To Woo A Warrior (Southern Sanctuary) (4 page)

“Sorry but I’ve never heard of the
show.” Was all Hadleigh could manage. “I don’t even own a TV.”

“Really? You’re not one of those TV
snobs are you?”

“My apprentice put a sword through
my old set two years ago and I suppose I’ve just never bothered to replace it.
I’m not really a sit still sort of person.” Hadleigh concentrated on stilling
her tapping left foot.

Alma bestowed a sweet smile in her
direction. “I do appreciate an open mind in a person.”

“Well, um, I’m sorry to hear they’re
experiencing problems but I don’t really understand what this has to do with
me?” Hadleigh fought to keep the impatience out of her voice. She’d almost
rather be out there hunting invisible sheep than trapped in this overheated
library having a strangely random conversation about a TV show she’d never even
heard of.

“Why you’ll replace Serena for the
remainder of the season.” Alma stated it as if anyone included in the
conversation would have drawn the same conclusion.

“Me! I don’t think so. I have a full
time job as an enforcer. It’s not like I can just take four weeks off.  I
have a responsibility to the family.”

“Oh I’ve taken care of that. When I
asked Ward if there was someone on the enforcement team who had a lot of
holiday time owing your name was top of the list.”

Hadleigh battled the urge to start
stripping the fabric off of the armchair in frustration. Great Uncle Edward was
head of the Council and she’d witnessed in the memory Quinn had shown her at
the wedding just how determined he was to keep his kid sister Alma here and
happy. “And I was the only one who Edward could recommend?” Was that her voice
sounding so strained?

“Top of the pile.”

Alma gave her that sweet reassuring
smile
again
which was sending Hadleigh’s gut instinct
into overdrive. She was being played.  She was sure of it but exactly what
angle Alma was coming from was yet to be determined.

“Now here’s the address. There’s an
audition scheduled this afternoon at four so you’ll only have a couple hours to
pack.”

“There’s an audition? What makes you
think I’ll be the one they pick?” Hadleigh could see a vague glimmer of light
at the end of the tunnel as train ‘Alma’ barrelled towards her. If she didn’t
get the part there was nothing Alma could do about it surely.

“Darling girl, you’re family. I have
all the faith in the world that you will be successful. I’ve read your file.”
Alma offered her a saucy wink.  “You like to win and there doesn’t appear
to be a challenge yet that you haven’t conquered, hog tied and called your
bitch.”

Hadleigh blinked, she didn’t have
any response to that assessment of her character.

“Now.” Alma made a little moue with her
lips as she once again assessed Hadleigh from head to toe. “The production
offices are in Atlanta, I suggest you run home and change into something a
little fun, flirty and feminine before heading there for the interview. 
Good luck Darling.”

Chapter Five

“Fun, flirty … feminine … my left
butt cheek.”  Hadleigh was still muttering under her breath several hours
later as she sat in the Maat Production Company reception area.

She was filling in the questionnaire
the receptionist had handed to her when she’d checked in. Not just a
receptionist, the girl could give a top supermodel a run for her money. In fact
every woman in the room could enter that particular competition.

Between scrawling in her answers
Hadleigh sent searching looks around the room. Where had all these gorgeous
women come from? Thank Goddess Declan wasn’t here with her, it definitely would
have gotten nasty. And the outfits these women were wearing. Oh there was the
occasional thigh skimming summer dress that fit Alma’s criteria of fun, flirty
and feminine to a T. However the majority of hopefuls were wearing what
Hadleigh could only assume was a facsimile of the costume Serena wore on the
show; a tight purple tank top, tinier sparkly purple short shorts and purple
go-go boots.

There had been no mention of having
to wearing a costume … she was sure of it.

She, in stark contrast was still in
the outfit she had met Alma in that morning. Her ass kicker boots, black pants
and long sleeve V-necked black top. She hadn’t even run a brush through her
tousled short curls before arriving, on principle. What that principle was
Hadleigh could no longer remember. She just remembered how Alma’s parting
comment on what to wear had sent her over the edge. So between the under her
breath muttering Hadleigh’s left foot was tapping like it might drum its way
through the floor.

Hadleigh scrawled ‘BEHEAD!’ as the
answer to number 56. In fact that had been her answer for 52 of the last
questions. Her pen biting so deeply into the paper she was in danger of tearing
it. It wasn’t just her clothes making her feel out of sorts, it was the glaring
physical differences between her and all these wannabe reality stars that was
making her feel uncomfortable. Not a one of these Barbies was over 5.10ft,
which meant even sitting down she was still literally head and shoulders taller
than they were. And whilst there was plenty of cleavage on display none of
these starlets in training was bigger than a perky B cup … and their
asses
were all tiny! How did they get their
asses
so small? Hadleigh had been training practically every
day of her life and in comparison her ass was huge.

