Wanda

Holy. Shit. My mind was reeling. I was pretty sure Tasha was my fated mate.

Who was I kidding? There was no ‘pretty’ about it. I was one hundred percent sure it was true. This woman was mine. The instant I saw her all my vows to never have a mate disappeared as I felt an emotion I’d never felt before: love.

It seemed bizarre. I was a working class girl, a veteran, a vampire, and much older than her. Tasha was young, human, rich, and famous. My entire apartment could fit just in her living room. She lived a fancy glamorous life while I spent my time running background checks, chasing down criminal assholes, and drinking beer with my friends in a bar where your feet stuck to the floor.

I’d felt a kind of...sensation when I was in the elevator coming up to her place. I’d felt simultaneously hot and nauseous. At first, I’d thought I’d just gotten a bad container of blood or something. But then I’d looked into Tasha’s eyes, touched her hand, and gotten a good whiff of her scent. That’s the moment when I knew what it was like to find the missing piece of your soul.

I scowled, irritated that I was even thinking things like ‘missing piece of your soul’. What the hell was wrong with me? Vampires didn’t often get fated mates. We weren’t as lucky as the shifters were. But it wasn’t totally uncommon either. After all, my friend Angie had found her mate just last year.

The irony of Angie also finding her mate while on the job was not lost on me. Although now that I thought about it, that had happened to Lois as well. At least Lois’s mate Monique was a supe, so she knew how it worked when you found your mate. Angie’s mate – like mine – was fully human. That always made things more complicated.

The supes and the humans lived in an uneasy alliance. We’d all decided long ago not to eat the humans or rock the boat and in exchange they mostly pretended like we didn’t exist. No one wanted a war between humans and supes, so we all did our best to keep the peace.

There wasn’t a prohibition against cross-species mating, but it could also be difficult. Mostly because the humans didn’t feel the mating pull as much as we did. When we supernaturals first found our mates, we felt an irresistible pull to be near them, to mate them and mark them as our own. It was like love at first sight to us. The full-blood humans preferred long periods of dating to get to know a person since they didn’t have the same sense of rightness as we did when we met the right person. Plus, a lot of humans were biased against the supes.

Tasha being my mate was an unexpected complication. It would make me distracted. I was already feeling off-kilter around her. But I needed to put my attraction out of my mind and focus on my job because if I didn’t, Lois would take me off this case or, worse yet, fire me.

Now that I’d found Tasha, I had a strong biological urge to protect her. The thought of any of my coworkers being around my mate twenty-four seven before I could mark her made my fangs descend a bit, pressing against my lips.

I heard my mate’s business manager gasp. She was a short and curvy human with blonde hair and huge blue eyes. She and Tasha looked as different as night and day.

“Chloe, for God’s sake, don’t stare at the woman while her teeth are out of control,” Tasha rebuked. “It’s rude.”

She turned and gave me another one of those big fake smiles that didn’t reach her eyes. It made me wonder what it would be like to earn a genuine smile from her. I took a deep breath, willing my fangs to retract.

“As I was saying before, I appreciate you coming by like this, but I was very clear with Chloe that I don’t want a bodyguard.”

“That’s too bad,” I rebutted, “because you’ve got one. I’m not going anywhere, which means you’re stuck with me until we figure out who’s harassing you.”

Across the table, Chloe snickered into her cup. We both ignored her, our gazes locked together in a silent battle. My mate had a lot of spunk, which I would appreciate if she wasn’t using it to defy me.

“I don’t think you understand,” Tasha tried again. “I’m in charge here, and I don’t want you here.”

My mind immediately went to the idea of her being in charge in other places. Like the bedroom. My fangs pressed against my gums again as filthy images ran through my mind. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

“Not used to being told no, huh Princess?”

“Excuse me!” The polite veneer cracked, giving me a glimpse at the fiery woman beneath. She was magnificent. “You don’t get to call me a princess!”

“To be clear, I’m in charge here, not you, and I’m not going anywhere. Now tell me everything you know about this stalker, and don’t leave anything out, no matter how small,” I ordered.

When Tasha just crossed her arms under her breasts and glared at me, the business manager cleared her throat.

“Tasha,” Chloe said, her tone pacifying. “We’re all just trying to help here. Tell Wanda what she needs to know to keep you safe. The sooner she finds this guy, the sooner we can put this all behind us.”

