by Jaide Fox
“I have many pleasurable ideas, but alas, duty calls.” His deep voice held a hint of an accent, almost Russian sounding with a trace of something she couldn’t place. “I need ca-ash. I have these to trade.” He turned slightly and pulled out a silvery pouch that matched his jump suit. Jewels scattered over the counter, glittering in the florescent light like sparklers.
Samantha’s heart skipped a beat. Huge blue diamonds, the size of her thumb pad and octagon cut, lay in abundance on the counter. Her mind immediately raced to the jewelry heist that had happened a few days ago in Atlanta. Blue diamonds had been part of the take.
There was only one way he could have this many blue diamonds.
He was a robber.
“Tor! What’s taking so long?” a voice called across the lobby, cutting through the angry murmurs of the customers.
Sam glanced up, saw a second man standing in the doorway clutching two six packs of Budweiser beer. He was blond and dressed similarly to the man standing before her. He looked around the bank, casing it. Sam’s nerves tightened as it occurred to her to wonder how dangerous the two might be.
“Soon. Come here,” the man named “Tor” said. Obviously an alias, for she’d never heard a more ridiculous sounding name in all her life.
Thinking fast, Sam put her hand up, halting him. “I’m sorry, Sir. You can’t bring that in here. I’ll have to ask you to leave,” she said, and watched in amazement as he obeyed her orders, backing out of the bank in a rush like a puppy chased off with a broom. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how these two had pulled off a successful heist from one of the largest jewel carriers in the state to start with, but she wasn’t about to let them take her bank. Not while she was in charge.
“Tammy, do you know if Mr. Ira updated the books today?” Sam asked.
Tammy’s eyes widened at the code to hit the alarm. “I believe he did, Ms. Declan.”
“Good.” Now all Sam had to do was distract him long enough for the cops to arrive. She might even get a raise for catching the thieves. Wouldn’t that be nice? she thought to herself.
Sam glanced casually around the vault. She didn’t know where the security guard was at the moment, but he’d come running as soon as he saw the sensor for the alarm. “Now, sir, it will take me a little time to figure the cost of these, and we’re about to close. Can you stay while I check our books?”
He nodded, propped one elbow on the counter, and leaned against it.
Samantha took one of the jewels and held it up to the light, humming and hawing. He watched her closely, and her pulsed jumped under the scrutiny. She continued playing with her necklace and studying the jewels in the light.
All of a sudden the blond man burst through the front doors. “Tor!” he shouted, standing in the doorway and hopping from foot to foot.
Tor straightened and turned to him.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t hold it any longer! I pissed on the bushes outside and they’re coming to get me! They must have some sensors or something.”
Tor looked alarmed. “What? Shit! Let’s get out of here.” He scooped up most of the diamonds and stuffed them into his pouch.
She didn’t think--she just stepped in front of him and blocked his path. He gave her a frantic look and tried to step around her, but she moved with him mindlessly. Just then, the security guard came running from the back accounting offices, waving his gun around.
“Hold it right thar!”
Tor whirled around, his mouth hanging open. Customers scattered like buck shot.
Samantha gasped as the guard pointed at the man and squeezed off a shot.
Tor yelped and threw his arms up. Sam’s jaw dropped open as the bullet bounced off his chest and went careening into the ceiling through the chandelier. Glass pieces tinkled and hit the floor like hail. The guard fainted dead away and customers screamed and ran for the doors.
Sam froze in place, wide eyed. Then she remembered who and where she was as the man pushed past her.
“Stop! You can’t go!” He didn’t appear to have a weapon, unless you counted big, meaty fists as one. Samantha darted around him and pushed through the doors. The cops were tearing down the street toward them, cresting the rise of the overpass.
She jumped up and down, waving her arms at them. “Here! They’re here!”
It only took a moment for the world to flip upside down. Samantha’s stomach fell into her throat as her feet were dragged out from under her and she was whirled into the air. She landed hard six feet in the air--on top of a shoulder as wide as her waist.
A hand dug into her ass, spreading her cheeks in a firm grip, and then started bouncing her up and down.
Sam gasped as the man ran down the street. He’d kidnapped her! She kicked her feet and pummeled his back. The air bounced out of her lungs with each ground eating step he took, until it was all she could do to keep from losing consciousness.
She craned her head just enough to see the stupid cops rush into the bank and completely ignore the giant carrying her down the street.
They rounded the corner of the building and stopped, then she was miraculously dropped to her feet.
Sam sucked in a deep breath and screamed. He clamped his hand over her face and she bit his finger. Immediately, he released her, yelping in pain, and she screamed again.
He looked down at her in alarm, raised his right hand, and shot her a bird. “Peace, woman!”
She stared at the giant black and gold signet ring on his middle finger before fury took hold of her mind. She slapped his hand out of her face. “That’s not the fucking peace symbol! How dare you!”
