by Sable Sylvan
“Hey, no such love for your best man’s hair?” asked Mace. “What, you think I’m a limey bastard?” Mace’s joke went over Savina’s head until she remembered that the mother of the Scoville Brothers was an Englishwoman.
Ugh. Mace. Constantly trying to make things about himself, thought Savina. She gave Mace another look. Maybe she’d just identified his weakness. The cogs and gears in her head started turning.
Savina backed up from the flames to avoid the sparks, but she had no idea that when it came to The Feminine Mesquite, there was no avoiding the sparks of the flames of Fate.
Chapter One
Two Weeks Later
Savina Quincy woke up on Sunday morning and stretched, cracked her neck, and didn’t bother to get changed out of her comic book themed pajamas. She went to brush her teeth in her private bathroom and then peeked inside of the door that didn’t lead to her bathroom, nor to the rest of Mesquite Manor. It was the room leading to her shared suite with the one Scoville Polar she couldn’t stand. It was the room she was supposed to be sharing…with Mason ‘Mace’ Scoville.
The room was empty. The navy blue carpets and white walls were bare, except there were marks on the wall from the rough moving of furniture and removals of posters. Empty was good. It wasn’t ideal…but it was good. It meant that Mason hadn’t moved his stuff back into the room yet. Maybe he’d finally learned his lesson. Well, if her prank had gone as planned, he really would’ve learned his lesson. He’d moved her stuff out of the room, and he’d also glitter bombed her room, setting up a booby trap in her bathroom that unleashed a deluge of glitter into her bathroom when she had flushed the toilet. It had taken her all week to clean up on her own, but it was going to take Mason a lot longer to clean up the mess she’d had in store for him.
Savina closed the door to the suite and left her room to go downstairs to meet with her siblings and her future brothers-in-law for breakfast. Her sister, Alice, and her fiancé, Herb Scoville, owned Mesquite Manor, and the manor’s namesake establishment, The Feminine Mesquite. Herb was the eldest of the Scoville Brothers, and therefore, he was the future alpha of his clan. Alice and Herb were the owner and CEO of The Feminine Mesquite and oversaw everyone else’s positions. Herb’s future beta, Clove, was engaged to Savina’s second eldest sibling, Abigail. Abigail and Clove ran the hot sauce factory, an old factory that Herb had bought and renovated. There were many abandoned buildings in Fallowedirt from businesses that hadn’t been able to afford to give the small Texas town a chance. Another such building was the old warehouse that Herb had purchased for company use. After all, they needed somewhere to hold all the hot sauce. That’s why the middle siblings, Addison and her fiancé, Sage, ran the warehouse together. The second youngest siblings, Cayenne and Basil, the restaurant management major and the well-traveled shifter, ran the restaurant next door to the hot sauce shop, which they’d turned into a Norwegian-Brazilian-American fusion barbecue joint called The Matchstick Grill.
That left Savina and Mason, the youngest siblings, with the most boring jobs. They were in charge of helping out at the hot sauce shop. This meant cleaning, sorting, restocking, handling payments, handing out samples, and any other grunt work that Alice, Herb, or any of their older siblings needed to be done.
The only thing worse than working with Mason was sharing a suite with him. To make things fair, Alice and Herb had paired people up in suites by age, with the biggest suite going to their second in commands, and the smallest suite going to Savina and Mason. Each suite had a set of two bedrooms, linked by a shared room. Each bedroom had private closets and a private bathroom. The shared room was meant to be a private space the two could use for whatever they wanted. Abigail and Clove had used their room as a study space and now used it as a private sex dungeon. Addison and Sage used their room for her reading and his music. Basil had set up the suite as an art studio for Cayenne, and he would sit in there, learning to paint and draw, while Cayenne drew her beautiful paintings. Everyone had a perfect room…except for Savina.
