Scorpio Sons 4: Chase: (SF/Shifter Romance) (5 page)

At that moment there was a knock on the door, breaking the odd intimate moment they’d shared.

"Go make arrangements to spend a few days with us. Come back here in a couple of hours. I'll be finished by then and we'll go."

"But Nancy will be short-staffed…" Again she fell back on her work as the excuse not to go with him. Yes, she was getting answers, and felt an odd connection to him, but not enough to trust a
man
who had bitten her.

"Nancy, whoever she is, will find a replacement. You're not indispensable to this hotel, Anna, but you are to us."

She nodded numbly and went to the door. As she slipped past the middle-aged business man standing on the threshold, her head still spinning, she didn't look up to see what he thought of her coming out of Mr Scanlan's room. It wasn't unusual for housekeeping to bring fresh pillows, more towels and the like to a room when requested. He might not think anything of the fact she was in the room with the handsome businessman.

A business man who wanted to take her away for a few days.

Who had bitten her neck and turned her into a… cat-person.

Who
was
a cat-person!

Anna shuddered at those thoughts. If she was sensible she'd quit her job now and go into hiding. Move to a new city further south. Who knew what Chase or the others would do to her once he had her? She only had his word that she was being taken to Alyssa Aimes. He could say anything to get her to do what he wanted; she knew that from experience.

But Chase wasn't like any of her Protectors. Even though he had bitten her, she felt compelled to trust him. And they were the same. She'd seen it with her own eyes. Someone had
made
them both in a laboratory, like the clone trooper.
How was that even possible?

No, it was too much. This was America. She didn’t have to do what he said. She didn’t have to run away and hide. And even though her instincts told her to trust this man, she couldn’t just do it. Trust was something that had been badly eroded during her short life, and she couldn’t just go with it now. She had to be logical!

She fought down the realisation that she would never see Chase Scanlan again if she didn’t go with him now. That thought was enough to turn her gut to water for some unknown reason she didn't want to look at too closely. But as frightening as the idea of never seeing him again was, the idea of jumping into the abyss with him, was more so. He frightened her, not because of his violence, nor because he’d turned her into a cat, but because there was something between them that made her feel more vulnerable than she'd ever had before, even in the bad old days. Chase Scanlan could claim her Soul, and she’d come too close to losing that in those two awful years to just hand it over willingly to this stranger now.

No, she wouldn’t go!

Chase couldn’t focus. No matter how important the meeting with Lance Courtney was, he couldn’t bring his mind to the topic. His thoughts, like a heat seeking missile, constantly returned to the young girl he’d just met. The young girl he’d just claimed.

Less than half a fruitless hour later, he'd called the meeting to an end and asked to reschedule. Bewildered, but only too happy to acquiesce to the whims of a powerful man, who might make a powerful business partner if he played his cards right, Courtney agreed.

Having nothing to focus on was worse than trying to focus on the meeting, Chase discovered as soon as Courtney left. His mind kept conjuring up the look of horror and betrayal he’d seen on Anna’s face when he bit her.

How would she not feel those things? Any ordinary girl would have. But for one who'd been kidnapped by monsters as a child, it would be inevitable.

The Guild
, she'd said,
did terrible things to children
. Children like her. His cat had raged within him as she'd told him that, pushing him towards insanity. But he'd held the raging beast down.

At the time. But not now.

It didn't matter that he had business to conduct; it didn't matter that, as the leader of the Sons he had to keep his eye on the ball at all times. His cat was in control; relentlessly forcing him to obsess on the pain those bastards had inflicted on his mate; relentlessly urging him to hunt them down and tear them to pieces.

What she’d been through, he didn’t want to know. If he did, he wouldn't be able to function. But that she doubted the other children taken with her had survived, told him all he needed to know about her years in captivity.

And now he was kidnapping her, too. Oh, not for the purposes she’d been taken the last time. But she would still be torn from everything she’d known, and forced to remain with him, whether she wanted to or not.

But there was no choice. He was as much a victim in all this as she was. His freedom, what was left to him, was being taken away from him, too. Like prisoners handcuffed together, they had no choice but to continue on his life-path together.

Chase rang down to speak to the manager, belatedly, to arrange for Anna’s job termination. He should have done it as soon as she left, but Courtney’s arrival had forestalled him. And his brain just wasn’t working properly, thanks to his cat.

