Ruling Fire (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 4) (4 page)

Rebecca met Roman one year later, and from then on, Elsie was surrounded by the supernatural. Even so, she made sure she stayed in a human school and distanced herself as much as possible from all things that go bump in the night.

Her werewolf knowledge consisted of the fact that they liked to stick with their packs and the more powerful they were, the more control they had over their shifting.

And that was about all she knew about werewolves. Roman and her mother never mentioned them and Elsie had never met one. Well, she didn’t know she’d met one.

“A verbal declaration is all that is required to claim a mate,” he said softly.

Elsie wasn’t sure what he expected from her, but it probably wasn’t the blank stare she gave him.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” he finally asked.

What the hell was she supposed to say to that? “
Claim
a mate? What century is this? How can you even say that with a straight face?” Disgusted with the whole situation, Elsie backed into her house and shut the door in Brock’s face. He probably could’ve stopped her. If he really was part dog, he would have fast reflexes.

She leaned her forehead against the cold wood but didn’t hear Brock’s retreating footsteps. Was he just a silent walker or was he still on her porch?

Elsie jumped at the sudden sound of his voice from outside. “This isn’t over. We need to sit down and talk about this.” Elsie squeezed her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip, willing everything away. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone?

As if he could hear her thoughts, he called, “I’ll give you tonight, but I expect you in the office tomorrow.” There was another silence, but she knew he still stood on the other side of the door, waiting for some sign she was listening. “I know you are still there,” he said in such a soft voice that Elsie almost didn’t hear him. “Just tell me you’ll be in the office tomorrow,” he pleaded.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she called to him.

He mumbled something under his breath before his loud footsteps sounded. He was finally leaving. Elsie let out a pent-up breath of relief as she sunk down to the floor. Her knees came up as her head leaned back for support.
Fuck
. Werewolves, myotises, and her mother all in one night. She looked at her formerly spotless dress, now covered in dirt and blood. She shouldn’t be sitting on the floor. It could get even dirtier.

She let out a small laugh at the thought. At this point, a little more dirt wouldn’t hurt. She could never wear the thing again.
Fuck
.

As Elsie tried to absorb it all, she shot away from the floor and headed to her office. Her two-bedroom town house wasn’t very spacious, but she needed a work area in her home, even if it meant giving up the guest bedroom.

She opened the door and the blur of chestnut-red and white fur ran around her legs. “Riggs!”

At the sight of the dog, she immediately felt better. The normally low-key mutt was now frantic with energy as he raced in circles around her and twisted himself between her legs. “Calm down, buddy,” whispered Elsie. “I know you heard some strange things, but everything is okay now. Well, I think they’re okay now,” she qualified.

Riggs calmed down and sat next to her while he leaned his weight against her shin. Poor guy. Rebecca probably shut him in the office when she “invited” herself in.

The dog and Rebecca had a mutual dislike for each other. Riggs was scared of everything and everyone, and Rebecca was scared of anything that didn’t fall in love with her at first glance. She didn’t realize that if she just ignored Riggs, he would avoid her anyway. She had to take the extra step to lock him in a separate room.

Elsie rolled her eyes in frustration and continued into the office. The closet was filled with boxes of various holiday decorations and books that didn’t fit on the shelves that lined the walls of the office around her.

One by one, she dragged boxes out and looked through each one. Only after her office was filled with clutter did she find what she was looking for.

The “family encyclopedia,” as Mother called it, didn’t look special. It was a paperback book about an inch thick. Its cover was a clean and shiny black. The only writing on the cover was in white and read “Angels to Vampires: A Growing Guide to Mythical Creatures.”

Except the creatures described in these pages weren’t mythical. This was a copy of the diaries of Elsie’s ancestors, going back a thousand years. Rebecca had the book printed under the guise of a novelty mythology book. Every decade or so, she would issue a new “edition” to Elsie and Etta.

Although Etta would always read every new edition from cover to cover, Elsie would file hers away as soon as possible and forget she had it.

Now she needed it. She flipped through the book until she got to the
M
section. There wasn’t much about the myotis. They were said to be exceptionally strong and able to communicate telepathically. The bond between nest mates was so strong that anyone who dared to kill one was guaranteed death by any survivors in the nest. Elsie took a nervous gulp upon reading that gem.