He shot her another bird and waved it in her face so she could see it real good. “By the federation, I come in peace! Peace, woman! Ow, stop hitting me.”
Sam pushed past him, but he grabbed hold of her blouse, ripping it as his fist tightened. Sam dug her heels in, leaning forward, putting her body weight into walking away. She continued shouting for the cops. “Help! Here you stupid damn cops! Here! Fire! Fire!”
She dimly heard the zip of electricity, felt a shock on one ass cheek, and then she was falling face first toward the pavement and blackness.
An unedited excerpt from MATING RIGHTS by Jaide Fox, coming soon:
MATING RIGHTS
JAIDE FOX
Mali awakened with a gasp. Her belly contracted, the muscles hardened. A sheen of sweat beaded her skin despite the warm air seeping through her loft from the kitchen below.
She lay there, willing her racing heartbeat to return to normal, for her breathing to slow.
For a week past, the nightmare invaded her sleep. Over and over again, she’d attempted to escape pursuit from the stranger in her dreams, to no avail. She couldn’t remember his face or form, only that he disturbed her more than anything else in her life ever had.
Her mother had commented on the dark circles beneath her eyes, and both she and her father said it must be the coming of the Moonlight Festival causing Mali distress. That or she was going into heat, which was just as unsettling. As much as she wanted to believe herself immune to the cycles of the wolf clan, she couldn’t deny that she felt a subtle change growing within her.
Never leaving the shelter of her parents’ home and small farm, Mali was forbidden to attend the annual festival where others of their kind found their mates. Once upon a time, before she’d come of age, her parents’ decision to remain secluded in the woods with almost no contact from the outside world had greatly distressed her.
As the years passed, she grew to understand her limitations and how those limits would be perceived by the rest of the clan. Now that she understood her parents’ reasoning in forbidding her attendance, she’d come to a measure of peace with their decision, even if it meant she would never have children of her own.
Perhaps the imposed seclusion was finally getting to her in spite of that, causing the anxiety that consumed her night after night. Perhaps it was the waxing of the moon and her body responding to natu
re’s call.
She hated it, but the mystery would have to wait another day.
“Mali, the chickens need feeding and the cow is lowing out back. Get your head on straight and do your chores,” Abba, her mother, called from the kitchen.
The scent of bacon frying and biscuits rising in the oven mingled together to make a scent that lured Mali from the bed and dispelled the disturbing thoughts from her mind.
Slipping from her bed with a groan and stretch, Mali walked to her hope chest which was filled with broken dreams rather than the niceties which would start her own household. She’d long ago stopped sewing baby clothes and embroidering tapestries, pillowcases, and sheets in favor of mending her faded work clothes instead.
Removing her nightgown and flinging it across the bed, Mali slipped her worn but favorite lilac gown over her head. Attempting to drag her comb through her coarse hair, she finally gave up after a few minutes and pulled her unruly curly hair back off her face with a ribbon, and stuck her feet in her wooden clogs. The daisies painted across the toes had long since worn away with trips through the woods and daily chores.
Descending the ladder from her lonely loft, Mali dropped down into the kitchen below. The cottage had only two rooms: the common room where they cooked, ate, and gathered before and after meals, and her parent’s bedroom. She was fortunate the high peaked, thatched roof had allowed the addition of her sleeping area, which her father had graciously built for her after re-thatching the roof a few years ago.
She appreciated having a space to call her own.
Mali tripped on the rug cover the root cellar beneath the kitchen area then smoothed it back in place before grabbing her apron off the back of her chair and tying it around her waist.
She sighed. “I never get a day off,” she complained, grabbing a piece of bacon and munching absently while she eyeballed the biscuits her mother pulled out of the stove. Butter scented steam wafted in the air.
“Your father and I don’t either. It’s the way of things when you live this far from town. Stop complaining and go out and feed the chickens before everything gets cold. Your father has probably already tended the cow by now. He said he wanted fresh milk for breakfast. Hurry, I’m making eggs next, and I know you don’t like them cold.”
Mali kissed her mother’s chubby, dark cheek, grabbed her straw hat, then disappeared out the door. She scooped dried corn out of the barrel and placed it in her apron.
“Here, chick, chick, chick,” she called, scattering corn across the dirt in the front yard. The chickens clucked and swarmed the feed, pecking at the ground as she moved through them to the lean to on the back of the house where they kept their milking cow.
Her father stood from his squat stool and stretched, putting two hands on the small of his back.
“I would have done that, papa,” Mali said, taking the heavy bucket from her father.
Barnardo smiled and chucked her chin with affection. “I know you like to sleep late. I was already up, and I know you haven’t been sleeping well. I know it’s the festival bothering you, even if you won’t admit it.”