“Anna Jarvis, one of your room cleaners, will not be returning to her post today. She is giving in her notice, effective immediately. I'll cover all expenses incurred in finding her replacement,” Chase told the stunned manager, in a manner that made it seem like he co-opted domestic staff on a regular basis.

For a moment, there was silence as the man clearly consulted his roster. When he came back on the line he sounded bemused and more than a little uncomfortable.

“Miss Jarvis has returned to her post, sir. Or so my records indicate. She was away for half an hour. But –”

“Returned to work? No, that’s incorrect. I sent her home to pack her bags.”

The Manager’s voice became conciliatory. “Mr Scanlan, I don’t mean to contradict you, but Miss Jarvis is currently turning rooms on the fourth floor as we speak. In fact, she just finished Room 416 and will start on 420 in a matter of moments.”

“Find a replacement. Miss Jarvis was clearly worried she’d be leaving you short-staffed. Have someone sent up to replace her immediately, so she can go home and pack. I can’t stress how important this young woman is to my organisation. Her sense of duty can’t be allowed to get in the way of that.”

“Ye...Yes, sir, I totally understand. I’ll contact her supervisor immediately. Can we negotiate the compensation...?”

“I have no time for that now. Send me your estimate, and if it isn’t too exorbitant, I will pay it, no questions asked. Get that replacement up to the fourth floor now.”

He was out the door almost as soon as he’d replaced the phone in its holder. What was she doing, going back to work? When she left him forty minutes ago she’d been totally on-board with the idea of coming back with him. Hadn’t she?

Taking the stairs at cat speed felt like what he needed to do, but he remembered the cameras in the stairwells and used all his patience to wait for the elevator to take him down to the fourth floor.

When the ding came and the doors began to slide open too slowly, he slid impatiently out through the gap, scanning room numbers as he went. He saw her cart outside a door at the end of the hall. He sped up just a little more and flew into room 420.

Anna’s startled look should have slowed him down, but his anxiety levels were through the roof. What was she doing? Hadn’t she listened to anything he said? He couldn’t just leave her here. They were tied to each other now, for better or worse.

“You were supposed to go home and get packed,” he said, trying to keep his cat under control.

She stood up tall and straightened her shoulders. “I changed my mind. I can’t just pick up and go off with a stranger. No sensible woman would.”

He growled and his cat surfaced, taking hers with him. “You aren’t a woman, Anna. Not a human one, anyway. I know this has all been a shock, but you can’t just ignore what happened and go back to your little life. Everything is changed now. Everything!”

“No, it isn’t. You are still a stranger and I have no assurances that if I go with you I will ever come home again. I don’t even know if you actually know Alyssa Aimes, or whether you’re just feeding me that offer to get me to go with you.” She lifted her chin and stared at him with silver blue cat eyes.

“Fuck it, Anna. I haven’t got time for this nonsense.” He pulled out his phone and called up Caleb so he could patch him through to Alyssa. As the seconds passed and Anna went back to making the bed, he waited for Alyssa’s face to appear on the screen.

When it did he sighed and finally relaxed for the first time since arriving in LA.

“Chase, what’s up?” The singer’s lovely voice matched her sweet appearance on the screen. Her plait of honey-blonde hair fell over her shoulder as she stared inquiringly at him.

“I have Anna here. She is having trouble accepting that if she comes back to San Francisco with me she’ll get to meet you. I think she thinks I plan to kidnap her.” His strained laugh had Alyssa frowning.

“’K, I’ll speak to her. I told you I should have been the one to go get her.”

“Do we have to do the,
I told you so’s,
right now? Just convince her,” he growled, knowing his cat wasn’t planning on retreating any time soon.

Anna had cautiously come to his side as he spoke and now she was looking over his arm at the screen. Her gasp of recognition was echoed by Alyssa’s gasp of surprise.

“She’s activated?” Alyssa asked in confusion.

“Yes.” He grunted the affirmative out between clamped teeth.

“Who?”

“A stray cat wandering by! Who do you think?” His anger was now vibrating in the air around him and affecting Anna. She seemed to bristle.

“Because she was unclaimed or –”

“I don’t know, Alyssa. I’m as ignorant as everyone else is, when it comes to you Mates. It just happened. I didn’t know what my cat was planning to do. One minute, we’re sitting on a sofa and I’m trying to explain about... everything. The next, I’ve got my teeth in her shoulder. I don’t know who was more shocked, Anna or me. I didn’t
want
to do it. For fuck sake, I don’t
want
a mate. And maybe she isn’t... Maybe I just activated her, as the Alpha male. Maybe she’s still meant for someone else.”