Other powers included teleportation and quick healing, but there was no estimated population or favored living areas. Which probably meant that no one knew.

There was an entire page devoted to siren hunts. A pack of myotises would locate a siren and hunt her down. Because sirens largely depended on mates or extended family for protection, the hunts generally only lasted a day, though there was a recorded hunt that lasted for three years. It didn’t mention why sirens were the only beings hunted by the creatures.

Elsie couldn’t even imagine it. Three years of running from those beasts? Not knowing why you were being hunted or whether they would ever give up…

They didn’t. The siren was found dead, but it didn’t say what the cause of death was. Elsie wished it was in the book. Whatever reality was, it couldn’t be worse than her imagination.

Notably, the book mentioned nothing about any pacts with werewolves. Which meant the werewolves probably knew more about them than the vampires, considering most of Rebecca’s knowledge came from Roman.

After memorizing the sparse two pages devoted to myotises, Elsie flipped to the back of the book. Werewolves had an entire chapter devoted to their complex pack structures and history.

Because the book was crafted for sirens, the section on mates was right at the front. A mating union was formally recognized once announced publicly by either mate, though the union wasn’t complete until the first full moon after the announcement, and there was no recorded case of divorce or separation between werewolf mates. Ever.

Elsie mentally counted days since the last full moon. It must’ve been at least a week or two ago. She just had to figure a way out of this before then. Shouldn’t be impossible.

Elsie then skipped to the end of the chapter, fully intending to read all the pages in detail later. Normally a matriarchal species, the werewolves inexplicably switched to a king three hundred years ago.

Ragnar Hultin took the throne, followed by his son and then his grandson, Brock Holt, who took over in 1903. Well over eighty years before Elsie was born.

CHAPTER FOUR

Very early into her workday, it became painfully obvious that Jackson was oblivious of the drama of the previous evening. He walked into her office for the fourth time in two hours, despite the shut door. “Do you know when you’re having that meeting with Brock?”

Elsie took a few seconds to finish typing the sentence in the email she was drafting before she turned her annoyed gaze to Jackson. She didn’t even bother to try to hide the annoyance. At this point, she wasn’t too worried about the consequences of Jackson not liking her. He could go take a long walk off a short cliff for all she cared.

Though her carefully applied makeup hid the circles under her eyes, she’d barely slept the night before. In her restlessness, she read the entire family encyclopedia. After reading about all the things that go bump in the night, she was fairly certain she would never sleep again.

Jackson had met her as she walked into the building, and at first, Elsie was just grateful she didn’t have to see Brock right away. Her opinion soon changed.

First it was, “Can I sit in on your meeting with Brock?” Elsie politely shot him down. Then it was, “I just got the quarterly reports in from the bank and I think I should bring them up in the meeting with Brock.” She politely reminded him that he wasn’t invited to the meeting. Half an hour later, “Maybe we should postpone the meeting to give Brock a tour of Jersey. When is the last time he saw anything besides the plant and his hotel?” Elsie couldn’t remember whether she even bothered with a polite response to that one. She looked up at him, waiting to hear what utter bullshit was about to spew from his mouth.

“Brock looks tired today,” he said, not disappointing her. “Maybe the meeting should be pushed back.”

“Oh! For the love of—” Elsie pushed away from her desk and stomped out of her office and down the hallway to Brock’s temporary headquarters, quickly grabbing the discreet white envelope that sat on the corner of her desk.

“Jackson, of all the days, this is not a good time to mess with me,” she called from over her shoulder. She heard his footsteps frantically trying to catch up with her, but she didn’t look back.

Brock’s office door was closed, which was rare. Like her, he usually practiced an open-door policy. Today was different.

Without knocking, Elsie charged in.

“Jackson, I—”

He abruptly stopped and stood up when he saw her. Somehow the large office felt half its size when he stood.

Brock looked good and bad at the same time. He had the same circles under his eyes that were hidden under concealer on her face, and the stubble on his jaw indicated he hadn’t had time to shave.

Besides that, she didn’t see a single bruise or cut on his body. Well, the body she could see.

“This is for you.” She handed him the envelope before she chickened out.

