Up in a Blaze (9 page)

*****

Donte used the time Cassie was in the shower to call his buddy, Nathaniel, for some much needed advice as to how to handle a coffee addicted human female. He knew Nathaniel’s wife, Susan, had been addicted to the stuff before she got pregnant.

“Dude, your top priority today is to go out and buy the most expensive coffee machine you can find. Make certain you buy everything that is supposed to go with it, including the right kind of coffee. Your best bet would be to take one of the females with you, but if you can’t do that, ask the sales staff to help you. Trust me on this one, she will be absolutely delighted when she sees what you have bought. I don’t know what it is about that stuff and these women, but Susan swears it’s the nectar of the gods.”

“Yeah, Cassie told me she gets downright cranky in the morning without her coffee,” Donte replied, remembering her snapping at him this morning.

“Coffee pot. First thing. Believe me, it will save your balls. These women get completely unreasonable without their coffee first thing in the morning.”

Donte heard his buddy’s sudden intake of air through the phone line, then, “No, sweets, I wasn’t talking about you, I promise. We’re talking about Donte’s mate.”

“Hey, how did you know she is my mate?” Donte asked, clearly confused.

“Buddy, because our mates are the only reason we keep expensive coffee pots in our kitchens, gourmet coffee in the pantry, and anything else they want.” Then, in a muffled voice as if he had put his hand over the phone speaker, Donte heard, “Dang it, woman, stop hitting me. No, you can’t drink coffee, you know as well as I do that it isn’t good for the baby.” There was silence for a few seconds, and Donte was just getting ready to ask if Nathaniel was still on the line when he heard, “Aww, baby, don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart. Tell you what, since I was a dickhead and upset you, I’ll run down to the coffee shop and get one of those pastries you like so much.”

Donte chuckled as he eavesdropped on his friend trying to dig his way out of the doghouse. “Hey, Nathaniel, before you go play fetch, can you tell me where there’s a good place to get coffee and maybe some breakfast not too far out of my way?”

After a quick reply by Nathaniel, he hung up, still trying to pacify his mate. Donte chuckled, grabbing his laptop to wait for Cassie to finish her shower.

*****

Thirty minutes later, she opened the door to the bathroom; showered, dressed, and had even been able to fix her hair. Because Betty had been kind enough to include a wide assortment of clothing, anything from casual to a nice skirt and blouse set when she went shopping the day before, Cassie was actually starting to feel close to normal.

Betty had included a brush and comb for her hair, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner, and a portable hair dryer. The clothes she had picked out were all soft and loose, and Cassie was very appreciative of that too. Betty had included a new bra in one of the bags, but Cassie knew that until her ribs healed up, there was just no way a bra was going on.

She walked out of the bathroom to find Donte, freshly showered, shaved, and sitting in a chair over by the door with his laptop perched on his lap. “Hey, I’m ready to go anytime you are.” She didn’t want to be the reason they were late.

He glanced up to her with a grin on his face. “You look nice, hon. I like your hair.” He glanced back down to the laptop and closed the lid.

“Yes, I suppose it does look a sight better without dried blood stuck to it,” she replied with a grin.

They were walking out the door just minutes later. Donte followed her out the door and locked up behind them, then helped her down the steps and out to the garage. He pressed the remote in his hand, and the door lifted to reveal what looked to be a new big, cherry red Ford truck.

As they walked over to the passenger side, she wondered how in the world she was going to be able to climb up into the truck with her damaged ribs.

One second she was walking beside Donte, contemplating the height of the truck and her damaged ribs dilemma, the next she found herself swung up into Donte’s strong arms as he seemed to be able to jump up on the sideboard of the truck and gently placed her in the seat. He leaned in and very carefully brought the seatbelt around her, mindful of her injuries. Once he had her buckled in, he gave her a grin and jumped back down, closed her door, and sprinted over to the driver’s side of the truck.

