Hazel
Isuppressed a yawn as the speaker droned on about international cooperation and mutual trade. It had been a long day between sightseeing, running for my life, and watching someone turn into a wolf. I was dying to get back to our hotel room and crash. I picked at my sad dinner and amended that to ordering a pizza and then crashing.
Finally dinner was over and we all headed upstairs, except for Boris who was apparently going to set up in a communications van nearby with one of his brothers. The Belarusian was handsome and charming, but even if he’d been single I wouldn’t have been interested in him. Not after that hot make-out session with Marilee.
I’d nearly orgasmed just from her sucking on my nipples. I’d never felt such a singular focus while kissing another person. Itwas crazy. A bomb could have gone off next to me and I wouldn’t have noticed. Marilee was a distraction I didn’t need with so many people out to kidnap me, yet if she hadn’t stopped us, I would have dragged her to bed and had my way with her. Many, many times.
Last night I’d lain in bed a few feet away from her, calling myself a pervert for the way I was lusting over my bodyguard. But now that I knew the feeling was mutual, it was going to be even harder to keep any boundaries in place. I knew she was right. I literally had every mob family in the country looking for me. I needed to be alert. Safe. I needed my bodyguard focused on one thing: my safety. Even if I’d prefer she was focused on my pleasure, this wasn’t the time.
“So what’s up with the wolf thing?” I asked her.
We’d ordered a pizza, eating it while sitting side by side on the loveseat in the corner while watching a re-run ofBig Bang Theoryon TV.
“I’m not totally sure,” she said. “My mom is a vampire, and my dad is a wolf. When I was born they assumed that I was one hundred percent vampire.”
“Is that how it usually works?” I asked. “You turn out to be one species or the other?”
“It depends. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes your inner demon is some mix of both species, that’s how it is for Martha,” she said, nodding towards the door to the adjoining room.“When she shifts, she’s kind of a vamp shifter hybrid. It’s weird looking but has the strengths of both species. But sometimes you just have two inner beings kind of living side by side. It’s rare but it happens.”
“And that’s what you have?” I asked.
Marilee nodded. “When I was about ten my vampire started communicating with me – it starts at different times for different supes – and she told me I had a wolf too, but that she was asleep. She never woke up before. I wasn’t sure she ever would.”
“So in the conference room, that’s the first time you knew the wolf really was there?” I asked.
“No, I realized it earlier.” She paused. “Yesterday.”
“I don’t understand.”
Marilee turned to face me, her expression serious. “My wolf woke up for the first time when I picked you up at the airport. That’s why I was kind of out of it when you first approached me, I was trying to figure out what was happening.”
“Why would she suddenly make an appearance?”
“Because she scented her mate.”
My stomach dropped. I knew what a mate was, and what it meant. But why was Marilee kissing me if she’d found her mate?
“You found your mate at the airport?” I asked, striving to be casual. “Were you able to meet her? Or do you need to find her later?”
A little furrow appeared between Marilee’s eyebrows. “It’s you, Hazel. You’re my mate.”
I felt joy. Excitement. Then panic set in and I jumped off the couch. “What? How is that possible?”
Marilee shrugged. “It’s a mystery how all that works. All I know is that the instant I laid eyes on you, my wolf woke up and demanded that I claim you as my mate.”
“Maybe she was just confused after such a long nap,” I suggested, a tinge of desperation in my tone. I started pacing back and forth in front of the TV. “You know how sometimes you sleep too hard and then you’re confused when you wake up?”
“My vampire says you’re my mate too.”
“That can’t be right,” I said.
“Why not?”
My mouth opened and closed a few times as I tried to figure out the answer.
“I don’t know,” I responded weakly. “Why are you telling me this now?”
It certainly made things more complicated now.
