Chapter 1
Percy
At first I figured the address had to be wrong. The neighborhood was still in the city and not nearly rich enough to justify the kind of rates I charged. The neighborhood didn’t need a habitat specialist and ecological engineer, they needed a wrecking ball and a hell of a lot of investment dollars.
But the caller had been rather odd, so the odd location suited. He’d claimed he had a dire need for my specialty and was willing to pay over my regular fee for an initial consultation. All I had to do was show up to the address provided, listen to his problem, and provide some recommendations. All things considered, it seemed more like the set-up of some awful horror movie than a job opportunity.
Beggars can’t be choosers, typically, and though I wasn’t a beggar, I had student loans that demanded payment every month. So I drove to the euphemistically described ‘up and coming’ neighborhood. It had previously been one of the hoity-toity parts of the city. I’d done some research the night before, just after getting the call, in order to better understand what the client might want. The house in front of me, after I parked on the curb, was an old Victorian-style monstrosity – the kind of domicile that old money called a ‘townhouse’ while they slummed it in town before going back to their mansion in the country.
I adjusted my blazer and pretended to search my folio for something as I gathered my courage and put on my professional armor. Most people didn’t expectmeto show up when they hired Percy Lawson. I had to prepare to face the disappointment, disgust, confusion, condescension... any number of things that high power, rich men felt when a young woman showed up instead of the architect they’d expected.
Exactly the reason I didn’t put my picture on my website or social media profile. Well, that and I didn’t want to get calls for jobs based strictly on my face. A girl learns that lesson fast in business, or she doesn’t last long.
I squared my shoulders and made my way up the sidewalk – a little cracked in places but otherwise well-weeded and maintained – to the front porch. Lounge furniture, no doubt made of teak and a few hundred years old, crowded the length of the wraparound porch. A massive cat with a floofy tail and a curious expression lingered on the rail as I approached. He purred as loudly as the engine in my shitty sedan, and tilted his head to beg for head scritches.
I acquiesced, since he was too cute to simply bypass, and even rubbed under his chin and down his massive back. “Aren’t you a handsome devil.”
He blinked slow and long, in perfect agreement. I started to smile as petting the feline totally distracted me from why I was actually at the address. Maybe taking a job there wouldn’t be such a trial. I leaned down to kiss his head, still rubbing his chin with my knuckles. “Maybe they want a special place for you, handsome? Is that what this is?”
Some of the tension and nerves melted away. I tried not to prejudge people, since I was usually on the receiving end of that kind of judgment, but generally people who loved animals were good folks. And that cat was damn well-loved, based on his girth and pleasant demeanor.
I took a deep breath and gave him one more pat, then strode over to ring the bell. When in doubt, act like you own the space you’re in and that you have as much right to be there as anyone else.
But no one answered. I waited a few seconds, an odd feeling of unease taking root in my chest. The place was remarkably still for the middle of the day, and no cars drove down the street outside. I looked around, distracted once more as the cat hopped down to twine around my legs. I rang the bell a second time and checked my phone. I was right on time, not a minute early or late.
Maybe it was a prank call or the gruff man on the phone decided he didn’t want a habitat specialist. I clenched my jaw in irritation; nothing like wasting half the morning away fromrealwork to indulge some rich asshole’s whim. I raised my fist to pound on the door, so maybe their damn butler would hear, but got no further as the door whipped open and an absolutely enormous dude strode out.
Or tried to, since he stopped short before he mowed me down. I stared at him as I stumbled back, too intimidated by his size and the iron line of his jaw to hold my ground, and my feet tangled as the cat lingered and purred and rubbed against my ankles. I felt myself falling, felt the rising horror of making an ass of myself in front of a client, and braced to land hard and ruin the most expensive suit I owned.
Chapter 2
Dodge
Dodge moved into the witch’s house shortly after the incident with the sorcerer and Henry’s mate ended with Silas getting stuck in a monstrous half-wolf, half-man form. He could have stayed in the packhouse downtown in the old factory, but he preferred to be close enough to keep an eye on Silas. The poor bastard still paced and growled in the storm-cellar in the fancy house that the alpha’s mate owned. It had become the central residence for Evershaw, the alpha, and a few other senior wolves in the pack. Only Todd Evershaw, the alpha’s cousin, stayed at the place downtown to keep an eye on the rest of their misfit pack.
