The Wolf's Call (Two-Natured London) (3 page)

He
smiled and leaned back, finally giving her some room to breathe. “Well now,
Charlotte,” he said, as if nothing had happened. “I know you are the perfect
person to solve my problem.”

Still
shaken, she wanted to tell him she would do nothing for him, but she held her
tongue. Mr Latimer couldn’t fire her for not making coffee, but if she said no
to Mr Green, he might use it as an excuse. So she just nodded. “I am.” She
could only hope she didn’t live to regret it.

The air-conditioning switched
off at nine-thirty, plunging the office into eerie silence with the absence of
its steady humming. Roused by the change in her surroundings, Charly
straightened her back, groaning when the muscles there protested their new
position. She spent a moment stretching her stiffened neck and then she looked
around. She was the only person left, the still-mute TV her sole company.

The
debates in the Commons had ended ages ago, but the protesters remained in
place. They were gathered as close to the Palace of Westminster as they were
allowed, keeping up the pressure for the voting the next day. There were only
humans protesting against the two-natureds. Either those who had the most to
gain from the vote didn’t care enough to put pressure on the MPs or they had
other means for lobbying. Charly suspected the latter. But despite the wealth
and influence of the vampires and the shifter clans, the vote would go against
them. It always did.

That wasn’t
her problem though. Hers was an overactive libido that threatened her
self-control. She had been unable to put Raphael out of her mind ever since
she’d returned to her desk after seeing him out of the office at the end of
their meeting. At least the rest of it had gone smoothly and without breaches
of personal boundaries. Then she had spent the afternoon fantasising about him
instead of actually working, until she had forced herself to concentrate via
sheer willpower. She had lost so much time however, that she was still in the
office hours after everyone else had gone home, trying to catch up with her
work.

Well,
it wasn’t like she had someone waiting for her at home. Except that tonight she
did.

Bob.

Charly
sprang into action when she remembered her brother’s dog she had promised to
look after while he was in New York for a week. She and her four-years-older
brother, Jack, had never been very close, but Bob, a drooling mass of fur that
ate everything it found, had made them spend more time together. Jack had been
brought up to be their father’s successor in the family firm and he was too
much like their father for her to respect him. But he couldn’t be all bad if he
had a dog like Bob.

She
hurried out, pausing only to lock the office for the night before heading to
the lift. It would be a long ride to the other side of London to Mayfair where
her brother lived in a luxury flat near Hyde Park. Bob wasn’t fussy about
walks, but if it got bored there was no telling what it would do to pass time.
She hoped it was nothing messy this time round that would take a long time to
clean up.

Perhaps
she had best spend the night at Jack’s? It would be late no matter what Bob had
or hadn’t done before he was properly walked and fed, so it would be more
convenient. No point in heading to her own home in the dead of the night for a
couple hours of sleep. She kept clothes in her brother’s spare bedroom for that
purpose, and since his housekeeper stocked the fridge whether he was home or
not, there would be food as well.

She
thought of her own small flat and its empty cupboards she had been too busy to
refill, again, and had to stifle a pang of envy for everything Jack had been
given simply for being a boy. He had held good positions in the family firm
even before graduating, and at thirty-six, he was already running the show,
their father having had to retire after succumbing to a stroke. But father’s
dictates continued to hold sway, especially the one about women and their place
in society, and since she refused to condone, she had to make her own way.

And
made it she had, she thought with pride, even if it meant she had no time for
grocery shopping.

It was
dark when she got out, but the business district never completely closed for
the night and her path to the tube station was well lit and surprisingly busy.
She descended to the platform and boarded the tube with other late-nighters,
her mind occupied with the same thing it had been the whole day: Rafe and the
kiss.

She
could still taste him, and she remembered how his mouth had felt against hers,
deliciously demanding. His chin had felt slightly raspy against her skin, as if
he hadn’t shaved that morning. It had only aroused her more, contrary to all
her previous experiences with men. She didn’t date very often, she was too busy
and too afraid of ceding control of her body, but all her partners had been
sophisticated and definitely well-groomed. Though none of them had made her
lose herself so completely with a mere kiss.

