When Harper stumbled out of the Rusty Nail he was tired and hungry. One more hunt and he would replenish the strength he lost with that fight. He had a kill under his belt and his face showed the horror and satisfaction of it all.
Then it came to him that this was no way to live or die. He couldn’t kill werewolves. For his knowledge there weren’t many he knew of. If they continued with this war against each other, there would be none left.
There was no going back. From what Harper knew there was no reversing the process.
Maybe that was a good thing to rid the world of werewolves if they behaved like animals, Harper thought. It had been a bad thought. Now he had to concentrate on what to do next. He would go back to San Francisco and meet the woman Michael had suggested would be a good fit for him. He knew after his fight, and after killing Redlin, he had changed in his thinking and with his body.
Now he became aware that he had to use his instincts and mind to shift quickly. There were too many natural enemies, especially men and other werewolves that were bent on killing him. But no werewolf should kill another, half human and wolf, without it getting to him.
This was his species now and there was no way he would reveal this to his bride. Wow! He began thinking in terms of marrying someone. He had to agree that Michael was right.
After driving back to his property and hunting an elk, chasing it down, and making the kill, this time Harper thought nothing of the kill. He packed the meat into his truck and stopped at a local store to get ice to keep it from spoiling. He would need fresh red meat until he could get back to the town he had planned to name Samsaville.
As he drove to his home, he used that time to map out everything in his mind. A large ranch with enough rooms for his children. But first a bride for a werewolf. He smiled at the thought because it was ironic. Just recently he had asked Elisabeth to marry him.
He was a man then. Thinking and behaving like a man. Young and thinking only one way. Thinking about marriage to a beautiful woman of statue and status in the community. Now that was over and he’s a werewolf. Yet his thoughts weren’t that much different, but his idea of a wife had changed.
Harpers priorities had changed. He needed a woman who would accept him for him with all his insecurities and the hideous aspect of seeing him for himself—the werewolf he had become—a killer who ate the uncooked flesh of animals. He took a full breath and exhaled.
That would be a tall job for any woman. The thought of a school and hospital for shifters crossed his mind. He needed to make this a reality, but if he couldn’t find a human to marry him, he would settle for one of the were-cats.
They appeared more than ready and eager to mate with him.
Driving up to the portico and parking under it he hopped out at five o’clock in the morning. The staff had been up and congregating in the kitchen. When he stood in the doorway with blood on his shirt they just stared.
“There is a large deer in my truck. Please have it skinned and cleaned by eleven am.” And he turned, but then he swiveled around and said, “Don’t bother to cook the meat. I’m sleeping in until noon.” He didn’t tell them why he wanted the meat raw nor did they ask. The staff looked to each other.
The one cook, one maid, and one butler never took Harper to be eccentric, but with all his money, they suspected that sooner or later he would show some of the tendencies of a spoil rich kid.
When Emily strode out of bed on the first floor, Harper was climbing into his bed. After a bath she zipped up her uniform. “Why do I have to wear this?” she murmured. “There are three people in this house.” But she knew why. It was to prevent anyone from mistaking her for anything other than what she was—a maid.
Strolling into the kitchen, to get her orders, she sat at the table and the cook handed her a plate of eggs and bacon and toast. “Why do they have me here? There’s not that much for me to do.”
“You are young. It seems like not too much work. If you were old you wouldn’t ask that question. Today you have to clean Mr. Harper’s room he’s back,” the butler chimed in. Although she had been excited when the offer of marriage came from his lawyer, she thought it only right that she should refuse. He had just jilted Elisabeth and who knows what he wanted her for, she thought.
After meeting with his lawyer, she didn’t put much thought into it. Maybe something was wrong with him. Maybe he didn’t have a penis. Maybe he was into deviant sex. Maybe he would tie her up in one of his rooms, and wouldn’t let her out.
Who knows what was wrong with rich handsome men who wanted to marry their maids.
Although she thought well of herself, it was still the idea in the back of her mind that something had to be wrong with him. And it was, but she didn’t know that, nor did she know what could have him asking his lawyer to find a woman for him. All of this was too suspicious and she was happy she didn’t have to wonder any more.
She would graduate from college and get a job and put this all behind her.
“Don’t you have something to do?” The old man said looking at Emily who had just finished her breakfast. She didn’t say anything, she picked up the items she used to dust with, and turned and walked away.
It would take her all day because the house was so large. She decided to start with the upstairs and then make his bed when she got around to Harper’s room. By then he would be up, she thought.
As she moved from one room to the next dusting and changing the covers, she heard a loud moaning and thrashing coming from Harper’s room. She tried to ignore it, but the clamor and smashing of glass was disturbing.
