My Married Mate

She's Something Else

Simon's POV

I'm sitting in my office preparing for the day. It's not often I take human clients, but we take a few per quarter to blend in. My firm specializes in Pack Houses with safe rooms, training arenas and sound proofed rooms.

This contract today is simple enough, all this firm wants is plans, which is why I agreed to meet with them. They have construction covered so I don't have to outsource a human crew to protect our secret. I will need to take a larger percentage on the plans though because we make quite a bit of our money through the construction. The worst part of contracts with humans is usually a lot of human vendors, but it's a necessary evil. As I'm finalizing my last notes on this negotiation, my wolf, Blaze, starts going crazy.

If you do not stop it, I swear! I can't think! I yell at him with no response. Jayden my Gamma knocks.

"Sir, your 9 o'clock is here."

"Send them in."

The door opens and I see her. The most beautiful creature I've ever seen. Confused on why her scent didn't hit me first but too mesmerized to get caught up on that detail. I take in her features, her unique starbursted eyes catch my attention the most, brown in the middle to a gorgeous emerald green on the outside of the iris. She is a modest woman and surely confident having not felt the need to cake her skin in cosmetics, but why would she? Her skin is porcelain, smooth and evenly toned. Her lips, I feel, must have some kind of product on them as I've never seen lips so perfectly shaped and cherry red. Oh, how I want to bite those lips. As I take in her body, I notice a hand on the small of her back, I follow that up to the man accompanying her. Clearly they are more than just business partners with this display of affection. I am unreasonably angry at that.

MATE! My wolf growls. I let out the faintest growl that I know only a supernatural could hear and a dark expression hits the man's face. He doesn't smell like a wolf, but he certainly is. The silence lasts forever as she is caught in my eyes. Does she feel the mate pull too? I ask my wolf who is still focused on the man's hands on our mate. Why is a wolf here without proper approval and why is he with a human, and WHY IS HE WITH MY MATE? My mind is running a million miles a minute. Jayden in the corner with the most confused expression I've ever seen on his face.

Finally, the woman breaks the silence. "Hi, I'm Scarlet and this is my husband Mark." Her voice is angelic and melodic. "I want to thank you so much for your time. I promise you we will make it worth it. Can we sit?" I nod, knowing I need to get this wolf away from this woman, but I need a moment to think. Jayden closes the door behind him and heads back to his office.

"I'm so sorry about that, I just didn't expect THE power couple, Scarlet and Mark Smith, when I agreed to this appointment. I also swear I recognize your husband from somewhere." Scarlet's eyes get wide, "What school did you go to Mark?" I ask, knowing he went to school in a pack’s territory but also knowing that cornering him he'll make something up.

"I, uh, I'm sorry, what?" He stutters out.

"Oh, stop it Mark," she turns her attention back to me, "He went to East High."

"Ahhhhh! I'm Westwood! Small world huh, rival high school students growing up and making amazing alliances." I reply cooly, choosing my words wisely so that he knows this alliance would not be forged with his disrespect. "We definitely crossed paths back in the day. I played so many sports, was on all the academic teams as well as class president, so forgive me for not remembering exactly how we crossed paths."

This time Scarlet didn't hesitate to speak for Mark, "Oh! How fun, Mark was also very intelligent and athletic, although only there for a year. Football, basketball, track team, debate -"

"That's it!" I interject! "Definitely debate, I think. But I could be wrong". Making sure to remove the certainty from my voice just in case this was a test. "So why don't we get started?" I sit at my desk and face the window so they can't see my eyes fog as I mindlink my beta Brenden.

My office, now, this woman is my mate. This man is a wolf.

WHAT?! He replies quickly, How do you want to play this?

You come in apologizing for the interruption and say you didn't realize my meeting had already started. I'll keep you in here since it's a big project and you’d take lead if something were to happen to me or if I was gone on a trip for any reason.

Be there in a minute!

I cut the mind link and turn around in the chair. Mark undoubtedly knows what I was just doing, Scarlet however is completely oblivious to my communications. Just as Scarlet is about to speak, Brenden knocks.

"What?" I respond, feigning anger.

Brenden opens the door and looks around, "Oh man, sorry boss, I didn't realize your meeting had already started, I just had a question about the Gorgon project."

"Oh, we can handle that after this. Why don't you sit in on this meeting while you are here if you have time? It's a big project and you will take the reins if I'm out of town or gone for any reason." I turn to Scarlet and Mark, "Do you all mind?"

A low rumble comes from Marks' chest, surely feeling threatened. Scarlet gets up and offers her hand to Brenden, "Of course we don't mind. I'm Scarlet,” motions to Mark, “this is my husband Mark."