“Oh, papa,” she said, lugging the bucket of milk behind him as they headed back inside the house for breakfast. “I gave up on the idea of that a long time ago when I learned of my limitations. It’s one thing to dream about it when you don’t know any better.”
Her father scrubbed a hand over his face and released a heavy sigh. “You might be at peace, but I wanted grandchildren running around and tearing up the place for me and your mama.”
“Aye,” she said, lowering her gaze.
He held the door open for her, looking at her with his sad, brown eyes.
Mali rubbed her cheek on his big shoulder before going inside. Normally, the fact that she wasn’t a full shifter was never brought up in conversation. They all avoided harping on the obvious, because it wasn’t something any of them could change anyway, and it hurt something inside of her to be reminded of the fact that she was a freak in their world. No man would ever want a mate that couldn’t run with him as a wolf.
“You two took long enough,” Abba said as they walked inside. She set plates of bacon and fried eggs at each of their places. A basket of biscuits waited to be plucked in the middle of the worn oak table, and fresh butter and jam occupied bowls on either side of the basket.
Mali’s stomach rumbled as she sat down to eat her breakfast.
Barnardo dipped a cup of milk in a ceramic mug and set it down in front of her before getting himself some. For himself, he fixed a cup of milk and a mug of coffee.
Pulling the chair out for Abba, she smiled at her husband and swatted his arm playfully when he waggled his eyebrows. Mali watched them interact, feeling warmed that she had caring parents.
Booted heels tread on their porch, and then a knock sounded on the door before Barnardo could seat himself. He stopped in the motion of dragging his chair from beneath the table, giving Abba and Mali a wide-eyed glance.
Barnardo looked at Abba. “Did you order supplies from town for today?”
Abba fidgeted with her hands. “No,” she said quietly, straining her ears.
“Get down in the cellar,” he said to Mali.
Knocking came again. Louder this time.
Mali stood quickly and flipped back the rug covering their root cellar. Lifting the heavy door for her, Barnardo waited until she was at the bottom of the ladder before he carefully shut the door over her head.
Abba rose to her feet with an effort, waddling to the cellar door and flipping the rug back over it as Barnardo walked to the door.
“Who goes there?” he called through the door, cocking his ear to hear a response.
“Open in the name of Clan Leader, Nicodemus,” a deep voice said on the other side.
Barnardo’s dark face turned ashen. Sweat popped along his brow bone. Abba, standing behind her husband, clutched her chest with one hand and grabbed his arm with the other.
He looked over his shoulder at her shaking her head and mouthing no.
“I have to,” he said, slowly reaching for the door handle.
***
“The pickings are slim for the festival this year,” Torolf said to Jaxon, nodding his blond head in the direction of the open air wagon carrying eligible, single clan women behind them.
“Maybe they’re scared there’ll be an orgy, and they’re all hiding,” Ranger said with a chuckle, slapping Torolf’s bicep with the back of his hand.
Jaxon sighed in exasperation, looking from Ranger’s scruffy, bearded face to Torolf’s clean shaven one. Both of them had the kind of looks and attitude which would easily win them a woman if they were willing to settle down. Which they weren’t. No more so than he. “It’s a fool’s errand Nicodemus has sent us on. But we’ve no choice but to follow orders,” Jaxon of the Black Wolf Clan said, scanning the road ahead of them.
The morning breeze flicked his long brown hair across his face, making strands stick to his eyelashes and mouth. He frowned and wiped his face clean in annoyance.
“Are you certain there is another one this way?” Ranger asked, propping his hands on the worn pommel of his saddle. “I’ve just about worn my ass off riding.”
“The baker said he delivers wheat and oats this way a few times a year. He’s the one that said he thought he’d seen a girl watching him behind a thatched cottage. I didn’t say a damned thing about it,” Jaxon said, cracking his neck as if for emphasis.
“We’ll sniff her out if there’s one here,” Ranger said, glancing behind them and giving the girls a wink.
Behind them, the gaggle of women they were escorting to the festival squawked and babbled like a flock of geese. The sound of their high pitched voices and laughter made Jaxon grit his teeth.
Baby-sitting duty.
He rubbed his throbbing temples, eager to be done with this business so he could return to his home alone.
As much as the others might look forward to the festival and the chance to find a mate, or ju
st get laid, Jaxon wanted no part of it. He preferred his peaceful solitude. He was too damned old and set in his ways to want a woman to come into his life and create chaos in his carefully ordered world.
Plus, he knew with his looks, he’d never get one he wanted. Most of them took one look at the scars on his face and high-tailed it back to prettier fare like Torolf and Ranger.
The Bear Clan had done more than just scarred his face and ruin his knee, they’d given him a lasting reminder of vulnerability that repulsed the others of his clan, even if they were grateful for his sacrifice in protecting them.
Being a hero wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.