Grizzly (2 page)

“Tell me, where is she? Tell me and I’ll reunite you with your sexy wife. Or-I will burn you in hell and sweet Sorscha can lick your ashes off the floor.”

“Never!”

“Don’t give me the ‘I’m loyal to the bastard king’ speech, Carl. Where is his loyalty to you?” Carl watched as Osmaldis looked around. “Fergus McGovan, king of Malandria, your warlock, your daughter’s guardian rots and burns in his wife’s come. Will you not come to his rescue?”

Carl stayed strong; he knew what he had to do.

“I don’t see him, Carl. Maybe his daughter means nothing as you mean nothing. Join your wife in the afterlife. Tell me where the bitch is.”

“NO!”

“Marok!”

Carl knew that name too. A huge man walked in the room. As soon as he joined them, the glamour dropped and the hideous orc leader showed his true self.

“Master?”

“Get this bastard’s scent and track it to his home.”

“As you wish.”

Carl went rigid as the orc leaned in, the ugly face close to his bare skin. Marok’s hot breath touched his face, sniffing in the only place Annie’s come hadn’t touched. The hairs on the orc’s nose grazed his flesh. Carl wanted to vomit. Sorscha was alone, with only William the-live-in help to protect her now. Tears fell like a stream as the orc pulled back.

“Got it?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Find her.”

The orc left.

Carl braced himself.

Osmaldis grinned.

“Embrace the darkness and keep it warm, for you’ll have company soon enough.”

Carl’s eyelids strained. He tried to close his eyes before the inevitable. Osmaldis grinned and turned. Carl felt an intense heat rise within him as his flesh turned to ash. The last thing he saw were his wife’s remains as he descended into darkness.

––––––––

S
orscha Walker leaned back in the oversized leather computer chair. The ostentatious piece of furniture looked silly in the office space. Then again, everything in the office space looked silly. It was a nerdy fangirl’s wet dream in this room. Sorscha sure had enough money, if not from her job at Sector Inc., but from her father, to indulge her silly fandom necessities. A large TARDIS sat on her desk with little cut-outs of David Tennant and Billie Piper peeking out. The walls were nearly solid in full-sized posters ranging from Star Trek movies to Doctor Who and Sherlock. She gave Cumberbatch a wink before she cradled the cup of hot chamomile tea in her hands and took a sip.

Pulling her legs up, she rested her chin against her knees and watched the scrolling firewall protection flash by quickly on her MacBook. She was working off-site today. It was Valentine’s Day, and apparently that now was considered a national holiday. What it really was, was her boss at Sector Inc. was a hopeless romantic and seeing as Valentine’s fell on Friday this year, she’d given everyone a three-day weekend.

Well, it gave Sorscha time to Netflix the shit out of half the shows she was a season behind on. She wanted to watch Arrow so bad it was killing her. Two of her co-workers in the tech division gushed about it and posted about their feels constantly on Twitter. She knew she would enjoy the show even if it did give off a silly vibe in the trailers.

Leaning forward, she grabbed her iPhone. One hand held the tea as she rested it on the thick arm of the chair; her other scrolled through her Instagram. She caught a glimpse of her selfie from last night. She was making a silly face. She had on no make-up and was ready to close down for the night and go to bed. Her big blue eyes still sparkled without her usual band of eyeliner tracing the brilliant orbs. Her white skin looked like it needed to see sun very desperately, and her shoulder-length dark brown hair was knotted up in a messy bun atop her head.

She was a Whovian.

Which meant too many people followed her and her fan postings, so the likes had gone up to three-hundred and forty-five—with a few comments of ‘marry me.’

If only someone else noticed her that way.

She shook off the thought of her loyal family security guard, William.

The dude wouldn’t even take her to prom when she had been dumped the day of by her at-the-time football boyfriend. He’d only been dating her because of how wealthy her parents were. When Tammy Grabber had started to sob at cheerleading practice about how her college boyfriend had dumped her, John, her boyfriend, had dumped her with a brief text message. She was left sad, depressed, and begging the head of their security to take her instead to make a point.