Emily turned the knob, but the door was locked. When she pivoted to walk away, the door opened slightly. “Who’s there?” he murmured.
All she saw was a pair of gold colored eyes in the dark. His face covered with a light beard. He stood naked with a powerful chest broad with muscles. Most of him hid behind the door, but from what she saw of him, there was no man as impressive in statue or devilishly handsome as him—Harper Samsa.
“I heard a noise and I thought something was wrong. You are, Mr. Samsa?”
“Who else would be in my room?” His tone strong and commanding.
“I’ve seen you before, but you never looked like this.”
“It’s my beard?”
“That and I’ve never seen you naked before.” He glanced down and stepped behind the door leaving a small gap.
“I apologize. It will never happen again.” And he closed the door. Emily stood staring at the closed door not knowing what to make of him. When she had dusted every picture and vase throughout the house it was one o’clock. Rushing to her room by way of the kitchen she burst through the door.
“What do we have for dinner?” Sitting at the table with a large piece of red meat on a plate sat Harper. The cook brought over a plate of salad for her.
“It has everything you asked for. You’ll like it, dear.” Emily looked over at Harper and he got up and walked out without saying anything to her.
“What’s wrong with Mr. Harper?”
“He could be heartbroken over Miss Elisabeth. Ever since he came back from Nevada he’s been acting kind of strange.”
“You mean it isn’t natural for him to walk around naked? And to cry out in his sleep. Well not really crying out he was groaning and moaning and breaking things.”
“It could be he’s upset over his father dying and then there’s Miss Elisabeth, who is just like that, got herself engaged to a friend of his. Men can’t handle what women can handle. They go to pieces fast when they have one little problem or when someone disappoints them. Take his father. He never married after the death of his wife.”
“What about Harper?”
“He was too young to remember her.”
“That’s why there are no pictures with the family together?”
“He has no family. Only us. He wanted a large family, but when Miss Elisabeth refused to marry him, I think he just fell apart.” Emily smiled because she knew the truth. Harper refused to marry her but she made it seem like she was in love with someone else. And now she is marrying that someone to get back at Harper.
Maybe she should take the lawyer up on his proposals. But why should she try to ease his broken heart by sacrificing her own. But Harper is a man she could love. He is so handsome and appeared to be needy. She understood needy. She took care of her father all her life, and now she couldn’t. By marrying him she could help her destitute father, and if the marriage didn’t work out, she could leave Harper.
But she didn’t want to think about that because she couldn’t imagining ever leaving him unless he proved to be a horrible man.
Emily walked to her room after her talk with the cook. She called the lawyer’s number.
“This is Emily Mason.”
“I know who you are and where the call is coming from.”
“Well that is a scary thought. Do you always keep checks on the household staff?”
“Only the ones who are important to Mr. Samsa.”
“I’ve reconsidered your offer.” A long pause.
“I’m afraid Mr. Samsa isn’t interested in you. He’s not interested in marrying a virgin.”
“You didn’t ask me if I were a virgin.”
“I’m not in the habit of asking something that personal.”
“What made you think I was a virgin?”
“Well are you or aren’t you?” Emily didn’t want to start off a relationship with a lie, but she thought this could solve her problem with college and with helping her father. She rationalized that she was lying for a good cause. One she will have to deal with in the future. Because after all what man doesn’t want a virgin?
“I’m not a virgin.”
“You will have to prove it.”
“How am I going to do that?” Emily’s voice raised to a shrill tone.
“You will have to see his doctor by the first of the month. I will make an appointment for you. My secretary will call you with the time and location. If everything works out, then you will have to come in and sign the papers. Mr. Samsa doesn’t know it’s you and I won’t tell him until you have been certified not a virgin.”
“I have to go to my classes. I don’t have time to discuss it with you any longer?” And Emily hung up the phone. She dressed in a pair of jeans and white shirt and threw on a dark leather jacket. It was her mother’s old jacket she left when she ran from Emily’s father.
As she was entering the library, she bumped into Stanley going out. She pulled his arm and said, “I have to talk to you, Stanley.”
“This will have to be good or fast. I have a class in fifteen minutes.”
“Come on sit with me.” They found a couch in the back near a large open glass wall. “I have a problem.”
“If it’s money, I won’t have any until the first of the month.”
“I don’t need money now. I’m working. What I need is for you to break something for me.” He glanced at her curious. “I need you to break...” she swallowed hard because she felt sick saying it and especially to her friend.
“I need you to...to...break my hymen,” she whispered soft and low. He had to lean in to hear her.
“What is that, like a part of you? I’ve heard of that before. It’s not a finger or a leg, which I would never do, but this hymen, what the fuck is that?”