“You heard me. Get laid and put the past behind you, including Philadelphia.”
Easier said than done. There were certainly girls who wouldn’t mind tearing off my pants to see if I had two cocks, but Jesus. I didn’t want to be nothing but a piece of meat. What kind of man would that make me?
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but to hear I’d been booted from the second-tier hockey team wasn’t just a blow to my ego. It was a crushing strike that I’d never recover from.
Unless…
“Did you orchestrate the deal with Tampa Bay?”
“Let’s just say I called in a few favors, son. You’re a good player. Hell, you’re amazing when you put your mind to the game. One of the best I’ve ever seen. You deserve a chance, but you need to figure out a way to make peace with yourself. Given I don’t know anything about werewolves, I can’t help you there. What I do know is that this is your chance to show yourself and the world what you got. One-shot deal. If you can shove aside that big personality of yours and be the hero Tampa Bay needs, then you’ll be considered the new golden boy.”
“And if I don’t?”
His laugh was full of bitterness. “Then I guess you’ll need to find a new career.”
After taking and holding a deep breath, I wanted to shout to the world one last time that I wasn’t a goddamn werewolf.
But that would just prove his point.
I glared at the contract, furious that my entire career had come down to this.
All because I’d pretended that a blonde whose name I didn’t know and whose face I couldn’t remember was my mate.
Snatching the pen, I scribbled my name in all the appropriate places, double checking that I had.
Because once I walked out of this office, I was never coming back.
Fuck them all. I was Beast Masters.
Hear me roar.
CHAPTER 4
Tampa Bay, Florida
Christine
“Five minutes to finish, team,” I told my students, my statement met with a groan. There’d been what someone had thought was a brilliant idea to call the students teammates, hoping to instill that we were all in this school year together.
As far as I could tell, the brilliant idea obviously created during a long bathroom break session hadn’t taken off like everyone in the junior high hoped.
A sly smile formed behind my highly polished professional one.
On the outside, I was a rather conservative, quiet, and very organized teacher. Most people who knew me would say I had a heart of gold, which I certainly didn’t mind hearing or displaying from time to time.
Until someone plucked my last nerve.
Which consisted of every man I’d dated, a good number of the older teachers at the school, and almost every student at Carver High.
While I could smile and act as if I could never have evil thoughts, behind my shimmering eyes was the heart and soul of a warrior.
Some might say an evil one.
That’s why I’d dropped a quiz on the fly when my students had all but ignored me the first half of the lesson. They’d obviously need to learn the hard way I wasn’t in the mood to be fucked with.
The kids hated when I tossed out pop quizzes, but I’d finally learned after being warned by every teacher, the principal and assistant principal, the guidance counselor and even the custodial staff that my sweet, straightforward method of teaching wouldn’t work with what they’d called ‘blood-sucking creatures from the black lagoon.’
Their staunch warnings had come during a welcome to the team cocktail party given in my honor. I’d wondered then why the lot of them had been tipsy.
