Pack Dynamics (27 page)

“Is that an invitation?”

“You are incorrigible.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“No, it’s not.” But she trailed a finger across his shoulder on her way to the elevator. Because maybe it was.

Chapter Twenty-two

The next morning, Megan followed Alex into the teleconference. He carried a sense of barely-restrained righteous fury and wore a wolfish smile of his own. Along with an actual suit.

He usually saved his focus for research, not what he called “corporate bullshit.” The board was wholly unused to that focus being turned in their direction, and Megan watched with ill-concealed glee as he easily browbeat them into a face-to-face conference in New York two days hence—on a Sunday. The only reason he didn’t schedule it for the next day was so that Megan would have time to arrange for accommodations for a pair of demon bunnies on the G5. He was bringing Ben too, deeming it only fair, and they needed to be separated on board for obvious reasons.

Ben found still more damning memos in the meantime, confirming once and for all that many of the calls were, indeed, coming from inside the house. Megan printed them out, sticking the hardcopies in a folder. She packed her highest high heels and her most powerful power suit, and she was as prepared for this thing as she ever would be.

Alex loved theatrical gestures, and the three of them marched into the boardroom like they owned it, seven minutes late on purpose, with Alex wheeling a cart carrying a pair of silver cages. One contained an enraged nano-lycan-bunny, and the other held a lycan-bunny created by normal means, also enraged. He put the cart against the wall as far from Ben as possible and stood beside his chair at the head of the table. The proximity of the rabbits, along with the tension in the room, was hitting Ben pretty hard, and Megan exchanged glances with him. “Easy,” she mouthed, but his claws were moving in and out and he swallowed.

The expressions on the faces of the board members were priceless.

Barnhardt got control of himself first. “What is the meaning of this?”

Alex tossed his folder on the table. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the result of people going behind my back and attempting to take this company in a direction that I’ve never supported.”

Megan had told Clarke to expect something outrageous, and he leaned forward. “Do tell.”

“No, don’t,” Barnhardt said. “I need to discuss something privately with Miss Graham first.” He stood up and gestured at the door. “Miss Graham, if you please.”

“Certainly, Mr. Barnhardt.” She twitched her nose at Alex, and he grinned at her with one side of his mouth as they left.

Barnhardt grasped her elbow when he got her alone. “You need to get control of him. Now.”

She looked at his hand as if a particularly repulsive insect had landed on her. “You need to stop touching me. Now.” In her heels, she was two inches taller than he was, and he dropped her arm, if not the attitude.

“I’m going to expose your little werewolf secret if you don’t stop him.”

“
Are
you? Well, that’s an interesting threat, Mr. Barnhardt.” She lifted her chin, along with an eyebrow. “First of all, what makes you think I haven’t told anyone, and second of all, what makes you think that Mr. Jarrett would even care?” Actually, she thought he would, but Barnhardt didn’t need to know that. She was taking Alex’s obsessiveness in “fixing” Ben’s problem more personally than, maybe, she should, even though she herself wanted her lycanthropy fixed. But it still stung, a little, and now she had a target to vent at.

Barnhardt opened his mouth to say something, and she steamrolled over him, because this week had been one of the most stressful of her life, even considering who she worked for. “Not only that, but I’ll quit before I let you use me this way. And good luck finding a replacement that won’t run screaming the first time they have to deal with one of his unique messes.”

Barnhardt sputtered, but she continued on her roll. She didn’t have the patience to listen to any more threats or excuses. “How many assistants did he have before me? How long did they last?” She stopped and waited a beat.

“That doesn’t matter—” he started.

Wrong
answer. “That’s what you think. One of the reasons I’m so good at what I do, Mr. Barnhardt, is because I don’t let people control me. Not Mr. Jarrett, and not you. So, let me tell you how this is going to go. You are going to go back to that meeting and keep your mouth shut. In return for that—” She bared her teeth, allowing them to grow slightly larger, and she was sure he noticed because sweat broke out on his brow and his eyes got huge when hers changed color. “I’ll let you keep your throat. Unlike a few other people who have crossed me this week.”

It was an empty bluff—she had no intention of killing him, and she hadn’t been the one tearing throats out, after all—but an effective one. He fish-mouthed a couple of times and finally gulped in a deep breath. “Is that why we can’t contact Ostheim?”

