After a few minutes of enduring her little assault he gave up trying to wait it out and threw her over his shoulder and headed towards his SUV, placing his palm on her ass, for safety sake of course, and gave it a firm squeeze when she slapped his ass.
“Hey! Stop doing that!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Does that bother you?” he asked, trying to sound innocent and probably failing miserably, but he didn’t care. After waiting for so many years he finally had his mate in his arms and in a couple of hours she’d know her place in the world and in his family.
“Yes!” she hissed. “So stop doing it!”
“Yes, of course. It won’t happen again,” he lied even as he gave her ass another squeeze. He might not plan on giving into his body’s demands and take her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the little benefits, he decided as he headed to the car with his little mate cursing up a storm.
**********
“I sent for you four hours ago, Quinn,” Logan said as the large man strolled into his office as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Considering what night it is, I think we can both agree that you’re lucky that I showed up at all,” Kale said, flashing his green eyes silver before they promptly switched back as a pointed reminder of who Logan was dealing with. Not that he would ever forget.
“Have a seat,” Logan said, gesturing to the chair across from him.
He wasn’t too surprised when the man walked past the offered chair to lean against the wall and fold his arms over his large chest.
With a sigh, Logan leaned forward and grabbed the folder off the coffee table in front of him and tossed it across the room. It landed at Kale’s feet. The other man cocked a brow as he leaned down to pick it up, never taking his eyes away from Logan as he did it.
So little trust, Logan thought with an inward sigh. Not that he could blame the man. Under any other circumstances the man would probably find himself knocked out, chained, and tortured for a few days, years, decades or centuries until Logan either got bored or forgot he was there. With these things it was really hard to tell which would come first, but he was willing to find out.
Maybe after Kale found Ms. McGuire he wouldKale’s deep laughter tore him away from his thoughts.
“I wouldn’t even think about it, Logan. We both know how it would end,” the man said with a touch of brogue that came and went over the centuries, sounding more amused than pissed, which was insulting in itself and Logan was glad they were alone for this meeting. He’d hate to lose any more of his men today because they thought he was a soft touch and tried to disobey him in any way.
“You can’t blame me,” Logan said, having absolutely no doubt that something in his expression had given away his thoughts. Kale’s ability to read a man by a single expression used to entertain and somewhat frighten him when they were young men, but now it hardly fazed him, unless it interfered with his plans. Then it simply pissed him off.
The large man simply shrugged as he opened the folder and looked down. “You can try, but I doubt it would work out any better than the last time,” Kale drawled, flipping through the file.
Logan leaned back in his chair, heavily sighing.
Unfortunately the man was probably right. Over the past nine centuries Kale was the only man he couldn’t seem to kill, and not from a lack of trying. He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried to capture or kill the bastard only to have it come back and bite him in the ass.
“Why exactly did you summon me for this bullshit?”
Kale asked, tossing the folder back on the coffee table.
“Because it’s a job and you need the money,” Logan pointed out, biting back a rare smile as his onetime friend, the man he once thought of as a brother, glared at him. No doubt the man hated the reminder that Logan was once privy to all of his inner most thoughts and plans and knew his one true weakness.
Money.
It was something he could understand and even appreciate in the man, especially since that little obsession had helped him out a time or two.
“I just finished a very lucrative job this morning. I don’t need any more money,” Kale bit out between clenched teeth.
Logan simply shrugged. He’d agree that the man didn’t need more money considering he probably had more than Logan and most of the Masters he did jobs for, but wanting it was another issue. He ran his eyes over the immortal’s mussed hair, the dark circles under his eyes, slightly pale complexion and rumpled clothes and knew the man was telling the truth about finishing a job that morning. He had no doubts that Kale had planned on enjoying the full moon tonight before taking that ever elusive break he was always promising himself and probably needed desperately, but Logan didn’t care. He had a job and this bastard was going to do it for him.
“I need you to find her for me,” Logan said, gesturing to the file and having no doubt that Kale already had it memorized. There was a reason why the man was the best in the business after all and why Logan was going to make damn sure he scooped him up for this job before some other Master decided to use his f**king brain and use the mutt, an insulting term for a shifter without a pack, for himself.
“You and about twentyfive,” Kale started to say only to get cut off by an annoying beep. With a sigh he unclipped a pager from his belt and look at it only to snort. “Make that twenty-six Masters need me to find her.”
Logan shouldn’t be surprised, but he honestly was. Not that other Masters were desperate for Kale’s services, but because the man had come to see him first. Then again if the man was willing to tell everyone to go f**k themselves he would get more enjoyment out of starting with Logan, he thought dryly.
“I’ll tell you what,” Kale said, giving him a mocking smile, “you tell me why you want this little woman so badly, say pretty please, and I might just think about it.”
He knew there were so many things he could say that would work on any other man that would get him what he needed, but he knew threatening the man, threatening someone that he loved, or offering him more money than any of the others would never work with this man. So he said the one thing that he knew would grab the man’s attention and probably get his throat ripped out, but he really didn’t have much of choice at the moment.
“Elizabeth,” he said, not at all surprised when the man’s eyes shifted to liquid silver or when his nails turned into claws and his teeth into a deadly row of canines.