Brenden immediately shoots me a glance at the word husband.

We go over the numbers, the vision and the expected project dates. This is a huge project. I've seen some of their ventures before and this definitely has to be one of the bigger ones. Our meeting goes without a hitch. As it turns out, Scarlet is the mind and money behind these massive builds. Mark is in construction, which is why they don't need us overseeing that. I need to get this guy alone and him being in construction gives me the moment.

I press the intercom button on my phone without warning Scarlet or Mark. "Olivia, can you come in here real quick?" My she-wolf secretary immediately opens the door. "Olivia, Scarlet, Scarlet, Olivia. Olivia, would you mind getting Scarlet a drink and showing her around? I'm sure we'll be working closely together. I'd like to take Mark down to speak with David, our construction engineer." The last part, I spoke directly to Scarlet.

"Sure thing, boss!"

I get up and motion Mark to follow Brenden. We walk the few doors down to Brenden's office and the moment the door latches to my Betas office I have Mark by the throat against the wall.

"HOW DARE YOU COME INTO THIS BUILDING AND DISRESPECT ME! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!" He nods frightened. "YOU ARE GOING TO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS DIRECTLY, IN ORDER, NO FLUFF, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! SHORT. PRECISE. ANSWERS." He nods quickly and I release him. "SIT" I command.

"Why didn't you notify us ahead of time for this visit?"

"I couldn't ruin this for her," He whimpers.

"Why can I barely smell your wolf?"

"I suppressed my wolf with wolfsbane."

This is confusing, that would be so painful. Why would he do that? I knew there is no way she would know he's a wolf as it's against our laws, but I had to be sure. "Does she know about you?"

"No."

"What pack are you with?"

"None." Mark looks at the ground.

"How are you not a rogue?"

He hesitates for the first time. He gets visibly more nervous and drops his head to the ground. At this point, I forgot Brenden was even in the room. "ANSWER ME." I command in my alpha tone.

"Scarlet," He quivers, "Scarlet is w-why I'm n-not a rogue."

"Impossible," in the werewolf world, without an alpha, without a structure, wolves become rogues. Occasionally, you'll get one who thinks they will be special and able to cohabitate with the humans, but they either always go back to their pack or turn into rogues - beings that are simply the shell of their former humans. "You would need an alpha."

"She....She...She is my alpha" he replies, broken.

At this point, Brenden busts out laughing, "Is this guy serious? Boss you sure he's a wolf? He doesn't even know females can't be alphas." He continues laughing until he stops abruptly, seeing I'm seething with anger.

"Do you think this is funny? You come to my territory and think I'm a fool?" I turn to Brenden, "Take them both to the basement and lock them up, they are clearly up to something."

"WAIT!" Mark screams. This is the most courage I've seen out of him since we met. "I can prove it! She's pregnant and emotion-"

I cut him off. "YOU IMPREGNATED A HUMAN? YOU IMPREGNATED MY MATE?!" I hiss as Mark backs into the corner, his eyes wide as the revelation that Scarlet is my mate sets in. "NOT ONLY IS THAT AGAINST THE LAW, BUT SHE WILL DIE." I bellow.

My wolf is terrified we will lose the mate we just found. We replay the history of our kind using humans as incubators to grow our numbers. Wolves are strong even in utero and would kill their human mothers. It didn't help that if they had a wolf mother and a human father, they never got the wolf gene, but if they had a human mother and wolf father, they usually would. After years of unneeded deaths, the elders finally made a law against all wolves ever procreating with a human. If their destined mate was human, they had to turn them, mate, and mark them before having pups and if someone wanted to take a chosen mate that was human it had to be approved by the council of their region.

Calmly, I turn to my beta, "Brenden, call the elders, this has to be reported."

As his eyes fogged over, Mark screamed, "WE ALREADY HAVE A DAUGHTER!"

Brenden brings his attention back before contact with the elders, laughing. "How dense can you be, you know how this works, I hate to break it to you, but that's not your kid man. No way Scarlet would've survived.

Just as I'm about to tell Brenden to shut up and contact the elders, Mark quietly speaks.

"She is mine, she has a wolf." He looks defeated and broken.

"How old is she?" I'm puzzled.

"Six."

"Impossible."

"I can prove it all. Take me back to Scarlet and you'll have your proof. But I need something in return."

I scoff. I know this wretched wolf isn't trying to negotiate, but I'll play along. "Go on then."

"Access to your library. I need answers and I need to protect them," the desperation thick in his voice.