17: Loren, 'The Slaughterer'

**Jasmine**

I arrived at the door to my apartment exhausted and with a nice, cold, chocolate milkshake in hand. To my surprise, the door to the apartment across from mine was open and had a few boxes in front of it. Was someone moving in? It was strange, considering that the entire time I had lived here, no one had dared move into that room... not since the previous owner was arrested for drug possession. It had me wondering whether the landlord had told whoever was moving in there this, or whether they had become desperate enough not to share such a tale.
Today I did not schedule in any requests to fulfil, despite the fact that my email inbox was practically overflowing with requests directed to me via our tech team, from people making requests in this town. Instead, I had a meeting with someone in the same “line of work” as me. In total there were ten of us. Having ten made it small enough so that no classified information was leaked and large enough for the police to have difficulty in finding the people responsible for the occasional vigilante antics.
The reason for this meeting was a shift of responsibility. Situations such as these occurred sometimes−where the people we were investigating or people we were after moved from one town to another and the person in charge of requests in that town in which the suspect moved to, would then need to handle the job. So, I would need the information previously gathered by our "part-time" workers−these were the people we occasionally asked favours from and included those working with police records, hackers, occasional 'friends in high places', and lastly body removal for those ‘messy’ situations. I was actually so glad that we were so well organized even before I joined. Jared sure did have a way with bringing people together for a good cause. After I ran away from Damon and Lucien, he was the first werewolf I had met. He had a way of making me feel at ease and eventually, he inspired me to want to help others. Yet after all these years we had barely made contact after I began fulfilling requests. I'd have to ask Loren when I saw her later. Maybe she would know where he'd disappeared to.
I dressed in something casual and hid my hair in a blue baseball cap and donned a leather jacket. I didn't want to look too suspicious, but I also did not want to just give away my identity. Once I was happy with my appearance, I picked up my handbag and my keys and opened the door, only to find myself frozen in place when my blue eyes met with intense hazel ones. I had to place my knuckles against my eyelids and rub them a few times, unable to comprehend the sight in front of me. Damon could not possibly be so psychotic that he chose to literally move in right across from me, right? After a few more rubs, a light slap and a pinch I finally realised that I was not imagining things.
And so, I took a deep, deep sigh and said, "Not even gonna ask, really just not gonna ask."
I was about to walk away when his hand snaked around my arm, and he pulled me towards him so that I could face him.
"Where do you think you're going?" He practically purred it out. The sparks between us were practically turning into lightning bolts and the sexual tension in the air was so thick it was all I could breathe in. But I knew I needed to focus. We both were weak when it came to how our bodies reacted to each other. I needed to be strong. For my sake.
"Where I go is none of your business. What I do is none of your business−" I then stood on my tiptoes, allowing the top of my head to be on level with just below where his shoulders began "-and *who* I do is none of your business."
I said that last part just to tick him off. If he wanted to play dirty, then I would play dirty too... and I was certain I could get way dirtier than he could. I seemed to have ticked him off just enough because he growled lowly and said, "Your body is mine, and I'll take it right now if I have to."
It was almost amusing how incorrect my dear Damon actually was.
"You seem to have this whole situation wrong. My body is mine. It belongs to me, and I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. *Your* body, however, I can easily claim." By now he was leaning down, eyes zeroed in on my moving lips. He wouldn't get what he wanted though, and I would make sure to leave him in a state of wanting. "I can have your body shivering for me Damon. I can bring you on the brink of pleasure and then take it away just like that. I can have your body craving my touch, yearning, wanting. And once I'm done with you, you'll finally realise that it's not you who owns my body, but me who owns yours."
His lips were so close I could practically feel them against mine. "So be careful Damon, there's literally only so much I can take before I let the Vixen loose. Then, even I can't save you."
And with that I turned away from him sharply and began walking away, ignoring his protests and strings of "I am not going to be dominated by you" and "you belong to me". He'd sung the same song so many times that it had become old, and if he now didn't understand that I did not belong to him, then I had no choice but to show him what it actually meant to be owned... eventually. And I hoped that eventually it would scare him away. Though, knowing Damon I doubted that. But I shook my thoughts and seemingly empty threats away. Right now, I had something more important to do than threaten the great Mr Michaels.

