WOLF IN A LAB COAT

“Just look how you fit perfectly between us….”

I adjusted my lab coat for the tenth time in an hour, the heavy white fabric feeling like a straitjacket against my sensitized skin. 

Normally, the steady, mechanical hum of the centrifuge usually served as my meditation, keeping the chaos of my mind at bay.

But today, every vibration felt like an echo of the low, possessive growl from my dream, traveling up the legs of my chair and settling deep in my pelvis, amplifying the insistent throb there that made me want to grind against the edge of my seat just to find a second of friction.

I could still feel the phantom heat of those hands on my hips, the way he had pounded into me with a strength that made my heart stutter. 

It was humiliating. I was Dr. Tyra Valerius, a world-class medical technologist, a woman with three degrees who had published in eleven international journals, yet I was being held hostage by a fantasy about shadows. 

“Dr. Tyra!” The voice boomed through the doorway and made me jump hard enough to almost knock the sample rack. “Gōngxǐ!”

I looked up, my heart leaping into my throat. 

My CSO, Magnus Blackthorn, stood in the doorway of my office, leaning against the wood with a boyish grin on his face. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he apologized sheepishly. 

I waved off his apology. “It’s ok. I was the one not paying attention.”

“You got the grant!” he exclaimed, his excitement returning. “They called your research groundbreaking. You did it again, you and your beautiful brain.”

I blinked. The grant. Right. I had been waiting on that for months.

My lips curved into a faint smile. “That’s good.”

“Just good?” He drawled, then pushed off the doorframe and sauntered into my room with a predatory grace that always made me feel like he was waiting for something to pounce on. 

Because of the friendly way he carried himself, I usually forgot he wasn’t just a successful scientist but also a top-ranking alpha in my world.

I straightened slightly when his sharp, dark cedar scent reached me before he did. 

He stopped in front of my desk, then leaned down until his face was inches from mine. "You’re the only person I know who can land a grant this big and act like someone just handed you tax papers." 

“It’s good for the lab,” I said, turning back to my monitor to hide how flustered I was.

He set the printout on my desk and sat on the edge, close enough that I had to consciously keep my eyes on the screen.

I hid my wince as his hand came to rest on the back of my chair, his thumb brushing against my shoulder blade. "You work too hard, Tyra. Let me take you to dinner tonight,” he whispered, his voice suddenly low and husky. “We can go to that French place you like. Just us."  

"I have a lot of data to process," I replied, my eyes fixed on a blurry line of code. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing up. 

“You always have data to process.” He grumbled so childishly that I almost smiled. His voice became warmer. “When was the last time you actually let yourself enjoy something, Ty?”

"I can't, Magnus. I really need to finish this," I said, my voice finally firming up as I stood up abruptly, putting the desk between us.  

"Why do I feel like you've been dodging me?” He raised a brow, his dark eyes searching mine with a terrifying intensity. “What are you so afraid of?"  

The question landed somewhere it had no business landing. I kept my face neutral.

"I haven’t been avoiding you," I said, gripping the edge of the desk until the wood bit into my palms. "I’ve just been busy."  

He squinted at me for a few seconds, then shrugged, his smile returning. “Come on. Let me treat you,” he said, batting his lashes at me, making me roll my eyes in exasperation. “What would people say if they found out we weren’t treating The Dr. Tyra Forrest like the VIP she is?”

“Valerius,” I said flatly.

He paused. “What?”

“Its Dr Valerius.” I looked at him directly for the first time since he walked in. “Not Forrest. I didn’t take my stepfather’s name.”

“Right. My bad.” He held his hands up, the picture of easy apology. “Goddess, I can’t believe I have a Forrest and Valerius working with me.” He continued, looking at me in awe. “You can totally have my job if you wanted.”

“My family’s money is not mine,” I said flatly. “And I’m ok with my job. I want to create things that change lives, not just fund them.”

The admiring look he gave me then was genuine, making warmth spread through me. 

He was one person who had always believed in my capabilities as a scientist, even back then in university, when everyone else had just been looking at my lineage or looking at me as a rich kid who just wanted to play with test tubes to look smarter. 