But it wasn’t just their height or
their trim athletic curves that bothered her.  It was their flawless
make-up highlighting perfect cheekbones, come hither eyes and
kiss
me quick high glossed lips.  How could she compete
with all that glamour?  And what was up with their hair? Uniformly glossy
without a strand out of place as if they had all come straight from the salon
and had never heard of either humidity or wind.

Grrrr
, between inventing increasingly creative ways to punish Great Aunt Alma
for this humiliating experience she answered the final four questions. With a
suppressed sigh she rose to her feet, refusing to acknowledge that every eye in
reception was tracking her progress as she hulked over to the reception desk to
hand over the completed form.

“Thanks Honey, just take a seat.
We’ll be calling names for the next stage in about an hour.”

Hadleigh forced a bleak smile of
thanks, Goddess another hour of this torturous reception area! Returning she
found there had been a reshuffle of the seats, the only one free meant she now
had a view out into the entrance foyer.

Around her there was a quiet murmur
of voices as some of the candidates chatted, whilst others studied scripts
which Hadleigh could only guess were for other upcoming auditions. With nothing
else to do Hadleigh contemplated the huge mural painted on the far foyer wall.
It depicted the Egyptian Goddess Maat holding up the scales of justice. Her
Staff of Righteousness glowed with power next to her, whilst Punishment,
Honour, Truth and Balance, her four Spears, surrounded her. Above the Goddess
flew her Seekers of Chaos, the Hawk and the Eagle. The mural was beautiful, the
paint lush and expensive looking
;
all
golds
, yellows and saffron. In fact the entire outfit was
expensive looking from top to bottom. Hadleigh had ported into the ladies room
in the CNN tower a block over and had had no trouble in locating the Maat
Enterprises Tower. The building glowed a sandy gold in the late afternoon
sunshine, shooting up over 85 floors to cast shadows across all the lesser,
darker buildings around it.

The Maat production offices were no
slouch either. Reception was on the 75
^th
floor and from the hardwood
gleaming floors and solid furniture in reception no expense had been
spared.  Hadleigh had been so busy musing on the cost of such an operation
that it wasn’t until her name was called a second time did she register that
she had made it to the next stage of the interview process.

Amongst hushed angry whispers she
made her way over to the reception desk along with the other three candidates
whose names had been called.
Four out of … what fifty
candidates?
 
Tough first round.

The receptionist rose from her desk
with a beaming welcoming smile. “Congratulations, if you’d just like to follow
me through to the workout area I’ll hand you over to Michael Preston, the CEO
of Maat Productions.”

Hadleigh bought up the rear, working
hard at trying to build up some sort of enthusiasm for this whole exercise. Not
easy, even the thought of invisible sheep protection duty was starting to look
good in comparison to jumping through Goddess knows what hoops the rest of this
interview involved.

“So only four of us hey?” A girl
with long straight dark brown hair walking beside the receptionist had decided
to strike up a conversation. “Those are good odds!”

Hadleigh couldn’t see the expression
on the receptionist’s face from her position but her tone sounded apologetic as
her response drifted back.

“Not really. This is day five of
auditions so the team are getting a little,
er
,
weary.”

Day five, just how many candidates
had applied for this role and why was the production company being so Goddess
darn picky? Just exactly what
was the criteria
to fill
those tiny sparkly purple short-shorts?

The workout area was located on the
77
^th
floor. Exiting the elevator after the receptionist and the other
candidates Hadleigh felt the first small stirring of interest. The area was
huge, filled with only the top of the range exercise equipment but what really
drew Hadleigh’s attention was the challenge area. The wall directly behind it
was packed with the most amazing weaponry collection she’d ever seen outside of
a museum, swords of every type, from every continent, from every culture. They
were long, short, fat bladed and ice pick thin. The only thing they had in
common was that they were all very sharp and in the right hands … her hands,
they could be used to maim, kill and Goddess yes, behead.

*                  
*                     
*

Vaughn stared at his boots blindly,
contemplating that of all the ways to commit suicide this had to be the
slowest. He loved his brothers in arms, he did. He had fought by their side for
over one hundred years but being trapped in a
small enclosed
room with them for five days straight was bordering on acts against the Geneva
Convention laws on torture.

Rafferty never shut up … literally
never shut up. Drum who rarely spoke had chosen this week to become Chatty
Cathy and no matter what Rafe said, Drum chose the opposing argument. Just for
shits and giggles as far as Vaughn could tell. Not because he had actually any
deep meaningful beliefs or affiliations.

