Scorpio Sons 4: Chase: (SF/Shifter Romance) (7 page)

“My past... It makes it hard to be around men. And yet, I felt drawn to Mr... Chase from the first moment I saw him. When he bit me, I wanted to be angry with him. I don’t allow men to be violent with me. I take self-defence classes to make sure they don’t. I can’t afford the classes. I have to cut back on many things so I
can
afford them. But I won’t allow men to be violent with me.

“I know I should be angry with him. But I’m not. The bite was frightening and yet it was... pleasurable. And… I never thought I would feel pleasure with a man.”

She paused, embarrassed to be talking this way, and yet wanting to get it right for Alyssa. She needed to think of the right English words to explain how she now felt about the stranger she had met only that morning. With part of her mind she registered the fact that her accent had returned. It usually did when she got emotional.

“I don’t know him, I don’t understand him, but I feel safe with him. Somehow I know that if he goes postal, he won’t hurt me. I know that’s stupid. Of all people, I should know not to trust a stranger. But I do. I feel as close to him as I have felt to anyone in a very long time. I can’t explain it.” She let out a deep sigh of defeat.

“And Caleb? What was your reaction to him when you first saw him? I know he’s pretty outrageous...”

Anna chuckled and shook her head. “Yes, but I instantly liked him and felt a certain level of safety with him, too. For four years I’ve struggled to be around men, and then I meet these
Sons
who make me feel oddly safe. Like the two bodyguards you had with you. I knew they would look after you. I trusted them to do that. Maybe it’s that
cat
I now have inside me that senses safety, because we’re the same breed. The trouble is, when it comes to men, it's not easy to trust my instincts; even though I
know
they're right.”

Anna could tell that Alyssa wanted to ask about her past experiences with men, but she hoped she wouldn’t. She'd given away too much already. Not even with a sister could she imagine opening up fully about that period in her life. Luckily, Alyssa seemed to decide to mind her business and not digress.

“So are you more attracted to Caleb than Chase?”

“What? No. His accent is very charming. But I... I can’t explain it. I felt comfortable with Caleb but Chase is...”

“Special?” Alyssa provided gently.

“No. Or maybe yes. He makes me uncomfortable. Yet not because I fear him. It's strange, but he draws me like a magnet. He threatens my control, and I’ve fought a long time to have control over myself and my life. Maybe he just impresses me with his wealth and power. Isn’t that what most women find attractive?”

Alyssa placed a calming hand on hers. “What you’re feeling for the Sons, and specifically for Chase, is normal. Well, normal for our sub-species it seems. We don’t have all the answers yet, but there are definitely patterns forming.

“One of the two bodyguards you saw me with at the hotel was Colt, my mate. Four years ago, he saved me from being raped."

Anna couldn't help gasping in empathy. She and Alyssa were more alike than she'd imagined.

Alyssa gave a little shrug and went on. "Yeah, not one of my favourite memories. But Colt made up for that. And I fell for him instantly. Up until then I’d never felt any strong sexual attraction to anyone. But just like that I wanted... well, I won’t tell you what I wanted him to do to me. When I met him again in December the attraction was still there, but somehow ramped up, especially after he bit me. Just like Chase bit you. It freaked us both out. But we were together that same night. It felt... fated.

“They made me come here and test out the others, as I’m doing more gently with you now. But there was never anyone else for me. I felt comfortable around Connor, like he was a big brother, but it was always Colt for me. He was special. He
is
special. Colt is my mate. I knew it from Day One.”

Anna’s mind couldn’t process what Alyssa was sharing with her. It seemed that she was suggesting that what the singer had with her Colt was what was happening with her and Chase. But that couldn’t be right. He was... not in her league, as Americans would say. And he clearly didn’t like the idea of having her as his mate. He said he didn’t want to activate her. That it was his
cat
. And hadn’t he told Alyssa that he’d simply activated her as the Alpha?

“Maybe Chase is right about there being a difference between activation and mating. And maybe it’s not the same with everyone. Like love isn’t always the same for... humans? Do we consider ourselves human?”

“It might not be the same with everyone. That’s what we’re trying to work out with you. And I still consider myself human. More human than the Guild, anyway. But we really aren’t, because if we were, we could breed with humans, and that has never happened, for us Mates or the Sons. If you asked Coop, he’d give you the scientific justification for it. I can’t.”

“So you want to parade me around in front of all the Sons so you can decide if I’m different to you in some way?”

