Linda Johnston - Canadian Wolf

“How fascinating!” Anthony did indeed appear fascinated. He stood behind a chair at the opposite side of the table, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. “I’m pleased that you’re here to give us a close-up demonstration.”

“Yes. About that.” Rainey drew their attention as she sat down again. Her movement caused Lupe, who’d stood up as the humans did, to sit as well. “We’ve discussed that and are not sure about the best way to handle it. You see, we need a bit of privacy. Actually, Lieutenant Jennay needs a bit of privacy,” she amended. “I’m her aide, and I’ll be with her, but a shift requires that someone, er—”

“I’ll be nude,” Selena interjected. She remained standing for now, her arms crossed. “That’s why I have a female aide. We use a special proprietary elixir, and we will make some available to the shifters you have recruited into the new RCMP team that we’re to train. When the rest of our Alpha Force team arrives tomorrow or the next day, they’ll include a male shifter or two. They may be more amenable to being observed by men when they change. But although you can definitely see me once I’ve shifted, you unfortunately can’t watch me shift.” She found herself looking straight into Owen Dewirter’s still-unreadable gaze. “Too uncomfortable for me. And I don’t like to feel uncomfortable.”

“I see.” The words were drawn out slowly by Anthony Creay as he sank down into a chair across from the two women. And clearly, to Selena, the point was that he could not see. Not everything. “Nude? I didn’t consider that—but I believe that observing a shift was part of our understanding. So we would be sure of the genuineness of the help we’re getting.” As he scowled, his fleshy lower lip protruded.

Owen took a seat beside him, then exchanged glances with his superior officer. When he turned back to Selena, he had a decided frown on his face, too. “We need to work something out here,” he said. “We have to watch the process to be sure you’re a real shifter and not just trying to put something over on us.”

His pronunciation of the word out —with an almost long O sound—emphasized that he was Canadian. But his accent wasn’t the only difference between them. He wanted her to get nude in front of him for her demo shift? Not gonna happen. Even though he was one great-looking guy. The thought of him observing her body as she stripped sent waves of heat through Selena that made her feel as if this meeting was on the hottest summer day in the US South instead of a cool evening in the Canadian West.

Was this whole thing primed to be a fiasco? Selena hoped not. She and Rainey were here representing Alpha Force and, since they had been in the western United States and were therefore the closest of those in their unit who had been selected to help the RCMP form their own similar unit, they’d been ordered to Vancouver to give a small and limited demonstration.

Limited being the key word.

Even Lupe must have sensed the tension in the room since she stood beside Selena and whined. Selena reached out and hugged the wolf-dog closer to her.

“Here’s the thing,” she said to the men in as reasonable a tone as she could muster. “Let me introduce you first to my cover dog. Lupe, this is Deputy Commissioner Creay and Sergeant Major Dewirter.” She scratched Lupe behind the ears in a manner that caused the dog to turn her head toward the two men, not that Lupe, a genuine canine, could understand her words. “Gentlemen, this is the canine who looks a whole lot like me when I’m shifted. The way I figured we’d do this demonstration is for Rainey and me to go into another room. You can keep Lupe with you and lock the door to the room. With Rainey’s help, I’ll shift. Then when you unlock the door there’ll be Rainey inside with a canine who looks a whole lot like Lupe. Voilà! That’ll be me, shifted. There’ll be no other person in the room. With doors locked and all, there’s no way we’d be able to do this without it being the real thing.” The very suggestion that they’d try to pull a scam on representatives of a national police department that had requested their help really peeved Selena.

“But we understood we could see the actual shift take place.” Creay’s tone was icy.

Selena glanced toward Rainey, who looked uneasy and bewildered. Well, she needn’t be. Selena was in charge here, at least for now.

“I understand your wish to see the process, gentlemen,” she said. “Maybe you’d have been able to if you hadn’t requested Alpha Force’s presence so urgently. You said you needed at least our initial representation within one day. We were the closest team members available. So here we are.”

“I recognize that,” Creay retorted. “But we don’t have any extra time, either, to wait—or to deal with a situation where things aren’t as represented to us.”

“Are you accusing us of lying?” Selena hated to be confrontational, but their attitude was forcing her into it.

“We’re not accusing you of anything.” Owen’s voice sounded placating, but his expression remained unreadable. “We just want to ensure we’ve got what we were promised by the US military.”

Selena wanted to make good on that promise, too, for the sake of Alpha Force. She took a deep breath, then said, “Look, we want to cooperate with you—but certain things are nonnegotiable. If you don’t feel you can trust us, if you think we’ll play some kind of hoodwinking, magical game even when you can watch to make sure the room stays locked—well, maybe we’d better just leave right now.”

Selena saw Owen glance once more into the angry face of his commanding officer. Then Owen looked directly toward Selena. “Okay,” he said. “We understand your concern, and I hope you understand ours. Our mission is highly important. And...well, it’s probably no surprise to you that not all people believe in shapeshifters. We just need—”

“Do you believe in them?” Selena glared as if daring him to say that who she was, what she did, wasn’t real.

“Yes,” Owen said quietly, planting his arms on the table in front of him and leaning toward her. “I do. But this is all new to Deputy Commissioner Creay and he has his doubts.”

Interesting, Selena thought. Creay’s position was that of the majority of regular people. But the sergeant major was a believer. How did he know the reality?

Well, if he was the one who’d be working with them, maybe she would find out. Or not, if things continued to deteriorate.

He leaned in closer toward Selena, and his confrontational posture made Lupe tense up and growl. Glancing at the dog, he backed up slightly. “We seem to be at a stalemate. I’ll be with you at the headquarters of the new team we’re forming. But Deputy Commissioner Creay won’t be with us. He’s going back to our headquarters in Ottawa when we’re done here. I may be able to watch some of the male shifters change then, but he needs to see you shift now.” His expression changed then from demanding to something Selena couldn’t interpret at first. Challenging?

Could be, considering his next words.

“I’ll tell you what, Lieutenant Jennay. If you strip and show us your change, I’ll strip right along with you. That way we can both feel uncomfortable, not just you. Although I have to admit that I’m just a normal human being.”

Selena blinked in surprise at his outrageous offer.

Normal? She doubted that. The idea set her body on fire, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from letting her gaze slide down his fully clothed body toward the area she really would like to see nude.

But was he serious? Or was this some kind of additional challenge? “That’s not—” she began.