“You really are one of a kind,” he muttered, his voice quiet and certain, like he had been thinking of it for a while and just decided.  

His gaze moved over my face slowly, like a man craving something he wasn't sure he could have.

Magnus Blackthorn was a handsome, wealthy man. One of the most sought-after bachelors and he had been subtly hitting on me for months now with impressive patience.

But I wanted nothing to do with a shifter. I was done with that world. 

I just wanted to live a normal, low-key life away from shifter drama.

My phone suddenly buzzed on the desk between us. We both looked at it at the same time.

Mom.

I watched it ring, and suddenly I was twelve again, sitting in the office of the shifter specialist with my legs dangling off the examination table.

“Her vitals are fine,” he said, squinting at me like I was a specimen he couldn’t wrap his head around. “Everything that should be alright is, but I can't get any sign of her wolf." 

“No wolf?” my mom whispered, her voice shaking. “That's impossible.” She quickly pasted a smile for my sake. “It’s just… delayed, sweetheart. Right, healer?”

“Maybe.” His eyes softened with pity. “But I'm getting no hints of any wolf in her. Even if it was delayed, I should still be able to...." he paused, shaking his head. "....Sometimes trauma… interferes.”

“Bu... but she’s from one of the most powerful bloodlines,” my mom insisted, her voice shaking. “Their wolf-side is very strong even with trauma.... she... she's supposed to have shifted two years ago—”

“Sometimes trauma can fracture the bond,” the healer interrupted, lowering his voice as if he thought I couldn’t hear them. “You know what she witnessed. Her wolf spirit was permanently broken by that.”

Permanently.

The word had settled into my chest that day and never fully left.

Then the whispers that followed: defective, wolfless, a stain on the Valerius name as my dad’s younger brother had yelled.

My father’s family wanted to even have me erased from the family tree, but only backed down because they were afraid of my aunt, my dad’s elder sister.

If her father had been alive, not a single one of them would have dared open their mouths.

“Everything okay at home?” Magnus asked, an eyebrow raised. 

“Everything’s fine,” I said, blinking away the memory.

He nodded slowly, like he did not entirely believe me but was choosing to let it go.

That was the thing about Magnus. He always seemed to know exactly how far to push and exactly when to stop. 

“So, your stepbrothers’ inauguration is coming up,” he said, his tone casual. “Heard they were even going the traditional route. Big deal for the Forrest pack.”

I squinted at him. “What?”

“The twins.” He said, tilting his head as he watched me. “Alaric and Osric. They’re being sworn in as Alpha heirs, and they chose the traditional ceremony.” He gave me a small smile. “You didn’t know?”

I straightened and smoothed my expression out.

So that was why she had been calling insistently.

The three days of missed calls had not been my mother checking in or making small talk. She had been trying to tell me about her precious twins' inauguration. 

Why were the fuckers even going the traditional route? The one event I could not realistically be absent from without creating a political incident.

“Of course I knew,” I lied smoothly.

He looked at me the way he sometimes did, like he could see past the answer I gave him to the one I was actually thinking.

“When are you leaving for Europe?" He asked. “I’m thinking we go together.”

“I’m still figuring out my schedule,” I replied, shrugging nonchalantly. “By the way, I can’t go with you. The gossip would be outrageous.”

He gave me a playful wink. “Would they just be rumors though?” 

I rolled my eyes. “Magnus, get out,” I said, trying to hide my smile at his antics but failing.

“Yes mama,” he said, raising his hands and began backing away. “One day, I’ll get you to that dinner. You work too hard, Ty. Even the best researchers need to breathe.”

He left then, his scent hanging in the room after him.

I sat back in my chair and exhaled as I looked at my buzzing phone.

Then my phone buzzed on the desk.

I turned it over to see a text from her: 

We need to talk. 

I stared at it, and it buzzed again.

Please, Tyra. Come home.

My hands were not steady when I turned the phone face down.

Ten years. Ten years of distance and silence and carefully built walls, and it seemed like no matter how far I ran, that place had a way of reaching across continents and dragging me back.

My hands were trembling when I reached for my lab coat and began packing up.

I was not ready for this. I was never going to be ready for this.