The big grump was in a perpetual state of grumbling at her, telling her ‘no’ as much as he could and stalking behind her back when she tried to work at home. Tossing the phone back onto her huge glass desk, she lay back and let out a sigh. The house was silent. Her parents were away getting much needed R&R, and William and the rest of the staff were off until Monday. No grumbling bear while she tried to work and she could eat and do whatever she wanted.

She wasn’t skinny, but she also wasn’t fat. However, her mother, God bless her soul, was always trying to get her down to a socialite acceptable weight.

It wasn’t going to happen.

Sorscha liked proper lattes too much—and cupcakes.

Sorscha reached out for her Kindle, but before she could even start it up, her phone started to make the alert that told her someone currently was trying to break into the firewalls at Sector Inc. Tossing the tablet aside, she dropped her legs off the table and flipped open her second laptop. She hummed to life with coding and attacks to get the bastard out of her systems.

Why now?

This was the third security breach in a month. Sector Inc. had nothing of importance. It was a sports agency run by her father’s best friend. Who wanted to know about the next move Sean White was making that much? Wasn’t it obvious—the Winter Olympics?

The attack was coming hard and it crumbled her first line of firewall defense.

“FUCK YOU!”

She dug in and started to repair the broken codes. The second laptop linked into the main one and she shoved over hand-written lines of code that would lock it back up. Sorscha was trying to back the bastard into a wall. Get him locked into the little cage she was building so she could lock onto his IP address and out the bastard. Her fingers danced quickly over the keyboards. She had just finished building up the wall when it shattered.

“NO! NO! NO!” she screamed.

Something akin to a roar sounded at the far end of the house. The distraction served in the hacker’s favor as he snapped the second line of coding. He was nearly to the mainframe files.

Not even she knew what was in those files.

They were labeled classified and Sorscha just assumed it was account and credit card numbers. If hackers got their hands on the accounts of famous athletes—she didn’t even want to think about the fallout of that. They would have a villa in France by the end of the night and at this rate she knew their tracks would be covered by then.

Sorscha fought as she reached over and hit speed-dial on the intern training with her.

“Yeah, Sors—what ya need?” Daniel drawled out with a mouth full of food.

The kid was brilliant, but he was from some state like Kentucky. He talked really slow and you barely knew what he said half the time.

But he could battle with her.

“Get on the network,” she shouted frantically. “I need help. Someone breached the second firewall of the classified files and he literally blew up the cage program I tried to lock him in.”

Sorscha could hear him struggling around his room, and heard the tell-tale jingle of his Mac turning on.

“Fuckers. I was trying to watch the damned Time of the Doctor. I was at the part when the Daleks show up and Smith is all ranty and screamy like he’s on stage,” he grumbled.

“Dude, that episode sucks ass and someone needs to take over Moffat’s job. Trenzalor don’t fall, and the Time Lords give him a new regen cycle. We called that, Danny Boy, remember,” she ranted.

“Yeah, but I still wanted to see it.”

She ignored his whining and screamed again when the hacker shattered her second cage program.

“He is in level three. Once he gets through the fourth boundary code we are fucked.”

The next roar was just outside her office door before it slammed open, hitting the wall with a crack.

“What’s happened? What’s wrong? Why the fuck are you screaming?” William yelled.

Sorscha did a double-take at the huge male currently breathing hard in her doorway. Sweat dotted his forehead and he looked about to blow up.

“Get out! Wait, why are you even here? Mom and Dad sent everyone out to get laid for Valentine’s. Why the hell did you stay behind, and why the hell didn’t I know about it?” she shouted.

“You are on need to know, and you didn’t need to know that,” he growled back at her.

“Right─”

Alarms went off on her phone.

“Danny Boy, third level breach in five, four─”

“Why did you scream, Sorscha?” William demanded.

The brute of a man was breathing down her neck. She couldn’t focus as his scent filled her lungs, raising all the hairs on the back of her neck. She felt that sweet tingle between her legs as his lips brushed her cheek. His handsome beard brushed over her flesh and she let out a sigh.

“What’s that smell...” he trailed off, leaning closer to her.

