by Sable Sylvan
“Don’t have what it takes?” asked Savina, standing up and slamming her hand on the table angrily. “Abby. Addy. Kai. I might be the youngest sister, but I can compete with all y’all. You’ve underestimated me. I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
“Anything?” asked Mace, looking up at Savina. His bear roared. There was something about this sassy firebrand that, as much as Mace wanted to deny it, made his heart race and melt at the same time. She had a fire inside that she didn’t try to contain, she didn’t try to hide, and yes, it had gotten the both of them in trouble more than a handful of times, but he wouldn’t change a single part of her.
Mace told the bear to be quiet. The bear had been wrong before, after all, and Savina was…well, the last woman that a bad boy should mess around with is a woman who would be his future sister-in-law, given all four of his older brothers were to marry all four of her older sisters. However, that didn’t mean that Mace didn’t have a plan that had everything to do with Savina. The cogs in his head were turning as he figured out a way to pull off the ultimate prank on all his brothers and their fiancées. They’d underestimate him, but when he won, they’d all be eating their hats and wouldn’t be able to believe Mace had managed to pull it off.
“Yeah, anything,” said Savina. “Why, you think you can beat me, Mason, just because you’re a frikkin’ billion-heir?”
“Oh, I can beat you, and not just because of my money,” said Mason. “But…I’m not sure either of us can beat them.”
“Really?” asked Sage, giving his daredevil brother the side eye. Sage and Mace both had bad boy reps, but Sage was the sensitive ‘rock star’ music major, English minor, who pretended to be a bad boy to keep unwanted attention away. Mace was the real deal, and an adrenaline junkie to boot.
“Really,” said Mace. “You know me, brother. I can admit my weaknesses…the question is, Savina, can you admit yours?”
“My weakness?” asked Savina. “I do have a weakness for listening to your bullshizz, Mason.”
“Language!” said Alice, but nobody cared.
“Well, then just listen for one more minute,” said Mace. “Savina, you and I can’t beat our siblings. Not separately. But together? You and I might just have a shot at taking first. I don’t like you. You don’t like me. The only thing I dislike more is people underestimating me. I know you feel the same way. If we work together, we can beat all three of these couples, take the crown, and go our separate ways. The only question is, are you game?”
“Is this another one of your pranks?” asked Savina.
“That’s a good point,” said Cayenne.
“Nope,” said Mace. “Basil. Look at me. Am I goofin’?”
Basil looked at his brother. There wasn’t a mischievous glint in his eyes. All that was there was a passionate, competitive fire, and a flash of polar blue that Basil knew meant that Mace’s bear was roaring. The only question was, was the bear roaring for the same reason it had roared for Basil, and for his brothers Herb, Clove, and Sage? That was a question only Mace could answer, with an answer only Mace could deny.
Basil looked to Savina.
“No,” said Basil. “He’s not pranking you. I can tell.”
Savina extended her fist toward Mace. Mace flinched and then realized what the heck she was doing, and he bumped his fist against hers.
“Guess it’s on,” said Savina. “Mace and I are gonna take you down, all six of you, heck, make it eight. Alice and Herb, let’s raise the stakes. If I win, there’s gonna be a chocolate fountain at your wedding. If I lose, I’ll clean the bathroom at The Feminine Mesquite and The Matchstick Grill every day, full-time, next summer.”
“You’re on,” said Alice. “Get prepared to get scrubbing.”
“If you start melting the chocolate,” said Savina. She sat back down and finished up her meal. She couldn’t believe what had just transpired. Something inside of her had told her to take a risk, to trust in Mace, even though just minutes before they’d been fighting about their prank war. The only question was, would this bear help her get the gold, or would he go full wolf and eat her right up?
Chapter Two
Everyone finished breakfast, and Mace and Savina headed upstairs together, for the first time ever. They usually tried to avoid each other, but they’d been deep in conversation ever since Savina had sat back down. After all, if Savina was going to work with Mace, she’d better frikkin’ win the hot sauce competition. That meant trying her damnedest to work together.
