Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
bloom
We worked so late that we crashed on the floor of my office.
I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard the office door close, and found a fuzzy blanket draped over me. It smelled like vanilla. With a sideways glance, I found a clean pair of my clothes on my desk.
Harper had nothing to keep her warm, so I threw half of the blanket over her before going back to sleep.
She went home to change and drink another bag of blood the next morning. It was Saturday, but weekends off were not a thing at Darkwood Investment when shit was going down.
While she was gone, an enforcer brought me breakfast.
When she got back, I changed, and we repeated the process from the day before.
Work.
Work.
And more work.
Plus lattes, of course. I’d started adding caramel instead of vanilla, and didn’t hate it.
Food was consistently provided by Maverick or someone from his pack, because I consistently got lost in my paperwork and forgot to eat.
I apologized to Carter slightly better than Maverick had, and complimented his scarf and turtleneck when I saw him. He played it off, and changed the subject to complain about something Phyllis had done to annoy him.
He didn’t usually have issues with anyone, but she was uniquely difficult.
That evening, I had a crazy long meeting with Ozzy, the head tech guy, to figure out a program that would make filing the old paperwork a little more efficient. It was around 2 AM when I crashed on the floor again. Harper was already asleep there.
I woke up on a ridiculously comfortable, oversized couch that had been placed against the side wall of my office with a large fake plant beside it. Both also smelled like vanilla.
Harper was still on the floor.
I was slightly concerned that the Alpha had both snuck a couch inside and placed me on it without waking me up, but exhaustion was the obvious reason for that.
Four more days passed similarly.
Maverick was in and out of the office across from mine, often staring at me when he was in. Every day, he wore massive cardigans or sweaters that absolutely weren’t his style, and left them draped over the back of my chair for me in the morning.
I didn’t have the self-control not to put them on.
The Alpha or one of his enforcers showed up with food regularly. They always made it clear the food was from him when they dropped it off. And they brought it more often than I really needed to eat, but I wasn’t complaining.
I got to know them by name, and chatted with a few of them like we were friends by the end of the week.
I tried not to like them, because they were werewolves, but it didn’t work.
I liked them anyway.
New things appeared in my office after I fell asleep every night.
A mini version of the coffee bar outside, just for me, with an insane espresso machine for my lattes.
Fairy lights that wrapped around the top perimeter of the whole room, making everything ridiculously cozy.
Curtains over the glass wall, to cover the space on either side of the door, and a bunch of decorative pillows that were comfortable enough to sleep on.
Cozy chairs to go across from my desk, a vase full of fake pink roses that looked real but smelled like vanilla, and a basket with two more blankets in it.
I didn’t even mind when my dirty clothes vanished. He hadn’t taken credit for the gifts or asked for anything in exchange. He hadn’t even mentioned them during our short conversations every day.
His possessive instincts were clearly getting to him, but I enjoyed it so much that I was kind of dreading the day it would come to an end.
Apparently, I was capable of being seduced by free food and presents that made my life more comfortable.
Who knew.
At seven AM a few days later, Harper and I were both sitting cross-legged on the couch and working through our own stacks of croissants. They’d been delivered by one of the more serious enforcers, Elise.
Maverick came strolling into my office wearing nothing but a pair of sweats, and neither of us were surprised by his sudden appearance.
He did that.
And while I wasn’t surprised, I was slightly nervous.
It had officially been two weeks since Maverick bit me, so the pull of the mate bond was supposed to be either over or coming to an end.
Harper stared glaze-eyed at the gorgeous man in front of us. He usually wore clothes, so the shirtless thing was new.
I sighed. “Where’s your shirt?”
“You need to bite me. It would just get in the way.” He sat on the edge of my desk, his hands resting casually at his sides.
Despite all the late-night gifts, he didn’t seem tired in the slightest.
“I’m not biting you.” I bit down on my croissant, even though my fangs were already descended at just the possibility of burying my teeth in my Alpha.
Ahem.
Not my Alpha. Just the Alpha.
We hadn’t even kissed again, though I’d thought about it. Excessively.
Maverick watched me chew.
“Is the pull of being fated fading yet?” I asked.
He seemed calmer than he had yesterday.
“It went away last night,” he said.
“Then why did Elise still show up with food this morning?”
His lips curved slightly. “Being free of my instinct to abduct you doesn’t change the fact that you’re my fated mate, Bloom. Your scent still draws me in. I still want you.”