“Get the fuck out, Will, or I swear to God I’m going to beat you with my MacBook if you are the reason I can’t get these fuckers out.”

“YEE-HAW! Locked him out of three.”

“YEAH!”

“AH FUCK!”

Sorscha leaned in and William growled in her direction. He was always doing that shit.

“William, leave!” She turned towards him and screamed.

The shock registered on his face a moment later. He hesitated, then started to pace behind her.

“I can’t think with you doing that, you big fucking brute!” she yelled.

She couldn’t think when William was around at all. Standing a firm 6’5” with muscles that bulged out of just about everything he wore. Those eyes that sparkled behind the mass of facial hair he insisted on having.

And his scent.

Holy fuck, he always smelled like evergreen, soap, and man. That rugged fragrance only men like him would have. Sorscha watched him ruffle his hair and it nearly undid her. Swallowing hard, she turned back to her computer and watched Daniel construct a new wall, writing code off the fly. She watched the pattern build and then she followed into it with him. The hacker started to fall back.

“Wait, I want to get his IP...” she paused.

“I got it already,” Daniel drawled with a cocky smirk over Facetime.

Just then her phone made the wheezing TARDIS sound noting she had a text. She and Daniel worked together, building code, and then just as she nearly trapped the rat bastard in one of her cages as Daniel constructed the firm wall—the hacker was gone.

“FUCK!”

Stabbing her fingers through her hair, she pulled at the roots and let her head fall back against the chair. She tried to catch her breath. Sorscha hadn’t realized she was holding it in that last minute.

“Well, boss, I gots a companion to yank the yam to for Valentines. Have a great day and tell your buddy there thanks for nearly getting our gooses cooked.” Daniel ended the Facetime call and Sorscha could only stare at the phone in disbelief.

“Did he just tell you he was going to masturbate?” William snarled behind her.

He was there again.

Too close and too tempting—she had tried her damndest to get him out of her head and get over the childhood crush she’d had on him since she was ten. Sorscha had been smitten when he first came to work for their family as her bodyguard. Turning a glare on to him, she got up from the chair. Shoving past him, she headed toward the kitchen.

Sorscha heard him take in a deep breath again and grumble about honey and where to get some. Heading over to the large espresso machine, she went about making herself a double shot.

“Stop drinking that. You’re wired up enough, you don’t need that to help you,” he rumbled.

Sorscha slammed down the can of espresso, it sprayed up and all over the counter. She turned on him as his hand rose. His mouth had dropped open like he was about to scold her, but she cut him off quickly.

“Look, I’m supposed to be alone this weekend, Will. Why are you here? Don’t you have, like, a chick to take out or something?” She crossed her arms over her chest. It was her futile attempt at closing off her jealousy of even the idea of him looking at another woman.

Yes, she had given up all hope the big, hulking man would ever entertain her as more than just a job her daddy paid him for. It didn’t mean she didn’t flick the bean to the idea of his hot body slamming balls-deep into her. She felt the fresh rush of arousal tease between her legs; she turned away from him and went about cleaning up her mess.

I have to get away from him, like now.

“You are never alone,” he growled. “What the fuck is that smell? Do you put honey in your tea now?”

What the fuck is he talking about?

William started to pace. Sorscha caught him out of the corner of her eye creeping up next to her—sniffing? She let out a noise of exasperation. Using her middle finger and thumb to pinch the bridge of her nose, she took in a deep breath.

“Are you sniffing me, Will?”

“No, and stop using that short clipped name. I am William.”

She snorted and kept on setting up her drink. Flicking the on switch, she turned around and leaned her backside against the counter.

Sorscha scanned him, slowly, up and down. He really was quite a handsome specimen of man. She’d realized long ago she really didn’t have a type. She didn’t get out enough to have one, but if she had a type, it would be William. It wasn’t just his size, but the way he watched her—as if it would kill him if she disappeared from sight. His very actions were now a contradiction; he was annoyed, yet refused to leave her side. He always wore those blasted black T-shirts. They clung to every ripple of muscle. Even now, as he seemed to search the kitchen, they strained. William bent over in front of her and she swallowed hard. His jeans pulled tight over his steel ass and she let a moan escape.