CHAPTER TWO: The Beast Behind the Glass

Zara didn’t expect her new office to be behind tinted glass.

Nor did she expect to be alone on the top floor with only two doors: his, and hers.

No team. No supervisor. Just a silent assistant named Ren who delivered case files with a nod and vanished like smoke. Zara hadn’t seen him blink once.

At first, she tried to make small talk.

“So… Ren, right?”

He nodded.

“You’ve worked here long?”

He handed her a sealed envelope and disappeared without a word.

Day one of her “reassignment” to Maxim Vale’s floor had been a crash course in secrecy. The contracts she reviewed weren’t standard NDAs or real estate filings—they were strange. Looped calligraphy. Wax seals. Witness signatures scrawled in languages she didn’t recognize. Sometimes the paper shimmered faintly, like it wasn’t meant to be seen under fluorescent light.

Case headers read like fairytales gone corporate:

House of Crimson Fang v. Eastern Shade Pact

The Moonlit Guild Arbitration

Bloodline Claim #3492-A — Disputed Heir, Pending Luna Sign-off

She’d triple-checked the firm’s internal case database.

Nothing.

At first, she assumed they were code names for ultra-private clients or offshore shell corporations. Silver & Vale was known for discretion. But as the days passed, the pieces stopped fitting into human logic.

One morning, a man in a Victorian cloak walked into Maxim’s office and left ten minutes later with glowing eyes and steam rising from his collar. Another time, a courier delivered a black envelope—no return address, no stamp. The paper was ice-cold to the touch and thrummed in her palm like a heartbeat.

Zara didn’t ask questions. She filed. She redacted. She read.

And she learned quickly that whatever secrets this firm was built on… they didn’t belong to humans.

She started keeping a notebook. Just bullet points. Things that didn’t make sense. The entries piled up.

“Clause 13 invokes ‘Alpha Law’?”

“Bloodline sigils?”

“Witness testimony required under full moon?”

She should have been afraid.

But instead, she felt something else: intrigued.

Maxim was quiet. Always watching, rarely speaking unless necessary.

But when he did speak—to her—it was never cruel. His voice was like shadow on marble: precise, controlled, deliberate. Not cold, exactly. Just… caged.

“You missed a clause on Line 4B,” he said one afternoon, sliding the contract back to her.

She winced, cheeks burning. “Sorry, I—”

“No apology needed,” he said. “The ink was obscured. Easy miss.”

She blinked, surprised. No edge. No scolding. Just fact.

The next day, he handed her lunch. No note, no explanation—just a perfectly wrapped container from a Thai place tucked in an alley across town. She hadn’t mentioned it aloud, but she had passed it once on her walk from the train and thought about trying it.

That same afternoon, one of the senior partners from downstairs—Damon Ross—came up for a contract handoff. His gaze lingered too long on her chest.

Before she could step away, Maxim appeared in the hallway like smoke forming a wall between them.

“Is there a reason you’re loitering on my floor, Damon?” Maxim’s voice was polite, but she felt the power in it like a storm coiling beneath calm waters.

Ross muttered something about a misplaced clause and left. Fast.

Zara stood frozen, heart pounding. She waited for Maxim to say something. He didn’t. He just nodded to her, then returned to his office like the incident hadn’t happened.

Maybe he was just meticulous. Maybe he was just territorial.

She didn’t expect anything.

Not until the bleeding incident.

It was late Friday, the floor mostly deserted. Zara was annotating a contract—something about a disputed bloodline clause with a raised crest—and didn’t notice the sharp corner of the parchment until it sliced her finger.

She hissed softly, more startled than hurt, and reached for a tissue.

But before she could move, the door to Maxim’s office swung open.

She looked up.

He stood in the doorway, tall and still, framed in shadow. But something about his posture was off. He wasn’t composed. He was tense, like a wire pulled too tight.

His eyes locked on her hand.

Then she saw it.

Gold.

Not hazel. Not flecks. Gold. Bright. Burning. Alive.

His nostrils flared. His jaw clenched. The vein in his neck pulsed once.

Then—so fast she almost doubted it—he turned on his heel.

“Excuse me,” he said sharply. And vanished into his office.

The door clicked shut behind him.

She sat there, stunned. The room felt charged, like the air before lightning. Her fingers trembled slightly as she dabbed at the cut, but her focus wasn’t on the sting.

It was on his eyes. That color.

That wasn’t human. Not even close.

She didn’t see him again for the rest of the day.

No goodnight. No case files. Just silence behind the glass.

When she returned Monday morning, something waited on her desk.

A pendant.

Wrought silver. Delicate chain. Hanging from it—a wolf, mid-prowl. The detail was exquisite. Its eyes were two tiny shards of moonstone, iridescent in the morning light.

No tag. No note. No signature.

Just the wolf.

Zara stared at it for a long time. Her fingers hovered above it before she finally picked it up.

The metal was warm.

Not room-temperature warm—held warm. Like it had been worn. Or heated by something more than touch.

She closed her hand around it, heart thudding in her chest.

Her first instinct was to ask him. March into his office and demand an explanation. But something about the gesture—the silence of it—made her hesitate.

It wasn’t a gift meant to be acknowledged.

It was a mark. A message. A warning. Or maybe... a promise.

She looked toward his office.

The door was shut, as always.

But she felt him.

Watching.

Studying her.

Waiting.

She didn’t know what he was. Not yet. But she knew what she’d seen.

Gold eyes. A wolf pendant. A sudden hunger in the air.

She wasn’t just working for a powerful man. She was working for something else entirely.

And whatever he was…

He saw her. Really saw her.

She slipped the chain around her neck. The pendant settled against her chest, warm and steady.

Zara closed her hand over it.

He’s more beast than man… and I think I’m waking something in him.