“Why in the world would you want to contact one of Mr. Jarrett’s chief business rivals, Mr. Barnhardt?” she asked sweetly. “Oh, wait, never mind. The answer is in that folder that Mr. Jarrett tossed on the table.” She held her finger up to forestall another outburst. “Also? If you attempt to ‘expose’ me in the future? Your credibility will be so shot that you won’t be able to get a job in a charity soup kitchen, let alone the corporate world. You need to remember that not everything came out in those Senate hearings a few years ago. Oh, and your little dog Peterson, too. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Good.” She smiled brightly. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Excellent.” She spun on the impossibly high heel of the Louboutin platform pumps she’d bought specifically for this meeting, flashing the red sole at him, and walked back into the room. He trailed behind her like a whipped puppy and slumped into his chair.

She stopped next to Alex. “What did we miss?” she asked him.

“Just some small talk. You all combobulated?”

“I think that Mr. Barnhardt and I understand each other eminently well,” she said with a Cheshire Cat grin.

O O O

If Megan’s smile had too many teeth in it, so did Alex’s. “That’s wonderful news. I’m always glad when my colleagues can work together in harmony. With that little chore out of the way, I think we can start this meeting.”

He sat down in his chair at the head of the table and rested his feet up on the corner, tenting his fingers and spearing each board member with his gaze, one by one. Some were merely curious, a few were openly uncomfortable, one or two were amused because they’d seen this before. And Barnhardt and Peterson looked as if this was the last place on the planet, or maybe in the galaxy, they wanted to be.

“First of all, I’d like to introduce you all to Ben Lockwood. Mr. Lockwood has been instrumental in uncovering a fair amount of industrial espionage for me, some of which originated on this very board.”

Ben was stiff in the custom-fitted Armani suit, but he tilted his head at the people around the table.

“Mr. Lockwood has also paid a very heavy, very personal price for uncovering this information. One that I may be, ultimately and to my sorrow, unable to reverse.”

Oh, Alex was having a good time right now, even though Megan had made sure that he’d had nothing but fruit juice and coffee to drink that morning. He glanced over at her, and she looked proud of him. It made him feel kind of warm and fuzzy. Until he remembered why they were here.

“What company is engaging in the espionage this time?” Clarke said. He was one of the people who’d been amused.

“Ostheim Industries. Miss Graham?” She had a folder for each board member, filled with the evidence that Ben had dug up, and she passed them around.

Alex watched with vicious satisfaction as the color drained abruptly from the faces of Barnhardt and Peterson after they opened their own.

“However, they won’t be a problem anymore. I have it on very good authority that Hans Ostheim has disappeared, along with his wife Idna, leaving their household in complete disarray and their company not much better off.”

Clarke’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead as he read through the material in the folder. “This is really good work, Mr. Lockwood. Even with the access that Mr. Jarrett had to have given you.”

Alex didn’t bother pointing out that he hadn’t actually given Ben much access at all, or that their pet hacker had found several security leaks on his own that needed plugging. The crack he’d made in jest a few days ago about hiring Ben away from the PI firm seemed like a damned fine idea now that he had the final results in his hands.

He wondered if Ben would go for it …

And realized that the room had erupted into pandemonium and people had started shouting while he’d been ruminating, and that wouldn’t do, especially since Ben was shoved back into his chair like he wanted it to absorb him. Barnhardt and Peterson were yelling something about private memos and personal emails. Alex slammed the flat of his hand on the table, once, which was all it took to get everybody’s attention.

“My servers, my company, my business,” he said into the shocked silence that followed, because he never took control of meetings, not ever. “Also, don’t upset my hacker. You wouldn’t like him when he’s upset.”

Peterson’s expression was one of amazed contempt as he took in Ben’s shorter-than-average height, his slender build, and body language that told everyone that he wanted to disappear under the table or possibly out the fortieth-story window. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Really not,” Alex said between his teeth, because Ben’s eyes had changed color, and wouldn’t it be fun if he wolfed right here and now? Not so fun for Ben, though, so maybe he should give him something to do. “Ben, why don’t you show them how the bunnies react to you?”

