpa. “You know we’re all werewolves, right? There’s no hiding that smell,” Knight pointed out.“Yes, but by the time we sit down to eat, the cigar will be gone and it’ll be too late for her to take it away from me,” Lenard countered. He reached into the side of his lounger and pulled out a silver case, offering a cigar to Knight.“No thanks.”Lenard shrugged and put the case back.“So, what’s up? You running my magazine into the ground yet?”“You mean my magazine?”Lenard chuckled and put his cigar down in an ashtray.“And as you well know, sales have been up since I took over,” Knight told his grandpa smugly.“Yeah, yeah. What did you wanna talk to me about?”“We want to send a human writer to your new hotel to do a piece on how it feels for a human to be in a werewolf-only hotel,” Knight told him. “It’s basically a fluff piece, and you know I wouldn’t okay it if I didn’t think the hotel was human-friendly. Think of it as good publicity.”Lenard nodded as he considered Knight’s proposal. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. Since they started springing up, these hotels have got the ‘humans first’ nuts in a frenzy. It’s not like humans aren’t welcome, if you’re accompanied by a wolf. It’s just that they cater more to a wolf’s needs.”Knight nodded. “Yeah.”“All right. This writer of yours’ll need a wolf to go with them. I can give you a suite for a night,” Lenard said.“She’s not mine,” Knight heard himself insisting before he could stop himself. “I mean, she works for the magazine. She’s new. Just started today. I don’t even know her.”Lenard raised his eyebrows at his grandson. “If you say so.”Knight coughed into his hand and got up from the chair. “Well, thanks. Just let me know what day works for you.”Lenard nodded, an all-knowing smile playing on his face. Knight turned and left the office, wondering what the hell was wrong with him................There was an all-staff office memo waiting for Sue the next day when she logged into her computer.“Crap.”Sue read the email, cringing and hoping that no one knew it was because of her. It seemed that the HR lady was even keener than Sue had originally thought. The office relations seminar was happening that afternoon.The guy at the desk opposite her, who she had spoken to briefly yesterday, looked over at her.“You get the email?”Sue shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Yeah. Sucks, right?”“You have no idea, newbie.”“Sue Andrew,” Sue told her.“Jake Miller. We had one of these last year, too. It was awful,” Jake told her. “Not only do we have to sit there and listen while she tells us what is and isn’t appropriate conduct for the workplace, but we also have to act out these insane scenarios she dreams up.”“What, like the ‘no means no’ workshops we had to do in high school? Which, by the way, were totally redundant for me.”Jake smirked. “Oh yeah, I remember doing those. I had to
Sue tried to spend the rest of the day burying herself in work. It seemed to her that everyone in the office knew who she was now. As she got on with her work, every so often she would hear the sound of laughter escape from Jake, and when he turned to look at her, Jake would simply shake his head, still laughing, and say, “eyebrows.” She didn’t know why it was still so funny to her new friend. It was nearing the end of the day when she got an email alert. She opened it reluctantly, hoping that she wasn’t once again being called down to Human Resources. She released a tense breath when she saw that it was from Sarah. To: andrew.s@fangandclaw.comFrom: murphy.s@fangandclaw.comCake and coffee? *****This right here was why she loved her. She quickly typed out a reply telling her that she would meet her outside in an hour. By the time she met her, it was raining a very fine, misty rain, the kind that she hated. As she walked through the lobby, she grumbled to herself. Luckily, there
On Sue’s third day at her new work, she made sure to leave her apartment early, seeing as she was biking to work. It felt good to be getting some fresh air so early in the morning, and in her mind, it totally canceled out the cake she had eaten the day before, even though her ride to work was less than half an hour.It was a beautiful morning to be out on her bike and she actually started to feel better about everything. She was sure that she had just exaggerated Knight West’s annoyance to her in her head and that she hadn’t screwed up too badly by sending Sarah that email and then proceeding to humiliate him and his perfect eyebrows in front of all of his employees. She was sure that deep, deep, deep down, Knight had a sense of humor. Sarah claimed to like the guy, but that could have been just because she wanted to fit in with Jared’s family and was secretly lying to herself. That, or the man’s high cheekbones, chiseled jaw and olive skin had mesmerized her so much t
After the disastrous start to the day, things started looking up for Sue. She started doing research on werewolf-only hotels, reading reviews of them online and seeing what humans had to say about them. There was the usual hate-filled crap from humans who had never even stayed there but wanted the world to know how much they hated werewolves.Once werewolves came out, so to speak, they were automatically banned from most hotels. It was hard for Sue to really understand it. She had grown up with werewolf neighbors down the street and werewolf kids in her school. Things had certainly changed. By law, humans and wolves were equal, but in truth, there were always people on both sides who hated the other, who thought that they were better. Hatred tended to spread like a disease, infecting people far too commonly.She was so engrossed in her research that she was startled when Sarah came up behind her and peered over her shoulder.“Whatcha doing?”She jumped high
