Claiming Mia, page 3
“You know,” Mia shouted to be heard over the low-thumping music, “being a drama major is really no excuse for that outfit.”
“You’re just jealous.” Jupiter’s smile was too wide, the kind Mia was used to seeing on her customers at The Deviation.
“Yeah.” Mia smirked. “Jealous of the color blind.”
Jupiter made a snort of disgust then frowned. “You’ve missed half the party!”
“Only half?” Mia threw a questioning look at Jackson, who was watching them with high amusement.
He just shrugged.
“Where have you been?” Jupiter asked with the outrage of the half-drunk for slights real and imagined.
“I had to work tonight, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Jupiter’s freckled face scrunched up. “Wait, weren’t you supposed to be at The Deviation until two?”
“Yeah, I, um… got off early.”
Mia was saved from explaining by a guy barreling out of her room. All three of them made way for him as he headed for the bathroom and took a quick turn into the girls’. Their floor was coed—either he was confused, or he didn’t think he would make it to the boys’ bathroom.
Jupiter threw an unmistakable ew look after the bathroom perpetrator, then propped one hand on her hip. The other held a small blue-feathered purse that looked like a boa constrictor had thrown up a peacock. She took that thing everywhere, like a pet.
Then she focused on Mia again. “I thought you had gotten that awesome internship at… at…” She snapped her fingers, fast.
“SparkTech Partners,” Mia supplied. “I’m starting on Monday.”
Jupiter flailed her hand without the blue-feathered thing. “Which is why you need to celebrate!”
“It’s been a long night.” Mia gave a sad look to her bed inside their room. It currently held three senior boys each with a red cup balanced precariously on their knee. “What I really need is some sleep.”
“But you just got here!” Jupiter exclaimed. Then something over Mia’s shoulder caught her eye, and her roommate bit her lip, looking guilty. “I might have told a certain hot senior from drama club that you would be here by the end of the party.”
“Jeeter.” Neither Mia’s warning tone nor the nickname Jupiter hated, slowed her down one bit.
“Oh, come on!” Her roommate gave her a disgusted look but dropped her voice. “Cade is perfect for you. Tall, dark, and overly serious. He’s just your type.”
“I don’t have a type.” Which was a lie. She very much had a type. It was tall, muscular, and naked in the moonlight. My name is Lucas. Even the memory of him leaning close to her made the room feel warm. Mia closed her eyes and shook that thought from her head. There were so many ways that wasn’t even close to happening again.
Jupiter bunched up the feathered purse and made begging hands and eyes. She mouthed, Forgive me. Then her roommate dropped the drama like a change in costume and beamed over Mia’s shoulder. “Hi, Cade!”
Mia rolled her eyes before putting on a tight smile and turning to greet Jupiter’s drama club friend. Cade arrived just as she turned, a red plastic cup in each hand. His white t-shirt hung on his broad shoulders like it enjoyed the ride, and his smooth, muscular grace made her think of a tiger: all restrained power and limber movement. Mia was tall, but she still had to look up into those crystalline blue eyes.
“Hey, Jeeter.” He smirked at her roommate, then gave Mia a softer look. “Hey, Mia. Didn’t expect you until later.” His tone, plus a smile he was working to restrain, made it clear he was happy to see her.
Truth was, if she had a type before tonight, Cade would have been exactly it. A commanding presence, killer grin, and gorgeous blue eyes that didn’t hurt to look at but sliced right into her heart… and that was exactly the problem. She couldn’t afford the distraction of boys. And her previous attempts at boyfriends had been near disasters. Whenever they got too close, too intimate, her control slipped. That’s when her wolf came out to play, and that had never ended well. Which pretty well explained why she had only slept with two guys before, both of whom had been so freaked by their first time that it was also their last.
Sex was problematic for her, to say the least.
Only with human boys, her wolf whined.
Don’t even go there, she thought in return.
As much as any human could be, Cade was definitely her type.