Savina and Mace entered the suite’s shared room. The room was empty, but like all the suites, it had great bones.
Savina sat on the floor and closed her eyes.
“What the heck are you doing?” asked Mace. “I thought we were gonna talk about flavors.”
“No, that was just to trick my sisters,” said Savina. “You seriously thought that barbecue sauce made with strawberries and potatoes was a serious idea?”
“You were joking? Good,” said Mace. “That did sound horrible. Smart thinking, throwing them off the trail.”
“You want to win this, right?” asked Savina.
“Yes,” said Mace. “I might be the clan’s future omega, but…”
“…You’re tired of being underestimated?” asked Savina.
“Exactly,” said Mace. “Wonder how you guessed.”
“Ha-ha,” said Savina, equally sarcastically. “Anyways. I’m trying to visualize the way this room should look.”
“What, full of your stuff?” asked Mace.
“No, smart one,” said Savina. “Mace, we have three advantages that the other couples don’t have.”
“And they are?” asked Mace, leaning back against a wall.”
“First of all, we’re not in love,” said Savina. “You’ve seen the way the others act.
“How is that a strength?” asked Mace.
“Uh, because they’re always busy making out or whatever?” said Savina. “Use your head. They’re all busy doing date nights and talking and smooching and stuff. I don’t have a boyfriend. You don’t have a girlfriend. We aren’t dating, of course, because that wouldn’t happen in a million years. That means that we’re going to have more time to work on the sauce and we won’t distract each other.”
“Okay, fair,” said Mace. “Next advantage?”
“Secondly, they’re afraid to hurt each other’s feelings,” said Savina. “Neither you nor I are afraid to hurt the other’s feelings.”
“Ouch,” said Mace.
Savina opened a single eye and looked at Mace before closing it again. “Come on. You can’t be serious. You know we aren’t exactly friends.”
“Fair,” said Mace.
“Anyways, it is an advantage. You’ve seen how Basil and Kai are. They constantly are complimenting each other. Addison and Sage never tell each other off, even when they’re dead wrong. It’s gross and makes me sick sometimes,” said Savina. “You can guarantee that if Abby suggested habanero peppers with nutmeg and cloves to Clove, he’d say it’s a great idea. Love is blind…but love also blinds us. They won’t be able to be objective, whereas, well…I don’t care enough about you to lie to you.”
“Okay, last advantage?” asked Mace.
“This room,” said Savina. “Every other couple is using their room for some bullshizz. There’s Abby’s ‘study,’ Addy’s reading room, Kai’s art studio. But this room, it’s a blank canvas. We can use it as a workspace and use it to talk about work stuff in private.”
“And in public?” asked Mace.
“In public, we need to make it look like we can’t work together, as if nothing is going on up here,” said Savina. “Loose lips sink ships, and I’m not ready to go down with the ship. I want to win this thing, so in public, I’m gonna suggest bad ideas. You do the same, and call me out, too. I’ll call you out. We need to keep fighting in real life. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“Right,” agreed Mace. His bear roared. What the heck was Mace doing? He needed to figh
t Savina on all these assertions. Mace shushed the bear. There was no way that the bear had any idea of what the stakes were. The bear wasn’t an omega in its world, in the world of Mace’s heart and imagination. Mace lived in the real world, where he was an omega. There was nothing worth giving up an opportunity to be alpha in something for once, not even a sassy, spicy woman.
* * *
Over the next week, Mace and Savina played their game. They had minor spats at home, but not at work, and seemed to be arguing about the hot sauce publicly. Privately, they discussed the hot sauce in their suite’s shared room, where they had set up a giant table, a cork board, and some office chairs and other supplies. They brewed prototypes of their sauce in the Mesquite Manor’s kitchen when the other couples were busy going on group dates or on afternoon excursions that left Savina and Mace alone in the house on the weekend. For any other hot-blooded shifter and sassy BBW, this would be an opportunity to jump each other’s bones, but this was Savina and Mace. They weren’t friends. No frikkin’ way. This was all about the competition. If they hadn’t been working together, they would’ve been working against each other.