“Oh.” I took another bite.
He continued watching me chew.
It should’ve been awkward, but it just made me horny. Like most things related to the Alpha did.
“You need to feed,” he said, when I finished off the croissant.
“Being a vampire requires acceptance of hunger.” I quoted one of the Guild’s guidebooks.
“Not while I’m here.”
I had come up with a plan to get more blood bags while eating one of the midnight snacks Maverick had delivered a few days earlier. It was a shitty move on my end, and I’d probably go to hell for it, but Harper was out of blood.
I could tell that the bloodlust was starting to affect her, even though she didn’t approve of my idea to get more.
It was the only option.
My badass plan wasn’t exactly going well, so I needed this to work.
Velour hadn’t answered my last three texts.
I had been too swamped with work to even think about the murders.
At least everything was officially set up as far as the making the company compliant. It would be another six weeks before we were entirely up to date, but I had the system running smoothly, and everyone in the department both permanently and temporary were now clear on their roles.
If I could get blood for Harper, I would have the full week to figure out who the murderer was.
How was I going to do that?
I had no freaking idea. There wasn’t really a plan for it, but I was hoping it would just come to me somehow.
Harper wasn’t convinced.
And if I couldn’t get fucking Velour to answer me… well, then it wouldn’t really matter if I found the killer.
I would still lose my best friend.
Velour knew there was still time before she could devolve, so I was hoping that was why I hadn’t heard from him.
“Biting you could lead to ending up trapped in a mate bond, Mav. I’m not doing it,” I said.
“I would never try to force you to be my mate, and I heal quickly. The wound would be gone in five or six hours.” Maverick’s voice had an edge to it.
“I get that, but I’m not going to take the risk. I’d rather go hungry.”
That was true.
But… I was also going to have to manipulate the Alpha for blood. Unless he let me go to the Guild, which seemed very unlikely.
His nostrils flared. “Fine. I’d rather you trust me, but I’ll call the phlebotomist. You want two bags of blood to get through the week?”
I hesitated for a moment. Then nodded.
Yeah, I was definitely going to hell.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Two is enough.”
“But three would be better?”
I didn’t answer. It meant I didn’t have to lie straight-up.
“Alright.” He studied me, relaxing slightly as he took me in. “But I’m going to need a favor.”
“What do you want?”
“I need to drive to Erren to interrogate Cassidy, our main suspect. My wolf won’t let me leave you that long.”
“I thought the pull was gone.”
“It is. My protectiveness didn’t go with it.”
My toes curled.
I wasn’t supposed to be glad about that, but I was.
“So you want me to go hang out in the car while you torture someone?” I checked.
His lips curved again, more dangerously. “I wouldn’t be much of an Alpha if I had to torture someone to find out whether or not they’re targeting my pack.”
“The mental pack connection thing. Right. You can tell if she’s lying.”
His head bobbed. “It’s only a four-hour drive. We’ll leave tomorrow morning, spend the day and night there, and come back the next day.”
I grimaced.
That plan was going to cause me some real problems with people I really didn’t want problems with. I was going to have to do it for the blood, though.
“If you go tomorrow, the Sharpe clan is going to hate you even more,” Harper said.
Maverick looked at her.
“They do dinner together every Friday night, and Bloom skipped last week for the paperwork. They’re already pissed that you’ve publicly claimed her when they want her mated to a vampire, but family dinner is sacred to them. If she misses two for you, there’s no going back.”
Maverick studied her for a moment before looking at me for confirmation.
I made a face. “They’re… codependent.”
“Over-involved,” Harper clarified.
“Clingy,” I admitted.
“Loving, then,” Maverick said. “We’ll leave at lunch time today, to make sure we’re back in time for dinner tomorrow.”
I eyed him. “Why did you phrase that like you’re planning on going to dinner?”
“I am. I can’t win over your family without meeting them.”
“Why would you need to win them over?”
“Come on, Bloom. He’s seducing you with coffee, food, and presents. He’s invested.” Harper gestured to my cozy office with the point of her uneaten croissant.
I flashed her a look that said, “SHUT UP.”
She replied with one that said, “STOP LYING TO YOURSELF, THE SEXY HUNK OF A WEREWOLF WANTS YOU.”
I may have added the sexy hunk part, but she absolutely found him just as attractive as I did.