by Aspen Grey
“Boooo!” they began to jeer.
“Fur is murder!”
“Animal killer!”
“Terrorist!”
“Stay behind me,” I whispered to her, taking the lead down the red carpet where her SUV was waiting. We could have gone out the back, of course, but as they say—all publicity is good publicity, so she’d insisted we go out the front where we’d come in.
“It wasn’t even real fur!” she hissed under her breath.
“I doubt they’ll believe you,” I replied.
Someone threw something, and I caught it out of the corner of my eye and managed to swat it away before it hit Wendy. A tomato, rotten and disgusting splattered against the pavement.
“Almost there,” I told her as I ushered her towards the SUV where one of the venue’s security had the door open for her.
“Thank God—” she started to say, but before she could finish, the group to my left exploded and three men came rushing towards us.
“Take her!” I shouted to the other security as I spun to face the attackers.
The first one was frantic, flailing wildly like an amateur boxer. I sidestepped him and drove a fist into his chin, knocking him out cold and sending him sprawling. His buddy behind him tripped as their legs tangled up, and fell right into my left elbow. He groaned and landed hard, leaving just one more of the overzealous bastards to face off with me.
I heard the SUV door slam shut, letting me know that Wendy was safe, and stood there with my eyes fixed on the remaining protestor. He was small, too small to be trying to fuck with me, and he knew it. And with both of his buddies down, his backup, his dick had shriveled up and his balls had probably retreated up inside of him.
“Walk away,” I told him, giving him a break he didn’t deserve. He thanked me with his eyes, turned tail and ran, straight into the arms of the venue’s security.
I nodded to them, got into the SUV and slid up beside Wendy, who was trembling. I motioned to the driver. “Let’s go.”
He pulled away and I put my hand on Wendy’s and held it firm.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “You’re fine. Just a few idiots.”
“I—I thought I was being silly hiring security for an event like this,” she muttered.
“You can never be too safe,” I told her as we pulled away and headed towards her home in Del Mar.
“Thank you, Arthur,” she said as I handed her a ginger ale and cracked it open.
Working private security was a far cry from my job as a Navy SEAL, but it paid better and the hours were a lot more conducive to having a “normal” life.
My father was in the Navy, killed in combat in Afghanistan, which had filled me with a sense of duty and determination that had led to me enlisting as well. I’d become a SEAL and served my country, but never saw the same kind of action my father did. In a way I was glad, but in another way I felt as though I’d never really fulfilled my duty, never really measured up to the kind of man that he was.
I’d realized the service just wasn’t for me. I wanted to protect people, that much was for sure, but I wanted to see the eyes of the people I protected. I wanted something more personal, so when I got out, I got into private security.
Like Nathan Fillion in “Castle,” I was ruggedly handsome, tall and tan with dirty blond hair and the physique you’d expect from someone who’d done PT (physical training) for the last nine years of his life. The tattoo on my chest, “Loyalty,” spoke volumes on my personality; there was nothing more important than loyalty to me, and I made sure anyone who got close to me knew that.
“Let me give you a little something extra,” Wendy said as the car slowed out front of her house. She didn’t mean sex, of course—she knew what kind of guy I was. “I have my checkbook inside—”
“Don’t be silly, Wendy,” I told her. “I’m just doing my job like I always do. Tonight just happened to be a little crazier than normal.”
Wendy looked at me like no one had ever been kinder to her in her entire life. It was part of the shock and relief of what had happened to her, of course. She’d get over it, and I knew she had her family inside to support her and help her handle all the emotions running through her. Taking her money would have been taking advantage of her—not something a real man does.
“You’re the best, Arthur,” she told me, kissing my cheek.
“Think nothing of it,” I replied, throwing her a big goofy grin.
She smiled back, took a deep breath to gather herself, and I got out of the car and opened her door for her. I walked her up the walkway to her house, wondering if one day I’d ever be able to afford such a place. She gave me a hug, thanked me again before going inside. I headed back to the car and nodded to Pedro, the driver.
“Ready to roll, buddy.”
He simply nodded as he pulled away and headed back towards my apartment in Pacific Beach. It felt good, working for others and making sure they were safe. But there was still one thing that was missing in that regard; a family.
I wanted a family to keep safe, to protect and to nurture. I wanted a mate and children to watch over. With my dad gone, and my mother living alone in La Mesa, I wanted to expand her life and mine so we’d have something to cherish as we moved forward, but my current boyfriend, Carlito, didn’t share my vision.
At twenty-three, he was four years younger than me and still in the “fun” mode like so many younger guys in Pacific Beach. He’d played me a little, making me think that he was open to something more serious with me, but then playing the “I’m not sure I’m ready yet” card. I think both of us saw the end coming but neither of us was ready to say anything.
The apartment door was unlocked when I got home, which set off my two competing internal alarms—the first being to reach for my legal concealed carry, and the second being to shift into my panther form. But seeing as how I was wearing my nice leather jacket, I opted for the first option, and with my hand on my hip, I stepped into my apartment. When I saw what was going on, my heart sank.