Her
body energised by the memory, she walked the short distance from the Marble
Arch station to Jack’s building in record time. Every time she entered the
grand lobby, its marble floor, high ceiling, and brass detailing made her pause
and admire the craftsmanship of a hundred years ago. She then checked who was
on security duty that evening. The highly exclusive building employed
ex-military and trained bodyguards to keep its residents safe, and tonight it
was Jim sitting behind the front desk. He looked every bit like an ex-soldier
with his tall, lean body and clean-shaven head, his demeanour alert even though
nothing was happening. She waved to him in a greeting as she went past.

“Bob’s
been getting anxious,” he said, smiling at her, and she forgot all about Rafe
and his kiss. Sometimes Bob howled forlornly if it was left alone for too long,
annoying the neighbours.

“Thanks,
Jim,” she said, hurrying to the lift to get to the sixth floor.

The
greeting she got the moment she opened the door to Jack’s flat was
enthusiastic. Whenever she wondered about Jack’s decision to keep a
Newfoundland, she only needed to remember how happy Bob always was to see her.
It was nice to have someone waiting for you at home. Even if the said someone
got slobber all over her second best suit.

“Calm
down, Bob,” she commanded the drooling mass of joy with her most assertive
voice. Bob knew which one of them was the boss, but it still took a while
before the dog got over its excitement and let her cross the combined living
room and dining area – a vast space of sleek modern furniture and neutral
colours – to Jack’s spare bedroom he used as his office when he worked at home.
It had a bed she could use – though she was probably the only person ever to
use it – and the closet held some of her clothing. She needed to change into
something more suitable for a late-night walk in early October. There wasn’t
much to choose from, but since the clothes she had left there were meant for
walking the dog, she had what she needed. Soon she had put on a pair of jeans,
a cashmere sweater, and knee-high riding boots. To ward off the wind that had
picked up, she donned a trench-coat too.

“Come
on then,” she said to Bob, putting it on its leash. “It’s late, so we have to
be quick about it.”

Down
in the lobby, Jim halted her. “Are you sure you want to go out there alone at
this hour, Miss Charlotte?” he asked sternly, too polite to forbid her
outright. “If you wait a moment, I’ll have one of the boys to escort you.”
Bodyguard services were part of the building’s exclusive image, and as Jack’s
sister she apparently merited them too.

But
she didn’t feel like having someone trail behind her. “Thanks, but I won’t need
anyone. I’ll be back well before midnight.” Everyone knew that when Hyde Park
closed for the night, shifters claimed it. And humans were not welcome among
shifters when they were in their animal form.

Jim
gave her a look that had probably made recruits quake in their boots when he
was in the service, but after the strength of Rafe’s gaze, it fell flat for
her. “It’s not the furry-ones I’m worried about,” he said, reaching for the
phone. “Tensions have been running high the whole day because of the debates,
and some of the protesters are gathering in the park in order to march against
shifters. You don’t want to get mixed with them.”

Charly
hadn’t known about it, but she held her ground. “I’ll be all right. I have Bob
with me,” she quipped, making Jim smile. They both knew that Bob’s greatest
weapon was its amazing ability to drool, but at least he let the matter be. He
probably hoped that since shifters weren’t known to keep pets, the protesters
would know her for a human. For her part, she was armed with a pepper spray and
her long legs. She could outrun any assailant.

Once
in the park, Charly was relieved to notice that if there were protesters around,
they weren’t anywhere near their usual round. Bob was in no hurry, and so it
took them the better part of an hour to complete their walk, which brought them
perilously close to midnight after all. Walking at a leisurely pace, Bob went
about sniffing every bush and barking at every night bird and squirrel that got
in its path.

That
was how it usually behaved though, so Charly didn’t immediately react when Bob
paused again as they neared their gate, staring intently at a bush bathed in
darkness, unusual tension stiffening its body, its tail held low. Danger.

Perhaps
it hadn’t been such a great idea to come to the park alone after all, Charly
mused, her heartbeat accelerating. She dug out the pepper spray, hoping that it
was only someone wanting to expose himself and not a mugger. But she wouldn’t
count on it. So she fished out her mobile phone with her other hand, ready to
hit the speed dial to Jim’s desk if she was attacked. Security would be there
in no time.

The
next sensible thing to do was to beat a hasty retreat. She took a firmer hold
of Bob’s leash and tugged it, but Bob wouldn’t budge. It just stared into the
darkness, growling. The sound was so surprising coming from the affable dog
that she got truly scared. Bob wouldn’t growl at a mere human. But it might
growl at a shifter in animal form. Her stomach dropped in fear.