People noticed that they didn’t seem to be fighting as much. Savina and Mace, realizing they needed the car keys if they were gonna get anything done, made nice in public, even in situations where they otherwise would’ve been at each other’s throats, and finally, by Wednesday morning, they had earned back their car keys. Now, they could go to the grocery store and the restaurant supply without having to get a ride from their older siblings, so they could keep their recipes secret.
The only time they almost had a real fight in public was when Savina took the car out during their lunch break on Wednesday. Savina came back from lunch break, carrying bags, and she was confronted by a very sweaty man wearing a t-shirt and shorts and a The Feminine Mesquite branded apron.
“Where the heck did you go?” asked Mace.
“What’s it to you?” asked Savina, a hand on her hip.
“I needed the car over lunch,” said Mace.
“I needed it, too,” said Savina. “What made your errand more important than mine?”
“I was getting something for our sauce,” said Mace. “I had to walk a mile each way, and in this heat.”
“Why didn’t you just shift?” asked Savina. “I’ve seen your polar, Mace. I know you’re fast.”
“Yeah, let’s see…I’d shift, carry my wallet in my mouth, run to the stationery store, unshift, buy the stuff while naked, shift again, and get the stuff here in one piece,” said Mason. “That sounds entirely believable…not.”
“Stationery store?” asked Savina.
“Yeah, I got something for you,” said Mace. “I know you were frustrated with having to toss out all those black papers you use for designing labels with your gel pens. I got you some blackboard paper with chalk. This way, you can just erase the paper with a chalk eraser and try another label design.”
“You got me something?” asked Savina. “Mace…thanks.”
“No sweat,” said Mace, motioning to his moist body. “Get it? No sweat? What the heck were you out getting, anyway? You went to the beauty shop?” Mace motioned to the bags which had the beauty shop logo featured prominently on the bag.
“Yeah, but it’s not what you think,” said Savina. She passed Mace the bags.
Mace opened the bags. Inside were various hair products.
“I don’t understand,” said Mace.
“I talked to the lady at the beauty shop and got stuff that’ll take the red out of your hair faster,” said Savina. “I got a color stripper, bleach, toner, some more green dye, both semi-permanent and permanent…and the number of a woman in Dallas who can fix your hair right up.” Savina passed Mace a business card.
Mace looked at the card and then at Savina. “You know, you didn’t have to do this.”
“And you didn’t have to ask me to work with you, especially after the way I treated you,” said Savina.
“The way you treated me? Last time I checked, you’re still picking glitter out of your hairbrush,” said Mace.
“Are you two gonna get to work?” asked Herb, coming around the corner with his clipboard, ever the busy bee. “This ‘Gift of the Magi’ bullshizz ain’t cute. We got a hot sauce company to run, people! Pork chop, lamb chop!” Herb had decided that phrase sounded better than just ‘chop, chop.’
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mason. “Just a second. I guess I’m just trying to say…I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Savina. “Thanks for…”
“Back to work!” shouted Herb from his office. “You two can make out on your own time!”
Savina and Mason went back to work, but couldn’t help but blush when they looked at each other. Herb’s comment about making out had got in their heads, and both Savina and Mason were unable to stop thinking about what the other’s lips might taste like on theirs. There was only one thing they knew for sure, and that was they had to make sure they maintained their strength in the hot sauce competition…even though that meant that there was no frikkin’ way that they could mess around and win. If they had any chance of taking gold, they had to resist taking off their pants.