It actually annoyed Knight that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sue all day long. The accident hadn’t been his fault. It wasn’t that he felt guilty about it, exactly, but he still felt off for some reason. Sue had been injured. Knight had smelt the blood, however minor, from her skinned knee. He hadn’t been around humans a great deal, but he knew they were more fragile than wolves.As the day wore on, he found himself wanting to check up on Sue more and more. It was really starting to bother him that some reckless, annoying human, who smelled incredible, was in his thoughts so much.By the time five o’clock came around, Knight had resigned himself to what he was about to do. It felt inevitable that his feet would take him to the bullpen.Some of the people in the office noticed him and instantly straightened up, trying to look like they were doing more work than they actually were. It was a common thing. Sue was at a des
It was so strange for Sue to see Knight West standing in a Howlers. Although it was well known that the West pack, and more specifically the West family, owned the chain of restaurants, Sue didn’t think they actually ate there. Knight seemed more like a guy who enjoyed a nicely pressed tablecloth and napkins that weren’t made from scratchy paper.The restaurant wasn’t particularly busy, but they stood by the podium anyway, waiting for someone to come and seat them. Sue didn’t really know what to make of it all. Knight West offering her a ride home was one thing, but to ask her out of the blue for dinner was something else entirely. She tried really hard not to read too much into it. They were either two people who suddenly realized they were in need of sustenance so they decided to eat together, on a strange date where at least one of them had no idea what was going on, or Knight wanted to get Sue alone somewhere so they could talk about the whole email
It’s a bad idea, Evan told himself as he parked his car outside of Sue’s apartment. It’s a monumentally stupid idea.There was obviously a mutual attraction between the two of them. Throughout dinner, the scent of Sue’s arousal had gotten stronger and stronger, resting in Knight’s nose and making him heady.“So, thanks for the ride,” Sue said, looking a little unsure, “and for dinner.”Knight didn’t respond to her in words. The good thing about dating a fellow wolf was the fact that they always knew when the other wanted them. If Sue could just smell Knight’s own desire then they could skip straight to the good part.When Sue made no move to exit the car, Knight rolled his eyes and grabbed the back of her head before pulling her in and taking her mouth in a searing kiss. Sue let out a surprised, muffled moan before she responded to the kiss. Sue’s hand gripped onto Knight’s tie, pulling on it a little as though t
He said it as though he had only just thought so, that it wasn’t until this very moment that he really saw Sue. Sue swallowed thickly and licked her lips. She didn’t know if she was allowed to ask questions. She didn’t know how this was supposed to work at all. She lay there patiently, waiting for Knight to do something.For Knight, the waiting seemed to be a part of it. He smiled down at Sue, the look of pride back in his eyes.“I’m going to make you feel like I’m the first person to ever touch your body,” Knight promised her. The thing was that Sue believed him. “Condom?”Sue swallowed and looked over to her nightstand. Knight reached over easily and opened the drawer, pulling out a box.She watched as Knight, scooted down his body. The werewolf’s hands ran down along Sue’s flanks, making her shudder. Sue’s breath hitched in anticipation, and then Knight gripped her thighs and pushed them back so that Sue's already wet hole was on full
Christmas had never been a time Sue looked forward to. While most people were with their families, having fun and enjoying each other’s company, Sue was with her mother, making small talk and feeling like she didn’t belong. She would try and get to her house as late as was acceptable and leave as early as she could. Her mom certainly never tried to talk her into staying any longer.It wasn’t until the year before, her first Christmas with Knight, that she had actually started to look forward to it. Christmas Day was spent with the family, but Christmas Eve meant another pack party. Although Eden and Julia had taken care of most of the planning, as usual, Sue had asked them to give her one thing to do. She didn’t care what it was, she just felt like she should make a start on being a better alpha mate.This year she had been put in charge of Christmas-themed cupcakes and cookies. It was easy enough. She had found a good bakery and all she had to do was pick them up on the day. As she m
By the time Sue and Joey got back to the apartment, Sue was feeling a lot better about things. Spending time with her little brother tended to have that effect on her. It was funny, considering that Sue used to hate him when he was a spoiled little brat of a toddler messing up Sue’s room.“Knight’s not here,” Joey said disappointedly. Sue followed Joey into the kitchen when Joey found a note and held it out to Sue.I have some things I need to take care of. I’ll explain it all later. Meet you at the hotel.I love you.Knight.XxxSue sighed and folded the piece of paper up. “I guess he had to work.”Joey frowned at her and sat down at the breakfast bar. “Things are okay between you, right?”Sue watched her little brother grab a banana from the fruit bowl and unpeel it. Knowing Joey as she did, Sue knew he was probably just eating it because it was there, rather than the fact that he was actually hungry. She didn’t really know how much to tell Joey about what had been going on between
Knight hadn’t been to see his grandpa’s grave since the funeral. He hadn’t thought it was something he would take solace in. Yet, there he was, on his own, in the dark.It took a little while to find the grave. He remembered his grandma saying that they had to wait for the ground to settle before his tombstone could be placed. Instead, there was a wooden cross with a plaque glued to it. It simply read his name.In life, Lenard West had been such a big character, to see his grave like this, with no more than a measly wooden cross on it was like a stab in the gut. Everything in life died, logically Knight knew this. Still, to him, it didn’t make any sense that his grandpa, once the strongest man he knew, was now no more than ashes in the cold ground.He dropped to his knees in the slightly damp grass and felt a wave of nausea in the pit of his stomach. He might not be able to hear his grandpa talk back to him, but Knight could still talk to him, and he could probably guess what he would
