His smell was a give-in. She wanted to park her car in the s.p.a.ce that was vacant right next but was peeved at the bicycle man. She had to punish him for parking his vehicle where cars were supposed to be parked. So after giving him his due, Dawn went directly to her office. The Manager, Yolanda Smith was standing there near the door, talking with all the new recruits. "Mr. Rick has sent fresh instructions about the new project. He said that the CEO wasn"t there in his office yesterday, so the project will get delayed." Dawn joined the group. A boy asked, "So should we go back to our departments?"
"Yes, you should," Yolanda said.
"Manager Smith, can you tell us an estimated time as to when we will begin," asked another employee. He was sad that he would lose an opportunity to work with the CEO.
Yolanda was wearing a peach colored s.h.i.+rt with matching pants. Her lipstick was the same and she had applied gloss all over it. She had taken extra care of her curly hair that was pinned in a neat bun on the top of her head. She looked at Dawn from the corner of her eyes and scoffed. Dawn looked like a rookie in front of her, wearing a pointed black skirt and light blue chiffon top that had a ribbon on the collar. Her wavy hair was open and they framed her face falling around her shoulders. "Why are you late?" she said in a stern tone.
"I am not late. There was an issue I had to take care of, in the parking area," Dawn replied.
Yolanda shrugged and said, "Whatever. But you have to enter your thumbprint in the office building and that will be taken as your entry time. You need to work for an exact number of hours, else your money will be cut."
Dawn looked at her watch and smirked, "Fine. I will work for ten minutes extra." Petty. She could hear others giggle. "In fact, let me go and enter my biometrics or else it would become eleven minutes." Two boys couldn"t resist chuckling.
"Please do," Yolanda"s face twisted. She was sure that today she would accompany this rookie to the thirtieth floor and make sure that the CEO noticed her too.
Dawn simply pressed her thumb in the scanner and entered the office. As she walked to her cubicle, she noticed that all the chairs had been replaced with nice cus.h.i.+oned ones. Employees were sitting comfortably. The office looked perked up. When she reached her cubicle she saw a huge aquarium just a few feet away freshly installed in the corner. There were numerous brilliant color fish swimming across from one corner to the other. A smile spread on her lips. She loved the ambience. Feeling light, she kept her purse on the table and switched on her computer. There was a string of emails with different project details in her inbox. But first, she knew that she had to apologize to Daryn for leaving the office so abruptly yesterday.
---
Daryn Silver had spent the entire night in the mountains with Neal on his trail. When he was too tired, he ran up the hill where he had a small cottage. Neal went with him over there. Daryn shape-s.h.i.+fted, took a bath and went to lie in his bed. The waterfall behind his cottage cascaded brutally like emotions in his brain. He didn"t want to go to the office. He closed his eyes and all his nightmares returned. Dawn was getting hunted by a bunch of neotides. A shrill sound interrupted his dream and he opened his eyes with a jerk. He rose, panting heavily. "Dawn!" he rasped. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was 11AM. He went back to his pillow. Lazily, he picked up his phone to switch it off, when suddenly there was a ping. It was a message from Dawn. Daryn"s mind became numb and the phone fell from his hands. He stared at it. With quivering hands, he picked the phone again and rubbed his eyes to make sure that it was text from Dawn. Lightly, he tapped the message open.
Good morning, Sir. I am sorry for leaving the office abruptly yesterday. I can handle the project today.
No explanations as to why she left - just a simple text that she was ready for the project. Daryn stared at the message. The word "Sir" made every muscle in his body clench. He imagined her on her knees in front of him. Dominance. At first he smiled, then his smile turned into a grin and then it turned into an ear-splitting grin. His ears became red with excitement. He removed the blanket and sprang up to get ready. When he came out twenty minutes later, he was puffed with so much energy that Neal stopped eating his cereal and looked up at the beaming man in front of him.
"We are going to the office," he announced.
Neal narrowed his eyes. Very slowly he took a spoon of cereal in his mouth. "We will go, but I need to talk to you Daryn."
Daryn sighed. "Neal, I am in no mood to listen to a sermon."
"But you have to," Neal said in a harsh tone. He waited for Daryn to sit.
Daryn only donned a stubborn expression on his face. He picked up the pineapple juice can from the table and sipped.
Neal clenched his jaw and then releasing his frustration, said, "You are engaged to Maya and Dawn is—." He shook his head. "This is going to be disastrous for the Silver Crescent tribe, for you and for Dawn. She would become a thorn in the eyes of many. Not only neotides would go against her, but even the purebloods. Will the purebloods even accept a neotide as their Luna?"
Daryn growled not liking the name of Dawn coming from someone else"s mouth. Well, that was a first. But then there were too many firsts he had experienced in the last 24 hours. "I can"t think straight at the moment Neal, so just don"t talk about any of that with me. Right now I want to go to the office. Also don"t talk about Dawn."
Neal tilted his head. His cousin was behaving like a teen in love. He wasn"t thinking of the consequences. He wasn"t bothered about how things would turn. He became scared for the little neotide. He lowered his head and shook it. "You go. I have to take a bath. I will join later." But they belonged to a pack and he would protect him.
"Okay!" Daryn said gruffly and stormed out.
Neal pursed his lips. He had pledged his life to his brother. He followed him whenever he ran to the mountains so that Daryn could take his steam off. Last night he needed to vent his frustrations out, else he would have gone wayward. He knew that Daryn"s instincts of mating with Dawn had triggered. It was just a matter of time.
Half an hour later Daryn was parking his car in his designated s.p.a.ce. His bicycle was stashed behind Dawn"s car. His lips curled. He picked it up from there, brought it behind her car and chained it with hers. His heart raced smelling her scent all the way to the lobby. He reached his office and instructed Reyna, "Ask the new team to come up. They will start with the project now."
"Yes Sir."
What happened in the next one hour was unexpected.
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