Chapter Three
That Friday afternoon, while the others were at the movies, Savina took the driver’s seat, and Mace took the passenger seat. Savina and Mace were working so hard on their recipe that they didn’t even have time to fight over the car keys. Mace was going over their itinerary. They had a narrow window in which to hit all these stores before they closed. The store and restaurant were being run by other employees that day, as Mace and Savina had been given the afternoon off as well.
The first stop was the restaurant supply shop. There were only a few items they were missing, items they’d seen used in the back of the shop by Herb and Alice. They needed to pick up a kitchen mill to grind up peppers more finely than a blender could blend them up, and they also needed some bottles for their sauce. They had both come up with ideas for recipes and needed to pick up ingredients at a few specialty stores. There were ethnic stores with exotic spices they wouldn’t be able to find at a grocery store and they made a stop at a local farm stand to pick up some habanero, chipotle, jalapeño, and cayenne peppers. At the basic grocery store, they picked up some basic yellow mustard, vinegar, and a gallon of milk and some soda so that they could have something to wash out their mouths with between trying their sauces.
At the grocery store, Savina was ready to hit the register after getting the mustard, vinegar, and milk (a combination for one awful smoothie) but Mace took the cart and went to the vegetable section.
“What are you doing?” asked Savina. “We have a sauce to make.”
“Well, we’ve got to try it with something,” said Mace. “How about a simple, fast stew of potatoes and carrots, maybe some celery? We can add some lamb from last night’s leftovers in.”
“Okay, that is a good idea,” admitted Savina. It was weird being around Mace in private. They had to pretend to fight a little in public, but in private, she didn’t have a reason to argue with him anymore. They’d put their beef to rest and it was almost like she was getting to know Mace on a personal level, which was the last thing Savina wanted to do…at least, that’s what she had thought before. Now, she wasn’t so sure about what she wanted with Mace. Were they really going to go back to hating each other after all this?
“Is there anything you wanna try it with? Maybe some broccoli? It’s got a mild taste, so we won’t have to worry about it overpowering the sauce,” said Mace, tossing a head of broccoli.
“Perfect,” said Savina. “Maybe we should get some tomatoes, too, in case we want to try a tomato base with the sauces.”
“Great idea,” said Mace. “Can you get a bag of those?”
“On it,” said Savina.
Everything with Mace was so confusing to her. It seemed like just last week they’d been at each other’s necks. Wait. It had been last week. Now, they were shopping
like an old married couple! It was weird, but Savina knew the only thing that would make it weirder would be bringing it up with Mace.
They went back to the manor which was still quiet, as the staff was working on cleaning the upstairs suite bathrooms, now that nearly everyone was out of the house. The kitchen was empty, and Savina and Mace were free to mess around…with the sauce, that is.
Savina and Mace laid out their ingredients. While Savina lay out the ingredients to make her sauce, Mace made preparations to make his simple stew, and then put a pot of water on the stove. When it was boiling, he added the carrots and potatoes. Meanwhile, Savina started work on her sauce. She used the blender to puree a tomato and used the mill to grind the habaneros and some garlic. She mixed them together just as Mace was finishing up the stew.
Mace served them each a dish of potatoes and carrots, with leftover gravy and Norwegian lamb meatballs tossed into the mix.
“Is the sauce ready?” asked Mace.
“It will be soon,” said Savina. “Can you put out the milk and the soda and whatnot, sugar?”
“Sure thing, sugar,” said Mace.
Sugar? Oh heck! Had Savina just said that out loud by accident? Although it wasn’t uncommon for a Southern gal to drop a ‘honey,’ ‘sugar,’ or ‘darling’ by accident, she hadn’t meant to use that word with Mason. She was sure it meant something more serious back in Norway. Savina felt her cheeks turn bright red. Maybe she could lie and say it was from chopping up all those dang habaneros, although, she was wearing a bandana over her nose to keep the smell out.
Savina put the finishing touches on the sauce and carried the bowl of sauce out to the table with a spoon. She took her seat next to Mace. They were using the kitchen island as their tasting center because it would make clean up easier.