Damon stared down at the text message on his phone for the third time, frowning as he read the words from his boss. He threw it on his desk, leaned back in his chair, and scrubbed his hands over his eyes. She couldn't be serious! He sat up with a sigh and stared around at his new office, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into.
He thought back to the conversation he'd had with Jasmine James.
"We need somebody for both positions; you're more than qualified for them," Jasmine said as she poured the tea.
What exactly is going on in the city?" Damon asked as he took the cup from her hands, holding his hand up when she offered him the small jug of milk.
"It's a mess; I had no choice but to remove the head; he was running the station into the ground," Jasmine said with a sigh. "It's all-out war, Damon," she said, placing her cup on her desk and leaning forward, her head in her hands.
"When was the last time you got any sleep?" Damon asked, concerned for his friend. She looked tired, as if she hadn't slept in weeks. "You're taking on too much. You need to delegate; you're going to make yourself ill if you continue to worry like this," he said, resting his hand on top of hers on the desk and giving it a quick squeeze. As an Alpha female, if it had been anyone else that had made that move, she would have torn their hands clean off. Only the fact that they had been friends for fifteen years saved his hand.
"Damon, I'm the leader of our Royal Wolf community; it's my job to worry," Jasmine said with a tired smile. "What am I supposed to do? I have no inquisitor and nobody to run the city station. On top of that, I have a war with the mixed-blood Wolf's and other creatures on all fronts; none of their leaders will meet with me, and I have the Royal Wolf trying to revolt and come for my job at every turn," she said, scrubbing her hands through her hair in a very uncharacteristic show of frustration.
"Ha, I'd pay to watch that!" Damon said with a grin, "You would annihilate anyone that came at you. You are the leader for a reason, Jasmine; there isn't a single royal wolf that can best you in combat or an Alpha that would stand a chance against you," he said with a chuckle.
"Damon, I could activate every cell on my body, and I still wouldn't have a hope in hell against you," Jasmine said as she stared at him incredulously. "We both know you can put me on my ass with three moves; I'm only the leader because you refused it," she said with a grin at the expression on his face.
"Am I in charge of the entire community?" Damon asked with a shudder of horror, "It was bad enough heading up the multitude of stations I've already had to deal with; you think I want to be responsible for the entire tribe of idiots? Internal politics, squabbling Alphas, and a dagger in the back at every turn? No thanks; you can keep it. I have enough power within the leadership as it is; I don't want any more," he said, chuckling when she just rolled her eyes at him.
"I have a suggestion, if I may?" Damon said as he set his cup aside, having finally come to a decision. "Why don't you make Jack the new leader? You know he's fair and respected by just about everyone. He chafes at being stuck in another city, and he would make a powerful ally," he said.
"He wants the position less than you do," Jasmine said, her eyebrows practically in her hairline. "I asked him already, and he flat-out refused," she said with a frown.
"That's why he would be perfect; he's probably the only one aside from me that won't come for your job," Damon said. "Anyway, that was six months ago; a lot of things can change in six months," he said with a wink, pouring himself a second cup before topping Jasmine's cup up.
"If you are referring to that... debacle with the werewolf and Valeria Ravencroft..." Jasmine said, the cogs starting to turn in her head as she thought about how to entice him into accepting the position.
"Just order Jack to accept," Damon said, reading her thoughts on her face. "That way he can save face; you have an inquisitor, and Jack can escape his problems," he said, laughing as she sat there, practically rubbing her hands at the idea.
"Thank you, Damon; I knew there was a reason we were friends," she said as she pulled her phone out and fired off a quick text to Jack, ordering him back to the Gard. "Wait, if Jack takes the inquisitor position, who's going to take over the SA station?" she asked, almost slamming her head against her desk as a whole pile of new worries settled over her. She couldn't stop the growl that rumbled through her chest.
"I don't envy your job." Damon chuckled. "Jenny has been chomping at the bit for a promotion. I think she's ready, and she's already there. Make her the head and Ally her second. They might as well run it together," he said, grinning when Jasmine's head shot up.
"I need a mated pair," Jasmine said, the Alpha in her tone clear as her frustration slipped through the cracks of her self-control. "The rest of them won't follow anyone but an Alpha and Omega that are mated! You did a great job, Damon, but without the right leadership, the station will revert to what it was before you dealt with them," she said.
"Haven't you heard?" Damon asked, surprise coloring his tone when he saw the question on her face. "Mike claimed Emma last month; she's already pregnant. How have you not heard? If there's one thing the Royals like more than bickering and squabbling with mixed blood wolves, it's gossiping," he said, both of them bursting into fits of laughter at his understatement.
"They gossip like old female wolves!" Jasmine said, howling. "Thanks to Luna, we were shoved into training together. I don't know what I would do without you, Damon. You've saved my ass yet again," Jasmine said, wiping the tears from her eyes before fixing her gaze on him. "Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked him hopefully.
