"I need you and Roarke to mate with me."
Detective Gabriel Alekseev had just taken a sip of his morning coffee only to have it come spewing back up to stain the papers across his desk.
He stared at his partner and friend of almost two years, as if he was seeing her for the first time.
"What the hell did you just say?"
"You heard me, Gabriel. I need you and Roarke to mate with me," Collette Talbot repeated as she folded her arms across her chest.
He stared at her in shock, unable to believe how calm she appeared, as if what she was suggesting wasn't the least bit bizarre.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath. Where did he even begin?
"Okay, putting your statement aside for just a moment, can I ask you why you require the services of me and my best friend?"
For the first time since she'd barged into his office, she actually looked distressed. Well good, because that made two of them. She flopped down in the leather chair on the other side of his desk and released a sigh, her lovely cinnamon face glowing red as if she could barely contain a fury that simmered just beneath the surface.
"I'm in heat, or at least I will be in a week."
Seconds ticked by in silence before he realised she wasn't going to elaborate. "Okay, and?" He hedged.
"And, this will be my tenth cycle in heat."
Gabriel felt all the blood he'd consumed that morning drain from his face. He wasn't privy to all of the rituals that went with each supranatural species, but he knew enough about lycans to know mating season only came around once a decade, and it was a time of intense physical and sexual urges for lycan females, so intense that one man wasn't always enough to satisfy her.
"You want Roarke and me to mate with you, during your mating season?" He frowned at the high pitch of his voice, shocked that he sounded like a teenage boy, but still more shocked by what she'd said.
"Yep, pretty much." She shrugged, seemingly unfazed by any of this, and that made him all the more nervous.
"Pretty much? Damn it Collette, are you insane?"
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