WALK ON THE STRIPED SIDE
GAGE
MARCH 2010—
FORT BRAGG ARMY BASE,
NORTH CAROLINA
“What do you mean I can’t pick up my weapon?”
Gage Ivanov was in no mood to be fucked with by the woman looking blankly back at him from the other side of the desk that separated them. One would think he’d be in a better mood. He’d finally caught up on some desperately needed sleep after being awake forty-eight hours for a mission. This was not the case. If anything, he felt as if he was approximately three point two seconds from flipping his shit, which would involve tearing the door off the Fort Bragg Military Police’s inner sanctum, stalking past the annoying female with a tantalizing scent that was starting to drive him insane and then collecting his Heckler & Koch MK 23 his damn self from the evidence room. Screw the harpy for saying he couldn’t have his issued side arm back.
Taking a deep breath to try to battle his building anger, he blew it out slowly and decided to give the feeble human another chance before he did something drastic, like pin her to a wall and kiss the ever living shit out of her.
Whoa.
Gage rubbed his forehead and wondered where the hell that crazy thought had come from. That idea was flat out ridiculous. He must be loopy still from lack of sleep. He’d probably meant that he’d pin her to the wall and scare the shit out of her, not kiss her. Yeah, that sounded better.
Shaking his head to clear the crazy thoughts, he looked back to the female. Through his frustration he had to admit that she was unconventionally pretty. Most humans were short to his six-foot-five frame, but she seemed tall for her race. When she’d led him past the front counter shielded by bulletproof glass that she’d greeted him at to her desk to question him, he’d sized her up to be somewhere around five-feet-nine. She would be close to the perfect fit to rest his chin on the top of her head if he was holding her. However she looked a bit on the thin side, and he usually liked women with ample curves. Some body parts should jiggle, dammit. At least she wasn’t anorexic skinny; more like athletically built. Next to his broad, brawny build she’d look downright tiny in size. She was dressed in her fatigues with her brown hair, which was so dark it almost looked black, pulled back in a tight bun on the back of her head. Between the dark hair, the slightly olive-tinged complexion and her narrow, almost aquiline nose, she more than likely had a Mediterranean background. Perhaps Italian or Greek.
He quickly noted that she had quite possibly the prettiest blue-green eyes he’d seen in all of his two hundred sixty-two years. Amazing eyes or no amazing eyes, nothing would stop him from giving her a dressing down that could go down in this Army’s history books if she didn’t hurry the hell up and give him back his weapon. He had better things to do with his time right then, like sleep some more, or make the short drive home so he could hunt down a deer on his property. Shifting into his tiger and using his claws and teeth to eat dinner sounded kind of perfect to assuage his bad mood.
The last time he’d been this mad at another soldier had been during the Russo-Persian War of 1804-1813. Back then, he’d damn near torn apart a Commanding Officer of the Infantry with his claws for a tactical error that could have cost them the battle and too many men to count. Usually, Tigers were either too lazy or just didn’t care enough to get involved or get mad about something, but this female with her clenched jaw and stubborn lines set around that mouth he couldn’t seem to stop looking at was testing him.
He looked down to her name tag stitched onto the front of her uniform to see just who the hell he was dealing with.
DEMOS.
The three stripes on her uniform also gave him her rank.
“Look, Sergeant Demos, I’m sure it was a simple mistake. My team just came in from a mission, we were all dog tired, and I probably left it on the Black Hawk, right? Although I don’t remember taking it out of my holster. I know it’s not acceptable to leave one’s weapon lying around, but let’s see how well you function after not catching some shut eye for two days. Let’s just say I’ve learned my lesson. It’ll never happen again. Now, give me whatever paperwork I need to sign saying that you’re relinquishing the weapon back into my possession and then hand it over.”
He flicked his fingers, palm side up and open in a hand-it-over gesture as he stared across the desk, trying to look as if he was patiently waiting. If he had been hunting for his dinner, then patiently waiting would be fine. Otherwise, it was something he didn’t care to bother with. Why wait patiently for something when you could just flash a little fang and scare your opponent into giving you whatever it was you wanted? Except he couldn’t flash his canines here, and that only pissed him off more.
