Rebecca Royce: Wolf's Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day—to my Mate.

It was like a goddamn nightmare come to life. The M word, she'd not seen it or heard it in thirty years and she could have gone another hundred without seeing it again. When she'd lived on the island it had been a constant reminder of what she didn't and might never have.

Jana crumpled the red heart-shaped paper in her hands and threw it as hard as she could into the garbage can next to her desk. Sinking into her chair, she considered two possibilities for its origin.

One, someone had found out what she was, even though she never shifted unless absolutely sure she was alone, and even then only at her house in upstate New York…or two, the curse had been lifted and she now had a mate who had found her in Manhattan and sent her a card.

Maybe it is the second one .

Her wolf didn't usually speak to her during business hours, finding advertising to be truly dull; she slept most of the day. The card must have woken her. Picking up the paper, she took a deep sniff, letting the canine inside of her take a gander at the scent.

Sorry, nothing .

Still bored with the idea, her wolf snuggled back down to sleep.

Jana scoffed at the second possibility. Surely if the nightmare Kendrick Kane had inflicted on all of them had gone away, she would have felt some sort of inclination to go back home to Westervelt. Shrugging, she placed her head in her hands. Or maybe not.

The remote island off the coast of Maine felt so removed from her real life it was almost as if she had imagined the whole thing.

Almost.

There was still the problem with the fact that she didn't age, ever, and had zero sexual interest in any men she met ever. Plus, she shifted as often as she could into a wolf and ran through the woods at night.

A knock on her office door startled her and she jumped. Checking her appearance in the mirror on the wall to make sure the strong outer exterior she presented to the world was in place, she stood up. Picking up her cup of coffee, she took a sip and smiled.

"Come in."

Malcolm Denon entered the room. His long dark hair was tied neatly, as always, behind his head in a braid while his crescent shaped blue eyes examined her closely from the doorway of her office. Jana didn't understand why Carl let him wear his hair like that when everyone else in the building had to be clean cut to even enter the building.

Then again, Malcolm didn't exactly work for them. He consulted, so he got to do exactly what he wanted. Swallowing, she took a deep breath. No wolf. Malcolm was all man, but not a shifter. Raising her gaze, she caught for a second what looked to be curiosity in his eyes before they hid away any emotion.

She was half-certain his blue-eyed gaze could see right into her soul.

If he could see that, he'd know about me .

Jana tried to keep the smile from her face and had no idea if she'd accomplished her goal. Malcolm was enough of a presence that even her wolf perked up to take note when he was around. But sadly, he wasn't a wolf, and her canine companion had shown over and over again that she was not going to mate with a human. She wanted wolf, she wanted pack.

Truthfully, so did Jana. It had been too long since she'd been anything other than a lone wolf.

"Am I interrupting something?" Malcolm raised a black eyebrow and she wondered, not for the first time, if he had any Native American in his background. She didn't dare ask—that would mean opening up a dialogue she simply avoided ever having with people about their personal lives, but his high cheekbones and long black hair reminded her of the Passamaquoddy tribe that resided in Maine. That was the problem, she decided, Malcolm reminded her too much of home.

Clearing her throat, she smiled her best corporate smile. It said to the world, I'm interested, but I don't want to be your friend . Everyone was safer that way. "Of course not Mr. Denon, have a seat."

Malcolm walked to the chair in front of her desk and sat down in it. After a moment, he seemed to get comfortable in the wooden office furniture. At his height, which she would guess at being at least six foot five inches tall or perhaps a little more, it couldn't be easy for him to fit into basic chairs. There weren't too many men she ran into who were the sheer size of the one in front of her. Even if they were as tall as he, they didn't have the broad shoulders and the wide muscular chest, legs, and arms.

She waited a beat to make sure he was comfortable before she began. "What can I do for you, Mr. Denon?"

"Please call me Malcolm."

Business pleasantries. She was used to them. "Okay. Then you call me Jana."

He nodded and looked down at her desk. She'd taken great care to make sure that her office was filled with things that people looked at but didn't question, and she never displayed a picture of anything anyone would want to talk about. Coworkers felt compelled to make conversation about them and that led to too many inquiries about Jana's coming and goings that she didn't need.

"So what can I do for you, Malcolm?"

"It's really more of a question as to what I can do for you. You still haven't come to see me."

She raised her hands slightly. "I'll admit, I have no use for security. No one wants to kill the advertising girl from a shoe company. I write copy, Malcolm—good enough copy that Carl Elders doesn't have to employ outside agencies to do more than film the commercials that I write—but none of those skills are going to get me in too much trouble, other than dirty looks from the top firms that would love to land us."

"A major shoe company, sporting goods really." Malcolm's eyes said he found her downgrading the size of their athletics company less than amusing. "And evidently someone found it important enough to threaten the top executives here, or Carl wouldn't have brought my firm on board to protect his top people."

She smiled, showing no teeth as she feared her mouth would look too wolfish. With her luck, her fangs would have elongated and he'd either shoot her or go running from the room in terror. "I'm hardly a top person."

"Carl disagrees."

"He's very kind." Malcolm's strong gaze made her cheeks flame and she hoped she wasn't blushing. It really was too bad he wasn't a wolf.

Too bad indeed. If he was a wolf, I would like him.

I know you would. Jana would too.

Malcolm leaned forward, his gaze looking nothing less than predatory, and Jana stopped breathing for a moment. Her wolf awoke, rushing to the forefront of her consciousness. Was she being threatened? It certainly felt that way or at least close to it.

Holding on as tightly as she could, she begged her wolf to stay hidden, promising her a run tonight. They'd take the eight o'clock train out of Penn Station and be running by eleven. Together they could run all weekend if she just restrained herself now.

What was it about Malcolm that made her insides go nuts?

"Your relationship with Carl, what is it exactly?"

Jana raised an eyebrow. "And that is your business why ?" Truth was, she and Carl had a very good working relationship but that was it, and that was all it would ever be, despite her employer's desire for more. It had been years since Carl suggested it be anything else. She suspected he'd forgotten it by now.

"I'm supposed to be protecting everyone. If two of my charges are more than just colleagues or friends, it is my job to know about it so I can account for it."

Shrugging, Jana tried not to smile at the aggravation that had shown up in the otherwise unflappable Mr. Denon's voice. "Seems like a pretty weak argument to me.