Love of a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Bundle

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2What eventually happened next was something she hadn’t really anticipated: lots and lots of paperwork. When the doors to the lounge opened, they did not come in through the entrance the women had entered from. Instead, they came in through a different set of doors that were around the corner and behind the bar, where Tamara expected the bathrooms to be. Clearly, she found out that she was wrong.

Her correction came in the form of several men dressed in black suits, moving with stoic efficiency that reminded her of a certain driver who was immune to her charms as well. They entered the room, each of them looking practically identical in their style and their unimpressed, silent features. They walked with their briefcases and portfolios, ready to do whatever it was that they had come en masse to perform.

Behind them, leading the pack of bureaucrats was a man who stood above all of them, standing out from the others who wore suits as black as jet. His suit was charcoal gray and his t-shirt and tie were as black as midnight. His eyes were sharp and hawkish; dangerous with a flickering heat behind them that was controlled but present. It made him look dangerous and in charge of everything that was happening around him, like a silent god, watching all the universe in motion, moving exactly in all the importance and accordance that he had laid out long ago. Tamara watched him and wondered what exactly it was that he was going to be doing in the whole process.

He was the kind of man who looked diabolical and important, as if he could snap his fingers and cause irrevocable damage to their chances. His eyes looked around the room settling on each of the women, drinking them in, studying them, dissecting them as he stared at them. It was the kind of look that made her skin crawl and when his eyes settled on her, she felt like she was being ripped apart on an atomic level. It felt like he could see absolutely every part of her and all of her past was laid out bare before him to look through.

Eventually, he moved to the front of the room and looked over everyone one more, making sure that they were all accounted for as his lackeys spread out around the fringe of the women, corralling them and keeping them in check. It was as if he was afraid that they were all going to burst and break through his ranks. It made Tamara wonder what kind of news they were waiting for. Was he going to spring some kind of trap on them and make them want to scream and flee for their lives? She felt tense all over, like a coiled spring, ready to burst and fly off in a dozen directions.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to steady herself.

“Congratulations on making it this far in the application process,” the man at the front of them said with a clear voice, like a bell ringing out through a still, cold night. The air vibrated with his voice and it felt like everything was just a breath away from shattering. “Out of twenty thousand women, you twelve have impressed us the most with the endurance, creativity, and the passion that your applications showed us. Thank you for your patience in this process and we assure you that your time is of our utmost concern and we do not seek to waste anyone’s with this process. We are all busy people and we are all looking forward to this final step so that my client and his family will be able to begin.

“My name is Mr. Garrett,” he said after a moment’s pause, collecting his thoughts as he placed the portfolios on the tall, pub table next to him. He looked at it, drumming his fingers on the surface of the table and looking at his notes with his hawkish eyes. He adjusted his glasses and looked around the room once more, collecting his thoughts before beginning again.

“We will be walking through a series of four final tests to really make sure that we have the right candidate. It is important to us that you were given no prior warning or information about the test so that we can have a more accurate reading of your personage.”

“I thought all of that was over?” The Asian woman said with sternness in her voice that felt like a knife slashing through the air.

“I’m sorry for the misunderstanding,” Mr. Garrett said with a cold tone in his voice that made it more than clear that he did not like to be interrupted so rudely. It was almost biting to hear him utter the sentence as he looked at her. “Before we begin with the first test, there are some housekeeping points that I need to take care of first.

“All of you were instructed to arrive with nothing more than essentials to wear and get you here. Any bags or supplies that were brought with you will be confiscated for the duration of the test. Should you complete the application process, we will still hold on to your bags until the completion of the surrogacy and it will be returned to you upon the termination of your contract. Trust me, we will keep your things very safe for you.

“Along with that, your clothing and the items you brought with you will be taken from you before the final stages of the application begin. Your clothing, phone, wallet, purse, or anything else that you have on you will be held in safety and confidence until the completion of the surrogacy and the termination of your contract. However, there are eleven of you who will not be signing the final contract and will be departing here before nightfall. As you were informed earlier, your plane ticket will be purchased and you will be given a free trip home on the Matterhorn Company dime.

"Your services and your application were valuable and we wish to leave on the best of terms. Should you fail at any point through the application process, you will be escorted to the locker room to retrieve your attire and items before you are taken to the airport. Again, everything you own will be locked and secured for you so that none of you need to worry about it being tampered with or stolen.

"Secondly, after we finish up here, you will be escorted upstairs to a locker room. Your measurements from the application process have given us access to creation of a wardrobe for you. Before the next stage of the application process, you will need to dress in the attire given to you. No jewelry or any other accessories may be worn through the application process. Anyone who fails to comply with this rule will be terminated immediately and you will be sent home.

"Thirdly, my associates here have contracts and nondisclosure agreements for you. Every point through the contract has been marked for you to sign and initial in the proper areas. You will not be given time to read this contract. A copy will be provided for you upon departure or success of the application process for you to look over and to read. I will tell you up front that this contract is ironclad and you will have no access to release from it. Any lawyer in the land will tell you that you probably should have consulted with them before signing it. Too bad. This is a now or never opportunity. Frankly put, when you have a chance to read this, you will find that Matterhorn will be monitoring you from this day forward.

"We have access to your email, phone records, and any other correspondence that might transfer information to another about what has happened here. How do we do this? Keywords and algorithms in a program that will be monitoring you. Should red lights appear, our technicians will investigate.

"I will tell you this now, breathe a word of what you see or any aspect of the application process within these walls, we will know and you will be sued into extreme poverty. Your entire life will be in ruins if you mess with us. However, if you never breathe a word about it, then you’ll be fine.

