All Chapters of Too Late To Claim Me: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The proposal from Crestwood Pack arrived on a Thursday.I was in my office, reviewing contracts for a new development near the northern borderland across when Lina buzzed through with a strange note in her voice. "Ms. Vance? There's a courier here. From a... community?"I set my pen down slowly, the way I did when I needed my hands to stop before my face did. "Which community?""Crestwood. They say it's urgent."The name landed like a hand closing around my throat. I made myself breathe through it, one count in, one count out, before I answered."Send them in."He couldn't have been older than eighteen. Nervous eyes, a spine held too straight, the posture of someone terrified of doing this wrong. He held out an envelope like it might bite him."Ms. Vance." A stiff bow at the waist. "I was told to deliver this personally.""Consider it delivered." I didn't reach for it yet. I let the silence sit there a moment, let it do what silence does to nervous young wolves, make them fidget, make

The morning I agreed to meet with Silver Creek, Caelum woke up burning.I felt it before I understood it, my hand on his forehead, then yanked back like I'd touched a stove. His eyes were open but wrong, glassy, fixed on nothing."Caelum?" I shook his shoulder gently. "Baby, look at me."Nothing. His chest rose and fell too fast, little puffs of breath like he'd been running."Caelum." Louder this time, my hand still on his shoulder. "Can you hear me?"His head turned, slow, like it cost him something. "Mommy." His voice didn't sound like his. Too flat. Too far away, like it was traveling to me through water. "There's a man at the edge of the woods. He's looking for something."My chest went cold. "What man?""The one with the wolf inside him. He's sad." Caelum's unfocused eyes stared past my shoulder, at the wall, at nothing. "He lost something a long time ago and he doesn't know what it was.""Mara!" I didn't recognize my own voice. "Mara, get in here!"She appeared in the doorway al

I arrived twenty minutes early, the way I always did, and let my security team sweep the room while I read the proposal one more time.Old habits die hard. Even now I checked the exits before I sat. Back to the wall. Every face in the room, catalogued for threats that probably weren't there.My lead man, Grant, came back from the far corner and gave me a small nod. "Clean, Ms. Vance.""Thank you." I set the proposal down and folded my hands over it, arranging my face into the neutral, unreadable expression that had gotten me through a hundred negotiations with men who underestimated me on sight, back when I was building this company from nothing and had learned the hard way that a woman's face could cost her a deal before she'd said a single word. It was easier with humans, usually. Wolves read things humans couldn't, heartbeat, scent, the small tells buried under good posture. I had no idea how much of me Lena and her uncle would be able to see the second they walked in.I found out s

The phone rang at four in the morning, and I already knew before I answered that nothing good ever called at that hour. I fumbled for it in the dark, heart already pounding before I'd even seen the name on the screen."Ms. Aurora, it's Gerald."His voice was tight in a way I'd never heard from him before. Gerald didn't panic. Gerald negotiated, read rooms, smiled while he twisted the knife. He didn't call before sunrise, not once in five years, not even the week Ironwood almost fell through the first time.I was already out of bed, laptop halfway open, adrenaline doing the work my brain hadn't caught up to yet. "What happened?""Sterling Holdings. They're making a move.""What kind of move?""They're claiming we violated our agreement with Ironwood. Non-compete clauses, proprietary information, it's nonsense, Ms. Aurora, but they've got a small army of lawyers and they're threatening to tie us up in litigation for years."The blood left my face in one long drop. "Ironwood is our bigges

Marcus Webb made his first mistake three days later. He showed up at my office.I was mid-meeting with Gerald and two attorneys when Lina's voice cut through the intercom. "Ms. Vance? There's a Mr. Webb here. Says he's from Sterling Holdings. Says it's urgent."The room went still."Did he say what he wanted?""No. But he seems... nervous."I looked at Gerald. Nervous was interesting. Nervous meant something had changed."Small conference room. I'll be there in ten minutes."I stood outside the door a moment before I went in, watching him through the glass. He looked smaller than his file photo, average height, average build, the kind of man who'd built a whole career out of being forgettable. His hands were shaking on the table in front of him.I opened the door. "Ms. Vance. Thank you for seeing me.""I'm told you have information." I stayed standing, deliberately, letting the height difference and the closed door behind me do some of the work my voice didn't need to."I do." He glanc