Taken by my mate

Evadiene

Covyn hadn’t been gone long when I heard the all too familiar sound of a truck backing up. I went to open the garage doors, watching the truck approach, and when it backed into the bumpers I raised the ramp onto it so that it could be offloaded. The driver waited in his truck for longer than he needed to before coming in and I glanced at the clock, waving my arm at a camera on the wall when he finally came in. He barely regarded me, moving quickly to the truck and snapping the tag on the doors before handing me the papers.

“And the tag?” I asked, holding out my hand to confirm the numbers matched my papers.

He gave me a sideways look but handed it to me from his pocket. He then threw the door up and looked around the building, barking about how no one was around again and how he didn’t offload his own trailers.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

He laughed openly at me, eyeing Sequoia but I set her on a stack of pallets and moved to the ride on pallet jack. I had worked in many different warehouses over the years, and they were all set up basically the same. There was an open space by the doors that I started offloading the skids of shelf items into, driving the pallet jack probably faster than I should have been, but wanting to make the man choke on his laughter.

When that was threw I moved to the temperature controlled wall, behind which would be everything perishable. I marked down how it was broken, and the temperature was wrong, using my phone that was only good for photos and music now to document it. Once the wall was down, I started taking all of that off too, and moving it directly into the cold room, checking each skid as I went.

I was grabbing the last one when I heard a loud growl and my name, “Evadiene!”

I startled, jerking the throttle and spinning out with the pallet, nearly wedging myself between the machine and the wall of the cold room.

“What!?” I gasped when my heart had slowed enough to speak but he was already beside me, pulling me off the machine.

“What in the Goddess’s name do you think you’re doing?!” Covyn berated, looking me over like he was sure I’d beheaded myself and he just hadn’t noticed yet.

“Offloading your delivery?” I questioned.

“I have people for that!” He growled in return.

I folded my arms across my chest. “People that weren’t here, and I’m willing to bet I did it faster than them anyway.”

Another rumbling sound reverberated through his chest. “Well they’re here now, so let’s go.”

He grabbed my arm and started towing me away. “Wait!” I demanded, “I was the one to offload it, and there was more than a couple of things wrong with it.”

He rolled his eyes at me and it made me want to poke them out. “Like what?”

I began listing things on my fingers. “From the top? Broke the seal before I saw it, shitty partial wrap on all of the non-perishable skids, broken temp wall, shitty pallets,…..”

“My people will take care of it, hand it all over to Clyde,” he ordered.

I pointed to where I’d left the clipboard with all of my notes on it. Everything but my signature in place because I was sure I wasn’t supposed to put my name on anything. I saw a man go over to collect it from the corner of my eye, not letting my eyes leave Covyn’s face.

“Can I at least return the machine to its place?” I asked doubtfully.

“Absolutely not, you almost got yourself killed!”

I was about ready to start growling now. “Because you scared the fuck out of me! You can’t enter a mostly quiet room, start growling like that, and not think anyone would be startled!”

He looked around himself briefly before turning back to me. “It’s done, this is not your job,” he hushed. “Time to go.”

He wrapped his strong arm firmly around me, leading me from the warehouse, and I knew, without a doubt, that those men were going to fuck everything up.

We were silent moving outside, moving around the building, Sequoia more irritated than I was to leave the warehouse, as she had enjoyed aggressively clawing the stack of pallets beside the driver. When we had gone back the way we’d come, moving to the front of the pack house Covyn finally slowed his steps and looked at me.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. That machine can be very dangerous, for reasons that you demonstrated-.. and I know I startled you,” he interrupted me by talking a little louder. “I’ll always worry about you, but that scared the shit out of me.”

“That sounds like a you problem. I’ve used one of those machines a thousand times, and I hope you know that driver has probably gotten away with giving people food poisoning with practises like his. You basically aid in it by not reporting it, because he’ll go back to the records signed by your building that say he’s good when no one’s been checking.”

“You’re right,” he muttered regretfully, hopefully thinking the way I was that his food could still make me sick, even if their hearty wolven stomachs could take it.

“Most people would have appreciated me showing off,” I added. “I’m good at what I do.”

He smirked. “I don’t want anyone else to see you being amazing but me.”

I just rolled my eyes. “Going to be hard to hide this much raw, untapped talent.”

“If I could simply hide you away there would be so much less to worry about,” he laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it this time.

He rubbed his head, taking a step towards me as a group of males walked past greeting him. He growled low as his arm came around me and the men walked wider around us, seeming to shrink in on themselves with the sound.

“Can’t trust your own men with me?” I asked, one eye brow raised.

“Of course not! They are men, most of them unmated. When word gets around about where you worked…”

“You are embarrassed by me!” I snapped, and Sequoia hissed at my side.

The men who had passed turned back to stare and of course Covyn noticed.

He grabbed my arm roughly while hissing, “you will not yell at me…”

Sequoia leapt up to bite the hand that held me and I guessed what would happen next. As he released me I grabbed my cat and moved between them, getting the back hand he intended for her.

The sound of the back of his knuckles connecting with my cheek was something he regretted far more than I did. I thought about what that would have done to Sequoia even as his hand was still on me.

His men turned right around as I gasped in pain, looking between me and their Alpha like they weren’t sure what to do. Covyn turned to snap at them, to tell them to mind their own business I’m sure, but when he turned back I would already be gone, heading to the bedroom that would never be home.