Dash was playing Desert Zombie Wars
on his game player and even though the volume was on mute his personal sound
effects of whoops, hollers and verbal threats were acting like a power drill
against Vaughn’s skull. Marcus was on the
internet
,
possibly buying or selling a small country knowing him.  Whatever he was
doing the continual fast click of the keyboard keys echoed and rebounded in the
small space until by the time the noise hit Vaughn’s eardrums it had magnified
by what felt like jet engine proportions. Then there was Nate, who had to be
juggling fifty girls on his dating schedule. Every five minutes one of them
would ring his mobile and in not so hushed whispers Nate would proceed to
charm, seduce and just plain hound dog his way into their hearts.

And listening to Nate not only annoyed
him, it kind of depressed him. When was the last time he had been on a date?
Shit when was the last time he’d felt attracted to a woman? Maybe it was an age
thing, over a hundred years of dating was bound to send anyone into a stale
spell, though not Nate apparently.

Plus what was with women these days?
If nothing else sitting in the mirrored booth observing the last four days of
interviews had confirmed for him that the modern woman really wasn’t his style.
Not that he didn’t love their confidence and independence
;
that was great. No it was their preoccupation with their looks, they were all
so skinny and still obsessed with how much they weighed. And Maat
forbid
you touch their hair. There seemed to be some sort of
worldwide law now that if you tried to run your fingers through a woman’s hair
an arrest warrant would be issued. And don’t even get him started on the
mysterious disappearance of pubic hair. Why did every woman insist on shaving,
waxing or plucking in order to look like a pre-pubescent girl? Just thinking
about it made him shudder.

Give him the women of the 1930’s or
40’s, gorgeous curvy women who ate and had enough energy to dance and play all
night. Now days most women wouldn’t eat after 5pm and then they were out of bed
before 6am, power walking to the gym. Geez he sounded like some cranky old man.

It wasn’t just that
he was bored
,
he was kind of worried
.
They all were, though no one had said anything out loud. Serena had just up and
left with little more than a scrawled note and it made absolutely no sense with
only four more episodes remaining to film for the season. Worse she knew them,
knew their methods, no wonder their investigation team had found no trace of
where she had run and just exactly why. All he knew was that in those last few
days she’d been worried about something.

Small mercies at least Flynn wasn’t
in here with them. He’d drawn combat duty today, currently standing next to
Mike waiting for Vivian to bring the latest batch of candidates up for
interview. Yesterday when it had been Nate’s turn out on the floor Flynn and
Dash had played Desert Zombie Wars for five straight hours. Since they’d been
on opposing teams there had been a lot of ‘Die you Zombie Bastard’ and ‘Take
that you tasty little Human treat.’  Just the memory made him glance up to
glare through the one-way glass at an oblivious Flynn. Which made the timing
just perfect as the day’s candidates walked off the elevator and She walked in.
And he knew he spoke the word out loud because his brothers in arms started
hurling jealous abuse at him a split second later. “Mine!”

“I saw her first?” Nate rushed out
the words, accidentally hanging up on some Honey he had been romancing just
seconds earlier.

“Too slow.” It was a miracle Vaughn could
still speak; his mouth was so dry it felt like he’d eaten a handful of sand.
And the room, it was so hot or was that just his blood pressure going through
the roof?

“Man she’s gorgeous. Do over guys. I
was lost in the game.” Dash demanded.

“No do overs.  Mine!” Growled
Vaughn, his eyes never leaving Her. She was incredible, a feast for the eyes.
Tall, curvy and then some and that hair! It looked like she’d just climbed out
of bed … and the thought of that made his cock hard. How was that possible, he hadn’t
even seen her face properly yet and he wanted her?

“She’s tall” Rafe commented. “How
tall do you think she is?”

“That is a whole lot of woman.”
Drum’s deep bass was approving and it was all Vaughn could do not to haul off
and hit his second.

There was a speedy click on the
keyboard and Marcus spoke up. “I’ve just pulled up their CV’s. Meet Hadleigh
Valhalla gentlemen. According to her bio she’s 6ft.”

Vaughn smiled, no way was she 6ft!
Mike Preston was 6.2ft and that red headed angel was staring down at him with
an arrogant tilt to her head like he was a smashed bug on a recently cleaned
windshield. She had to be 6.5 maybe even 6.6ft.

“What else?” He demanded, his eyes
never leaving
her … no,
Hadleigh, he had a name for
her now.

“This would have to be the skimpiest
bio I’ve ever seen. No contact details. No previous job information. Other than
her name and her basic stats I have nothing.”

Vaughn shrugged, his eyes remaining
fixed on his target,
her
name was enough for now. He
tensed as the group followed Michael Preston over to the matted challenge area
where Flynn stepped up and ran through the protocols for the physical
challenge. For a moment Vaughn actually hated Flynn … his friend, his comrade.
He got to meet Hadleigh first and the man was no slouch in the looks
department. Women positively doted on him. What if Hadleigh took a fancy to
him? Bodies
were relativity easy to dispose of if
you knew how but he’d regret having to take Flynn’s life, probably …
eventually.