He smiled and handed her a cup. “It’s tremendously sweet,” he warned. There was a small lift on one side of his smile.
“Thanks for the heads up.” She inhaled a small whiff of the vapors coming off the cup. Vodka, one of the cheap brands, plus whiskey sour mix and a leftover dash from a cherry that must still be swimming in the tub. She held the cup close, warding off the stench of the room with her own personal alcohol vaporizer—which she appreciated much more than the drink.
She pretended to take a sip, just to be polite. “So are you guys ready for your show?” She didn’t keep track of Jupiter’s stage plays, but the spring quarter was coming to a close, so they must have something going.
His smile brightened. “Yeah. You should come. It’s called Silent Death, and it’s a period piece set around Paris in World War II. We’ll be in the Penthouse Theatre tomorrow night.”
“Sounds like a barrel of laughs.”
He frowned. “It’s really not that bad.”
She bit her lip. Damn, she was tired. Losing her manners, as well as her patience. “I’m sure it is. I’m sorry, I’m just…” She waved her drink. “It’s the vapors talking.” She inhaled another whiff and shrunk away from some passing partiers swinging their cups as they talked. Another glance at her room must have given away her desire to be anywhere else.
Cade leaned forward, then he edged even closer, dipping his head to bring his lips near her ear. “You want to get out of here?” His hand touched her hair, brushing it back. He was so close that his cologne and whiskey-sour breath suddenly overpowered the rest of the dorm scents. “My roommate’s gone for the weekend.” His voice was low, husky. He probably thought it was sexy, but Mia thought he was mostly just drunk.
Her wolf growled. The last thing she needed was to be propositioned by a half-drunk college boy. Suddenly, it was all too much, too close, and she needed out. In fact, she needed everyone out. Now.
She nudged Cade back, hand flat on his chest. “Look, I’m done for the night.”
Disappointment shadowed his face, but she had no time for that.
She turned to her room, pushing past Jupiter and Jackson. “Okay, everyone, the party’s over. Time to go! Find your own beds.”
A round of grumbles, a pause as all eyes turned to see if she was serious, then another set of mumbling and complaints as they slowly rose from the bed, the floor, even her desk. As the crowd filed out, a couple spilled out of the closet, still tangled in each other, and bringing half of Jupiter’s crazy wardrobe with them, including a long, green scarf that wound around their feet and made them go down.
Mia just shook her head. Jupiter waved goodbye from the door and disappeared with the partiers, Jackson’s arm around her waist. Mia was just as glad to see them go, too, and as soon as the last of them was gone, she locked the door.
First thing, she tore off the top cover of the twin bed that belonged to her, vowing to run it through the laundry before she used it again. Even with that bunched up and stuffed under her bed, only ten percent of her dorm room felt like it belonged to her. The other ninety percent was taken up by her frenetic roommate’s endless leggings, half-used doodle pads, and extensive shoe collection. Mia had a picture of her mom on the shelf, about a backpack’s worth of clothes in the closet, a stack of books, and her laptop on the desk… and that was it.
It was almost like she had never really moved in. The room belonged to the partiers as much as her—they were all temporary occupants until they moved on to the next thing. Mia eased down into the bed, lying on top of the sheets, not bothering to remove her clothes. A complete and utter weariness sunk her into the mattress, and she looped her arm over her eyes, blocking out the overhead lights.
Her room was a cage—a tiny concrete and glass cage, with a bed too short for her long legs, and nothing of value to lose in a fire. She didn’t belong here, not in any real way. It was a way station on the path to the things she actually needed, that was all. The emptiness made itself known again, a deep hollow in her chest, and her wolf whined, curling its tail down in defeat.
The lights still blared overhead, but Mia turned on her side and dropped off to sleep like she was falling off a cliff.
Chapter Three
It had been two days, and Lucas couldn’t get her out of his mind.
