8. A voice, smooth like chocolate

 “Is there something else I can help you with Zale?” Her tone is low and commanding, power threading through it lightly as she pulls her arm free in a very deliberate move, I let it go. I only grabbed her to make her stop walking away.

“Yes, you can tell me what clan you are from.” I demand urgently, stepping close to keep our conversation private. Her brow furrows again with annoyance, and if I wasn’t watching her so closely, I would have missed the rolling of her eyes.

“I already told you; my father is a Doyle, he has Irish heritage.” She states, stepping back from me with a single precise step.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You are in my territory, what clan were you banished from?” This time I add an Alpha command to my demand. My voice deepens, taking on the timbre of my wolf to reinforce the command. That’s when I feel it, in response ot my push, her full wolf aura, and it’s pissed.

Her whole posture changes, she straightens, her chest puffs out and she looks me dead in the eyes – her expression both hard and unimpressed. “Ok, I don’t know what you are talking about, but you are making me uncomfortable and need to stop and step back.”

“Holy shit, Zale – step back.” Anders appears behind me, one arm clamping on my shoulder and the other on arm, pulling me back a step from her, widening the distance between us. He saw the change too, can feel the aura and she’s not even sending out her power - it's just floating around her like a cloud.

He gives her an awkward laugh and his best charming ‘golden boy’ smile, trying to diffuse the situation I have created.  “I apologise on Zale’s behalf, it seemed like you might be related to us, a distant relative maybe, hence the slightly obscure questions, we can see now that we were clearly mistaken. We will leave you to your day and look forward to hearing the outcome to our proposal.”

With her aura in place, her scent is the strongest I have detected so far. I take a deep inhale, holding the air in my lungs as my wolf memories it, so I can find her later. She looks at me as if what I did is a predictable male play at intimidation. Her eyes narrow on the two of us, her nostrils flare in anger and then it happens. For a single second, her eyes shift to the most startling gold that I have ever seen in a wolf. They flash with power, with command and with challenge. Then shift back to her normal green-brown. “That’s ok, everyone makes mistakes, most of the time they are forgivable…as long as they are not repeated.”

I watch in awe as she turns and walks down the stairs, her pink tipped braid swinging across her back in time with her hips, and through a security door. She doesn’t look back at us once. We have been dismissed.

“If I hadn’t seen that myself, I wouldn’t have believed that just happened. I have never seen a she-wolf that strong before – to shift her eyes and nothing else.” Anders’ voice breaks the moment. I didn’t realise that I was still staring after her – completely frozen in shock.

“I’ve never seen a partial shift that precise either - hands sure - not eyes. Anders, Colin, I want you to search every database, including human ones. I want everything there is to know about Willow Doyle on my desk by tomorrow morning.” Both of them nod as we take the lift down to the lobby and out of the building towards our car.

“I’ll get a scout on her, to track her movements.” Anders jumps into the driver seat, Colin moves to the back to give me the front passenger seat.

“Make sure they know to keep a distance and be discreet, I don’t want her getting spooked and running before we know who she is and what’s going on.”  I turn back to look at the office building again, I don’t know if I expected to see her watching us from a window or something, but she’s not and I’m keenly disappointed.

There is something strange about her and how she has managed to stay off the registry and out of notice – and I am going to find out exactly what it is.

Looks like I have a she-wolf to hunt down.

Willow

I’m starting to regret my impulsive shift; I have never taken such a risk before – I don’t know what possessed me. He just provoked me so badly. I was so annoyed at the dominance plays, that I wanted to bite back.

Dad will kill me if he finds out.

Tristan comes to my office and perches on my desk, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks at me with amusement. “So was it just me or was that meeting a little weird?”

“It was not just you, there was definitely something odd about those men. But they do have a great product, and a stellar reputation – so let’s see how the other vendors go before we write them off entirely.” I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling for a bit. "As much as I want to ignore Blaidd Tech and Zale Ryker, I need you make sure this project succeeds and they were already my first choice on paper."

“Hmmm, that Zale though, I could climb him like a tree. Oh and that voice - he has a voice that could stop me in my tracks.” Tristan muses, a dreamy look on his face that makes me giggle. He gives me a cheeky wink and then purposefully places a business card in front of me on the desk. “He seemed particularly interested in you Wills, just putting that there – in case you want to…I don’t know…give him a call…late at night…at home...alone…in the dark…and listen to that voice wrapped in sin.”

I burst out in a full laugh at that – I can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind when I first heard his voice. All deep, dark, and smooth like chocolate. It seems Tristan I are both attracted to the same type. “You are a bad man Tristan…but I do agree with you – that voice is temptation incarnate. Now get back to work.”

“Whatever you say, Boss.” He jumps up and bows dramatically before going back to his desk, leaving me still grinning. Once he is gone I pick up the business card his left for me. The card is thick with a velvety finish – expensive. I run my fingers over the gloss embossed name.

Zale Ryker.

I need to do some more research on him, so far, all my work has been focused on the company and their products, the CEO wasn’t on my radar at all.

Now he is.

My phone pings with a text from Finn, I’ve been expecting one today, he always texts the first day back after my trips to the cabin.

“Pizza and beer night at yours?” The text says.

“Sounds good – 6pm?” I write back.

“See there I’ll bring the beer – you order the pizza.” He replies with  😊🍺emojis.

I sent back a 😉and put my phone away. I have another few hours left till the end of the day and more than enough work to keep me occupied. I open my laptop and use the fingerprint pad to unlock it and start to work through my waiting emails and waiting reports.

I lose myself in the normalcy of the tasks, sending replies, checking progress reports, signing off on projects and activities until it’s the end of the day. By the time that I have finalized the last reply and am packing up for the day it’s getting late and if I am going to make it home by six, I need to leave now. I quickly order the pizzas to be delivered to my home, log out, grab my bag and out to the car.

I wave at Caroline on the front desk as I pass and push out into the car park. Breathing deep in the fresh air as I walk over to my SUV, opening the passenger door to dump my bag. As I walk around the back to driver side I feel a prickle at the back of my head. A creeping sensation covers me and I’m not sure what it means, but it puts me on edge.

I stop and look around the lot.