Carlito, my fun-loving boyfriend, was on his hands and knees in the middle of the living room, taking it from behind from—not even an alpha—but a scrubby-looking beta with long hair that looked as though it hadn’t been washed in a month.
“God-fucking-damn,” I grimaced, moving to the window as the both of them panicked and scrambled over each other to get covered. The beta stank and I wondered how in the world Carlito could have even managed to hook up with him in the first place.
“Arthur!” he blurted out. “I—I thought you weren’t going to be home—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I replied as I cracked the window to let out some of the stranger’s stench. “I want him, and you, gone by the time I get back.”
“Where are you going?” Carlito asked as I stepped back outside.
“What do you care?”
Of course he cheated on you, I thought as I walked quickly through the brisk February evening. The White Swallow, there was a good place to blow off steam and get lost in the show of nonsense that would certainly be going on.
I wasn’t even angry as I walked, passing the nighttime beach crowd. I really should have seen it coming. Carlito wasn’t the commitment type, that was more than obvious now, and was still in that youthful mentality that more was better. Of course, anyone with any amount of brains would know that quality over quantity is better, but if Carlito wanted to be passed around by half of Pacific Beach, that was up to him. He’d learn eventually.
Chapter Four
Ollie
“Back into the thick of things,” I said to myself as I prepared to reenter the front of house with my single beer delivery. The smell of the frat party of alphas was simply overpowering and I wished I could just go home (aka upstairs) and avoid having to go out there again altogether, but I had a job to do and I owed it to Rusty. Instead, I did the next best thing.
It was an old trick I’d learned from an old friend. I found a handkerchief, wet it, then doused it with som
e of the peppermint soap we kept in the employee bathroom. I twisted it, causing the scent of peppermint to spill out everywhere. As I tied the handkerchief around my neck, it was all I could smell, and would serve as a barrier against the alpha scents out there looking to assault my senses like an invading army.
Good enough, I thought as I grabbed a random IPA from the wall and placed it on my tray. Rusty hadn’t specified what the guy had ordered, so I made the decision for him.
“Hope you like hipster beer,” I said to myself as I pushed the door open and stepped back into the front of house.
It was loud, sweaty and obnoxious, but my handkerchief was doing the trick. As I made my way through the throng, the alpha scents were simply a low murmur among the deafening symphony of peppermint.
Almost as good as pheromone blockers, I thought as I envisioned myself misting the entire room with a bottle just to keep my nose happy.
One of the frat boys bumped me on his way to the bathroom.
“Watch it, sweet cheeks,” he laughed as he passed.
“Idiot…”
I pushed through the bodies, keeping my nose low and full of peppermint, when I spotted what must have been my customer on the other end of the bar. He was sitting by himself and clearly not a drunken idiot, but it was hard to get a good look at him from where I was, so I continued to try and weave my way through the crowd when I felt a rough hand on my ass, followed by a hard pinch.
“Ow!” I yelped, spinning around without dropping the beer. I found myself staring into the drunken, thin eyes of what looked like one of the more alpha alphas of the group. He licked his chapped lips and grinned.
“What’s a fine piece of ass like you doing working in a place like this?”
Really? How old is that line?
“Oh, you know. Doing what everybody in the world has to do. Earning a living?”
“A looker like you?” he scoffed. “Nobody’s taking care of you? If you belonged to me—”
“I don’t belong to anybody,” I snapped back. “Especially not a fuckboy like you!”
“Oooooh!” a cacophony of laughter and jeers came from the rest of his group, but he only stared and continued to smile.
“Fuckboy, eh?” he contemplated. “I wouldn’t mind giving you a fuck—boy!”
He reached forward and wrapped an arm around my waist and began to pull me towards him.
“No!” I screamed, swatting him against the chest with my free hand, causing me to drop the beer to the floor. I felt it splash all over our feet. “Get off me!”
“You fucked up my shoes,” the alpha growled, suddenly much more threatening. “Now you owe me.”
“Owe you? My ass!”
“What do you expect walking around with that tight little dumper of yours?”
“Tight little dumper?” I repeated, horrified as the alpha grinned at me like Dane Cook on crack. “Get off of me! Rusty!” I shouted, but it wasn’t Rusty who came to my aid.
A fist shot out of nowhere and blunted the front corner of the alpha’s jaw, wiping the grin right off his face and spinning him around like a top. His legs went limp and he crashed down among the feet of his friends.
I spun around to see myself staring into the face of the most gorgeous alpha I’d ever seen in my entire life.
His skin was pale, but powerfully so, as though his body was in pristine condition like he’d emerged from a pure block of marble. His dark hair seemed to indicate his alpha, panther identity as though his human form was the mask he wore on a day-to-day basis. There was a kindness to him that simply oozed out of him, but his eyes held me in place like a tractor beam out of Star Trek.
“Are you okay?” he asked, but before I could answer, two of the fallen alpha’s friends leapt onto him and knocked him away from me, causing me to stumble backwards and trip over one of the high-tops. I fell to the floor in time to see Rusty shift, tear out of his clothes and leap into the midst of things.
He may have been old, but his coat was thick and healthy, flecked and salted with tiny patches of gray like old fire, and when he raised his head and roared, everything stopped.