His fingers drummed the edge of his tablet, and he tried again to pore over the numbers for the latest internet startup his brother, Lev, had found for SparkTech to consider for investment. After another five minutes of circling back over the same data again and again, he shoved the tablet away and rose from his desk. He just was too distracted. He flattened his palms against the floor-to-ceiling corner office window and hung his head between his arms. Back when he was a managing partner in his father’s tech-focused investment firm, Lucas’s status had commanded this office. Now he was just a principal, but his father had still allowed him to keep his luxurious view of the Olympic Mountains. The rain had swept through earlier, leaving a shine on the Emerald City in the early morning sun. He squinted against it and let his gaze roam over the high rises, flicking occasionally to the mountains beyond.
His wolf surged a bit each time he did.
He’d tried going for a hunt over the weekend, but it didn’t help. He kept thinking about the girl, the one he’d stopped the Reds from playing with, like the other field mice they liked to torment. Lucas should have asked her name. He should have gone back to the club to make sure she quit on the spot. He should have moved her to a different dorm. Something. There were a hundred things he could have done, but instead, he rushed her home, thinking if he simply got her safely out of his arms reach that would solve everything, including the strange pull she had on him.
That part he understood least of all.
He paced the length of his office, but his gaze kept wandering back to the forest of glittering steel-and-glass high rises of downtown Seattle and to the distant trees beyond. A year ago, when he lost his mate, he lost a part of himself as well. He hadn’t been fit to be alpha for anyone anymore, so he’d left his pack and gone rogue. He even left SparkTech and lived in the wild until he’d almost forgotten what it was to be human. He’d thought he had forgotten until Lev came looking for him and pulled him out of the dark hole of despair he’d fallen into. There was no fixing what had broken inside him, but Lev convinced him he could still contribute to the family business, even if he weren’t part of any pack. It was just enough to keep him human, and after a while, he’d begun to believe he could keep the longings at bay with a shit-ton of work, his brothers nearby, and a steady supply of female companionship to ease the pain. Slowly, his wolf quieted. The mournful howling every night, crying his need for a pack of his own, eventually stopped. Lucas thought he’d finally found a way to carry on.
And then… this girl.
Human girls were a distraction, a temporary pleasure to sate his longings. They lasted a night, maybe two. Never more. And he’d found plenty who enjoyed what he had to give. They responded to his inner alpha even if they couldn’t see how broken he really was. Which suited him just fine, until… this strange girl who needed his help. He didn’t understand what pulled him to track her. Or why he went into that alleyway to stop the Reds. She was nothing to his pack, just another human in the half million or so in the Bay area.
His wolf growled at that thought, and it came out as a throaty sound that echoed around his office. The door was closed, so he didn’t even try to rein it in. He knew a lie when he heard one, even when he told it to himself. He might be broken, but no alpha could have stood by and let those sick bastards in the Red pack toy with someone the way they did. Much less a human girl, unprotected, unwary… although it turned out she knew more than he thought. She’d seen shifters before. And yet kept her silence about them.
That was intriguing, but it wasn’t what haunted him. What kept him pacing through the weekend were two simple things: first, her scent had pulled him in, and he’d been tempted to claim her right there in the alley, something that didn’t even make sense. Humans were for pleasure, not mating. But second, and more important, he had inflamed the tensions between his father’s pack and the Reds… and he’d brought the girl deep into the heart of it. The Reds would go after her, track her, hunt her down, now that they knew she was important to him.
And after a weekend of pacing and hunting and shredding the sheets in tumultuous dreams where he fulfilled that wish to claim her in the alleyway, he had finally admitted to himself and his wolf that she was, indeed, important to him.
The thing was, he had no idea why.
A knock at the door dredged his attention out of the depths.
Lev poked his head in the door. “Hey, man, just giving you a heads up.”
Lucas sighed. “Let me guess. My extracurricular activities this weekend found their way to our father’s attention.”