“I don’t know too much,” Tasha finally said, her tone resigned. “I started getting these weird letters like two months ago. They were always the same: block letter printing calling me a freak or an abomination who needs to be with a quote ‘real man’. At first, I just figured it was some incel living in his mother’s basement or something.”

She paused to take a bite of her sandwich, her full lips closing around the bread in a way that gave me completely inappropriate thoughts. Just like Chloe had predicted, Tasha had cut off the crusts, leaving them in a small heap on her plate.

“Incel?” I asked in confusion.

“You know, the involuntary celibates, guys who can’t get any action, so they spend their time living in their parents’ basements playing video games and bashing women online with misogynist bullshit.”

I shook my head. The older I got, the harder it was to keep up with all the new slang.

“What happened then?”

“Then, when?” Tasha asked in confusion.

“You said at first you thought they were just incels sending letters, but now things have escalated and you don’t think it’s the basement dwellers anymore?”

I knew a lot of this from the file that Lois had given me. As usual, she’d done a very thorough intake. But I always liked to hear what was going on directly from the client. Sometimes there were clues in the wording or nuances that were missed the first time around.

Tasha sighed deeply like I was putting her out by trying to save her life. She was a bit of a brat. Fortunately for her, I loved to tame brats.

“Recently the letters started getting more specific. Referencing places I’d been or was going to be, things that the general public wouldn’t know. Last week they started including other stuff like dead flowers and,” her face took on a look of distaste, “severed parts of dead animals.”

I looked at Chloe. “I need a complete schedule for any activities coming up in the next week.”

“On it,” she said, pulling out her iPad. “Do you want it on paper?”

“You have it in an online calendar I assume?” At her nod I said, “Share it with me via email.”

After I rattled off one of my throwaway email addresses, I turned my attention back to Tasha. My mate.

“I’m going to stay with you twenty-four seven until this is over. You will not go anywhere without me. Don’t go for coffee, don’t pick up the mail, don’t walk the dog without me by your side.”

“I don’t have a dog,” she said in confusion.

“You should get one, they’re great for protection.”

Her eyes narrowed like she wasn’t sure if I was joking. I got that a lot. In the military they’d nicknamed me Cucumber because no matter what happened I was cool and calm. I also had a dry sense of humor, so even when I was joking, half the time people couldn’t tell.

“I’m on tour for months at a time,” Tasha told me. “I don’t have time for a dog.”

I raised my eyebrows but didn’t respond. She turned to Chloe.

“So what are we going to tell Mark and his crew?”

I knew from the file this was her current security team. They accompanied her if she went out in public to protect her from paparazzi and overzealous fans but didn’t cover her living spaces. I was familiar with the company. Everyone they employed was a big linebacker sized meathead without two brain cells to rub together. Of course they were all humans too. Amateurs.

“We’re going to tell them I’m your cousin Wanda, visiting from Cleveland.”

Tasha wrinkled her nose. “You live in Cleveland? Ugh.”

I gave her a cold glare that I’d used to stop subordinate soldiers in their tracks. Tasha was completely unaffected.

“I live in Seattle, but I was raised in Cleveland. Your cousin,” I emphasized the word, “lives in Cleveland which explains why no one has seen her around here. Picking somewhere I’m familiar with means that I won’t have any problems answering questions about my life at home if the need arises.”

“But you don’t look anything like me,” Tasha argued.

“So?”

“So, you’re white as a ghost. No one’s going to believe that you’re related to a half black half Puerto Rican person.”

“Ever hear of adoption?” I asked. “Or maybe one of your Puerto Rican relatives had a baby with a Caucasian or something. It doesn’t matter. Besides, I’m actually half Mexican, so just say I’m your cousin as if it’s no big deal and people will believe it.”

“I don’t think they will.”

I could feel my blood pressure rising. My mate was incredibly stubborn.

“They will believe it,” I said firmly. “Now let’s review your schedule and create a plan to smoke this guy out.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?” she asked curiously.

“It’s a guy. No woman is that offended by the idea of someone being a lesbian. Trust me on this.”

“I don’t trust anyone but Chloe,” she retorted.

“That’s too bad, because you’re gonna need to trust me with your life, whether you like it or not. Now quit arguing and finish your sandwich, Princess.”