The beautiful alpha who’d come to my aid shook one of the fuckboys off of him and stared at Rusty with an obvious respect. Although Rusty was shifted and could not speak, the implication of his action was clear: get out, or I’ll make you get out.
The alpha’s eyes flickered from Rusty to me and then back to Rusty, who was tense with his teeth bared and ready for action. The fuckboys backed off, obviously, but the alpha didn’t move. Again, he glanced over Rusty’s shoulder at me, I guess to make sure that I was all right, and I felt myself swoon like a teenager.
He’s gorgeous!
When his eyes left mine and returned to Rusty, I felt a sense of loss, like a child who’d just lost his most prized possession. I felt my cock move inside my pants and wanted to scream out to him to stay, but even if I could have found breath in my lungs to do so, it would have been wrong. This was Rusty’s bar and Rusty’s rules.
Slowly, the alpha turned and made his way from the bar. At the door, he stopped and turned around again, but Rusty was right behind him.
“Sorry about the mess,” the alpha said before turning and stepping outside. As the door shut behind him, the tension in the room dropped like a stone and everyone began to laugh and joke as though they hadn’t just been terrified by what had just happened. Rusty instantly shifted back to human form and raised a finger at them.
“You lot!” he roared. “Get to work or I’m putting all of this on your fucking tab!”
I looked around at the mess, the spilled beer and shattered barstools and sighed. The rest of my night would be spent cleaning up, which was going to be a lot harder with the semi in my pants and the image of that drop-dead Adonis alpha in my mind. But as though Rusty could read my thoughts, he called out to me.
“Ollie! Get your butt out of here,” he said, his voice stern but warm. “Head on upstairs and I’ll have these boys take care of the mess. You’ve earned some time off.”
“You sure, boss?” I asked, just to be polite.
“Sure am,” he grinned. “You get outta here.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. With a satisfied smile to the frat boys, I headed out the back door of the bar and stepped out back. I was probably being silly, but I looked around just in case my savior had decided to stick around. Of course he hadn’t, so I mounted the stairs and made my way up to the rickety old door, slid my key in the lock and stepped inside.
It wasn’t much—basically just a tiny kitchenette section with a hot plate and a sink, a small bathroom with an even smaller shower, a mattress on the floor and a single Chinese lantern hanging from the ceiling, which I switched on as I came into the room. I was shaking, I realized, and couldn’t get the image of the alpha in the bar out of my head.
“What a fucking hunk,” I said to myself as I crashed down on my “bed” and immediately slid out of my jeans, allowing my still-expanding penis to be free. I was actually pretty much almost hard and began to touch myself to the image of the man who’d rescued me that was still in my mind.
I tried to picture his hands, but all I could see was the fist that had gotten the fuckboy’s hands off of me.
I wondered what his abs looked like beneath his shirt and what he looked like when in panther form. I wondered how big his dick was—probably enormous—and how he looked naked…how he liked to fuck. But most of all, I wondered how he smelled.
Goddamn you for using the peppermint trick! Now you don’t know!
“Probably my fated-mate,” I joked to myself as I pictured him fucking me. I felt dirty and spit on my hand and used it as lube to jerk my dick. It felt incredible, and I probably could have come right then and there, but I was horny and it had been a while since I’d had a nice long session of pleasing myself, so I slowed down.
No. Let’s make this one last.
Chapter Five
Sid
“Fuck!” I shouted lou
dly, not caring if anybody heard me. I was pacing around across the street from the White Swallow, watching through the windows as Rusty had the boys working for him, cleaning up the mess they, and I, had caused when the fight had broken out. My eyes were attentive and alert, scanning for signs of the gorgeous omega that I’d saved, but since I’d been outside, I hadn’t seen anything.
My fated-mate! I thought as my hormones and adrenaline flowed through me like two rivers downstream from a dam that had exploded and were now crashing over their banks with incredible force.
Why didn’t he react when he smelled me?
“Goddamn it!”
He had to have smelled me! I smelled him! How could he not?
A couple of young boys, probably just out of high school, out on the town to test their fake IDs, brushed past me and glanced over their shoulders like I was a crazy person. I probably looked like one the way I was cursing to nobody in particular with no regard for anyone around me.
But what else was I supposed to do? I’d spotted my fated-mate—I knew it was him, that was for certain—but he hadn’t even recognized me as his! And now I was just waiting for him to come outside and head back to his apartment so I could talk to him and ask him why it was he hadn’t recognized me by my scent.
He is your fated-mate! I told myself as a sliver of doubt entered my mind. You smelled him! You know it’s true.
But then why hadn’t he reacted? He was inches away from me. Hell, our bodies had touched slightly when I broke that idiot’s jaw. How could he not have realized who I was? Was it possible that he was my fated-mate but I wasn’t his?
“No, of course not!” I cursed at myself again, slapping my palm against one of those hard metal poles you chain a bike to. I glanced back at the White Swallow where the douchebags were still hard at work. Rusty had gone out back and thrown on a pair of work pants and a sweatshirt and was watching them from the bar.