After showering, Knight got dressed and went into the kitchen to put the waffle batter in a container in the fridge so that he could use it later. On the counter, Sue’s phone gave a little trill indicating that a message had come through. Knight hadn’t meant to look at it, but the message flashed across the screen. It was from Andrew.Hey. Hope you feel ok after last night. Listen, if you want to talk any more give me a call. I’m sorry Knight’s been working so much lately, and I hope things get better between you two soon. Here’s the number of the couple’s therapist we used, if you want it. Talk soon.Knight read it through quickly before the screen went black again. He felt an instant surge of anger go through him.Couple’s therapy? What the hell had Sue been telling him?He angrily swiped the phone from the counter and marched into the bedroom before tossing the phone onto the bed beside Sue.“If I didn’t like you talking to Leslie, my own cousin, about me, then why the hell would y
Knight had been feeling so bad about the fact he had been working so much the past week that he made sure to get home early. In the week since the fall gathering, Knight had hardly seen Sue. He knew it was his fault, but it couldn’t be helped. Still, he knew he had to make it up to his wife. He had spent the day working nonstop so that he could get home at a reasonable hour.What was early for him was still a full day’s work for anyone else. It was nearly seven when he let himself into the apartment. He had a bag of take out with him and a bottle of wine.“Sue,” he called out as he shrugged off his jacket. He didn’t need to wait for a response. His hearing and sense of smell would have picked up on something by now.He walked into the kitchen and put the bag of food on the counter. As he had been staying late at the office lately, Sue had been driving herself to and from work. Her car was in the underground garage, so Knight knew that his mate had come home after work.Pulling his pho
It was pretty late by the time Sue and Knight got back to the apartment. The car ride had been unusually quiet and tense. Sue had tried to make some effort at conversation, but she was tired and fed up. It was obvious that Knight was still mad at her for spilling the beans to his mom.When they came through the door, she half expected Knight to say something, to finally bring it up, but obviously that wasn’t his way.“Knight, I’ve said I’m sorry,” she said as Knight went to walk past her to go to the bedroom. “Like a hundred times.”That was obviously an exaggeration, but her point remained.“Sue, just let it go, please,” Knight said with a weary sigh. “I just want to go to bed.”“No,” Sue practically shouted. “You can’t. We’re not supposed to go to bed angry.”Knight turned on her with a look of annoyance marring his handsome face. “Where did you read that? The Big Book of Marriage Clichés?”“It’s okay that you’re mad at me.”“I’m not mad at you,” Knight practically barked.Sue found
Since his grandpa’s death, Knight had missed the old man every single day. Being at a pack party without him was a whole new kind of pain. Lenard had been so full of life. He was always at the center of every group, telling stories while everyone else hung on his every word.There was a light missing there today.Knight walked through the throng of people, trying his best to make small talk and act like he was interested in everything they were saying. After deciding he had mingled enough for the time being, he went looking for his cousins. If he was ever tired of people kissing his ass and telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, his cousins soon put it right. Particularly Leslie, who delighted in tormenting Knight.He found them over by the fortune telling machine that his grandma hired every year from a carnival supplier. As a kid, the thing had always given him the creeps. It was a glass booth with a creepy wizard-looking mannequin inside. You held on to a metal rod, and it pum
As they made their way back outside, Sue took the lead, walking faster than the others in an attempt to escape the awkward situation. She spotted Jared and Leslie over by one of the apple bobbing stations, and she made a beeline for them.The two of them were with Jared’s daughter, Marie, but it was the adults who were doing the bobbing.“Having fun?” she asked as she got closer to them. She looked behind her, sparing Knight a glance. She felt a bit bad about abandoning him to his mother and grandmother, but she couldn’t take Julia looking at her like she had taken her baby boy away from her again.“Jared made a joke about me having a big mouth,” Leslie told her. The hair around her face was a little wet, but Jared was absolutely soaking. “So I dunked him in it.”Sue laughed as Jared shook his head like a dog.“Do we win anything if we get an apple?” Marie asked.Sue didn’t know the little girl very well. She had only spoken to her a few times. While she was fine with kids, she wasn’t
The West pack had four official meetings every year, one for each season. The one they had in autumn was during the week of Halloween. A big party was thrown at the estate with games and various other attractions outside. Sue had been to a couple of their parties so far but not the Halloween one. It was going to be the first pack gathering since Lenard’s funeral and the first gathering under their new alpha.As the alpha’s mate, Sue still didn’t really know what her new role was, if any. Knight’s mother and grandmother had organized everything. If she was honest, she was grateful that they hadn’t asked for her input so far.“So, things not to mention to your mom are the fact that we got married and the fact that you’ve not only met your real dad but have also been hanging out with him and his pack,” Sue mused out loud as Knight parked the car outside his grandma’s house.Knight turned and gave her a look. “No, I’m going to tel