“Okaaay, this is unexpected. Hand me over properly, and back off for a minute.”

He handed Anna the phone and went to close the door. He didn’t need anyone witnessing their fight or their cats.

“Hi, Anna. It’s good to see you again.”

“Y-yes. I…I too am pleased t-to see you again. Y-you got my letter?” she stammered out, her face turning a bright pink.

“I did, thank you for making the effort to warn me. Has Chase told you who Alzhir and Rothmen were?”

“Yes. Guild. I didn’t know. I just thought...”

“Yes, the Guild is our enemy, Anna. Yours and mine. We need you to help us fight them. I know this is sudden, I know you must have a million questions, but the only question that is important right now is this: do your instincts tell you to trust Chase?"

Anna stared at the phone for a long moment before slowly, almost reluctantly, nodding. His heart surged within his chest. Then it immediately took a nosedive when he fully considered what that trust might mean. It was hard enough having the Sons trust him to lead them, but this fragile girl? No, he'd destroy her if she trusted him.

"Then please trust your instincts on this one, Anna. Let Chase bring you here to us. I’ll help you understand. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

“I can’t just leave...” Anna cried out in desperation, and Chase’s cat fought to get to her side again, to calm her. But he had to leave this to Alyssa. All he’d done so far was stuff everything up.

“You said you knew these men, these monsters. You said you’d killed them.”

Anna nodded wordlessly, panic written in every line of her body now.

“Killing them, or more rightly, bringing them to justice for their crimes, is what we do. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of that? Do something important with your life?”

Anna nodded reluctantly.

“Then come and see what we do here and what you can be a part of, if you choose to be. We need you, Anna. There are so few of us Mates. We need you.”

He could tell by the way her body began to relax that Alyssa was getting through to her. His cat backed off and so did hers.

“Just for a few days then. I can’t commit to more than that. This is my life. It might not seem much to you, but I fought hard for what I have. I can’t just walk away from it.”

“I understand. Just come back with Chase and you can make up your mind once you fully understand what we’re doing; what you’re now a part of. If you aren’t convinced, then you can go home. We won’t keep you against your will,” Alyssa said soothingly.

Did Alyssa know she was lying? Or was she so convinced that Anna would
want
to stay that she offered options not really possible. Because there was no way he could give Anna the choice to leave.

As she nodded reluctantly, Anna handed back the phone. In the next moment, the door to Room 420 opened and a large middle-aged woman stood in the doorway her arms folded over her huge breasts.

He shut down the phone and turned to this new threat. The woman looked ready to attack him if he looked the wrong way at Anna.

“I’ve been told to bring in a replacement for you. What’s going on?” the woman demanded of Anna, pointedly ignoring Chase. He wasn’t used to being treated with such disdain by those in the service industry. Usually they jumped the moment he looked their way.

“I’ve been invited to join Mr Scanlan’s organisation. I’m going to San Francisco to find out more. Have you been able to find someone to take my shift?”

The woman looked nonplussed. “Yes, Sharon is on her way in. Are you sure about this, honey?” The big woman waddled across the room and placed a comforting hand on Anna’s arm.

“Yes. I’ll be back in a few days if it doesn’t work out.” Anna smiled bravely.

The woman had obviously been told that Anna’s position had been terminated, but before she could say more Chase took Anna’s other arm and directed her to the door.

“Go home now and pack a bag. I have to leave as soon as you can get here. Hurry, Anna. I have wasted too much of the day already.”

As the older woman sputtered, Anna hurried out. His cat fought with him, trying to make him follow his mate; to keep her safe, to make sure she came back. But the man sensed that if he did that he might push her away for good. If she didn't come back, he would have to waste more time finding her again. But it was worth the risk, if he could get her to return to him willingly.

Chase turned his predator’s gaze on the woman. “She’s perfectly safe with me. Whatever crass suspicions are going through your head at this moment, they’re incorrect. This job offer is on the up and up. Anna is a very special young woman and there’s likely much about her past that you don’t know. All you
do
need to know is that her life from now on will be much improved from this. You don’t need to concern yourself about her anymore.”

The woman studied him like he was a puzzle still missing a few pieces. “You’re right about one thing, Mr Scanlan; Anna is a very special young woman. And if I hear that anything has happened to her, I will notify the police. Being rich doesn’t make you above the law.”

Chase nodded and turned away. “I couldn’t agree more. I will keep your girl safe, I promise you.”