Doubly Protected [Werewolves of Hanson Mall 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Adams

  It seemed like a long time later that Hawthorne became aware of the scent of sex surrounding them, of sweat sliding all over her skin, and of the weight of Maelor pressing onto her back. Almost as if he’d read her mind, Maelor rolled them onto their sides. Both men still held her, but now she was being cuddled, rather than controlled. Hawthorne savored the sensation of being cherished, and opened her eyes so she could kiss both men. “Thank you. That was awesome.”

  “What? No ‘Momma Mias’ this time?” teased Dylan.

  “Hell no. My brain was on vacation long before we finished.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing,” said Maelor.

  “It was a very good thing. I’ve never come so hard in my life before.”

  “Excellent. Now we have a standard to beat next time. But right now we need a shower,” said Dylan.

  “I don’t know that I can walk.”

  “Walking isn’t needed.” Maelor lifted her into his arms like a baby, and carried her into the bathroom while Dylan turned on the water and laid a pile of towels on the edge of the sink.

  Likely Hawthorne could have washed herself properly, but the men took turns at soaping her, shampooing her hair, and then toweling her dry. Finally Dylan filled her ass with gel to prevent any soreness. Hawthorne wouldn’t have minded some residual ache to remind her of the amazing sex they’d just had together, but she was too replete and limp to do anything but agree with them both right now. Besides, it was amazing to be so thoroughly protected and cared for.

  The men took her in the elevator down one floor to her apartment. As they stood in the hallway at her front door, Maelor turned her into his arms. Hawthorne raised her face, expecting a kiss. Instead Dylan said, “You know we want to get to know you much better.”

  “You’re ours, Hawthorne. We want to demonstrate that to you in ways you can’t ignore.”

  “Since getting an apartment outside the mall isn’t possible until the situation with Jackson Hamilton is sorted out, we want you to move in with us.”

  Maelor held her hands. “We can stay in Dylan’s apartment or in mine. Whichever you prefer. But we want you to sleep with us every night. You can set the ground rules but we need you to be with us as much as possible.”

  Hawthorne leaned back against the wall. “But what about your job, Maelor? You work insane, constantly changing shifts. And how can we fit all our things into one apartment? It’s not going to work.”

  “It has to work so we’ll make it work. Maybe keep our possessions in one apartment and live in the other. We’ll figure it out as we go along. But say you’ll move in with us, please?”

  Hawthorne was filled with doubts and questions. She liked them both. A lot. But move in with them? That was a whole different equation. “It’s all too soon. I need to think through the problem. We’ll talk about it later.”

  Quickly she swiped her door open and slipped inside.

  Wow. She hadn’t seen that coming at all. But was it a game changer or did she just need to think and plan?

  “What I really need to do right now is sleep. Maybe I’ll talk to Willow tomorrow.”

  Chapter Five

  Maelor spent a lot of the night thinking, and knocked on Dylan’s apartment door at seven the next morning. He knew Dylan was usually in his office before eight when he officially started work, and when the mall opened, so he figured by seven his friend would be awake, if not dressed and breakfasted.

  “Hi, Maelor. I guess you’ve been trying to plan a way forward with Hawthorne just like I have.”

  “Yeah. You look tired.”

  “Same goes.”

  Maelor shrugged. He was often tired. It came from working shifts that changed constantly. Which brought him to the point of his thoughts. “The only solution I can see to spending time as a threesome, all together when we’re all awake that is, would be if I take myself off the roster and become an eight-to-five worker like you. Of course, since I’m in charge, I’d still be on call twenty-four-seven, but it’d mean mostly I’m free of an evening.”

  “From my point of view as center manager I think it’s a good decision. You’ve been more than fair these past few years working all the shifts and partnering whoever comes up on the roster. But the fact is, you’re the head of security, and most department heads work eight to five and pick their teams. So it’s a reasonable step to take.”