She was stuck with Mason, the cocky bastard who, if he weren’t such a rude dude, would be someone she could admit she found…attractive. How couldn’t she? He had everything she wanted in a guy. Looks, a hard body, and…well, that was pretty much it. Savina had just finished freshman year, for goodness sake. She wasn’t exactly looking to settle down, although that didn’t mean that she didn’t find herself entranced by the wedding planning. After all, there was a quadruple wedding happening in just over a month, and with all four of her sisters as brides, she was their maid of honor…even though she was the youngest sibling, and the one with the least experience in wedding planning.
Savina reached the dining room. In the dining room, the rest of the siblings were already gathered, wearing their usual off-work clothing. The brunch buffet was set out. There was an omelet bar manned by a member of the staff that ran Mesquite Manor as well as self-serve options for cereal and pastries and juices. There was a barista running the coffee bar. It was Lauren, the head of the household staff, who always got the first pick of the coolest jobs. After all, she was the one who assigned them.
Savina kept her hands stuffed in the pockets of her cozy red hoodie as she looked over the spread. She picked out a blueberry muffin and a cup of lemon tea, hot, with sprinkles from the cupcake selection (one of Savina’s little quirks), and an extra lemon wedge, before taking her seat at the big table. Everyone was there…except for her suitemate.
“Sav, be a dear and get Mace, will you?” asked Alice, as she carried her omelet over to the table. “At the very least, bring him some food.”
“Ugh, do I have to?” asked Savina. “It’s the frikkin’ weekend.”
“You heard your sister,” said Herb. “But…don’t bring him a plate of food. Just bring him a muffin or two, something to whet his appetite. He needs to come downstairs. We’ve got a company-wide announcement, and although it doesn’t concern the two of you, I’d prefer for everyone to be here for it.”
An announcement? Savina had no idea what the heck Herb was talking about but he never ordered her around, so if he was telling her to do something, it was serious. She got up from her chair, without too much attitude, and plopped a donut and a muffin onto a plate. She put her hoodie’s hood up out of habit and walked back up to her suite. The last thing she was looking forward to doing was knocking on Mace’s door…especially if her prank had gone as planned.
Savina knocked at Mace’s door. While hers was covered in movie and comic book posters, his was covered in extreme sports posters. At least the hot dudes on motorcycles and skateboards were something nice to look at while she waited for sleepyhead to get the heck up.
Savina heard rummaging inside of the room. She knocked again.
“Mace?” called Savina.
“Come in,” said a muffled voice.
She tried the door. It was unlocked, so she opened the door slowly.
The room was dark inside. Mace must’ve put his curtains down. She looked around. Mace must’ve left his phone out to use as a walkie talkie to prank her from another room. Ha-ha. Real funny.
Savina turned to leave, and she heard a growling noise. She turned slowly…and saw two pinpoints of red glowing in the bedroom.
Savina backed away nervously toward the door, but the light coming from inside the hallway illuminated what was inside the room.
It was a wolf. It was a big, bad wolf, growling at her, its eyes bright red and glowing. It was moving toward her slowly.
Then the wolf pounced, its paws reaching out toward her face. Big, hulking, and growling, with matted mangy fur, the wolf’s head got up close to Savina’s.
Savina shrieked and dropped the plate. The plate shattered and pastry bits went everywhere.
The wolf stood up and started to laugh.
Wait, what the heck was going on?
Savina reached for the light and turned it on.
This was no wolf. This was a man, wearing black athletic pants and a matching shi
rt, wearing a wolf mask, wolf paws, and black sneakers.
“Are you frikkin’ serious?” asked Savina. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
The man removed his wolf paws and mask and tossed them onto the bed. It was just a set of silly rubber props with LED details. The man ran his hands through his hair, which was crimson, save some brown streaks which had previously been lime green.
“And you ruined a six hundred dollar dye job,” said Mace. “And my hands.” Mace showed Savina his hands. His hands had the typical marks of his shift. Bear shifters often had marks on their hands resembling bears’ paws. Mace was no exception. However, his black paw pads were covered with red and looked bloody.
“And you ruined my new desk when you moved it roughly,” said Savina. “I guess we’re even.”
“Not even close, toots,” said Mace. “Or should I say…Little Red Riding Hood?” Mace pulled on one of Savina’s hoodie’s white strings, and she batted his hands away.
