Hannah

18

"In the truck." Holland ordered, pulling a small pair of shorts from under the seat of the vehicle before jumping inside and turning the ignition. Capsian and Max joined Hannah in the back seat. Hannah squished in the middle between them. 

Hannah looked at each of the men in turn. Feeling nearly overwhelmed being in such a small confined space with all of them together. "I lost my job." She said dejectedly. "I don't know what I'm going to do." Hannah was trying to think of how she could make things work. She wasn't broke, her creative accounting made sure of that, but her resources were finite while the expenses never stopped. Would now increase, flights and accomodations were going to be expenses for any performance now. She never wanted to be famous for her secret performance life, part of that had always meant only corresponding through the business, and arranging all her flights and accommodations on her own. She wouldn’t  have the discount on flights from the airline now.

"Baby girl, you still don't understand." Holland rasped from the driver's seat. 

Max put his hand on Hannah's thigh, "You don't need that job or the performance company," his voice soft and soothing in Hannah's ear.

Caspian's fingers trailed up Hannah's thigh, dancing patterns over her slacks. "We want to take care of you." His hand left Hannah’s thigh to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear. Making sure he could see all of Her face.

"I might just tie you down to the bed since when we leave you alone you run away or get into trouble baby girl." Holland growled his threat, sounding much more like a dark promise Hannah wanted him to follow through on. Thinking about Holland’s promise, and Capsian’s feelings and body heat radiating into her, trying to manage the nearly uncontrollable urge to be with Max. Trying to wrap her head around her lovers telling her they could turn into animals and dragons and knew she was theirs in an eternal way.

To say her mind was spinning would be to understate how lost Hannah felt. So caught up in her thoughts, reliving this weekend in her head. Hannah hadn't been paying attention to where they were heading until she realized they had taken a turn and began to accelerate up a ramp heading up to the highway, away from the city. "Where are we going?" Hannah asked, about to say this wasn't the way to the hotel she was supposed to stay at tonight. Realizing her termination would have canceled her room. She had nowhere to go without the company provided hotel. No plan B. No safety net. 

In a car filled with several men who were professing their love for her, Hannah still felt alone and scared. Once they knew about all her fraud related crimes, they would all turn on her. The smart thing to do was drop and run with someone you had just met. Holland met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “What has you so worried Hannah?” Caspian was looking at her, with the same question. Hannah couldn’t figure out where to start.

Trying to figure out how she could possibly juggle three boyfriends, her dad, make her business more profitable without being able to schedule shows with no travel costs and not go bankrupt in the process. Hannah turned and Met Max’s eyes. Hannah’s heart nearly stopped. For Caspian she was his treasure. For Holland, his baby girl. They were older men. Max saw something in Hannah that he recognized from his own heart, someone young and in way over their head. Max understood her. 

“Hannah is in trouble, and she doesn’t think we will stick around once we all know, because you two idiots marked her without explaining anything.” He looked towards Caspian and Holland, “She doesn’t trust that we mean it when we tell her she is our soulmate, that we need her. None of us could dream of leaving her now.” Max had gotten hold of both Hannah’s hands, he was the only one who hadn’t marked her. He still managed to read her heart best.

“What do you know?” Hannah’s voice barely a hushed whisper. Wouldn’t have been audible to anyone without enhanced hearing over the sounds of the car driving over the road. 

“I only have some speculations.” Max told her. Letting her hands go. Only to rest one back on her thigh, while Caspian took the hand that was close to him, “I have a few ideas, I’m not ashamed to admit all I have done since Friday night is try and learn anything I could about you while trying to find you.” Max had eyes that were the blue gray misty color of overcast skies over foggy water. Endlessly deep as Hannah looked into them. 

“I did something bad.” Hannah said, shaking off Caspian and Max’s touches, trying to sit as small as she could in the slightly raised center seat. Trying to ignore how nice it felt to sit between them. Their body heat warming her skin. 

“Baby girl, there is literally nothing that you could have done that would make me quit you.” Holland purred to Hannah from the driver’s seat. Looking into the rearview mirror to see Hannah a little too frequently to be perfectly safe on the highway.

“My dad needed around the clock care, I needed money, a lot of it, and would keep needing it.” Hannah’s eyes darted to Caspian.

“Nothing would make me turn away from you Hannah.” The way he said her name was like a caress on her skin.

“I was supposed to go to the Olympics one day, but I got injured during a competition and fell out of rank, I had barely attended school, my education was non-existent and once I was deemed recovered from my workplace injury I lost everything. I had no rank, no recent competitions to build from. Worse, I was older. No team wanted an older gymnast when the world always made newer, younger ones. I had no other skills. Except one I could learn to use differently.” Her face burned hot, they had all seen her shows, knew it was always her on the stage. “I had been seeing someone, who helped me design the basics of the business, knew some people in clubs. He said he was helping me, and he was. I just had to manage the actual business and the rest I left up to him. It’s been three years and everything has been fine…” Hannah trailed off. 

Caspian’s eyes focused on Hannah, hating himself just a little, but also too impatient to wait for Hannah to spit out what she had been talked into. Gently peeling into her mind and memories “Her company has fake employees, to bump up the numbers to get company insurance; and so Hannah can gamble on multiple accounts on the markets. While keeping her own real income at a lower bracket every year for taxes. Someone named Carson has been happily collecting sixty-five percent of everything she makes.” Becoming more enraged by the moment that Hannah had been working her ass off to just live comfortably and take care of her father, while the scumbag who set her down this path sat back and took her profits. 

Holland made a rumbling sound in his chest, “You mean she has been working her ass off, full time flight attendant, running a performance company, scheduling everything, and performing and someone else was making more money than her?” His anger more than apparent as his mood fed into Hannah. Until she put her hand on his shoulder. 

“I just wanted to make sure my dad was taken care of… Then I didn’t know how to fix what had gotten started.”  Looking at her feet. Waiting to feel the moment Holland and Caspian would turn. Knowing she would feel it. Except that sense of rejection wasn’t coming. They were enraged that Carson had been making money from her work. 

“We can fix all that Hannah. Just let us take care of you. Of your dad. Everything.” Max was the one who offered. He had the pack, the resources, and the Rank. Holland was from a rich family, but one with a few too many alphas in the ranks as it was.

Caspian was until further notice, a lone dragon, still he might have had the most power. He was gifted with suggestion, he couldn’t control people, just those that wanted to please him, could be more easily persuaded to do as he asked. Truthfully that gift may have been the only reason his father had paid any attention to him at all. Hoping to exploit any of his children to his own betterment.