Chapter 24

After sitting around, Graeham noticed that it was getting dark. He asked Charlotte if there was anyplace in town where they could stay the night.

"Probably best for you to fly to Knoxville where you can get accommodations similar to what you are used to, Granddad." Charlotte replied.

"Besides, we still don't know how 'safe' we really are. I refuse to bring more people into this man's spotlight than we already have."

He nodded. He didn't like it. Not one bit. He really didn't want to leave her here. But she had made it abundantly clear that she was not leaving. For anything. Her mate was here and here is where she will stay.

Piling out of the house, Graeham, Charles, Stone, Caden and Jack all piled up in the helicopter and they stood outside watching it fly off towards Knoxville.

Charlotte was frowning and Jaxson noticed it and asked her what the cause was.

"Granddad should have had a security team with him. But, I never saw anyone. Just him, my uncle Charles, and my three cousins." She replied

Jaxson and Rio laughed quietly. "They're here Charlotte. They are scattered around the property. I have seen about six signs of them. If you know what to look for, then it's relatively easy. Plus, enhanced sense of smell, hearing and eyesight." Hugging her to him, she leaned into his side and walked out to the barn with him.

For the next few hours, Jaxson, Rio and Charlotte took care of the animals in the barn. As they were finishing up, Charlotte walked up to a stall with a massive horse in it. Putting her hand out, she let the horse smell her and decide for himself if he liked her or not.

"That's Old John. He's a Shire. They were bred to pull plows and wagons. Gentle, mild and even tempered, they would work well with other animals. My parents bought him for me with I was younger. I got him used to me and then I would ride him all over this mountain, from sun-up to sundown. Just because I could."

Jaxson leaned in and briskly rubbed the old horse's neck, which he seemed to stretch in pleasure. When Jaxson was finished rubbing the massive horse's neck, he leaned his head out of the stall and nuzzled Charlotte and began to lip at her hair.

Laughing, she stepped away and reached out to pet his velvety muzzle. When she did, he sighed. Sighed in pleasure. Jaxson laughed some more.

"Hey, old man. Still doing the drama I see." Jaxson n reached out his finger and tapped the horse on the nose. Evidently, Old John didn't like that and stepped back into his stall and huffed.

Charlotte watched the byplay between the two, enjoying her time with her mate. Seeing this side of him. The gentle, caring side. He showed her that all the time, but she enjoyed seeing it directed at others.

As they were walking out of the barn, Amber was coming out of the house. She didn't look happy and she was frowning.

Rio reached his mate first. Grabbing her shoulders, he looked down at her. "What's wrong, Amber?"

"Nathan just called. It seems that Charlotte's idea to turn the others against each other has worked. Only too well." She showed Rio her phone. It was open to a new site. It was an article detailing how several of the people on their list had actually been killed and no one could figure out why or who.

"My guess is that he did a lot of them. To keep them from testifying against him." Jaxson nodded.

"Makes sense, brother. Eliminate your reason to worry. If they are all dead, then there would be no one to testify against him. They would of course, been promised certain immunities from prosecution in this country. After that, the trick would have been getting to them while they were not on American soil."

This made a great deal of sense to Charlotte. Unless, "Would our country sell someone out like that? Someone who had helped them? Sell them out or take them, in secret, to another country and then blow the whistle, so to speak?"

Rio whistled as he thought about what Charlotte had said.

"Damn girl. You have a devious mind. When did you develop that?"

Charlotte smiled. "Please. I grew up with six male cousins. Not a female in the bunch. Do you happen to know how devious little boys can be?" She asked rhetorically.

"They could be extremely devious. So I, of course, learned from the best." She smiled as she remembered one particular incident. "One of the cousins, I think it was Stone, dated a girl in high school and she went around telling everyone that Stone was going to marry her when they graduated. She was even overheard talking to some of her little snobby girlfriends about how she was going to trap with a pregnancy and then after the wedding 'suddenly' realize that she wasn't pregnant, that it had all been a mistake. So they guys started plotting. It took them about two weeks to put everything together. But once they did, it went off without a hitch." Jaxson watched the smile that crept over Charlotte's face and it made him mildly uncomfortable and just a little bit frightened.

"Come on, Charlotte. Don't keep us in suspense. Tell us what happened." Rio urged.

"Well, there was a party that night at the house. Plenty of alcohol, food and fun. After all, these were high school kids. When Nikki was busy 'making her rounds' like a good hostess, Stone offered to fix her a drink. He, of course, spiked it with something. Pretty soon, she was so messed up, she almost couldn't see straight. Stone picked her up and carried her to one of the guest rooms and stripped her down to her underwear and had one of his friends climb into bed with her. She was so out of it that it was easy to position her. And they did. To make it look like she and this guy were having sex. Of course, plenty of pictures were taken. Then Stone took her to his room and finished undressing her. He left her there until the party was over. She was out for the night.