***

We decided to meet in a small restaurant. It was quite empty, and I opted to sit outside in the fresh, sweet air. She came dressed in an elegant off the shoulder floral blouse and a gorgeous mini skirt which was coated in beautiful, intricate pink rose designs and hugging the gorgeous curves of her body tightly. On her beautiful dark brown skin shone golden sparks of glitter which illuminated in the sunlight. She was absolutely breath-taking, as always.
"Late as always Miss Parker." I said with a smile which she returned.
"Well looking this good takes and ample amount of time. You wouldn't know about that, now would you Jasmine?" She said motioning to the clothes I was wearing.
Loren Parker, although in the same line of work as me, hopping from town to town and city to city and place to place was fabulously rich and hadn't had to work a day in her life. She possessed the characteristics of a loud, extravagant, luxurious woman, and of her many virtues, patience and humility were not of them. She was, however, good company to keep and of the few times I had met her, I had grown to like her. In fact, I had seen her the most out of the ten of us. It seemed she and I liked to move around to more or less the same places, with her living just a few miles away from me.
"You know not everyone is as rich as you."
She chuckled and thought it a good time to remind me of my 'forbidden' bank account which still had enough money to get me on the same level of extravagance as herself. I chose to ignore her though, not wanting to bring up the money I got from working for Lucien and instead asked her to look at the menu.
"Hmm, the chicken salad looks delectable..."
Seriously, this again? Loren was the only werewolf I had met who did not eat like a werewolf. She took the time to care for her body immensely, watched her diet carefully and exercised regularly−all the things I did not do. Then again, I was an awfully busy woman.
The waiter soon came to take our order: Loren ordered the chicken salad, and I ordered a cheeseburger, some fries, a milkshake and then a slice of chocolate cake for dessert.
"I find it highly disturbing that you are the only seductress out of all of us and yet you insist on stuffing yourself with junk food. Are you not afraid of the consequences that it will have on your body?"
I shrugged indifferently. Unlike her, the nutritional value of *what* I ate was hardly ever on my mind. Though I always admired her concern for me.
"Enough about my eating habits, how's the murdering going?" I asked. She chuckled. We each had our specialized skills. I usually, but not always, handled jobs which generally involved stealth, sex appeal, allure and torture. I’d taken down countless drug lords, sex offenders and crime lords with nothing but a good pair of underwear and a fox mask. Hence my name, "The Vixen". Loren was involved with jobs which usually involved more people to kill, such as taking down large human trafficking syndicates, stopping instances of gang related violence, and on the occasion a serial killer here and there. She was given the name 'The Slaughterer' because, unlike me, she killed mercilessly and without conviction. I always thought that her wolf form was responsible for her bloodlust. Although she may not have seemed it, Loren was extremely aggressive and quick to jump into a fight.
"The murdering is going well so far; you should try it sometime to blow off a little steam." As she said that, she reached into her bag and slipped me a large yellow folder. I took it from her and slid it into my bag. I'd read it later. But aside from catching up on work and insults, there was actually something I needed to know.
"Spoke to Jared anytime recently?" The smile on Loren's beautiful face soon disappeared, a frown taking its place instead as she shook her head no.
"No, not at all. The others are worried about him. He hasn't contacted anyone in over a year now. I keep on telling myself that if he was dead, surely, we'd have heard something about it. Surely, he'd have left us all something behind... right?"
"Right." I echoed this, swallowing down the lump in my throat. She had just brought up what I had spent the past years trying to avoid: the possibility of the death of Jared Barsotti, our founder. I'd like to think that without him we'd be lost, but the truth was that he was so good at equipping us and the people working with us that we would be fine without him, hence our work carrying on even in his strange absence. But it was a topic which seemed to dampen our mood, and so she changed it.
"Ah, I smelled your mate on the way here. He in town?" How could she not have, he'd not only turned, but marked me all those years ago. Any wolf who came near me could smell our mate bond.
"Yup, tracked me all the way here to piss me off." By then the waiter had come with our food and I began scoffing the food down in a sort of uncontrolled, crazy frenzy.
"You know what you should do?" Loren said after shoving a fork full of lettuce into her mouth. I shrugged, sipping my milkshake. "You should tie him up to the bed and do some Vixen stuff on him. You'll have him following you around like a puppy."
I chuckled in response to that and said, "Easier said than done, he's a stuck-up Alpha so he isn't really the type to like being dominated."
With this she gave a devilish smirk, leaned in closer, took her finger and softly dragged it against my lower lip. "I'm not so sure about that. I've seen you in action. Once he gets a taste, he'll want more and more."
Slowly I felt her other hand fall onto my knee and then slide up towards my thigh. I quickly closed my thighs close together, stopping her from going any further. Once bitten, twice shy.
"Tell me Loren, when are you going to meet me and not try to get into my panties?" I asked with a smirk. I then carefully took her hand off of my leg.
"I'll stop trying to get into your panties, when you finally let me."
I knew what she was doing though, and I was grateful. Besides being alluring and able to charm the pants off of anyone she smirked at, she was also good at lightening the mood.
"So, after this town where do you think you're moving to next?"
"I don't know." I contemplated for a while. I hadn't really had time to think about it yet and usually my travelling depended on my mood. However now I predicted it would depend on Damon. "Maybe Weeping Creek. It's a little suburb across the border. They have a few jobs available, and this time not in waitressing. I'm thinking of part-timing as a bookkeeper, to get a little out of my degree."
Her hands made their way into her beautiful black curly hair and then she tied it up with a silver hairband leaving a few tendrils of curls hanging in her face. She nodded and placed her hand under her chin as she stared at me, analysing my face.
"You know, when I first met you all those years ago, I thought 'damn, this girl is not going to survive doing this kind of work'. I thought you were too innocent and too good. But now that I look at you and now that I've witnessed you grow into who you are today, I can honestly not deny that your goodness and innocence is what makes you so good at your job. You have compassion for the people we help, and you care so much about life in general. I'm happy that Jared met you, and I'm glad that I did too."
With that she got up from the table, leaving some cash on it and winking−it was her treat, as always. After that, she bid me farewell with a peck on the lips, for good luck, as she always said.
"Stay safe, Jasmine." She whispered.
I watched as she left, not once turning her head back to look at me. Although we tried to avoid getting too deep into the fact, we both knew that she loved me. She always made me wish I could love her in the same way. All I could do though, was hope that one day she would find someone who could. She deserved someone to love her the way she wanted me to love her. Someone to love Loren, 'The Slaughterer' in a way that made her feel like Loren Parker, the bright, beautiful young lady capable of being greater than anyone ever believed. She deserved to be loved in a way her mate had never loved her.

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I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and had as much fun reading it as I did writing it and hope you enjoyed meeting Loren, another of my treasured characters. Also I hope you have a glass of milk ready because the next chapter will be SPICY!
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