Page 1
Chapter 1
Working Girl
VANESSA
“I am successful. I am confident. I am powerful. I am strong.” I chant the same words over and over while staring at myself in the mirror, accepting and loving the woman I see in front of me.
The dryer buzzes, causing me to jump and bang my elbow on the counter. “Damn it,” I mutter, turning in the tiny washroom and yanking the door open. I pull out my costume and hold it up to the light. Wrinkle free!
I put it on, tugging it into place, muttering my lines as I lean into the mirror while applying makeup. “Hi, my name is Lucy. I’m a friend of…” I check the card balancing on the edge of the sink. “I’m a friend of Gail’s from work.” I pause, waiting for the other person to speak, then say, “I’m a software engineer. And you?”
Once I finish with my makeup, I turn a critical eye to my hair. It always looks the same, long, straight, and red. Not the pretty auburn red, but the fire engine, carrot-top red. Still, I’m loath to change it. My mother loved it like this and keeping it as it is makes me feel closer to her.
I run a brush through the locks and step away from the mirror, trying my best to get a sense of the full picture in a square frame that only has the capacity to show about a fourth of me.
“It’s not going to win me an Oscar, but it might get me there one day,” I say to myself in the form of a pep talk, but it makes me feel more depressed. I’ve been in Los Angeles for eight years and this re-occurring gig is the only thing I’ve managed to land besides a few commercials and some minor modeling work.
Glancing at the time on my phone, I rush out of the bathroom, snatching up my keys and purse before heading out the door. I live on the fourth floor of a four-story apartment building that was built sixty years ago and never updated. The door won’t close when I try to lock it behind me and I have to put my weight into tugging on the handle while bracing my feet against the floor. Finally, the door aligns and I’m able to slip the lock into place.
Worried I’m going to be late and get a bad review, I cannon down the stairs, apologizing to a startled Mr. Bowerman who’s forced to leap out of my way as he passes me with an armload of groceries.
I burst through the front doors of the building and rush into the parking lot, yanking open the door to my beat-up 2006 Volkswagen Jetta hatchback. It’s past its prime, but it belonged to my mother and I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. I’ll drive it until it dies then I’ll turn it into a monument in my living room.
Before I can climb in the car, intuition has me freezing as my heart picks up. Someone is watching me.
I swing my head around, trying to catch the peeping Tom, but there’s no one. There never is. This has been going on for most of my life. My mom used to tell me it was my imaginary friend watching out for me, but that never made sense. Shouldn’t I be able to see my own imaginary friend?
I refuse to believe I’m paranoid but decided to move into an apartment building where I’d be surrounded by other people. The ramshackle building I’m in is all I can afford, but the locks work. Most of the time, anyway.
Still, it’s hard to shake the eerie feeling of being watched. I slide into the driver’s seat, my eyes scanning the lot. I glance at the time as I turn the car on.
“Damn it, I’m going to be late. No more daydreaming, Vanessa.”
I wave at a pedestrian as I pull the car out of the lot and settle into traffic, heading toward the posh Brentwood area of Los Angeles. Most of my murder-mystery gigs are in upscale neighborhoods where the host can afford to hire an actor.
It’s steady income for an actor and that’s hard to come by so I try not to mentally diss the work. It’s no blockbuster film, or a leading role in the next big streaming show. It’s money in my pocket. A semi-steady paycheck whenever a client needs a red-headed woman as their victim.
“Not so bad,” I say unconvincingly to myself. “And this time you absolutely won’t point out that their Monet is a knock-off. Because, as we learned that one time, just because you know your 19thcentury Impressionists, doesn’t mean they want to know that they’ve been duped.” I nod decisively. “All you have to do is go in, eat some pretentious food, talk to some pretentious people, die horrifically, and pick up your paycheck on Monday.”
I park my car up the street, so my Jetta doesn’t embarrass the wealthy hosts. After all, I’m supposed to be the friend no one’s heard of. I have to fit in with the other guests, so no one suspects I’m actually a down-on-her-luck actor with $23.47 in her bank account.
I look at myself in the mirror and apply a dramatic deep red lipstick, using the nail on my pinky finger to tidy the line. I press my lips together, then blow a kiss at my appearance.
“Showtime,” I mutter, shoving the tube back in my purse and reaching for the door. It’s going to be a long night.
* * *
KEENAN
She freezes, standing next to her car, her gaze sweeping the lot. She can’t see me. She’s never seen me, but she’s sensed my presence from the moment I began stalking her. The concern in her gaze makes my heart ache, but its’s a dance we’ve been caught in for two hundred years. Not that she knows anything about it. This reincarnation of my mate is only 27.
A shudder runs down my back and a familiar panic threatens to overwhelm me. I can’t help her if I don’t keep my shit together.
She climbs into her vehicle and starts the engine, pulling out of the parking lot. I cringe as she cuts off an elderly gentleman with a walker. He waves his fist at her and shouts obscenities while Vanessa smiles and waves back, unaware of her near miss.