When the female continued to sit stiff-backed in her chair and stare at him as though he was a moron, he felt his claws prick the insides of his skin, begging to be released to do something that would relieve his agitation. He had to hurry up and get the hell out of here.
Snarling a little, he snapped at her, “If that simple task is in some way, shape or form too complicated for you to perform, Sergeant, then perhaps your CO should send you back to your AIT school to re-take your training courses. Maybe, while you’re there, you can learn how to do something more complicated than annoying the shit out of your superiors.”
The scent of extreme anger rolled off the brunette. He really could care less that he’d made her mad. No, what was really starting to bother him was that the smell of her pissed off was even more appealing to him than the way she’d smelled before. Since he was currently battling the overwhelming urge to either go furry or sex her up as if he was hopped up on Viagra, it just irked him that this little human could do anything that would make him want her more than he already did.
The sound of her teeth grinding drew his attention back to those plump lips that were currently flattened into a thin line of irritation.
“Sir, I cannot return your pistol to you because it has been formally confiscated pending an investigation. Your issued Heckler & Koch MK 23 was found in Major General Fetherman’s daughter’s bedroom.” The irritated woman held three fingers up and practically shoved them into his face. “Which means one of three possibilities. Either Ms. Fetherman managed to get into a secure area so that she could have access to the Black Hawk and found your gun there. Or, number two, you didn’t head straight to your premises for that shut eye you claimed to have been so desperate for. Instead, you met Ms. Fetherman somewhere and she took your weapon from you while you were otherwise pre-occupied since you don’t remember taking it out of your holster. One can only imagine what the two of you were doing that you would be so distracted for her to be able to procure your weapon without you having noticed.” She cocked an eyebrow at him in disgust. “Or, the third possibility is that perhaps you went to Major General Fetherman’s residence to meet with his daughter in her room where you accidentally left your weapon. Would you care to clarify which of these three scenarios is correct?” That dainty eyebrow came back down so she could shoot him a condescending look before she grudgingly added “Sir” onto the end of her rant. It was clear as day that she’d loathed giving him even that little bit of respect and had done it only to keep her ass out of trouble.
Never mind how good she looked, or that she smelled like sex on a stick, he was going to bend this arrogant young woman over his lap and paddle her ass for talking to a higher ranking soldier like that. For talking to him like that. His tiger was going nuts underneath his skin. The need to exert his dominance over her, to show her just who the fuck was in charge here, was riding him hard—harder than ever before—which bothered him. Combine that with the insane urge to show her who the bigger predator was and it caused a niggling suspicion that there was more going on here than good, old fashioned annoyance or the need to lose himself in a warm, willing body.
Sucking on his teeth in extreme agitation, he opted for denial. There was absolutely no way that this woman could be a possible mate. Surely fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to try and pair him off with a fragile human that could be easily killed. He wasn’t entirely sure, but the signs of compatibility were there—the natural pheromones to attract one mate to the other. His Tiger was going wild inside of him.
He was going to choose to think that those pesky coincidences didn’t mean shit. Even better, he was going to ignore those signals in the name of self-preservation. He’d never wanted a human for a mate in the past, and that wasn’t changing over an intoxicating scent, a pair of unusually pretty eyes, and the need to fuck a better attitude into her. Nope, he’d rather be mate-less, or settle for a mate that both his human and beast’s side didn’t crave with a dangerous intensity. He would rather find a mate they could grow to care for, and who would be something much sturdier than this very breakable human.
Since he wasn’t paying attention to her at the moment, he only distantly heard her say, “Helllllloo… Master Sergeant Ivanov? Are you sure you want to stick to that story about getting some sleep because you don’t seem to be all there upstairs to me?” Delicate fingers snapped in front of his face a couple of times, bringing his attention back to the object of his thoughts.
As he looked at her impatient face he made a silent vow to himself; whether there was a possibility or not of her being his mate, if the disagreeable woman didn’t stop antagonizing him, he was going to break every unspoken rule in the supernatural Other community and unleash his claws on her backside.
As his eyes zeroed in on the unconscious, nervous movement of the tip of her pink tongue swiping over her bottom lip, Gage thought, Claws and a good pop on the ass ought to scare some respect into her.
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