  “I plan to make Dakota my deputy and give her more responsibility, too. She’s far and away the best security guard I’ve got. She thinks fast and reacts fast. I can rely on her to make good decisions. I’ll go talk to Cadfael, today, but that’s where I’m coming from.”

  Dylan walked over to his coffeepot, poured them each a mug of coffee, and handed one to him. Maelor sipped it carefully. It was hot and strong and just what he needed right now.

  “It sounds as though you’re all organized. Thank you for telling me,” said Dylan.

  Maelor leaned against the wall, taking another sip of coffee. “Well, I’m not quite organized.” He watched Dylan’s face as he spoke. “Have you thought anymore about where we can all live?”

  Dylan sidestepped the question. “I don’t think Hawthorne is ready to commit to us as yet.”

  “Yeah, I know. But have you come up with any thoughts on the situation? You don’t look like you slept any more than I did.”

  “The thing is, our apartments were designed for a single person. The apartments for families and the kind of facilities a family needs are all in the family apartment block. Besides, the commute for Hawthorne would not be a good thing. And anyway there’s no vacant apartments there,” said Dylan.

  “But there is a vacant apartment here, right next door to you.” Maelor hid a grin at the confused look on Dylan’s face. This idea had only come to him a couple of hours ago, but he’d thought it through and figured it just might work.

  “Huh? Do you mean Rhion’s apartment? It’s not really vacant because all his stuff is still there. But it will be cleared out soon, I suppose.”

  “And when it is, we can knock a hole in the wall between his bedroom and your living room. Then we turn his apartment into one large living room with a fully equipped kitchen and space for a table where we can invite friends to eat with us. And your apartment will become a private retreat and our bedroom. Maybe we could even embiggen the bathroom,” said Maelor.

  “Embiggen?”

  “Yeah. Push the wall back into the living area some and put in a bigger shower or something.”

  Dylan smiled at him then punched his arm, almost making him spill his coffee. “I like the way you think. That could work.”

  “So, are you okay if I talk to Cadfael about that as well today?”

  “Absolutely. Then all we’ll have to do is convince Hawthorne to join with us.”

  Maelor’s heart dropped again. “A bit of a hurdle, I admit. But we’ll think of a way to convince her.”

  “It’s hard if we can’t take her places on a real date. That fucking Zumba class almost killed me but I foresee a lot of Zumba classes in our future if that’s the only time we can spend with our woman.”

  “Hell, no. We’ll have to do better than that. Meanwhile we need to think about Jackson Hamilton. Maybe there’s some way we can get a lever on him. I wish I knew some psychiatrists or mental health professionals.” Maelor had spent the last half hour this morning going through his old military friends and the jobs they were doing now in his mind, without coming up with any leads.

  “You made a lot more progress than I did, though. I didn’t think of anything useful. Maybe I can order dinner from one of the restaurants here though, and bring it to Hawthorne’s apartment and we can eat there tonight. Perhaps by then we’ll have thought of a few more ideas,” said Dylan.

  Maelor put his empty cup down on the counter. “I need to get going. Your idea sounds good. Let me know what time to be there, and if Hawthorne doesn’t agree we’ll meet in my apartment instead. If we’re to talk freely we can’t do that in a restaurant anyway
.”

  * * * *

  Dylan spent the first few hours of the day answering e-mails and letters, and sorting out the kind of disputes that could morph into battles if he didn’t stomp on them fast. By lunchtime though, he had a few minutes to catch his breath, and texted Hawthorne.

  If I bring food, can Maelor and I eat at your apartment tonight please?

  He had to smile at the typical Hawthorne-style answer.

  What sort of food?

  Anything on Sam’s Steakhouse menu, or The Dragon Palace menu.

  The Dragon Palace will be good. How about six thirty?

  It’s a deal.

  He texted the details to Maelor, who replied, Get lots of prawn crackers.

  Laughing, Dylan pulled up the next item on his to-do list, but thoughts about the mental well-being center kept running around in his mind. The problem was, everything could be completely innocent. Wealthy people, celebrities, and people in positions of power did tend to airbrush inconvenient family members out of the picture, and sending them somewhere to be cared for, but locked up safely, was an obvious step.

