Cooper (21 page)

He cleared his throat as he closed them into the room together. Why did that thought have his cat ramming the walls of his cage?

"My name is Chase Scanlan. You may wonder why you've been asked to come here this morning…" he started, sounding stuffy and formal to his own ears.

Way to go, Chase. The perfect approach to use with a frightened girl.

When she did nothing more than stare at him with those big, serious eyes, he groaned and tried again. "You wrote a letter to Alyssa Aimes."

That got a reaction. She gasped softly, and took a little step back, almost as if she expected him to hit her. He covered the few paces between them at cat speed and took her arm. What was he doing? She wasn't running from him. There was no reason why he should give chase.

Her big eyes looked from his face to his hand, and he could hear her heartbeat speeding up.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. You aren't in trouble. The opposite, in fact. Please, Anna, take a seat. I have a great deal to explain to you."

Somewhat pacified, she let him guide her over to the leather sofa near the window. Though he tried to sit on the single seat across from her, his cat forced him to take his place beside her on the sofa.

This was not going well. His cat couldn't seem to take his eyes off the girl. Too young. She was far too young for any of them. But his cat seemed to think otherwise.

"How old are you?" he croaked out, determined to use her age to quieten his beast.

He expected her to say sixteen. To work in a hotel like this she had to be at least sixteen. But as he'd detected a slight northern European accent under the LA one, he expected she was even younger. Fourteen, fifteen? Girls like her often lied about their age so they could work in the US.

"Eighteen," she answered immediately, her gaze steady on his.

Was she lying to him? But why would she? It didn't make sense. Unless she didn't want him to know she was jail-bate.

"If I looked at your passport, is that what it would say?" he challenged her.

She drew a US passport out of her apron pocket, still covered by its plastic envelope. This only reinforced his first impression that she was not American born or bred.

He took her passport and studied it. Yes, Anna Jarvis was eighteen and would turn nineteen in November. There was seven years between them. Too much.

The passport also listed her birthplace as Columbus Ohio. There was no way she was born in the Midwest. So if her passport was forged, how old was she really?

He decided to let it slip for the moment. It didn't alter anything. She was still one of the female embryos secretly removed from the Guild lab twenty-five years ago. Those fertilized embryos could have been implanted at any time after that, and had been, if the difference in age between Alyssa, Alice and Amy were any indication. But why leave her implantation so late if she was supposed to be a mate for one of the Sons?

Chase realised he'd been thinking for too long. Anna was growing restless, and her fingers were itching to take back her passport.

Anxious to reassure her that he wasn't suspicious of her credentials, he leaned in to hand it back.

That was when it happened. That was when his cat slipped its leash and struck.

Chase drew her close, pulled back the neck of her uniform and buried his teeth in her shoulder. For a split second she struggled, then fell still, disquietingly still. Fighting the cat, fighting to stop what was happening, Chase tried to draw back. Never had he felt so helpless, so at the whim of his beast. Not since that first night ten years ago when his cat had jumped free and saved his life.

But the cat wasn't saving his life this time. The panther in his DNA was claiming an available mate. That cat didn't care if she was too young; didn't care that being his mate was a death sentence; didn't even care that Chase had no desire for a mate. His beast was claiming this young girl, and that was all there was to it.

Chase fought the pleasure swirling inside him, the exquisite taste of her blood on his tongue. This was wrong. This was impossible. But her moans ratcheted up his arousal. When had he first started getting hard? At the moment he first saw her? As she passed him walking into the room? Or was it as late as when they sat on the sofa together, a polite distance between them. It was certainly before he sprung on her like a wild animal.

With that horrified thought, he finally wrestled the beast back and withdrew his teeth from her neck. As an afterthought he licked the wound closed so no blood stained her uniform.

Then he gently drew her away from him and sighed.

This was a total, unmitigated disaster.