Caught in the Middle

Nadia Aidan Mating Season

*

To Rosie, Roxy and April

Chapter One

“I need you and Roarke to mate with me.”

Detective Gabriel Alekseev had just taken a sip of his morning coffee only to have it come spewing back up to stain the papers across his desk.

He stared at his partner and friend of almost two years, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

“What the hell did you just say?”

“You heard me, Gabriel. I need you and Roarke to mate with me,” Collette Talbot repeated as she folded her arms across her chest.

He stared at her in shock, unable to believe how calm she appeared, as if what she was suggesting wasn’t the least bit bizarre.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath. Where did he even begin?

“Okay, putting your statement aside for just a moment, can I ask you why you require the services of me and my best friend?”

For the first time since she’d barged into his office, she actually looked distressed. Well good, because that made two of them. She flopped down in the leather chair on the other side of his desk and released a sigh, her lovely cinnamon face glowing red as if she could barely contain a fury that simmered just beneath the surface.

“I’m in heat, or at least I will be in a week.”

Seconds ticked by in silence before he realised she wasn’t going to elaborate. “Okay, and?” He hedged.

“And, this will be my tenth cycle in heat.”

Gabriel felt all the blood he’d consumed that morning drain from his face. He wasn’t privy to all of the rituals that went with each supranatural species, but he knew enough about lycans to know mating season only came around once a decade, and it was a time of intense physical and sexual urges for lycan females, so intense that one man wasn’t always enough to satisfy her.

“You want Roarke and me to mate with you, during your mating season?” He frowned at the high pitch of his voice, shocked that he sounded like a teenage boy, but still more shocked by what she’d said.

“Yep, pretty much.” She shrugged, seemingly unfazed by any of this, and that made him all the more nervous.

“Pretty much?Damn it Collette, are you insane?”

Detective Collette Talbot cringed as her partner let loose a string of curses, his rising temper infusing his cheeks with crimson heat.

“You march in here, with this half-baked plan, and you haven’t even worked out all the details in your head, especially the part about how we’re partners and something like this could pose a problem. I can tell by how flippant you’re being that you haven’t even thought this through. When did you come up with this idea? Last night?”

This morning.“I don’t see why you’re so upset. And being partners really has nothing to do with this.” She wisely chose not to address the half-baked plan part. He was already mad enough.

He shot her a quelling look, as if to say being partners had everything to do with it.

“Why can’t you just do it with another supra?”

Do it? She frowned at his offhand comment. He made it sound as if she could just go roam the streets and pick up any guy who happened to walk by, but they both knew she couldn’t. Her mating season was far too intimate. She wanted to spend it with someone she knew, someone she trusted.

“If you were me, would you want some random supra during a time like this?” She guessed not, given the dark frown that shadowed his face.

“But you go through mating season every ten years. Why do you need Roarke and me now? What have you done in the past?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always slept with humans, but with that new law about supraspreying on humans-or doing anything that even looks like preying-well, that means humans are no longer an option. When I’m in mating heat, things can get a little wild. No one has ever been hurt before-” She shrugged again. “But let’s just say things get a bit wild.”

She almost burst out laughing at the strained expression on Gabe’s face. He looked like he’d rather be having this conversation with anyone else but her.

“I don’t understand what is so wrong with you just bonding with another lycan. You’re almost a century old now. How long do you plan to put off starting a family?”

Her brows knitted together as she frowned at him, her blood simmering with anger at his audacity. The purpose of mating season was for lycan females to do just that and mate-but with a lycan male, which meant during that time females were more susceptible to bonding urges and highly fertile. But over the centuries, many lycan females had shunned the notion of mating simply for the sake of making pups, choosing instead to mate with humans and other supra, who they were less likely to form a bond with, and more importantly, less likely to wind up pregnant by. As long as she stayed away from a lycan male, she would be fine-for the most part.

“You seem so certain of what I should do with my life, but what about yours? How long do you plan on putting off having a family?”

His face reddened some more, if that was even possible, and he seemed visibly flustered by her question. “This isn’t about me.”

“Exactly. This isn’t about you, it’s about me, and you know I’ve said many times before that I’m not ready to mate and have pups. So, let’s just leave it at that,” she said, wincing slightly at her brusque tone. It wasn’t Gabe’s fault that he’d hit a sensitive nerve, but she couldn’t help but bristle at his comment. Her entire family had an opinion about when she was going to start a family. She didn’t need Gabe to add his two cents to the list.

“You’re right. It’s not my life, but if I found someone to mate with, I don’t think I would run from that person.”

She bit back the snappish reply on the tip of her tongue, at his self righteous tone. He couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want a mate, just because he did. He hid it well, but she knew him better than most, and she knew his life was a lonely one. Deep down, Gabe yearned for the solace a mate would provide, the warmth of her touch, the reassurance that his existence was now meaningful. She understood Gabe’s longing, because at times, she felt it, too, and just like him, she did her best to keep her yearnings buried deep.

He accused her of running from her mate, but she wanted to remind him that she wasn’t running from her intended mate. Hell, if such a mate existed, she wouldn’t run at all, but he didn’t exist, and she refused to be tied to a mate and have his pups when she wasn’t in love with him.

But even if that wasn’t an issue, there was simply no room in her life for a family with her job as a detective for the Las Vegas Supernatural Crime Unit. Her duties kept her so swamped with crazy hours and a mountain of cases that a heart mate and a pup were the last things she needed right now, which was why she’d turned to Gabriel.

Her handsome partner and his equally gorgeous best friend were a temptation she wasn’t sure she should entice herself with, but they were her only option. When she went into heat, every lycan in the nearby vicinity would pick up her scent, and the first one to get to her would win the prize. She was far too independent and in control of her life to leave her future to chance.

“Look Gabe, I know there are some details that I still need to work out, but I wouldn’t have come to you if I hadn’t thought this through-” Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d spent the thirty-minute drive into work mulling it over, but really there wasn’t too much to consider. She could either mate with another lycan and kiss her life, as she knew it, good-bye or take her chances with Gabriel and Roarke. When it came to the men in her life, there were no others she trusted more, which was why they were her first, last and only option.

“You and Roarke are really my only option.”

“Your only option for what?”

Collette spun around in her chair as Detective Roarke Dimitru strolled into Gabe’s office with all the confidence and swagger of the city’s second oldest vampire.

She furled her lips into a small smile as her gaze raked over the ruggedly handsome man with his stubbled jaw and chestnut brown locks that curled lazily around his broad shoulders. His green eyes danced with flirtatious laughter. In a word, Roarke was the consummate playboy, and he knew it.

“Collette wants us to fuck her.”

She shot Gabriel a hard look as her lips thinned into a tight frown. He didn’t have to put it that way exactly, no matter that was exactly how she’d posed it to him.

“Hell yeah. I’m all in.”

“Of course, you are,” Gabriel said dryly to the man who’d been his best friend for over two centuries.

She ignored Gabriel as she flashed Roarke a warm smile.

“Thanks, Roarke. I knew I could count on you.”

“Oh please, Collette. The only reason why you can count on Roarke is because he thinks with the head in his pants-”

“Hey! I resent that.” Everyone might have actually believed that had Roarke not been standing there, wearing a smug grin, as if he was proud of his scandalous reputation. She shook her head as a smile spread across her face. Knowing Roarke, he probably was.