If I were to claim her as my mate, the first thing I would do is hide her driver’s license.
I follow as she weaves her Jetta in and out of traffic with reckless abandon, keeping my Jeep Wrangler a few cars back. It goes against instinct to track prey in a vehicle instead of on foot in my wolf form, but people are bound to notice a wolf shifter sprinting through LA traffic. We’re supposed to keep a low profile while the King works on improving shifter-human relations. I have a personal investment in his success; my mate is human.
She pulls off the freeway and into the upscale Brentwood area, quickly finding her destination and parking. I drive past so she doesn’t become suspicious, and park further up the street, watching her vehicle in my rearview mirror until the gorgeous redhead climbs out.
My mouth waters as her full glory is revealed in the dying afternoon sunlight, the rays shining on her hair and turning it into a waterfall of fire. She’s taller than most women and over six feet in her heels. Still, at 6’5”, I’d tower over her. She’s wearing a floor length bronze satin sheath with a forest green wrap thrown over her arm.
I expect her to go into the house she parked in front of, but she doesn’t. Instead, she rushes up the street toward my Jeep, her heels echoing on the pavement as she jogs. I hold my breath as she comes even with me, then stops and bends over, her hand on my door.
The window is open a crack and I inhale the scent of fresh laundry and chamomile, hear her musical voice as she mutters to herself, “How am I supposed to keel over in this thing? Who requests the actor wear a tight but classy dress? Gross assholes with too much money, that’s who.”
Unable to resist, I turn my head to watch her, absorbing every detail. This is only the second time I’ve been this close to Vanessa. I’ve been in her home, followed her, been to her place of work, and inspected her friends, but for the most part kept my distance.
She straightens, runs her hands down her hips, then turns her head, finally noticing me. She gasps, her hand going to her throat as she stares at me, her green eyes wide with fright. Then she laughs, the sound chaining me to my seat, and shakes her head at herself.
“Sorry for borrowing your car to adjust my shoe,” she says cheerfully, waving as she steps away. “Have a nice night!”
She continues up the street, approaches an upscale home with several vehicles outside, knocks, and then disappears through the door. I pull my Jeep closer until I can see the gathering of people through the front windows. Crossing my arms over my chest, I slouch in the seat, preparing for a long evening of ensuring the safety of my mate.
I can’t pin her down, despite spending years watching over her. She lives in a trash heap of an apartment building but often goes to the nicest areas of the city. She socializes with the richest of the rich, but her best friend is a professional beach bum, and her deceased mother was an art thief. Perhaps if I was around more often, I’d understand this mate of mine better, but my duties to the people of Wolf-Haven call me away.
I straighten in my seat when I catch sight of her fiery hair as she steps in front of the window, a cocktail glass in hand. She sips the drink, closing her eyes, her shoulders relaxing.
I needed that . Her voice whispers in my head, intensifying the ache in my heart. The mating bond.
Bonding with her had been an accident. When she was a child, she liked swinging herself as high as she could on a swing set before leaping off and soaring through the air. Sometimes she would land on her feet and sometimes she would take a tumble. It was the most idiotic thing I’ve seen a human do, and I wondered at my mate’s intelligence. When she was six, she attempted one such flight. I was close by and saw the concrete block she was about to land on. I rushed toward her, using my shifter speed, and caught her in my arms.
She’d looked up at me in surprise, her green eyes sparkling with mischief.
I couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you do that?”
She shrugged and struggled in my hold until I set her on her feet. “I like to fly,” she replied before turning and racing toward her mother, who had been absorbed in a magazine and didn’t notice our interaction.
Since that day, I’ve been bonded with my mate. I feel her emotions, can track her with ease, know when she’s in trouble. It’s a gut-wrenching thing to have the woman I love, a woman who doesn’t know I exist, whispering in my head, sharing her happiness, sadness, anger, and joy, while knowing I’ll never get any closer to her than this.
A scream echoing through the night has me sitting up in my seat, adrenalin rushing through me. It’s not the voice of my mate, but it’s coming from the dwelling she went into. I shove my door open and leap out, racing towards the house.
A confusing tableau unfolds in front of me through the windows. My mate is stumbling around, her hand at her throat, foam dribbling from her mouth. Then, clutching at a tablecloth, she falls to the floor, dragging it with her, dishes falling and smashing. There, she spasms before going still, her eyes wide and staring blankly while people rush to her side.
My mate is in trouble!
My wolf takes over as instinct drives me and I shift right there on the street, uncaring of any humans who might see. I must get to her, find out what’s wrong and get her help. My clothes split at the seams as I leap through the bay windows, the glass shattering. I land on the floor next to my mate as people scream and scatter in different directions. I stare at her unmoving form, eyes unseeing, foam at her lips.
Dead.
Poisoned.
I swing my head around, pinning the humans with a lethal stare before letting out a roar of rage that sends the humans scrambling further away from me. I will kill every single one of them for harming my mate.
Table of Contents
- Page 1 (Reading here)
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42