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Her eyes widened and she audibly ‘“aww’ed” before looking back at Cam. She grabbed him by the tie and pulled him down, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Well, you just look good.”

Cam shrugged his shoulders in a poor attempt to seem nonchalant. “Yeah, whatever… enough talking, come dance with me.”

Marlowe grinned and let herself be dragged onto the dance floor, giggling through Cam’s excited whoops. I decided to let him have a bit of alone time first—he was pack leader, after all. I got another beer and sat back down, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I watched the two of them match each other’s energies. They were strangely goofy and sexy at the same time, with lots of hip swinging and thrusting, shaking and waving their arms, all mixed into old school dance moves with just enough touching to keep it office party appropriate, but still plenty to let you know they were definitely going to rip each other’s clothes off soon.

When they both started todougieI nearly lost it, taking a video to send to the rest of the pack. After a few more songs I had waited enough and got out there to join them. I grabbed Marlowe from behind and brought her close, swaying to the beat of a slower R&B song as she leaned back into my chest and closed her eyes, smiling when she breathed me in.

I ran my hands down her sides, bringing my lips down to her neck and kissing her along her flushed skin.

I didn’t need to worry about being as work appropriate as Cam, thank the Moon.

I also didn’t give a rat’s ass about the stares. Not many people at the company had met Marlowe yet, and they were still unsure how to think of her—was she James’s daughter, the company owner, Cam’s and my omega, or all of the above?

A few males got a little too close, trying to get a whiff of her,but Cam and I kept her safely between us.

“I’m thirsty!” she yelled over the music. “Let’s go get something to drink!”

“What do you want?” I asked. I was happy to help her out, and give Cam one more song before I asserted my need for her attention a little more strongly.

“Vodka soda, please!” she said, reaching up on her tiptoes to give me a kiss on the cheek. She squeezed my arm for support and I nearly just grabbed her to take her home right then and there. Instead I took a deep breath to compose myself, and went to the bar.

When I got in line, I took out my phone to check if anyone had seen the video I’d taken of Cam and Marlowe yet, and my heart stopped when I saw I had ten missed calls between Elias and Nolan, and several texts.

Nolan: EMERGENCY! Everyone needs to get to city hall NOW!

Elias: What’s wrong? Are the vamps back?

Nolan: Maybe worse, just get here now. Everyone including Marlowe. Archer, you need to drive your ass up here ASAP.

17

ARCHER

Marlowe and Elias had left after breakfast to make sure they made it back in time for the Wolfcrest Construction holiday party, and rather than spend all day in bed until Marlowe’s scent disappeared, I’d decided to get right to work and headed to the University of Chicago campus.

After checking in at the front desk, the beta male librarian took me into the special archives room for shifter collections. “We have gloves over here. Please refrain from touching any of the materials with your skin. You can take pictures without flash, but no scanning or photocopying. And no food or drinks, please. If you need anything I’ll be at my desk.”

Once the door was closed, I started pulling books, working off a list of titles and topics I’d researched ahead of time and thought would be the most insightful.

Shifters and vampyrs were terrible record keepers—a fact I was painfully reminded of while I sorted through the scant material available. For most of our history, we had needed to keep our existence as secret as possible. That meant not leaving any written proof that could be used against us.

Individually, humans were typically fine. Shifters like my colleague at UW-Eau Claire occasionally intermingled with them, with varying levels of success. And as far as I knew, human women were usually willing participants in vampyr servaglios. But as a collective, humans were dangerous. They feared what they didn’t understand, and were always a much bigger threat

to us than we were to them.

For shifters and vampyrs, we were really only threats to each other.

Although to be honest, I’d always found this so-called feud between us strange. We both preferred living under the radar, so open fights were risky. We didn’t compete for food, land, or resources. Mike’s obsession with Marlowe had been unprecedented, and likely due to her supposed unique powers. It was probably the first time something like that had happened, so I couldn’t imagine us fighting over our omega population, either. That most likely would have been noted in my previous research on Marlowe’s designation.

So why did we fight?

Gloves on, I set the first book on the table carefully, ready to dig in.

The librarian came in around six to let me know that the archives were closing in an hour. I hadn’t even stopped to eat, I’d wanted to work as much as possible in the hopes it would get me home faster.

My eyes felt dry, and I squeezed them shut for a moment before moving on to the personal diary of a shifter soldier I’d randomly found out of place on the stack.

March 21, 1924