He didn’t reach for it. After standing awkwardly for a moment, she set it on his desk.

“What is it?” he asked.

Judging by his hesitance to accept it, he already had an idea of what it was.

“My two weeks’ notice,” she said, without the hint of a quiver in her voice.

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Really? You have another job lined up?”

“Not at the moment, but I have had various offers over the years.” A few of those offers had even been rather generous, but she never wanted to leave the safe environment of Holt Automated before.

Now that it wasn’t safe, she was getting the hell out of Dodge.

Of course, Jackson picked the most inopportune time to speak up. “You’re quitting?”

“Shut up, Jackson,” barked Brock. He picked up the envelope from his desk and looked it over for a second without removing the short letter inside. Then he ripped it in half and threw the pieces in his trash bin. “Go back to work, Elsie, and, so help me, if you ever give me shit about quitting again, you’ll be sorry.”

Elsie saw red. “What are you going to do? Turn furry and chase me through the woods? Don’t think for one second that I don’t have a bullet with your name on it. Even if you hurt one hair on my head, Roman will have every vampire in the country destroy your dogs.”

Jackson turned an ashen white. “What is she talking about, Brock?”

Brock ignored Jackson and kicked his desk in frustration. A loud cracking sound filled the office and Jackson quickly closed the door so no one else would hear. Elsie made a mental note to put an order in for another desk and to get Jackson’s approval before she reminded herself that it wouldn’t be her responsibility anymore.

“You think I’m going to hurt you!” screamed Brock.

Elsie took a step back at his shout.

Brock cursed under his breath. “This is why we should’ve talked this out last night.”

“I thought I was working for a normal company with a normal boss. You’ve been lying to me for years,” she hissed. At this point, the girls in the office were probably all aware something big was going down, so she kept herself from yelling.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve skimmed over that line on your resume. You know, the one that says you’re a siren!” At least this time his shout didn’t reverberate off the walls, but Elsie widened her eyes, silently pleading with him to lower his voice.

“You’re a what?” Jackson’s voice came from behind them. Elsie and Brock’s angry gazes both turned to him. Brock stormed from around the desk, opened the door, grabbed Jackson by the upper arm, and threw him into the hallway before he slammed the door shut.

“How dare I not disclose that the women in my family like to marry up and we care a little too much about how we look,” she said sarcastically, as though Jackson never interrupted the argument. “God forbid!
I’m
not the one who changes into a different species under a full moon. I think your thing is a bigger deal than mine.”

“Then, yes, you got me. I lied to you the same way I lie to every single damn person I meet. So sue me.”

“You lied last night,” she said. His blank stare told her he had no idea what she was talking about. “You said a verbal declaration was all that was needed to
claim
a mate. I’m not claimed. I’d know it.”

“Really? Is that a
siren
thing?” he asked in a sarcastic tone.

“Well, yeah.” A siren’s sole purpose was to find a mate with a strong life force they could tie themselves to in order to extend their own lives. Though she had never experienced it, Elsie knew that she would be able to feel when another being committed him or herself to her in any way.

“I didn’t lie. That’s the truth. A public announcement is all that is needed for a mating to be recognized.”

“Then you omitted something. I know the ritual isn’t complete until the full moon. There is still time to reverse this.”

“Even if we could reverse it, the myotis we bargained with last night expects us together. If he finds out we played him, we’re both dead.”

It took all of Elsie’s willpower to keep from throwing something at him. “Because you’ve obviously spent so much time researching ways to get out of this! You can’t just throw your hands up in defeat and say ‘oh well! I guess I have to marry Elsie now!’ We can at least try to find a solution. I am no werewolf queen. I am not giving you any puppies. You and me isn’t an option. There has to be another way.”

“Why wouldn’t you and I be an option?”

Elsie stared blankly at him.
What did that have to do with anything?
“Well, for starters, you don’t even like me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “When have I ever given the impression I didn’t like you?”

“Um…” Elsie took a nervous gulp as she struggled to find words. “I just meant, you know, that you didn’t
like me
like me.” She mentally winced. Good grief! She sounded like a nervous high schooler. He opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted him. “It’s not like I want you to like me. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t feel pressured into anything. You are a lot older than me, anyway, and I’ve never really done anything with anyone and I’m sure you would want someone more experienced.”