"You need a mated pair for SA but not Nigaland?" Damon asked her, reigning his expression in and shutting down his internal wince when he reminded himself that he hadn't found a mate yet. How do you get to the age of twenty-eight and not find your mate? He asked himself bitterly. He had accepted that he would be one of those Alphas whose other half was lost to them and that he or she must have died. You do not get to his age and not find your mate, especially if you are as widely traveled as him. Everyone he had grown up with had already been mated for ten years, and here he was, doomed to spend his life alone. He had accepted it, but that didn't mean the thought didn't shatter his heart into a thousand pieces and scrape at his soul like a rusty blade.
"Mike and Jenny are barely out of training. They might have the potential to become great leaders, but they need each other if they are to keep that rabble under control," Jasmine said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms as she studied her oldest friend. "Whereas you could take on half of the Nigaland station on your own and walk away without a scratch. You're a powerful Alpha, Damon; you don't need a Beta or an Omega to run that place," she said, watching as he sat ramrod straight in his chair, his face an emotionless void. She hated it when he closed himself off like that, something he did far too often.
"Don't underestimate yourself, my friend," Jasmine said when she saw a sad frown crack his hardened exterior. "You earned the respect of even the most hardened Wolf veterans when you overhauled the other station. If it weren't for you, it would have been all-out war with the mixed-bloos wolf. That's why I need you there; they are a mess. And who knows, maybe you will find your mate in Nigaland," she said gently, watching his shoulders slump as his face crumpled for a second. He reigned it in, but not before she saw it. It broke her heart that if anyone deserved to be happy, it was Damon.
"You're far too shrewd for my own good," Damon said with a sigh. "I'll take it on one condition: you pull my best friend from the London station and promote her to my second. It's been far too long since we've been together, and I've missed her. If I'm to take on that shower of shite, I'm going to need her, just for the comic relief if nothing else," he said with a chuckle. "You owe me this much, Jasmine; if I hadn't been stuck in Australia for the last year, we would have been together, as it should be. She's my best friend," he said.
"Done!" she said, pulling her phone out and firing off another text. She waited a moment, smiling when she read the reply. "It's going to take her a week to find someone to take over her combat training classes, but after that, Moni is all yours," she said, grinning at the first true smile she had seen from him in a long time.
"Excellent!" Damon said, jumping to his feet and making his way over to the secret drink stash she kept in the cabinet behind her desk. "May we celebrate by getting extremely inebriated?" he inquired as he closed the door with a swung of the doorknob with one hip. He was holding a couple of bottles in his hand.
"Only if you make me one of your martinis," Jasmine said, laughing when he spun around, a bottle of Gin in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other.
Damon couldn't stop the growl ripping out of him when he considered the text he had received. He sat there, stewing angrily for several minutes, before he heard a ruckus outside his office. His head shot up as his door was almost kicked off its hinges. He launched himself over his desk, not in the mood for any of them at the moment. As his hand shot to the blade in his left thigh holster. He whipped it out a second before realizing who it was, almost sagging with relief when he saw her."I could hear that growl on the other side of the station," Moni said, sauntering into the office, throwing her jacket into the nearest chair, and kicking her suitcases out of the way before she launched herself across the room and into her Damon arms. "Have you missed me, Damon?" she asked, almost lifting him off his feet as she squeezed the life out of him."More than you know," Damon said as he hugged his best friend, his one and only best friend. "I hope you're ready for this; these assholes are har
Damon's eyes snapped open when he heard a commotion coming from down the corridor outside his room. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand: 06.37. Great, he had slept in! He climbed out of bed, swiftly throwing a plain black t-shirt on before opening his door and peering down the corridor."See the vampires face...""I wasn't expecting that.""Damon will hear..."Damon sighed internally before marching through the door and following the voices down the corridor. He turned a corner to find Ram laughing and joking with two other wolves, shaking something that rattled in his hand. Damon had seen the two wolves around over the last few days—Marcus and Mateo, he remembered. He grinned a predatory grin when he looked over his shoulder, catching sight of him."Damon has already heard, gentlemen," Ram said as he stalked toward the three men, his bare feet silent on the marble tiles. "I suggest you hand that over to Ram," Damon said, pushing a fraction of Alpha into his tone, warning Ram tha