  But how could he add any knowledge to the investigation? It wasn’t as if he was wealthy or had a mentally impaired or addicted relative he wanted cared for. Besides, if the institution wasn’t kosher he certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending anyone into danger. Sighing, Dylan returned to his work, reminding himself to order their meal tonight in plenty of time. That made him smile. Would Hawthorne let them into her bed again, even though it was so soon? Could he and Maelor woo her into their arms? He would settle for kissing and cuddling her. Actually, even just talking to her brightened his day considerably. She was a hell of a woman. Their woman, his and Maelor’s. She just hadn’t quite realized it yet.

  * * * *

  Even though Dylan had phoned through his order to The Dragon Palace in good time, the line had been long and it was actually after six thirty as he hurried through the glass doors into the professional suites, and juggled the bags of food to get his swipe card out of his pocket to open the elevator door.

  It was only after he’d called the elevator and gotten in that he realized Sophie, the receptionist, had left for the day but the doors to the professional suite hadn’t been locked. Sighing to himself he opened the elevator again and got out, grumbling mentally that sure as hell by the time he locked the double glass doors to the foyer area the elevator would be gone again. But it needed to be done. Someone must have forgotten to lock the professional suites entry, maybe assuming Sophie was still around. She often stayed after her shift officially ended at six.

  He dumped the bags of food on her desk, and swiped his keycard over the mechanism that closed the doors, then tripped the switch so they’d only open on command of a swipe card. He gathered his bags of food up again and saw that Sophie’s desk drawer was wide open, and her purse was sitting in it. Shock ran through his veins and his heart beat faster. Sophie would never ever leave her drawer unlocked, far less open. He could only guess she’d been preparing to go home and someone had interrupted her. Someone who had left the outer doors open.

  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called Maelor.

  “You’re late. What’s the holdup? Have they run out of prawn crackers?”

  “I have the food but something appears really wrong. Sophie’s vanished.”

  “I’m on my way. Call Cadfael.”

  Dylan clicked off the call and punched in Cadfael’s number. “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but Sophie’s disappeared. Her purse is still here but she isn’t, and the outer doors were unlocked. I’ve told Maelor.”

  “Rhion, get Hawthorne and stay with her and Willow. Willow, don’t let anyone into the apartment for any reason at all. I’m on my way down, Dylan.”

  All the blood left Dylan’s body as he realized Cadfael was interpreting this as an attack on Willow and Hawthorne. Hell. And he’d called Maelor to come down here leaving Hawthorne unprotected. How could I be so stupid? If she gets hurt it’ll be all my fault.

  Dylan wondered if he should go upstairs to guard Hawthorne, but Maelor might have told her not to open the door, the way Cadfael had instructed Willow. Dylan paced up and down, staring out the glass doors into the mall, opening the door to the stairwell and peering up the stairs, and then pacing some more.

  The ding of the elevator arriving startled him so much he jumped and whirled around. It was Cadfael and Maelor.

  “Hawthorne?”

  “I left her with Willow. She didn’t want to go. She was complaining about not getting her prawn crackers.”

  “Tell me exactly what’s going on,” said Cadfael.

  Dylan pointed to Sophie’s desk, and Cadfael picked up her purse and riffled through it. “Her wallet is still here, but her swipe card isn’t unless she has it on her person. Actually, she usually leaves it in the top drawer of her desk during the day, doesn’t she?”

  Maelor and Cadfael reached for the top drawer together, but there was no swipe card. Sophie’s territory was extremely neat and tidy so anything out of place would have been very obvious.

  Maelor scrolled through his cell phone and began giving orders. “You know what her car looks like and where she usually parks it? Check to see if it’s still there. Walk through every level of the parking lot and make sure she’s not lying in some corner hurt. And do not tell anyone what you’re doing. Understand?”

