12. Hazel
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.
It was 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 of Big Bang Theory on 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.
“Because you asked,” she said simply.
Damn me and my curious nature.
“I’m sorry. I should have kept it to myself,” she added sadly. “Forget I said anything. You’ve already got a lot going on without adding this to it.”
“It’s not that.” I stopped in front of the couch, wanting her to see the truth of my words.
“It’s a confusing time. I thought I’d finally escaped my parents but turns out I haven’t.
There are multiple bounty hunters wanting to kidnap me for money.
And I’m supposed to be focusing on this conference, which is a very big opportunity for me professionally, an opportunity that will lead to bigger and better assignments.
I just… I’ve worked hard to make a normal life for myself.
Normal doesn’t include bounties on my head and people turning into wolves and vampires claiming me as their mate. ”
I dropped back onto the couch and downed half a bottle of water as if it was a shot of whiskey. I wish I had a shot of whiskey, because this was a lot to take in.
“Last week my life was normal. Quiet,” I finished quietly. “Now everything’s crazy. I don’t do crazy. I tried very hard to get away from crazy.”
Marilee’s hand came down on my thigh, her touch warm through the thin fabric of the sleep pants I was wearing.
“Hey, we don’t have to figure anything out right now. There’s a lot going on, but we’ll get the bounty off your head, and you’ll go to your conference and when everything’s over, when you’re safe, we’ll figure out what – if anything – we do about us.”
“But I thought you didn’t have a choice about the mate thing?”
“I don’t have a choice, but you do,” she said clearly. “And I’ll respect your choice, whatever it is. But just don’t make that choice now when everything is up in the air and you’re feeling under attack. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
We sat in silence for a while, eating another slice of pizza as we watched Sheldon and Leonard argue about their roommate agreement and Penny come over in a skimpy outfit looking for free food.
It was a stupid show, but funny, and there was something about watching old reruns of shows I only watched when I was bored in hotel rooms that was comforting.
When the episode finished I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, then settled into bed.
A few minutes later Marilee came out and I noticed that she’d removed her bra.
I mean, of course she did, it wasn’t like she was going to wear it to bed, but the lack of a foundation garment meant that her breasts swayed almost hypnotically while she went through the motions of double checking the doors and windows, making sure that everything was secure before she finally crawled into the bed across from me.
I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling in the dark, my mind racing with everything that had happened today.
I thought about the attempted kidnapping and Marilee’s wolf and Lois’s crankiness and all the people I met at the cocktail party tonight, but despite the eventfulness of the day, my mind returned again and again to one thing: the kiss. Well, kisses.
Marilee said that we were mates. I knew that supernatural communities believed that mates were chosen by fate.
Pre-ordained. That your mate was the perfect person for you.
But how could that be? Marilee was a respectable person.
A veteran. A bodyguard. Talented and strong.
How could her mate be the daughter of notorious criminals, a person who’d funded her escape by stealing from her parents?
It didn’t make sense.
Then again, I’d worked hard to make a new life for myself.
In many ways it would have been easier to take my place at my parents’ side, joining their criminal empire, having a marriage of convenience with the idiot son of another wealthy criminal family.
I’d literally pulled myself from the gutter and become a valuable member of Canada’s diplomatic corps.
Didn’t I deserve a soulmate? Someone who would love me unconditionally?
I promised myself that I’d be open to whatever happened with Marilee. I might not believe in fate, but I couldn’t deny the pull between us. The intense heat. The instant sense of comfort and closeness, as if we’d known each other for years instead of two days.
Maybe this mate thing would work out after all. But first we’d have to find a way to deal with my parents and their lowlife enemies. I just hoped things would stay quiet until after the conference so I could do what I came here to do.
“Are you okay?”
Marilee’s question brought me out of my reverie. I thought she was asleep.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were asleep.”
“You’re thinking pretty hard over there,” she noted. “You need some sleep. You’ve got a big day of diplomacy tomorrow.”
Something about her tone made me laugh. “You hate this stuff, don’t you?”
“What stuff?”
“Conferences. Cocktail receptions. Business dinners.”
“You have no idea,” she said drily.
“What do you do for fun?” I asked. “When you’re not doing bodyguard stuff.”
She paused before answering. “Running. Paintball. Playing video games. Oh, and I like to bake.”
“You bake?” I asked in surprise.
“Yeah, it relaxes me. How about you?”
“Sex relaxes me,” I said, before I could think better of it.
Marilee made a noise that wasn’t quite human.
“But I also like to swim,” I hastened to add. “Maybe we can go to the pool tomorrow before our sessions.”