“Save it,” said Savina. “Listen. Alice and Herb have an announcement to make. They sent me upstairs to get you.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mace, crossing his arms. “Let me guess. You have another prank set up downstairs? What, this time you’re going to add hot sauce to my maple syrup?”
“No, I’d like to consider myself a little more original,” said Savina, a hand on her hips. “Come on. I was sent to bring you down. That’s why I had the muffin and donut for you.”
“I suppose I’ve tortured you enough for one morning,” said Mace, running his hands through his hair again. “Although…this is going to take much longer to wash out. What formula did you use?”
“Some vegetable oil based thing. It’s not permanent,” said Savina. “It also shouldn’t be that…red.”
“What can I say? I like a long shower,” said Mace. “All right. Okay. Let’s go and get this done.”
Mace and Savina headed downstairs. Savina was surprised that Mace wasn’t madder about the hair dye prank. After all, she had ruined his dye job. It was a miracle he hadn’t gotten any on his face.
Mace entered the dining room and made a beeline for the food. Everyone else had already started eating, and Savina took her seat. Her food wasn’t too cold. She ate up, and Mace took the seat next to her. After all, all the other seats had been taken by the couples.
“Nice hair,” said Sage. “You planning on going to beauty school?”
“What, when I can’t even manage to dye my own hair red without going full Lady Macbeth?” asked Mace, flashing his brother his hands and turning them over.
“Dude, how the heck are you gonna get that out?” asked Sage.
“No clue,” said Mace. “I guess I’ll be wearing gloves at work this week. You like me as a redhead, Addison?”
“Oh yeah, totally sexy,” Addison assured Mace, but she looked to Sage and couldn’t help but laugh. “Doesn’t this mean…”
“That’s right, baby, get excited to see a red polar bear on that football field,” said Mace, taking a swig of OJ.
Savina was fuming. Had Mace managed to spin this as another one of his bad boy antics? No frikkin’ way! How could he be a prankster, a charmer, and have the ability to make anything work for him, even counter-pranks?
The worst part of it was that Savina had somehow managed to make Mace look even sexier. He looked good as a redhead, real good. Mason had always gone on about his Viking heritage, just like the other Scovilles. However, it was hard to imagine any of the other brothers as a Viking, with perhaps Sage as an exception, given that his hair had a natural black streak that made him look otherworldly. Mason, the most fit of the Scovilles, the most daring, with the scars to show it, and the one who always seemed to be getting himself caught up in one mess or another, looked the most like his Viking ancestors, in both demeanor and appearance. The red hair only helped highlight that heritage. It made him look less like a polar bear shifter but somehow, made him look even more animalistic and primal.
It made him look hotter, spicier, and that drove Savina nuts because the rich red dye hadn’t just turned his hair pink, as she’d intended. It made Mason look like some ancient European warrior, perhaps the spawn of a Celtic maiden and her Viking lover. He looked like a force to reckon with, even with a cocky smile on his face as he shot the shizz with his brother. He looked like he belonged at the head of a Viking longboat, navigating a band of men through the storm, not the end of an antique dining table in an American manor, waiting for a business briefing.
And there Savina was, sitting next to Mace, turned on, annoyed that she was the one responsible for her unwilling arousal. She didn’t want to be turned on by the one man in the world that she despised more than any other, the one who would tease her at work, move her stuff, play pranks on her, and in the same breath, in the same motion, set her heart a-flutter.
Mace’s bear roared. Mason tried to ignore it. He and his bear had an agreement: the polar came out to play when Mason let it, and Mason asked the bear to leave the human dealings to him. When it came to Savina, Mason had to make sure the bear didn’t take over. Mason had to make sure that he, the bad boy, maintained control, because every time Mason played a prank on Savina or made some sarcastic jab, the bear told him to do the opposite, to take her and kiss her and embrace her and claim her. Mason may have been the bad boy, but the shift was being a bad bear, by telling him over and over about how perfect Savina was, in all her fiery, curvy glory, like a sensual phoenix rising from the Texas dust and the ashes of the small town’s failed past. It was obvious that Fallowedirt had earned its name, as there was not a crop in sight for miles around the town’s center, but there was one thing it could grow. It could grow the fierce sassiness that was Savina Quincy, her luscious curves full and fertile, the kind of curves that belonged on the head of a longboat, not merely as the guiding figurehead, but shouting orders to men that would be unable to resist the siren song of her sass or her curves.