She
didn’t wait to see if she was right. Taking a good hold of Bob’s collar, she
began to drag the heavy dog towards the gate. She didn’t know if shifters
reacted the way most predators did to a fleeing prey, so she took slow steps,
keeping her face directed towards the bush. Once it was out of sight, she began
to run, and Bob followed her at a surprising pace.

They
reached Jack’s building in no time and she paused at its corner to catch her
breath so she could make a dignified entry. But when she tried to make Bob move
on, it had frozen again, this time staring down a maintenance alley that ran
towards the back of the building. It was well lit and monitored with CCTV
cameras, but Charly wasn’t stupid enough to enter it. She couldn’t resist
taking a look herself, however, and what she saw made her freeze too.

A
wolf-shifter.

She
had no doubt that the form standing in the middle of the alley was a shifter.
It didn’t look purely like a wolf. It was larger and much more muscular than a
wolf, kind of how a Rottweiler was bulkier than a Greyhound. It had something
of a male lion about it even, in the sturdy strength of its powerful build. Yet
it was graceful. In the artificial orange light of the alley, she couldn’t tell
the colour of its thick fur, only that it was something light.

Charly
stood staring at the wolf-shifter, transfixed. She knew she should be
terrified, but instead she felt elated and exhilarated. She felt as if her soul
had grown freeing wings simply for seeing such a magnificent beast. Besides,
the creature wasn’t hostile. It shot them a disgusted look and took off towards
the back of the alley, disappearing from sight. She stared after it for a long
time, until Bob got restless and started tugging its leash, snapping her out of
her reverie.

Finally,
she had managed to banish Rafe from her thoughts – a state that lasted all of
two minutes. Entering the lift, she suddenly came face to face with him again.

The wolf slipped under a gate
into the car park beneath the building, the route familiar to them from many
nightly explorations. There, they made their way along the dimly lit walls
behind the cars to a dark corner where they had left their clothes, a
convenient blind spot in the building’s surveillance, left there on purpose.
The wolf didn’t want to release its preferred state, but the human was
stronger, as always, and forced the shift.

Rafe
groaned as his body assumed its human form, the feeling more like intense pleasure
than pain. His wolf settled to a translucent aura on his torso to study the
world with its own senses. After a shift, it stayed calmer that way. He didn’t
have to hide what he was, or his activities in the car park, because building
security knew what he was; the guards were either shifters or vampires
themselves.

He
hurried into his clothing: sweatpants, a t-shirt, and trainers he had worn for
his jog in the park earlier. His evening’s exercise hadn’t been as relaxing as
he had hoped it would be though. The protesters against civil rights for the
two-natured had been gathering at the Hyde Park Corner, preparing to march
through the park. It was useless to protest against the shifters, as the
two-natureds didn’t have any say in the vote, but feelings had been running
high among the demonstrators and they wanted to liberate the park for humans
only.

Good
luck with that, Rafe thought grimly. Since he didn’t want a confrontation, he
had ignored the protesters, but at this point anyone who hadn’t immediately
agreed with them was held to be against them, and so got heckled. The
racist slurs or comparing shifters to animals by addressing them as ‘it’ in
their chants like house pets was just part of their repertoire, none of which
had bothered him. It simply went against his nature to
pretend to be human in such a situation, but there had been too many of them
for him to face alone and he had thought it best to return home.

To his
shock, he had almost run into Charlotte there. She had just exited his building
with his neighbour’s dog in tow, and it had claimed all of her attention. He
had spent the day thinking about her, and it had stunned him to see her so
unexpectedly. It felt like he’d conjured her out of thin air, and made him
forget every rule of civilised behaviour. Instead of going to her and greeting
her, and maybe joining her for her walk, he had retreated into the shadows as
she walked past. Then he had slipped into the car park and shifted.

In
wolf form, they had followed her to the Hyde Park, glad that they had. The
reckless human needed to be protected from herself. Did she think shifters were
the worst of what she might encounter in the dark?

A
shifter in animal form was just about the greatest predator there was, but they
seldom attacked humans. One-natured monsters, however, wouldn’t hesitate
violating their own. Not to mention the protesters who were ready to release
their mob mentality at the slightest provocation. A dog wouldn’t help her much
against them, especially one as friendly as Bob. Bob liked even him, even
though dogs were naturally wary around predatory shifters.