As soon as she stopped talking, she turned a bright shade of red.
Well, that plan sucked.
A small smile crossed Brock’s face, though she could see he tried to contain it. “You’re inexperienced?”

“You’re changing the subject,” she said, refusing to discuss her experience. She may be quitting, but he was still her boss for the next two weeks. The last thing they needed to do was discuss her sex life. Well, her refusal to have a sex life.

“The reason I didn’t spend all night looking for a way to outsmart the myotis is because I don’t think there is a way, and even if there is, I’m not going to stake your life on the possibility. I could do a lot worse than you.”

Elsie narrowed her eyes. “The funny thing is, you think that’s a compliment.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. This was crazy.

She had been so sure of herself when she walked into the office this morning. She was going to give Brock her two weeks, tell him the mating was never going to happen and that would be that.

He wasn’t supposed to fight her on it. She and Brock couldn’t be mated. She barely knew him! He seemed nice enough, and God knew he was beautiful to look at, but the past twenty-four hours had taught her just how little they knew about each other.

He was a king, for crying out loud! She’d never even kissed anyone! Part of her stupid plan to be independent and not give in to her siren instincts. Which meant no men. Ever.

As though he read her mind, he said, “Seriously, what do you mean by inexperienced?”

Elsie turned to leave. “I’m going back to work.”

Before she could open the door, he was behind her. The heat of him burned through her clothes while a hand rested on the door to bar her exit. Her frustration finally got the best of her.

“Fine! This is what I mean.” She turned around, grabbed his crisp white shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.

Her lips pushed against his roughly and she had no idea what to do with her other hand. She should open her mouth. That’s what people in the movies did.

No. That’s what people who wanted more did. All she was trying to prove was just how incompatible they were.

He had other plans. His hands fell to the curve of her waist and pulled her tightly against him as he opened his mouth over hers. She pulled away to protest, but as soon as her lips parted, his tongue was there, making her forget all her reasons to object.

One of his legs snuck between hers, moving slowly upwards, pushing her skirt higher up her thighs. As the rough fabric of his pants brushed the delicate skin of her inner thighs, he deepened the kiss. One hand held her tightly to him while the other roamed up her back before it skimmed over the curves of her breasts.

The jolt from the unexpected contact snapped her out of whatever trance he had her under, and she pushed him away with all the strength she could muster.

She knew she wasn’t strong enough to move him, but he did step back, allowing her some space. For a few long seconds, neither spoke. Only the sound of their ragged breaths filled the quiet space.

“Elsie…”

She turned and walked out of his office, too embarrassed to linger. As she hurried into her office, she could see the girls giving her curious glances out of the corner of her eye. They must’ve heard the yelling, but Elsie could only hope they didn’t know what else happened.

As she shut the door to her office, she breathed in a sigh of relief. How could they know? The kiss couldn’t have lasted longer than a minute.

It seemed like longer. Not in a bad way. As far as first kisses go, Elsie was fairly certain that was an eleven on a scale of one to ten. That was why it had seemed longer. How could something so epic be over so quickly?

Bringing her back to reality was the new stack of vendor invoices waiting for approval on her desk. Work wouldn’t wait, no matter how earth-shattering the kiss.

Elsie cursed herself. The kiss was supposed to convince them both to stay away from each other.
It’s okay. I still have two weeks to figure all this out. After that, I’ll never see him again.

With that thought, Elsie scooped up the invoices and tried to push everything about Brock out of her head.

The pain hit her before she could sit down; the intense agony shot through her stomach and pushed her to the ground.

~~~~~

“Oh my God!” shouted Jenny.

Brock looked up from the email he was trying to read for the tenth time, his mind unable to focus on anything since Elsie left.

A small crowd gathered outside of Elsie’s office and he pushed himself toward her in a heartbeat. When he saw her, his heart caught in his throat.

Her normally pristine face was contorted in pain, and her body curled in the fetal position as if trying to protect itself.

One high-heeled shoe was on her foot while the other lay three feet away. Her breaths came in shallow pants, her fists clenched and eyes squeezed shut.

He knelt next to her as Jackson appeared in the doorway. “We need to get her to a hospital. Grab the car,” shouted Brock.