  Dylan waited with a sick feeling in his stomach as Maelor gave very similar instructions to two other teams of security guards, before saying, “Dylan, you and I’ll search the tower. Cadfael, can you stay here to be command headquarters until I get back?”

  Dylan realized Maelor was giving orders to their Alpha, but security was Maelor’s area of responsibility, and the thought that Sophie might be lying hurt somewhere meant they needed to get moving fast.

  “You don’t intend to call the police?” asked Cadfael.

  “Not until we’ve done everything we can. It’s not like we can share with them our fears about anti-wolf sentiment and a missing receptionist isn’t going to interest them much.”

  Cadfael nodded and sat down at Sophie’s desk.

  “The stairwell is the most obvious first place to look. He could have pushed the door open and shoved her inside.”

  Dylan had already looked up the stairs several times while waiting for Maelor to arrive but nevertheless he followed Maelor into the stairwell for a proper look. By the time they’d made their way up one flight of stairs though, some of the panic was leaving his body and he was starting to think more clearly.

  “We know he didn’t get Willow or Hawthorne, and he wouldn’t have been able to get into any apartments with Sophie’s keycard. I think we should look for her on the fourth floor. If he got angry and knocked Sophie unconscious when he couldn’t get to Hawthorne, he wouldn’t go walking up endless flights of stairs or carry Sophie’s body around the mall. He’d have dumped her in the nearest empty room.”

  “You’re right.” Maelor started to run back down the stairs, so Dylan followed him.

  They burst out of the stairwell to see Cadfael carrying Sophie out of the First Aid room.

  “Call the nurse,” Cadfael ordered.

  Dylan was glad to stop running and make the call. “Ay-lee, Sophie’s hurt. Can you come help her?”

  “Hurt how? No, don’t answer that. I’m on my way.”

  As he’d expected Maelor was already kneeling on the floor talking softly to Sophie, who Cadfael had sat on a chair. He turned to the elevator, waiting for the arrival of Nurse Eilidh. Her name was Celtic, as many of their names were, thanks to the ethnicity of the original inhabitants of the area. But since it was difficult to pronounce, most people learned to say it phonetically, Ay-lee, just as he’d reverted to saying in a time of stress. She was a very competent, no-nonsense nurse. She’d know exactly what to do to help Sophie. The question was, where was the person who’d done this to her, and was it as they’d all assumed, Jackson Bailey after
Hawthorne? Or was this a coincidental attack?

  Dylan went and got Sophie a bottle of water from the refrigerator in the First Aid room, but then wondered if he should give it to her or not, so was still holding it when Eilidh appeared.

  The nurse kneeled on the floor beside Sophie, and Maelor stepped to the side giving her space. In a businesslike manner Eilidh checked Sophie’s eyes and placed a gentle hand on her forehead, then ordered, “Tell me exactly what happened, Sophie.”

  “It was maybe twenty after six. Dylan, you’d just left. I was packing up for the day when a man I didn’t know arrived and went straight to the elevator. Of course the door didn’t open for him and he turned to me and wanted to know why the door wouldn’t open.”

  Sophie stopped talking and ran a hand over the back of her head. Eilidh touched her shoulders and bent for a closer look at the back of Sophie’s head, parting her hair to check her scalp.

  “There’s no blood but you do have a lump. What did he hit you with?”

  Silently Dylan handed over the bottle of water and Eilidh gave it to Sophie who took a sip.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it coming. I asked the man his name and the name of the person he was supposed to meet and I picked up the telephone to call them and tell them he was here, but he yelled at me and demanded I make the elevator work. I said his friend would come and escort him, he just needed to tell me who to call. He came across to my desk, saw the swipe card, and snatched it, and when I reached for the card he must have hit me. It’s all a blur until I woke up in the First Aid room just now.”

  “That means he could be anywhere in the tower Sophie has access to. So the conference room on level six, some of the offices, and she can open the elevator at many floors. We’re going to need more help to search. The three of us can’t monitor it all ourselves.” Maelor pulled his cell phone out again and began making calls.