They
had miscalculated Bob’s friendliness though, and it had spotted them under a
bush where they had been checking Charlotte’s path ahead of her. But had the
foolhardy woman ran like any sensible human would when her dog indicated danger
in a known shifter park? No, she had stayed to investigate.

He
shook his head, his anger rising as he walked to the lift and called it down to
the car park, entering it impatiently when it arrived. Only when they had
growled had she realised she should flee, and even then she had retreated
slowly.

They
had followed her to make sure she got home safely, and that was when they had
gotten careless again. They had thought she would run straight inside, but
instead she had paused at the mouth of the alley and had seen them. And she had
stayed to look. It made him furious. What if he had been a shifter less in
control of his beast? Generally, shifters didn’t attack humans, but there are
exceptions to every rule.

The
lift cage paused at the lobby, adding to his aggravation. The doors opened, and
there she suddenly was again.

Rafe
didn’t think. He just reacted with all his anger and worry for her. Reaching
out, he pulled her into the cage, dog and all, and pushed her against the wall,
pinning her down with his large body. She opened her mouth in protest, and he
sealed it with his own.

As
their mouths met, his firm press against her soft acceptance, his anger turned
to lust so intense he thought he would come then and there. He wrapped his arms
around her hips and pulled her against his erection, the contact shooting a
shockwave of pleasure to his brain, shutting it down for good.

Fortunately,
she didn’t struggle against his kiss. He wasn’t at all sure he had the
willpower to stop if she wanted him to, but she was as aroused as he was.
Deepening the kiss, she wrapped her arms around his neck and folded her long
legs around his waist, bringing him in direct contact with what he wanted, only
their clothing blocking his way inside her. He growled and ground harder
against her, never breaking the kiss. He devoured the warm moistness of her
mouth, her taste so exquisite he could have drank her forever.

A
distant ping signalled the cage’s arrival at their floor and the doors opened.
A quiet clicking of claws against marble indicated that Bob had exited the
lift, pausing when its leash didn’t let it go farther. But Rafe didn’t break
the kiss. It wasn’t until someone cleared his throat into the lift’s
loudspeaker that he remembered the constant surveillance the building was
famous for.

“If
you could take your lady indoors, Mr Green…” an amused voice admonished.

Rafe
broke the kiss and smiled when Charlotte protested with a small mew, her eyes
half closed with lust. He didn’t let go of her but just carried her out of the
cage, hailing the camera with a two-fingered salute as he went. He heard the
bloke chuckle as the doors closed again behind him.

He
couldn’t wait to get Charlotte into his bed where he would keep her for as long
as he needed in order to get the human woman out of his system. Then he could
concentrate on other things. Like having her again.

But
the small delay had been enough to sober her up. She struggled, and even though
it pained him to let her go, he set her on her feet. “Don’t ever go into a dark
park alone again,” he said sternly, remembering his earlier aggravation. “Do
you hear me, woman?” His voice was gravelly for anger and worry, and for lust.

She
recoiled as if he had thrown cold water on her. “Excuse me? Are you giving me
orders?”

“Bloody
well I am. Don’t you know how vulnerable human women are? From now on, when
you’re walking Bob this late, you take me or someone from security with you.”
Then a very worrying thought occurred to him. “And what are you doing with Bob
anyway?” If she was Jack’s girlfriend he would have to kill him. Or something.

Her
eyes flashed and she lifted her chin, facing him squarely. Rafe forgot his
anger as he admired how wonderful she looked when this animated, her face
flushed and her breathing hard. “Who the hell do you think you are, accosting
me and giving me orders? You are not the boss of me and I am not your
woman
.”
She spat the last word as if it was a foul one.

Rafe
was surprised by her vehemence. Thinking of her as human, he had forgotten how
much of an alpha she was. She wouldn’t respond to orders very well, especially
since she constantly refused to recognise that he was the more dominant of
them. She was unlikely to recognise the power structures the shifters took for
granted as well.

He had
gone about this all wrong, assuming she would simply obey. A woman like her had
to be won over in a fair challenge. He had to prove himself to her. His blood
heated again as he thought of how he would win her, his cock twitching as more
blood pulsed into it.

Forget
the fair challenge. He would have her, whatever it took.