Ben visibly pulled himself together, breathing hard through teeth that were bigger and pointier than they should be. He stood up and walked around the table toward the rabbits. They grew more and more agitated at his approach, until they transformed into little tiny wolves right there in front of everyone’s horrified eyes. The wolferized nano-lycan-bunny was the same size it had been as a rabbit, but the regular lycan-bunny nearly filled the cage.

Chairs slammed against the wall as the Board members scrambled away from the scary bunnies. The tension in the room escalated several notches when Ben’s muzzle lengthened and his suit tore across his shoulders. Oh, shit, Alex should have thought of this, what a stupid idea, and he hadn’t even brought a tranq …

“Ben!” Megan shouted. “
Stop
.” Why she thought that would be effective, Alex had no idea.

The wolfed rabbits smashed themselves against the sides of the cages, attempting to attack Ben with no regard for the size difference or their burning hair. The big bunny-wolf got its claws between the bars and ripped them wider, jamming its head and shoulders through, snarling. The reek of scorched fur filled the room.

Ben lunged forward, still only partially transformed, and his fangs met through the thing’s throat and wrenched its head off in a spray of gore.

“Ben!” Megan’s voice whipcracked through the room, stifling various screams and shouts. “Back. Off.”

Panting heavily, Ben lowered his ears and stepped away from the cages. Slowly, his fur and teeth and claws disappeared, and he stood huffing in the bloodied ruins of his suit. He closed his eyes and collapsed into his chair.

“You okay?” Alex asked.

“I will be,” Ben answered. Alex slid a glass of water over to him, and he gulped it down.

“How’d you do that?” Alex said to Megan.

“Alpha,” she said with a little shrug.

“I don’t pay you enough. Clearly. Give yourself a raise, Miss Graham. Another one.”

“Yes, sir.”

People found their chairs again, the remaining bunny went back to being a bunny, and Alex crossed his arms. “I told you that you wouldn’t like him when he’s upset.” He glared at Barnhardt. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t want Jarrett Biologicals messing around with paranormal crap. There’s too much fallout, too much we don’t know and have no way of finding out … and too much that can go wrong. As we have all just seen. Barnhardt, Peterson? I’ll expect your resignations on my desk no later than noon tomorrow. Yes, I’ll be coming in, try not to die of shock.”

He stood up and moved toward the door, gathering Megan and Ben in his wake, pleased that not too many people had been able to get a word in edgewise. “Anything else?” Silence. “Then I’ll see you in the morning.”

“What about the rabbits?” someone ventured.

“Barnhardt can clean up the dead one, and Peterson can have the live one. They wanted to get into the paranormal aspects of the business—they can deal with some of the consequences.” And he swept out the door with Megan and Ben, highly satisfied at leaving the members of his board wondering just what the hell he’d done and how he’d done it. Again.

O O O

Ben dropped onto the sofa in Alex’s office, stripping off his loosened tie. Reminding himself to breathe. Good thing Megan had been there, because he wasn’t sure that Barnhardt wouldn’t have followed the bunny.

Alex poured all three of them a generous measure of scotch, braving Megan’s glare. “We did good work there, you guys. Bottoms up.”

“It’s ten in the morning, Alex,” Megan said.

“What’s your point?”

Ben swallowed the scotch in three gulps. Alex poured him another, and he downed half of that, letting the warmth flow through his stomach and into his limbs. “So, it’s over?” he asked.

“Other than fixing your wolf problem, yeah. The bad guys are all dead or neutralized.” Something in Ben’s face must have given his state of mind away, because Alex looked concerned. “Hey, are you all right? You look a little rocky.”

“Now that no one’s yelling at me and I don’t have rabbits growling in my face, I’m fine. Better than fine.” He put his feet up and loosened all his muscles, using a relaxation technique an Army therapist had taught him. “No hurry on the wolf thing, Alex. I’m coming to terms with it. Hell, I slept wolfed last night and didn’t have a single nightmare. After the week I’ve had, that’s not just a win, that’s a call-the-Vatican miracle.”

Megan frowned. “But—”

“It’s not like I have to hide it from anyone I care about. And the wolf makes things simpler. Slows the brain hamster. It lets me just
be
instead of thinking all the time.” A corner of his mouth curled up. “Also, ear scritches are awesome.”