“Are you doing a happy dance?”
Kara immediately stopped her little shimmy and swung around to face the man whose ass she’d kicked to become the newest supervising consultant, which meant that he was now her bitch, er, employee.
“No,” she lied as she smoothed down the front of her skirt. She cleared her throat. “I was fixing my skirt.”
Tom arched a disbelieving brow. “By shaking your groove thang?” he asked dryly.
Annoyed that he'd caught her indeed shaking her grove thang or rather doing a happy dance in her new office, she asked him in a firm tone, “Is there something that I can help you with?”
He simply shrugged as he looked over the two cardboard boxes she'd set on the otherwise bare glass-topped desk. She watched as he quickly scanned the empty, yet spacious, office. There was no missing his unhappy expression. That was just too bad, and so sad because she was clearly the best man, er, woman for the job.
“Mr. Walters would like to see you in his office,” he announced abruptly before turning and walking away.
Well, it was nice to know that she'd made a friend, she thought dryly as she smoothed her skirt one last time and left her office, but not before she glanced longingly at her new office one last time. She had about forty years worth of decorating ideas for her new office.
Although this wasn't her first office position, it was the first time that she would have her own office. The few times that she'd worked in offices before she'd either been a secretary or worked as general office staff sharing space with about twenty other people. She'd been too afraid to try for anything higher, because her credentials weren't exactly on the up and up.
Since she’d been thrown out of her Pack when she was fourteen, the only Pack help she had came from her cousin Mick, who wasn't much help since all his jobs over the years involved using his muscle. She'd been so afraid of exposure that she'd kept her head down and tried to fit in the background, going unnoticed.
About five years ago that all changed when another one of her bosses, once again, grabbed her ass and whispered a lewd proposition in her ear that would guarantee her an extra dollar-fifty an hour. It wasn't the first time that one of her bosses had grabbed her ass over the years, but that day she’d decided it would be the last time that she ever let it happen again. She’d refused to spend her immortality being groped by jerks just for the opportunity to barely make it from paycheck to paycheck. So, she did what any self-respecting shifter would do.
She’d paid another shifter a hefty sum to forge some kick ass credentials for her. That helped open a lot more doors for her. She took an entry-level job with Jacobson Specialists, a professional business advisement company as a junior associate. She learned the ropes of how to help businesses cut costs, filter their employees and improve their operations at half the cost.
The past five years had been grueling, but they were well worth it, because now she had her very own corner office, her own staff, a livable salary and no more bosses trying to bend her over their desks to pass the time until they had to go home to their wives. The only time that she had to go out into the field now was on a supervisory level or to deal with the unhappy owners who used to make her life a living hell with their constant whining and twenty-four/seven phone calls when her staff fucked up. Now she just had to sit her ass in a plush office, go over paperwork and send her minions out into hell on her behalf.
Could her life get any better? First a promotion and then she’d basically neutered Drew, doing all female kind a favor. No, life truly could not get any better than this.
Before she reached Mr. Walters' secretary’s desk, she was gestured inside. She walked into the large office to find Mr. Walters, a man in his early fifties with jet-black dyed hair that gave him a somewhat creepy appeal, sitting behind a large marble desk, looking somewhat pained.
“Please have a seat, Miss Sands,” Mr. Walters gestured with a tight smile. Kara wasn't offended since she knew the man recently had Botox done. She was just surprised that he could smile at all.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” she asked pleasantly.
He folded his hands in front of him as he cleared his throat. “Yes, I'm afraid we have a problem,” he announced.
A problem?
Had Tom filed a grievance over her promotion? It wouldn't surprise her.
“We've had a complaint,” he announced.
She bit back a sigh. Her first day on the job and already one of her employees had screwed up. It wasn't how she’d pictured her first day, but she'd handle it. She'd look over the problem and figure out how to solve it without getting whatever employee it was fi-
“You're fired.”
Chapter 4
“Mr. McNeil?” Mary whispered nervously while she shifted anxiously from foot to foot in front of the table that he was doing his paperwork on.
Slowly, he looked up from his inventory list. When he didn't speak, she shifted again as she took a healthy step back. Smart girl. He was in absolutely no mood for any bullshit today.
Apparently, his staff had somehow picked up on his mood. Of course they may have figured out that he was pissed off when he’d slammed his fist through one of the tables¸ breaking it in half when Jeff, the bartender, informed him that there wasn't any fresh coffee left. Then again, it could just as easily have been the water spot incident or scuff mark on the dance floor. It was really hard to tell with these things.
“Angel and Diane didn't show up for work,” she announced, taking another healthy step back.
His jaw clenched as he turned his attention to the employee schedule in front of him. There were only ten waitresses scheduled to work tonight when there should have been at least fifteen waitresses scheduled to work. It was two nights before the full moon, which meant that he was about to have a full house of shifters looking to burn off some energy. It was the most profitable time of the month for his club and definitely not the time to be short-staffed.
Shifters weren't exactly known for their patience during the week leading up to the full moon. If he couldn't provide them with quick and reliable service to keep them calm and happy, they'd go somewhere else and he'd be stuck serving humans.