“
Parade around
sounds awful. I’m just getting you to meet some of the brothers to test your attraction to them. If you feel nothing special with anyone but Chase then we can safely conclude that he’s your mate.”

“But he doesn’t want me!” she cried, jumping to her feet and beginning to prowl the shadowed lab. “Didn’t you get that from him? He’s postal because he thinks I’m his mate and he doesn’t want me to be.

“I want to go home. I can’t do this.”

She stormed for the door and found Caleb standing on the other side. From the expression on his face she could tell he’d heard every word she’d said.

“It’s not you, sugah. Chase just doesn’t want a mate,
any
mate. The man works every waking hour. He hasn’t got the time for a woman in his life.” His southern drawl was like honey dripping from a spoon. It soothed her ragged nerves.

“I want to go back to LA. Now,” she repeated, tears welling in her eyes. Crying was something she had stopped doing years ago. The only time she cried was in her sleep.

“Stay. Be my mate. I’ll be good to you,” he growled, cupping her cheek with his warm hand.

Caleb didn’t know what he was offering. He didn’t know that she’d had her body sold to all comers. Sometime after the first year she’d lost count of how many men she’d been with. Her body had housed every STD there was, with the exception HIV, Hep C and herpes. She didn’t even know if she could accommodate a man without pain, she’d been so internally scarred and infected. This very sweet man didn’t deserve someone like her. She wasn’t his mate. He knew that; she knew that.

A deep growl echoed down the hall and faster than her eyes could track, a blur swept Caleb away from her and slammed him against the far wall. Chase held Caleb in place by the throat, an inch or two off the ground. Anna felt the now familiar sensation of her feral nature rise, and from the slight pain in her teeth she knew her incisors were dropping and sharpening somehow.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” Chase got out through gritted teeth.

“Why, so she can leave us? Because you don’t want her, she’s leaving. These are our women. They’re ours to protect and care for. If you won’t do it, then I will.”

With an animalistic cry, Chase threw Caleb down the hall, away from Anna; and Alyssa, who'd come out of the suite to stand behind Anna.

“You won’t do it! She’s
mine
,” Chase growled. “Touch her again and you’re dead.”

Without a word, Chase spun away and grabbed up Anna’s arm. Almost painfully, he dragged her down the hall away from Caleb and Alyssa.

Anna wanted to cry out for help. She wanted someone to save her from this enraged beast. But if anyone tried, she was pretty sure Chase would kill them. He was totally feral, totally past the point of rational human thought. All she could do was pray that he didn’t hurt her too much, and that somehow she’d find a way to escape him when it was done.

The room he thrust her into was a bedroom, spartan in appearance, clearly for sleep alone. A bedside lamp was on, but it was the only light in the large, almost empty space. Once the door was closed behind them, Chase pushed her up against it, using his larger size to contain her. With her nose pressed into his shirt, his scent slammed into her more forcefully than his body ever could. She didn’t want to feel aroused by this out-of-control man. But something was stirring inside her, something that wasn’t her.

For a long time he pressed into her, breathing her in, as if the very smell of her calmed him. Slowly, sensually, he rubbed his cheek against her hair, blowing into it. As each moment passed, Chase seemed to become less and less overwrought.

Eventually, he pulled back a little and groaned. Lowering his head, he grazed a kiss against her cheek.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” he croaked into her ear, his warm breath sending a cascade of prickles down her neck. “Of all the mates I could have found, I had to find the one who’s too young, too fragile and too damaged to handle my shit. You needed someone kinder than me, gentler... more attentive. God, any of the others would have been better for you than me. I should have let one of them go find you. Let someone else activate you. Then I wouldn’t feel like this.

“But I didn’t.

“I should let Caleb have you. He’s right. We need you. I can’t be allowed to drive you away.

“But... I can’t.”

He choked on that last word and paused to draw breath. “I can’t let him have you. The deed is done. I wanted to believe that all I’d done was activate you, but seeing you with Caleb made me realise I had underestimated my cat, or overestimated myself. For better or for worse, and it is for worse, you’re mine. I’m the leader, anyone who tries to take you from me... My cat would see it as a challenge and would try to kill that challenger. I can’t let that happen. What we do here is too important for that.”

It was almost as if he was talking to himself, justifying to himself why he had to claim her as his mate. There was no mention of affection. No talk of anything but the cat’s needs and wants.

Something inside her died. Some small, fragile seedling of hope that she could still be loved, after everything she’d done or had done to her, finally died. Even when her logical, pragmatic self had tried to strangle it, that seedling had struggled on for years. Now, finally, this man had succeeded in crushing it into the ground.

