Slade’s gaze shifted to Trisha. “I am not leaving you. Tell him to go deal with Justice’s projects. He can handle ordering a bunch of humans to build things on time as good as I can. They respond well when we snarl and show teeth. It motivates them to work faster to get away from us.”
Brass cursed. “I have no idea what projects need to be done. All I said was that you can leave to do your job during the day and I told you that you can stay with her at night.”
“She’s mine,” Slade growled. “You’re telling me when I can spend time with her? Don’t even try it. You have no say when it comes to my woman.”
“I’m telling you that I can take care of her while you are at work. You have a job, remember? She doesn’t need four of us sitting here watching her. She’s safe in the Wild Zone. Valiant promised to talk to the others and that she would be protected by all of them. He assured me no humans would come near her.”
Slade didn’t appear convinced. “Do you need me to show you who can protect her better? Do you want me to wipe the ground with you again?”
“Enough!” Trisha yelled, finally losing her temper. She realized they weren’t exactly normal men but their dominating nature started to irritate her. She glared at Slade. “You, stop beating your chest and threatening my friends.” Her attention fixed on Brass next. “And you, stop baiting him.” She sighed, lowering her voice as she stared at Slade. “You do have a job to do and I’m fine here. I don’t see why you can’t go to work and come home to me at the end of the day.”
“Fine,” Slade snarled. “Choose your friend over me.” He stomped to the door.
“Slade? Stop thinking that way,” Trisha groaned. “That’s not it. Please just—”
Slade spun when he reached the door. “I will see you tonight.”
He stormed out and slammed the door. Trisha walked to the couch and threw herself down, cursing softly. She sensed three pairs of eyes on her and she looked back at each of them.
“Why did him saying that sound as if it were a threat?”
Moon grinned at Trisha. “Because it was.”
“Yeah,” Harley agreed. “You’re going to get it tonight.” He removed the popcorn from the microwave. “But I doubt he’d let us watch whatever it is he will be plotting to do to you to get even. I do enjoying watching porn movies though. I’m betting that it would be a good show. Too bad.”
“Porn?” Trisha sputtered, shooting Harley a glare. “That’s not funny.”
“He won’t hurt you but…” Moon winked at her. “I bet he’s going to think up something good to do to you. He’ll want to convince you to pick him next time if there’s an issue of you choosing.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
Brass laughed. “We are aggressive and competitive. It’s our nature. He’s going to probably do something that soothes his pride.”
“His pride? I wasn’t picking you over him. What do you think he’s planning? Come on, guys. I’m a doctor for goodness sake. Stop talking in riddles. What do you think he’s going to do to me?”
“My guess?” Moon grinned. “He’s going to turn you on until he makes you beg him to fuck you. He’ll want to show you who your body belongs to and why he’s your male. Then his pride will be fixed where you dented it.”
“He’s canine.” Harley chuckled. “I know what I’d do to a woman if I wanted to show her I was in charge. I’d mount her and—”
“Harley!” Brass snarled, giving him a dirty look. “Shut up.”
“What? I was just going to say I’d ride her until she couldn’t move.” He winked at Trisha. “Us dogs are hornier than hell and we can go for hours.”
Brass groaned and wore a disgusted expression as he glanced at Trisha. “Never ask a dog his opinion about sex. Big mistake.”
Trisha laughed. “I’m hungry. Is anyone else ready for breakfast?” She lifted an eyebrow at Harley and his popcorn. “That’s disgusting to eat this early.”
“Breakfast, hell. I had the night shift. I’m going to go to bed after I eat this. This is my midnight snack.”* * * * *
Slade stared at the desk and was certain Trisha had to be trying to drive him crazy. He hated being inside, surrounded by walls, and the temporary office was nothing more than a large rectangular box on wheels. The entire place smelled of humans and although he was adjusting to the scent, he didn’t want to be around any, not trusting them completely. He turned his head to watch four of them working at other desks. Two were on the phone, one sipped coffee, and the last one scratched his head while staring at blueprints opened up in front of him.
“Is there a problem, Richard?”
The human dropped his fingers from his hair. “Nope. I’m just trying to figure out how we’re going to finish this clubhouse to meet the deadline. I kept telling Mr. North that nobody can build something this size in just a few months. We have all the framing up but we still have a lot to do.”
“What will it take?” Slade sighed. He knew the answer already—more money to hire more men to work around the clock.
“I think we’ll make it but just pray for good weather. One bad storm front and we’re screwed. It will set us back.”
“Then what is the problem?”
The human hesitated. “We’ve been having a few issues of really bad luck.”
“Such as?” Slade cocked his eyebrow.
Richard bit his lip. “Someone has been screwing with the site.”
Slade tensed with alarm. “What kind of problems? What is going on? Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“I believed at first the stuff going wrong was just accidental. The crews are working seven days a week in twelve-hour shifts. I thought maybe one or two of them made mistakes because they were tired but it keeps happening. I’m beginning to think it’s not so innocent. This morning one of the guys got hurt because one of the ladders was messed with. He’s fine but we were lucky it broke immediately. It could have killed him if he’d climbed higher or worked on the third level. I inspected the ladder and determined someone purposely damaged it.”
“You should have informed me before now.” Slade lifted his phone. “I’ll send a few officers down there to keep an eye out. That should dissuade anyone from doing more harm.”
“Thanks.”
Slade nodded. He had been afraid something bad would happen. There were groups out there who would enjoy nothing more than to cause trouble. Having hundreds of humans at Reservation invited a way for some of them to sneak onto the property to give them the opportunity to do harm.
“I’ll order more security on all the working sites. I don’t want anyone to get hurt or be killed.” His finger had barely touched the numbers when the office door jerked open loudly. Tiger rushed inside.
“Slade? We have a problem.”
Slade studied Tiger. They had become good friends after they’d been freed from captivity. They had lived and roomed together with other males in a remote motel for the months that had followed until the New Species Homeland had been opened.
“What is it?”
“We’re missing human males.”
“How many?” Slade grabbed his radio, dropped the phone, and rose to his feet quickly.
“There are exactly fourteen males unaccounted for and we’re missing two work trucks. Just as you ordered, we count heads every hour and from last one, that’s how many disappeared. I talked to both gates and they didn’t leave. They are still here somewhere.”
“Son of a bitch,” Slade growled. “Attention,” he demanded into the radio, rushing for the door. “We have fourteen human males in two trucks unaccounted for. Find them quickly.”
Slade sprinted for one of the Jeeps with Tiger following. “Where do you think they would have gone?”
“I don’t know.” Tiger jumped in the passenger seat. “But we’ll find them.”
“Slade?” The voice on their radios spoke.
“He’s with me.” Tiger used his own radio to answer. “What is it?”
“Two trucks passed one of the security guards about twenty minutes ago, heading for the Wild Zone. It wasn’t questioned because a crew had been scheduled to go work on the electrical system along the security walls out that way. We double-checked and they weren’t sent out there yet. Whoever was spotted there shouldn’t have been in the area without an escort by our officers but the human guards didn’t know that.”
“Shit,” Slade growled. “Trisha is out there.”
Tiger groaned. “Why would she be? It’s not safe. Have you lost your mind? I thought we’d decided to set her up on the top floor of the hotel and have the access limited.”
“Plans were changed.”
“Is there a reason for that? A human has no business out there. The males have marked their territory and wouldn’t welcome her there despite her being female.”
Slade hesitated. “You could say that.”
“What is she doing out there? No humans are allowed inside the Wild Zone. How did you talk them into allowing her into their territory? They’ve become really territorial and they’d have smelled her pretty quickly.”