He still wasn’t entirely comfortable in the big ass mansion that Deirdre, the alpha’s mate, had inherited from her family. It was an old house, creaky and full of history, and it reminded him way too much of where he came from: where his grandparents lived and how much they fucking judged people. How much they’d judged his mother.
So he couldn’t relax much in the house unless he was chilling in the storm cellar with Silas, his feet propped up, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. At least the crazy wolfman had settled down somewhat, at least when Dodge was around, and Dodge could doze down there without fear of getting his throat ripped out.
Otherwise he paced through the house and along the porch, or went outside to do the same when Deirdre finally got too irritated with the noise and yelled at him to stop making such a racket. She’d gotten more irritable after the confrontation with the sorcerer and not being able to figure out what kind of fucked up magic lingered on Silas. Dodge had his own theories on why the witch was hard to be around, but it wasn’t his business and he wasn’t about to offer an opinion on the alpha’s mate.
He shook his head and headed for the front door, trying to escape another of Evershaw’s rampages about finding the sorcerer and making him pay for attacking the pack. Dodge missed Henry’s steadying presence; the pack’s third-in-command had retreated to Montana after his familial pack asked for his help, but the son of a bitch left a hole in the SilverLine pack that they apparently expected Dodge to fill. He clenched his jaw and whipped the door open. No way. Not his thing. He’d had enough of being in command, being responsible for other people’s lives. He just wanted a quiet life, no responsibility, no more threats or death or blood.
Dodge nearly steamrolled right through a tall young woman in a stuffy business suit who stood right outside the door. He slammed on the brakes so he didn’t knock her ass down, and gripped the door to keep from growling out of sheer irritation and shock. Her dark eyes widened considerably when she saw him, so he must have scared the shit out of her. She scrambled back, or tried to – Cricket, the witch’s damn mountain lion of a house-cat, had made himself a nuisance like usual and tangled up her feet.
Or maybe it was the fancy high heels she wore that threw off her balance. Either way, her arms windmilled and she threw a leather-bound folio at him as she pitched backward.
Dodge could have let her fall, sinceshewas the one who’d been hanging around on the wrong side of someone else’s door, but he wasn’t usually a dick to women. So he leaned forward and caught the front of her shirt in his fist, hauling her back upright.
She blinked, breathing hard, and stared at him.
He stared right back, unmindful that he still held onto her pretty blouse and no doubt wrinkled the shit out of it with his grip. At least he hadn’t caught her bra by accident. Or torn something off completely. He arched his eyebrows. “Can I help you?”
Her face turned red, as did every visible inch of skin across her chest and throat. She cleared her throat a few times, then brushed at the front of her shirt – dislodging his hand. She wobbled a bit on her heels, then bent to retrieve the folio that had nearly dented Dodge’s chest. Her voice, low and throaty, didn’t match the prim and proper exterior. “I’m the architect. Mr. Evershaw called about a habitat to be built. We had an appointment at ten.”
Her voice was meant for dirty jokes over a poker table, maybe dirtier talk fucking on a pool table. She had the body for it, too, and it was even more intriguing because she hid it with the charcoal gray suit and pretty pearls and subtle diamond earrings. Trying to wear a uniform so shitheads like him didn’t leer at her as she was trying to do her job. He tilted his head at the interior of the house and held the door open wider, stepping back to invite her in. “I’ll get him. Come in. Watch out for the cat.”
She eyed him with clear distrust, but apparently Cricket approved of her, because the cat trotted inside and hopped onto his favorite loveseat to lash his tail and knead the pillows into pin-pricked, down-spilling wrecks. The girl swallowed and maneuvered through the open door, brushing past him without a second glance. He closed his eyes briefly as the scent of her perfume drifted past him – subtle and understated elegance, perfectly matched to the pearls and the demure click-click of her heels.