She pushed steadily on his chest and he let her go. “If I’m not here you get to go back to being your old self. I want to go home, Chase... Mr Scanlan. I want to leave and never come back. I don’t want to be anyone’s mate. I don’t think I
could
physically be anyone’s mate. You just have to cross me off your list and keep looking. You’re right, I
am
damaged. Too damaged for any of you.”

“It’s too late,” Chase said softly, leaning in to graze his lips across her cheek again. “I think I knew it from the moment I saw you outside my hotel room. I wish it could be different. I wish I had better control of my cat. But it can't be different because I haven't got that control. I'm so damned sorry…"

“You can’t keep me prisoner here,” she choked out, knowing full well he could do just that. It had happened before.

“I’ll give you anything you want. The kind of life you’ve probably only dreamed of. Clothes, money, shoes... I don’t know what women want. Anything. If you want bigger, more luxurious living quarters, you can have them. Not having to work at that hotel, you can spend your time doing what you want... studying, helping our cause, on-line shopping... anything. Fuck, I don’t know. I
never
thought I’d be having this conversation. Never!”

He slammed his fist into the wall next to her and she shuddered, fighting down the scream that sprang into her throat. His anger wasn’t directed at her. Somehow she knew he wouldn’t hurt her now. That moment of danger was gone. But a worse danger threatened her.

“I gave up being a prostitute when I was fourteen, Mr Scanlan. You can’t buy me.”

This time it was his head that slammed into the wall. She cringed as if the pain was her own.

“I won’t touch you. I’m not paying for your sexual services. I just need... My cat just needs you here, with me. I can’t think straight when you’re not near me. My meeting today? A fucking write-off. Walking away while you talked to Alyssa? Nearly drove me crazy.”

Chase paused and rubbed his fingers through his short hair, drawing in deep cleansing breaths. His heavy brow furrowed more deeply than it should on such a young man. Somehow his tie had loosened and his shirt had become untucked. He looked drunk and unsteady on his feet.

When he started talking again it was a little more calmly. “Having watched the other Sons who have found their mates, I know what can and can’t be done.

“Alyssa and Colt. This is the first mission he’s left her side. He’s using everything he has to keep on task, but he’s always on the phone, checking to make sure his Lyss is okay. If I’d let her go to LA, like she wanted, Colt would have torn a piece off me for putting her at risk. And I mean that quite literally.

“Connor has to rein in his cat so Alice can fake an affair with Cameron, another brother in London. They’ve already fought over her once, god knows what will happen if the play-acting between Alice and Cameron gets serious. For the first time, I truly understand the pressure I put him under by agreeing to let Alice seduce Rothmen. The thought of you being alone in a room with any man, especially a Guild member, drives me insane.

“Maybe holding it together, putting up with the pressure for short stretches is possible, once the bond is complete. Or it might simply be that Colt and Connor are stronger than me in that regard. I don’t know.

“I’ll have to consider Connor and Cooper’s situation again, in light of my own reactions. I didn’t know what it felt like... this madness. I observed it, but I couldn’t know the depths it could affect someone. Now I do, now I know what I’m asking of my men... It’s too much.” He paused to think for a moment, his face a mask of weighed-down authority. She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but the wisps of information coming through gave her a glimpse of what these men were willing to do for their duty.

While she tried to sort out in her mind how she felt about that, Chase started talking again, softly; musingly. “Cooper. His mate is a mole within the Guild. He’s just taken her to London to meet her supposed-grandfather, and is going to have to stand by and let her marry Cameron if this plays out the way we want it to. Again, if Cameron steps out of line even an inch, I hate to think what Coop’ll do. And he was the mildest of us. He fed stray cats, for fuck’s sake. But from the moment he met Amy he was challenging me, breaking rules, and being a general ass. Not his fault. None of it’s the man’s fault.

“These aren’t human emotions. These aren’t human urges. We’re inhabited by incredibly dangerous, incredibly volatile and unpredictable creatures. And we’ve all handled it, for the most part. Until Mates were thrown into the mix. Then we seem to react like nitro. Jiggle us the wrong way and we explode. That’s what’s happening to me now.”

Anna had let him say his piece because she needed what ammunition she could find to get her out of this prison. But the more he told her, the more she realised that even if she did escape, Chase would come after her. His
cat
would make him. The only way she could escape, was to kill again, and the idea of ending this man’s life was more abhorrent than taking her own.