He held his hands up. “Wasn’t me, bro. Dad found out on his own. I just heard the howling.” Lev was his youngest brother and part of his pack, back when he was a true alpha. But even when Lucas went rogue, Lev never really stopped being his beta. Officially, his brother had rejoined their father’s pack. Unofficially, he still had Lucas’s back, in family matters as well as business. There was a reason Lev had been the one to pull him out of the forest again. And why Lucas carried on, staying at SparkTech, making it work for Lev’s sake, even if every day it shoved a hot poker into old wounds.
“I’ll take care of it, Lev,” he said, taking one last glance at the mountains. “Thanks for the warning.”
Lev gave a short nod and disappeared back out the door.
Lucas took a breath, glanced at his neglected work on the tablet, and decided it was better to clear the air with his father than to wait for him to come Lucas’s way. He locked the screen on his tablet, tucked it in his desk, and headed for his father’s office.
SparkTech took up a good fraction of the 32nd floor of the Russell Investments Center in downtown Seattle. His father grew it from a pack-only business, just him and his brothers, to one of the most successful business development companies for technology startups in the Bay area. He liked to say Seattle was on its way to competing with Silicon Valley as a premier ecosystem for tech startups. And the investment opportunities were getting better, with startups these days being spearheaded by people from Google or Amazon as often as not. The industry was maturing, and his father had the vision to take it to the next level. He was the kind of alpha who could see the possibilities and seize them—the kind Lucas had wanted to be—but success breeds competition, and Red Wolf had been nipping at SparkTech’s heels more and more in the last year. The competition was fierce to scoop up the next billion-dollar tech startup. For Lucas to have waded into that mess and possibly mucked it up even further with this business with the girl…
He took a deep breath and steeled himself as he pushed open the door to his father’s office.
As befit the alpha of a company, his father had the finest office, a corner with a view of Mount Rainier, luxurious wood furniture, and glass-and-chrome bookshelves to hold the many trophies and accolades their investments had won. His father waited until Lucas had fully entered his expansive office, and the door had swung shut behind him. Even then, he fussed with something on his tablet.
He was making Lucas wait. Not a good sign.
When his father finally put down the tablet, his expression was cool. “Have you had a chance to look at the numbers for LoopSource?”
“I… um…” Lucas was thrown. He had expected to account for the girl, not the project Lev had tossed to him last week. “Still assessing. Their new platform is interesting, and it seems to be gaining traction, but I’m still checking out the CEO and their execution team. And I’m not sure the market is ready for them.”
His father’s dark eyes drilled into him. “Red Wolf seems to think they’re ready.”
Shit. “They’re making a move to offer?”
His father let out a sigh, then came around his giant glass-and-chrome desk. Framed logos of their previous acquisitions, the ones that made his father millions and put him on Seattle’s 50 Most Influential People list, covered the surface like a small forest of Plexiglas-encased-money. And power. His father stopped in front of the desk, leaning back against it and folding his arms.
He stared at Lucas for a moment longer, then said, “Tell me about the girl.” It was a command, and that tone would have made all of Lucas’s fur stand on end if he was in wolf form. But he wasn’t. And he wouldn’t submit to his father ever again—not to be in his pack, or in any pack, for that matter. He had too much alpha left in him to allow it.
Still, Lucas dropped his head and winced, searching for an explanation that made any sense at all. When he looked up, his father was still waiting. “You know how the Reds are. They would have torn her apart.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “You know her.”
“No.” Lucas swallowed. “Not really.”
His father’s face was stony, but Lucas could see the confusion flicker across it. His father had mated with his mother early on before they were even out of college. His mother was a strong wolf from an allied pack, but more than that—they were in love even before they mated for life. Lucas knew his casual sex habits completely baffled his father.
“You’re not in my pack, Lucas.” His father lifted an eyebrow. “That offer still stands, any time you change your mind, son.” Then all tolerance fled his face. “If you were in my pack, we’d be having an entirely different conversation. As it stands, I really don’t care what you do outside this office. Unless it affects the company, and then I care a tremendous amount.”