"Why don't you tell everyone what you had in your possession twenty minutes ago, Ram?" Damon asked when he finally made it to the front of the room. Damon had realized he needed to make an example of Ram to show them all that change was coming. "No? Fine, Ram, Marcus, and Mateo were carrying a jar of vampire fangs when they returned from patrol this morning, ladies and gentlemen," he said, looking around the room.Damon took note of the reactions to his statement, seeing who smirked and who was shocked, dividing them into two groups. He was pleased to find the group that seemed to approve of Ram's actions was considerably smaller, about fifteen in all. Maybe there was hope for them yet. He didn't miss the smirk on Ram's face."Please tell me, what is so funny?" Damon whispered as he rounded on the members, a vein almost popping in his neck as he fought back the urge to smack the smirk off the man's face. "These are someone's fangs. As if the act of taking them weren't despicable enough
Clary stared intently at the liquid she was brewing. She stirred it once more before boiling it with a click of her fingers, smiling when it turned a pale, almost translucent golden color. Perfect, she thought as she decanted it into a crystal bottle and wrapped a ribbon around the neck, the words 'Clary's emporium' printed on the ribbon. Nobody could say their money was wasted when it came to the presentation of her products, she thought with a smile. She glanced up when her wards went off, a few seconds before a magic circle opened into the room."Just wait!" Adira, her twin sister, said over her shoulder as she stepped into the room, closing the blinds with a wave of her hand before her mate, Jordon, stepped through the portal. "Three more orders," she said as she handed her a piece of paper and pressed a kiss to her cheek."So, has the Royal Alpha arrived yet?" Jordon asked by way of greeting, glancing into the corners of the room as if he expected the man to run at him with a stak
"I hate going Alpha on them," Damon said as he and Moni crossed the street, both of them activating their power as they walked. They both had a lot of "It's the same every time! Can't I just once walk into a station that isn't full of disrespectful assholes?" he asked, rolling his eyes when she smirked."You would be out of a job if you walked into a station full of decent, hardworking wolves. Get these for me," Moni said absentmindedly as she yanked the back of her shirt up so he could activate the power on her back. "You should have seen Ram when I escorted him to his room to collect his things. He cried like a baby, muttering about how you left him defenseless against the mixed-blood vampires," she said with a grin as they dodged out of the way of a group of schoolgirls, oblivious to the two wolves skirting their group."He stole a vampire's fangs!" Damon said incredulously, running his luna stone over the left side between her shoulder blades. "Did he think he could get away with t
Yuri franziu a testa e disse:- É sobre a restauração do Palácio da Pena. Estou planejando fazer com que a Barbosa & Guimarães e a ARX Brasil, uma subsidiária do Grupo Garcia, concorram no leilãolicitação, mas Sandro é contra.A Barbosa & Guimarães foi um presente de Yuri para Lavínia após sua formatura, mas, nos últimos anos, não apresentou nenhum desenvolvimento significativo.O Grupo Mendes, que não se enriqueceu através da construção, via a existência desse estúdio como um alvo para alguns acionistas que desejavam eliminá-lo.Os três projetos arquitetônicos que surpreenderam o país e o exterior, ela os conquistou secretamente e todos foram entregues a Marcelo, do Grupo Garcia.Agora, refletindo, ela se considerava tola!Com o desenvolvimento estagnado da Barbosa & Guimarães, Lavínia sentia que a responsabilidade era toda sua.- Sandro é contra porque acha que o Grupo Garcia é o grande nome da arquitetura e que a Barbosa & Guimarães não tem capacidade de competir, envergonhando o Gr
"Fuck!" Damon roared, losing control completely as he spun on the spot, a deep, full Alpha snarl ripping from him as he slammed his fists down on the counter, a crack running through the entire length of the Carrara marble slab, making everyone else cringe and step back from the enraged Alpha. Everyone but Clary.Clary couldn't move a muscle, her control over herself slowly fraying thread by thread as her eyes slammed closed. Her hands balled up into tight fists, her fingernails cutting into her palms as her magic ripped through her body. She felt it push out of her, barely erecting a barrier around herself to protect them all in time before she let it consume her. She screamed out the years of pain and loneliness, all of her anger, bitterness, and sadness.Damon whipped around when he heard the sound—the furious, desolate scream that ripped from his Omega. The sound was like a thousand razorblades being scraped over his soul. It cut through his own pain, anger, and frustration; his Om
Moni stared at her best friend as he turned away from them, dropping the mask he had so carefully pulled across his features. She could feel the tremble of his hand and could see the clenching of the muscles of his arm as he gripped her hand. She had never seen him like this; he was always so controlled and so strong whenever he faced an impossible situation, but this? It had been a long time since she had seen him lose any of his rigid self-control, and she had never seen that look on his face before—that gut-clenching look of absolute desolation.She knew the others in the room would see an unfeeling, cold exterior, thinking him unaffected by the situation, but she knew better; she knew him like nobody else. Seeing the rigid way he held himself, the way he wouldn't look the Omega in the eye, the shake of his entire body as he held himself back, it made her want to take him in her arms and hug the pain away, something she had never felt the need to do before. She would usually just te