The bear roared again. It was telling Mason that it could scent out Savina’s arousal, that Mason was sexier to her than he had ever been before. The great polar bear was telling him that the fated mate stocks had just risen, the bear market becoming a bull market, that it was time now to take Savina, to just pick her up, take her back to his room, and claim her.
Mason told the bear again to be quiet and stumbled over his words with Sage.
“Shut up,” said Mason, out loud, by accident, as his eyes flashed an icy Nordic blue.
Sage shot Mason a look. Had he just seen his brother lose some control? If there was one thing Mason was, it was a man who knew how to control his emotions, how to conceal them. While Sage showed them in his art, Mason, well, he let them out whenever he did extreme sports or even just football with his brothers out on the field…but even then, Sage was sure Mason was holding back his full power. Mason was the omega, but Sage knew better than anyone that even as an omega, Mason felt the power of an alpha, given that Sage was the clan’s delta, barely higher than the omega. He knew rank had nothing to do with the primal power that a shifter carried inside. It was both a force that could help them with the burdens of their lives and a force that could at times itself feel like a burden. The shift could solve problems, but it could also make them. The only question was, would Mason’s bear get the bad boy in more trouble by breaking all the rules…or would Mason get himself into worse trouble by breaking the laws of fate?
Alice rang her little bell.
“Today marks a very special day,” said Alice. “This morning…Herb and I learned that we had received our one hundred thousandth order of hot sauces. That’s right. We’ve sold one hundred thousand bottles of hot sauce since teaming up together.”
“That’s just counting retail sales,” said Herb. “Doesn’t include restaurants or anything.”
“In honor of this occasion, we thought that you might be up for some…friendly competition,” said Alice.
“We’re proposing a hot sauce competition,” said Herb. “After all, we’ve alre
ady had two cook-offs in this family, ours and Cayenne and Basil’s. It’s practically a Quincy-Scoville tradition. The winning sauce will be featured at the Bright Star County Fair at the end of the summer. Of course, Alice and I are opting out, because we’re too busy and we also need to be impartial judges.”
“So my sauce will be featured,” said Mace, his arms crossed as he gave a cocky grin.
“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Savina, looking over Mace. How the heck did he manage to make everything he did both aggravating and sexy? She wasn’t sure if she’d rather slap him or smooch him.
“There’s one last twist,” said Alice.
“Sauces are going to be made by the couples,” said Herb. “Let’s see which couple can develop the best sauce. Remember, there’s only about a month left before the opening day of the county fair and the week after that is the Quincy-Scoville wedding. There’s not a lot of time, but we’re sure that somebody will manage to make a sauce that knocks everyone’s socks off.”
“Wait, couples?” asked Mace. “So how the heck am I supposed to compete?”
“Yeah, or me?” asked Savina. She couldn’t believe it. She agreed with Mace about something.
“You two can try to enter on your own, I suppose,” said Alice, looking to Herb. “But…”
“…I’m not sure you have a snowball’s chance in Texas to win, what with what Basil and I have in store, little sis,” said Cayenne, holding onto Basil’s arm. “After all, we already developed a sauce this summer, our ‘Fated Mate Sauce,’ the cayenne garlic sauce you know you love.”
“Clove and I might not have made a sauce before, but we know a thing or two about chemistry,” said Abigail, looking over at the man who was proud to call her his fated mate.
“That’s right,” said Addison, holding Sage’s hand. “I haven’t made a sauce before either, but with Sage’s spice expertise and my research skills, I’m sure we’ll make some sweet, spicy music. But you, on your own…well, I don’t think that you are going to be able to have what it takes to compete with us.”