They had been on the road for about ten minutes when he pulled into a coffee shop.
Hallelujah
!
Coffee, finally
! Cassie’s mouth watered just imagining the hot, bitter liquid hitting her tongue and the jolt of energy she would get from it.

“We’re running tight on time. Do you mind if we hit the drive-thru?” Donte inquired. They weren’t really running tight on time at all, but he had spotted Nathaniel’s truck in the parking lot when he pulled in. Not knowing if Susan was with him or not, Donte decided not to take any chances. If he allowed the two women to get together talking over coffee, they’d never make it into work.

Cassie glanced at the board then quickly gave him her order, sitting back with a smile. When was the last time anyone had shown her such courtesy?
Too long to remember, but heavens does it feel good!

Donte paid for her order and handed over the Caramel Flan Latte and blueberry muffin. “Don’t you eat breakfast?” she asked as she just realized he hadn’t ordered anything for himself.

“Not usually, no.” Quickly trying to come up with something that sounded plausible, he added, “I am usually out with one of the other rangers early enough, and we just stop for an early lunch.” He just neglected to tell her that they usually stopped at each other’s houses because their lunch generally consisted of a bag or two of blood. Nope, not going there without a LOT of backup!

She nodded her head in understanding and he watched as she lifted the cup to her lips to take her first sip. She closed her eyes as the hot liquid hit her tongue, a moan of sheer ecstasy sounding from the back of her throat had his previously flaccid dick rock hard and painfully pressing against the zipper of his jeans in two seconds flat. His mind easily conjured up a picture of her lips wrapped around his dick, that same look of ecstasy on her face, which in turn, had him fighting for self-control.

“Damn, baby, you have no idea how sexy you are, do you?” He chuckled as he pulled out of the parking lot and back into morning traffic.

When they arrived at headquarters, he swung around back to the parking lot and parked his truck. He escorted her in through the backdoor, and they walked toward the front of the building, following a few voices.

Walter, Betty, Lucas and Meredith, Adam and his mate, Bethany, Ethan, Zack, and Kade were already in the office. It looked like the only one missing was Nathaniel.

Donte caught Walter’s eye and stated, “Nathaniel is running a few minutes behind me. I saw his truck at the coffee shop.”

“Well, now that most of us are here, we can go ahead and start our morning meeting. I’ll just catch Nathaniel up when he gets here.” Walter had never been a stickler for time. His attitude was as late as they had to work sometimes, even getting called in on cases in the middle of the night, he wasn’t going to demand everyone be there at an exact time. As long as they were there when he needed them to be, he certainly never raised his eyebrow if someone ran five or ten minutes late once in a while.

Everyone headed to the conference room, and Donte reached down to clasp hands with Cassie as they followed everyone else into the large room. Nathaniel walked in the backdoor and followed them.

Walter started by introducing Cassie to everyone in the room, and had just launched into telling about her attack, when they heard Betty’s high piercing shriek. She’d been left at the reception desk to answer phone calls while everyone else went in for the staff meeting.

Walter had just started heading to the door when it burst open, as Betty ran into the room. She stopped once she was standing behind Walter, using him as a vampire shield. Another second and a tall, dark haired man in a Stetson hat followed.

Walter placed one hand in front of him and the other on his weapon. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing chasing my secretary?”

The man was smart enough to listen to Walter’s tone of voice and stopped in his tracks, raising his hands up in surrender. “Sorry for the interruption. My name is Samuel Grey, and I am currently an Oklahoma state trooper. My identification is in my back pocket.” Lucas had stood up and quickly made his way to the front as soon as Betty ran in, making certain he was behind their intruder. Walter gave a short nod but kept his eye on the stranger.

No one said a word for a minute while Lucas pulled the guy’s wallet out of his back pocket and opened it. “Looks to be legit,” he stated to Walter.

Walter held eye contact with their visitor. “Okay, we’ve established who you are, mind telling me what you are doing here, and why you chased down my secretary?”