“Finally, anyone who is not comfortable with this, you are given the opportunity right now to walk away and there will be no consequences to this decisions. Matterhorn Company appreciates discretion and honesty with our surrogates and if you are not comfortable with anything that has happened within these walls, then feel free to walk away now. There will be no consequences and there will be no harm done to you financially or socially. This is your last chance.”

Tamara looked around the room, wondering who would be brave enough to leave at this point. Who would have the courage to walk away and do something so stupid as throw away the opportunity to have five million dollars? This was the point of no return and she was completely fine with it. She was more than willing to do what was necessary to make sure that she succeeded.

There was a moment of stillness, where she fully anticipated someone to get up, to make the coward’s call and to stop there.

Tamara had decided early on that if she didn’t succeed here, then she was going to be just fine with the nondisclosure agreement. She would never talk about this period in her life and she would never even waste a second on it. That was something that she would have absolutely no trouble with when she thought about it. Why would anyone want to spill secrets about some boring company full of suits and men who looked like the emperors of hell? That seemed insane to her and she was fully willing to keep her mouth shut about it. Taking a deep breath, she waited for the moment to end as Mr. Garrett looked from person to person, his eyes burning like coals in a fireplace.

Finally, the moment ended.

“Very well,” Mr. Garrett stood up straight. “My associates will hand out the contracts and the nondisclosure agreements for you to sign. Again, don’t waste time reading it now. I’ve told you the sinister seed within and I’m not afraid of it. You were given a chance to back out with prior knowledge of the contents. At this point, you’re eating up my time if you stall.”

The people who were dressed in their dark suits that rung in the beautiful women like a horde of starving dogs. They pulled out the contracts and handed them to each of the women, providing them clipboards to brace the paper if they needed it. Tamara took a contract and a clipboard from a man who hardly spent a second looking at her before he produced a pen for her to take. She took it from him and looked at the first page. Sure enough, it was more writing than she had ever seen in a contract and it seemed like it went on forever. On the sides, there were bright plastic tabs that told her to turn to certain pages. They were color coordinated to tell her where she would need to initial, sign her name, or sign her name and date the document. She went through all of it blindly, not wasting time in trying to read or take in anything. She wanted to be done with this as quickly as possible.

She felt like she was racing the rest of her competitors and when she was finally done, she handed it back to the man who was hovering near her. She let out a sigh of relief as he took it and looked over the document, checking to make sure she had signed everywhere she needed to. It was only wasting his time as he looked. When he was satisfied, he took the clipboard and pen from her, turned on his heel and headed back to the orbital ring of lackeys who were waiting. She looked around and saw the other women scribing their names in ornate, beautiful scrawls that seemed like a waste of time to her.

They weren’t here to make their names look beautiful. She wondered for a moment how many of these women were pageant girls, the kind of women who were raised and bred to be the most perfect and beautiful women in the world. How many of them were here because they had the good fortune to be born into a family that was rich and lavished with money.

“Very good,” Mr. Garrett said, clearing his throat as the last of the packets was picked up. “Now that this legal business is out of the way, I want to tell all of you that I’m very excited for the road ahead. If you would all be so helpful as to stand and follow me, we’ll begin the first part of the application process.”

Tamara nervously stood, feeling like she was about to be thrown from the frying pan into the fire. It was the most uncomfortable situation that she had ever been in, but it was so exhilarating to be here. She was ready for anything that they would throw at her. She was ready for all of it and more. They could do whatever they wanted to her and she was going to throw it right back at them. There was no way that she was walking out of this building without five million dollars. If she had to fight to the death against all of these women, she was going to do it no matter what.

The suits stayed in the lounge and Tamara couldn’t help but look at the woman behind the bar, cleaning the glasses of the few who had decided that they needed a drink before they continued on. She looked at all of them like she was watching gladiators about to enter the arena. There was something nerve-racking about the look she gave all of them and the soft smile on her lips, like she enjoyed watching all of the beautiful women walking to their demise.

Rounding the corner, Tamara thought that there were bathrooms there, but she was definitely wrong. The black granite walls revealed a silver door that was very easily identified as an elevator. Mr. Garrett stopped in front of this door and turned to face the women.

“As you are well aware, there are twelve of you,” he stated the obvious as he looked at them.

Tamara remained safely in the center of the group, not willing to stick out just yet. She would wait until her performance would do the speaking for her. In the end, it was the results that mattered and it wasn’t going to be up to a matter of opinion from Mr. Garrett. If that were the case, then she would have tried a lot harder to stick out just now.

“On the other side of this elevator ride, you’ll be getting dressed in the locker room and you will be preparing for the first application test of the day. I want to be completely clear at this point, failure to follow the rules that I had set out for you will end in the immediate termination of your place in this process. But, when you’ve completed your strip down and dressing, you will be taken to a gymnasium and you will be given an endurance test to qualify you for the second phase of the application process.

"At the end of the examination, three of you will be eliminated due to your lack in physical performance and endurance. If that is the case, you will be escorted back to the locker room and you will be thanked for you time and your effort in this examination. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Everyone nodded to him and in response. He pressed the button to call the elevator. When the doors opened, Tamara felt like there was going to be some sort of heavenly music, calling them up to the next plane of existence, but instead, it was silent. It was just a large elevator, waiting for all of them and as they stepped inside, she was surprised at how large and spacious it was on the inside. A dozen different perfumes mixed and mingled in an invisible, gaseous cloud when the doors closed and she could barely feel the elevator ascending.

And so it began.