But to live imprisoned like a slave again. That felt like death to her. Maybe that was the one option she still had open to her then: death. If she died, Chase would be free again. And so would she.

“I can’t be enslaved again,” she whispered hoarsely.

He looked down at her, his eyes suddenly seeing her properly for the first time. “This is not slavery, Anna. I’d rather die than enslave you. But you have to understand what’s at stake here. The whole fucking planet is at stake. The men who hurt you. We fight them; every day, we fight them. For millennia, the Résistance secretly fought them, and yet the bastards still won. Now we have a chance to succeed where they failed. At last, we have a chance of saving what’s left of our planet. I can’t let
anything
get in the way of that!” He leaned in and kissed her cheek again. Anna wished it didn’t feel like a Judas kiss every time he did it. But he was right. Fighting the evil in the world was more important than anything else. Even her freedom.

“This is all my fault. I was cocky. I thought I had the strength of will to avoid the pull of a Mate. If I’d taken it more seriously, I would have sent someone else. I thought I was immune because I
wanted
to be immune. And now I’ve tied you to me.

“At least we can mitigate the damage. Somehow, we can limit the fall-out. What can I do to make staying here with me possible?”

This question surprised her. Anna wanted to shout at him that
nothing
could make staying here possible. But that wasn’t true. She would happily give up her life or her freedom if she could save children from the life she was forced to live. If she could save one child from hell. Alyssa had been right. She was being given a chance here to make a real difference, one that went above and beyond her own misery and limitations.

Could she stand being imprisoned if it gave her the chance to do some good?

Yes, she could.

And there were other aspects of this new life that appealed to her; like having a friend in Alyssa.

Maybe she could learn to use computers and the internet. It was likely she was too stupid to get very far with them, but her academic carers had assured her she was bright, just traumatised. They’d said that once she healed she would be able to learn anything she wanted. She’d learned English, after all, and martial arts since coming to America.

The Sons had to know martial arts, didn’t they? They were soldiers, after all. Maybe she could continue to train with one of them? If he didn’t scare her too much. So far, her
cat’
s instinctual trust of her newly discovered species had offset her human fears. Maybe that would prove to be the case with the other brothers she would soon meet.

And maybe she could stand this new life a little better if she had her own room that she could decorate... If she could go outside sometimes...

“There are things. How much would I have to see you? What would your
cat –
that is getting less weird to say now – want of me?” she finally asked, starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. This might not have to last forever. Men lost interest in her. They said they wouldn’t, but they always did. So Chase would too, eventually. If she could use her time doing some good for the children until his obsession with her waned, then she could just go back to her life feeling as if she’d done something worthwhile.

Chase frowned as he seemed to consider her question. “You’ll share my bed. No, don’t look at me like that. I’m not talking about sex. My cat will want you at my side. I doubt I’ll sleep unless you’re there. That’s all. I’ll probably have to check in with you through the day, just as Colt does. But that won’t take much of your time. And you’ll have to be careful how you interact with my brothers. I don’t want to lose it like I did with Caleb again.”

She considered his offer. “I can’t share your bed. I want a room of my own, next door to you if I have to. But I need a room of my own. I want to help bring down the monsters in Russia who take children. And I want to work and be paid for the work I do. I could clean this place. And… And I want to learn computers so one day I can be paid for the work I do on them.” She knew she sounded like a little kid preparing her Christmas wish list. But now the opportunity had been offered to her, she wanted to get it right.

“You’re not going to become a cleaner for my men!” Chase exclaimed in horror. “You’re my mate, Anna. That confers a certain level of... status. Cleaning toilets doesn’t fit with that status. You can learn computers with Caleb, and I’ll pay you for whatever you do for the Sons. Maybe you can translate leads on the Russian Mafia. None of the Sons so far have been raised there, so it’s a juggle to get translators – who don’t know what we’re doing – to understand what they’re looking for. But no cleaning. The men all do their own housework, just as they would in a regular barracks.

“And you have to share a room with me because... because there are none spare at the moment. Give it a go and when a spare room becomes available I’ll consider it, if you find sleeping next to me impossible.”

Anna nodded, feeling more optimistic than she had since coming to HQ. What he was offering her wasn’t everything she needed, and certainly wasn’t ideal. It was still a form of imprisonment, even if he didn’t see it that way. But it could be managed, if he kept his promise not to make sexual advances. And it was certainly a better option than death – hers or his.

“Okay, I’ll agree. I’ll have to go back to my apartment and sort out a few things, give my notice, organise for my housemate to find someone to take over my share of the rent.”