***

When she woke up the next morning, she immediately started hinting that she might be pregnant. I remember one stupid statement that she used was, "Stone, I'm not on birth control and it's the time of the month when I'm fertile." I had to get up and leave the breakfast table to keep from laughing at her to her face and give everything up. Stone just nodded and took everything in stride. He even went as far as to tell our grandfather about that night. When he took Nikki into his study to talk to him, she had no idea that Granddad was in on it and knew everything. So, of course, the great Graeham Frazier wouldn't have a bastard child in the family and she knew it. She saw dollar signs. She wasn't counting on us realizing her plan. Anyway, Granddad told Stone that if she was pregnant, then he would marry Nikki. But they would wait and see and get her a pregnancy test when it was time for her period." Charlotte paused to shake her head. It never failed to amaze her the things that people would do to feed their greed. "Anyway, it was a waiting game. She was kept close to Stone so that nothing else could happen, like say she met another boy and had sex with him and claimed the child was Stone's. People will do some really sneaky, underhanded stuff for money. Anyway, sorry, I got sidetracked. On the day of the test, of course she came out with a positive test. She looked so heartbroken to be pregnant so young and even made a statement about it or something. Stone being Stone, asked her if she was sure that the baby was his. She was screaming and shouting accusing him of trying to dodge his responsibilities to her and the baby." Rio and Jaxson both looked completely enthralled by her tale. By the time she calmed down, she had a tear streaked and it was red and blotchy. I don't know what she did, but it worked. So, Stone asked her one more time if she was sure. Stupid ninny couldn't see that he was trying to give her a way out. Keep in mind this entire time they were in the media room of the manor. TVs were almost wall to wall. She swore that she had been with no one but Stone and only the night of the party. So Stone pushed a few things on his phone and pictures popped up on one of the screens, on another, the security feed where she was carried unconscious down the hall, and not by Stone, but by one of his friends." Charlotte grinned. "He told her exactly what had happened. She still claimed she was pregnant and why didn't he believe her. So, my grandfather stepped into the room with a nurse and a doctor. Told her that they were going to do an examination on her, a urine test and a blood test. Then they were going to sit and wait for the results. She broke then. Crying for real this time. Stone had the whole thing on video. Told her if she ever uttered a single thing about him and pregnancy in the same sentence, he would show everyone exactly what happened. Needless to say, she kept her mouth shut about everything." The brothers looked horrified at the end of the story. Amber was smirking and looked at Charlotte and said,

"Serves her right. they were kids and what she planned was diabolical. In my book, the skank got what she deserved."

"Yep, I think so too." Charlotte said.

"Now I understand why you think that way about this situation. Please, Sweet Mate, never do anything like that to me." Jaxson said, shuddering at the idea of how devious she could be.

"Not to worry, Bear man, I would never. You would have to do something really terrible to get me to do something like that. besides, I never planned by myself. I just aided and abetted." Smiling, she turned and walked into the house and went to their bedroom to go take a shower. Charlotte undressed and turned the shower on and got under the hot spray. She used muscles today that haven't been used in a while and she knew this was the first step to combatting soreness.

Jaxson walked into their bedroom and immediately smelled his mate, her body wash and something else in the air. When he smelled it his bear tried to push forward and take control. Jaxson was hard-pressed to keep the beast under control. When Charlotte came out of the bathroom, wrapping in two towels. One wrapped around her and one for her wet head. She stopped in front of him and frowned.

"I see you, Bear. Not in the house."

He was smelling her all over. He ran his nose over her hair, her ears, her neck, then he bent his knees and began to smell down her chest, her torso, her hips and, Her eyes got wide and she tried to step back. When she did, he grabbed her hips and growled.

"Jaxson what are you doing?" She said, starting to get uncomfortable.

The voice that came out was not Jaxson's voice. It was gruff and coarse and guttural and hit her core, sending waves of sensations all over her body, causing her nerve endings to tingle and gooseflesh to rise up on her body.

"Mate. So sweet smelling. Heat smells good. Want mate now!"

Charlotte didn't understand what was going on. Then, it hit her like a lightning bolt. She was ovulating and the bear part of Jaxson smelled it. To him it smelled like a heat cycle. In a way it was. It was her body's way of preparing to be fertilized, when the egg was released.

"Please don't do this. I won't be able to stop you, nor would I want to. But, this isn't the way I wanted us to complete our mate bond. I want to come to you on our wedding day pure."

The bear could hear the tremors in his mate's voice. It stopped him dead in his tracks. "Mate not want Bear?"

It sounded so broken, that Charlotte couldn't help herself. She got down on her knees in front of him and kissed him gently on his lips. "Yes, mate does want Bear. Want Bear bad, but need to wait. I would get pregnant and with everything Bear's human and I are going through, t's not a great idea. That's why we decided to wait."

Bear could see the expressions in his mate's eyes. She was torn. He quickly searched through his human mind and saw what his mate was talking about.

"Bear is sorry mate. I wait. Bear kiss?" He sounded so upset that she smiled and cupped his face. She brought his face to hers and gently pressed her lips to his. When she did Bear sighed.

Suddenly, the kiss became fierce and heated. Hands tugged at her, pulling her to him as he laid back and pulling her over him.

Jaxson tore his mouth away from Charlotte's and stared into her eyes. "What happened? The last thing I remember was smelling something besides you and your bodywash."

She smiled at him. "You bear came forward and introduced himself to me."

Giving her a speculative look, he asked, "That's not all, is it?"

Shaking her head, she bit her lip, debating on what to tell him.

"Tell me Charlotte. What did he do?" Jaxson growled.

"Well, evidently, I'm ovulating, and to Bear, it smells like heat to him, and he tried to convince me to mate with him. When I talked to him about waiting, I swear he was heartbroken. But, he understood. He was such a gentleman. He apologized and asked if he could kiss me." Said as she smiled gently.

Jaxson let his head drop to Charlotte's shoulder.

"God Charlotte. I'm so sorry. I never thought that he would be able to push through like that. I have never had that happen before."

"You've never had a mate before, have you?" She asked him.

"No. But, I have never heard of that happening." Jaxson was shaking his head.

"Do you think it's because we haven't mated yet?" Charlotte asked him, seriously.

"Maybe. I'll talk to Dad and ask him. He could probably answer those questions."

Jaxson gathered her close and held her while he tried to calm down.

"Go shower, my love. We have dinner to fix. While my family is gone, your mom and dad plus Hunter and his group still need to be fed." Pulling herself out of his arms, she went and grabbed her clothes to put on.