Not fucking happening.
This was the best shifter club in town and he was not about to let that change.
“Call in everyone who's off tonight,” he said, tossing the schedule to the side.
“I-I tried.”
Drew slowly looked up at the frightened woman. “And?” he demanded quietly.
She gestured helplessly with her hands towards the employee break room. “I couldn't get anyone on the phone,” she mumbled pathetically, sounding close to tears.
“Well, call them again!” he snapped as his claws bit into the table.
She opened her mouth, probably to argue, but only managed to get out a whimper when he growled a warning, a warning that she knew better than to ignore.
“Y-yes, sir,” she whispered, turning and practically running to the break room for safety.
He looked down at the table and sighed. It looked as though they'd have to replace this table before tonight as well. With a small flick of his wrists, he tore his claws out of table, wincing when several pieces of wood came with them. Great. Just what he needed today.
“Get your paws off me, Mick! I swear to god that I will kick your ass if you don't put me down so that I can kill the son of a bitch!”
Even over the screeching, Drew could make out Mick's grunted answer. He looked up just in time to see Mick walk into his club carrying Kara over his wide shoulder. Judging by her kicking and promises of bodily harm towards her cousin, Drew guessed that she was in a pissy mood. Well good, because he was in a shitty mood himself and he was more than happy to take it out on the person who’d caused it.
With a grunt, Mick dropped his bundle in front of Drew's table. Kara took a moment to send her cousin a murderous glare before turning her attention on him. Drew ignored her for a moment while he ran his eyes ove
r her, taking his time to appreciate what fate had given him.
He felt his eyebrows arch as he took in her disheveled appearance. Her normally beautiful bronze hair was a tangled mess. There were dirt streaks on her face and neck as well as on her once tailored skirt suit. He stood up and leaned over the table to get a better look at her legs, ignoring her low growl of warning, and tsked.
“You've stepped over the line this time,” she bit out, making him frown. This time? He must have checked out her legs a thousand times before. Granted, he never openly checked them out, but then again he hadn’t known that she was his before. Now he saw it as his right and responsibility.
So, after a long perusal of those golden beauties covered in torn hose, dirt and a few abrasions he took his time sitting back, making sure to run his eyes over her breasts before meeting her very angry eyes.
“What can I do for you, Kara? Come to pick up the keys to the penthouse?” he asked in a bored tone.
“No, I came to demand that you fix everything that you did!” she snapped, earning a confused frown from him.
“What exactly do you think that I did?” he asked, taking a slow sip of his water, mostly just to piss her off.
“You know exactly what you did!” she snapped in a voice that was becoming more animal than human by the second.
He wasn't too surprised when he saw two tiny fangs slide down from her gums or her eyes flash silver. Well, actually he was. It was still a bit of a shock to discover that Kara was an Alpha after all these years, not that he hadn't scented immense power coming from her, but he'd just assumed that she was a slightly stronger female. Never in a million years would he have guessed what she was since it was very rare for a female Alpha to be without a Pack.
Hell, it was rare for any Alpha male or female to be without a Pack, but here she was pissed and looking ready to kill someone without a Pack to back her up. He mentally tsked her as he focused his attention back on his paperwork.
“I really don't have a clue about what has your panties in a twist today, Kara. So unless you're here to fuck or get the keys to the penthouse, I'm going to have to ask you to leave,” he said in that same bored tone that he knew aggravated the shit out of her even as he tried to figure a way around his staffing problem.
“I'm not leaving until you fix what you did,” she bit out angrily.
Sadly for her, he didn't have the patience for this bullshit. He hadn't fucked in over three months, because of his Pack obligations and business and now there was no relief in the foreseeable future. Add the shit with his Pack and the war that was brewing between the Masters and the Sentinels on top of being short-staffed and that left him in a really pissy mood.
“What the hell do you think I've done now?” he asked with a heavy sigh, dropping his pencil on the table as he sat back and waited for her to fill him in on whatever bullshit she was laying at his feet.
“You know exactly what you did,” she growled.
“I'm afraid I don't. So, you might want to enlighten me,” he said, taking a sip of his drink while he gestured for her to get on with it.
She opened and closed her hands while she glared at him and there was no doubt in his mind that she was barely stopping herself from going for his throat. It actually amused him that she even considered it and by the murderous gleam in her eye he knew damn well that she was thinking about doing it. But she held back, because she knew that Alpha or not, she was no match for him. If she made a move on him he'd take her down to the ground and fuck her to put her in her place.
Humans might call it rape, and in their world he would agree one hundred percent and even kill any bastard for doing it, but in their world as an Alpha with a Pack to lead and as her mate it was his duty to keep her in her place. There were too many lives at stake right now and he couldn't risk being seen as weak.
“You,” she said with so much vehemence that he couldn't help but arch a brow in question, “had me fired. You had my bank accounts drained. My apartment robbed and my ass evicted! My car was stolen and when I called my insurance company, I was informed that I've never had an account with them. In fact, you really went out of your way to make sure that I never existed!”