Samuel tilted one side of his upper lip just enough to show Walter that he was a vampire. “I drove half the night to get here after someone using this agency’s server searching for black magic alerted me.”

Donte stood up. “Walter, that was me. I was searching for information trying to get to the bottom of Cassie’s problem with Gregory showing up in her dreams.”

Samuel glanced over to him. “You think someone has been placed under a spell?” he verified.

Donte slowly turned quietly to Cassie. “Stay here, I’ll be right back,” before walking up to the front of the room to join Walter and Lucas.

“Yes, I am almost positive about it. Why? Do you know anything about spells?”

“As a matter of fact I do.” Samuel glanced over Donte’s shoulder to where Cassie was sitting, her hands tightly clasped together, looking like she wanted the floor to swallow her up. He also sensed she was the only human in the room. He looked back over to Walter and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Could we possibly discuss a few things in private?”

Walter turned to Betty who was still standing behind him, using him as a shield. “Stay here with Lucas and Nathaniel.” He fully planned to get to the bottom of why their unexpected visitor was chasing his secretary, although he was pretty sure he knew the reason. If it was what he thought…well, he couldn’t help shaking his head and releasing a small chuckle as he escorted Samuel out of the room, then headed toward his office. This felt entirely too familiar as he thought back to just a short time ago when he was escorting his own brother, Nathaniel, to his office for much the same reason.

Once Walter and their guest walked out of the room and the door shut, everyone started talking at once. Donte walked back over to Cassie, who was looking a bit paler than usual. He knelt down in front of her and placed his hands over hers, which were sitting in her lap.

“Are you doing okay? You’re looking a bit pale, have you taken anything for your pain yet?” he asked in concern.

Cassie shook her head. “No, I didn’t have time before the meeting began, and I didn’t want to take the chance of interrupting once it started. Who was that man?”

Donte picked up her purse that was sitting on the floor and sat it in her lap. “I made a few inquiries last night and did some searching on the net trying to find answers.” He glanced over to where Walter and Samuel had walked out just a moment prior. “Don’t worry about him, babe. Walter isn’t about to let anything happen to you or Betty.”

He smiled over to Betty as she walked up and took the seat next to her friend. “You okay?” he inquired.

“Yeah, now that I’ve calmed down, I’m fine. Just kind of freaked me out, you know?”

Cassie turned and grabbed Betty’s hand. “Hon, what happened out there? Did that man h-hurt you?” Donte could hear the wobble and uncertainty in her voice. He had a feeling he knew what had just happened, but couldn’t voice it.

Betty turned and looked her friend in the eye, keeping a tight hold on her hand. “I’m fine, Cassie, no need to worry about a thing.” She spoke low and smooth, her voice pitched to promote calmness. While she maintained skin contact, she carefully invaded Cassie’s mind and rearranged her most recent memories, especially of those that had her barging in on a staff meeting a short while ago, scared out of her mind.

Donte was rather impressed as he remained still and calm, allowing Betty to do what needed to be done to make Cassie forget at least part of the last ten minutes. He knew she had a lot of questions, but until they sat down and explained everything to her, no one wanted to answer.

When she released Cassie’s hand, Betty had a warm smile on her face. “Hey, Cassie, you doing okay? These guys aren’t boring you too much, are they?”

Cassie blinked twice, and Donte watched a ‘V’ form in her forehead where she scrunched it up.

“What happened? Did I do something embarrassing?” She couldn’t seem to remember what she had been doing prior to just a few seconds ago. She remembered coming into the conference room with Donte and taking a seat. She remembered Walter addressing the group and starting to explain her presence. But looking around the room, Walter was nowhere to be seen, and everyone else was standing up and mingling with each other. What the hell had happened? Had she blacked out?

“No, nothing embarrassing, I promise.” Betty giggled from beside her. “You just kind of spaced out there for a moment.” She looked over to Donte for a little support to her fabricated story.