me to handle this most delicate and dangerous problem within the company. That had to mean something, didn’t it? This was not just a token assignment, or a test. This was the kind of responsibility that would only be given to someone Sebastian trusted, in whom he had confidence to solve the problem.
Sebastian was relying on me. Perhaps that meant that, after all this time, the older man was coming to accept me as his heir.
I inclined my head. “I shan’t disappoint you, sir.”
Sebastian scowled. “For your sake, I should certainly hope not.”
I reached for my briefcase. “I’ll leave for Montreal in the morning. Is there anything in particular I should familiarize myself with before I arrive?”
“It’s all on your computer. If you have any questions, I’m sure Victoria will be able to answer them.”
Already a dread I could not quite define was creeping to my stomach. “Victoria?”
“Victoria St. Clare. She’s an account executive in the Montreal office. You’ll be working with her. Didn’t I mention it?”
St. Clare, I thought. I should have known.
I kept my face expressionless. “No, sir, you didn’t. In exactly what capacity will we be working together?”
The slight arch of Sebastian’s eyebrow was almost imperceptible. “In every capacity.”
“I understood you to say I would be in charge of this operation.”
“And so you will be. You should look upon Victoria as…a partner.”
I translated, Spy.
“Surely you’ll agree with the wisdom of having a confederate in the enemy camp.”
I nodded stiffly. “Of course. I should have thought of it myself.”
Sebastian almost smiled. “Yes. You should have. You’ll report to her as soon as you arrive, then.”
“Of course.”
“Very good. That will be all for now. We expect you for supper. My wife sends her greetings.”
I barely managed a polite reply and a gracious bow as I left the room.
I didn’t know why I was surprised. I should have expected a trick like this from Sebastian. But if the older man expected me to be defeated or distracted by it, he was to be greatly disappointed.
I had a job to do, and I would get it done with or without Victoria St. Clare, perhaps even in spite of her. I would prove myself worthy of the command I was about to inherit, to Sebastian St. Clare and everyone else in the clan, if it was the last thing I did.
And that is how I, Noel Duprey, future leader of my people, ended up sitting behind the cramped metal desk of a junior executive in a corkboard-walled cubicle that wasn’t even soundproof, gaping like a schoolboy at a woman in a white fur coat. I represent the strongest, the smartest, the bravest and the most noble of all our kind. I am the standard against which all others are measured. Yet at that moment, as I turned to gaze at the female who had just entered, I was reduced to—forgive me—an almost human incoherence.
I was quite frankly astonished. I had just spent the entire flight from Alaska studying the personnel files of everyone in the Montreal office, most especially that of Victoria St. Clare. I thought I knew everything about her, but nothing had prepared me for this.
Victoria St. Clare—several dozen times removed from the direct line of descent, fortunately for everyone concerned—is what is known as an anthromorph. What that means, quite simply, is that through some genetic anomaly, she is condemned forever to retain her human form. She can never mate; she can never bear young; she can never know what it is to be one of us through the miracle of the Change. Of course one has to feel sorry for such a creature. I suppose it’s only natural to regard those different from oneself with a certain wariness, but Victoria St. Clare’s differences condemned her to a life of pity and scorn among her own people.
I had known that much about her as soon as I refreshed my memory on her name. There weren’t more than a dozen or so anthromorphs among us, and I remembered her from childhood pack gatherings as the poor ugly duckling all the other children used to torment. According to her personnel records, fortune hadn’t favored her much as the years progressed, either.
She was portrayed as a mediocre employee about whom the kindest evaluation report read, “Generally punctual.” In a business where creativity, ambition and daring were prized, she displayed about as much imagination as a toad. In six years of employment, she had been passed over for promotion no less than two dozen times. Even humans held positions over her.
She was, nevertheless, the werewolf who had been assigned to work with me on the most delicate, volatile situation ever to arise within the St. Clare Corporation.
No werewolf would ever be fired from the St. Clare Corporation, of course, and no St. Clare would ever be demoted. But with this kind of record, what amazed me was that she had achieved the position of account executive in the first place. With the kind of record Victoria had, Sebastian St. Clare was either up to some devilishly clever trick by assigning me to work with her, or the man was utterly insane.
Because something else had also become apparent through Victoria’s personnel file. She consistently rated low scores in job satisfaction tests. No one wanted to work with her. Other werewolves didn’t trust her. She was well known for associating with humans—even business competitors.
It seemed evident to me that, if there was a traitor in our midst and if the source of the treachery was the Montreal office, Victoria St. Clare had to be a prime suspect.
With all of this in mind, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I met her. But it certainly wasn’t this.
She was exceptionally, even strikingly, beautiful. She was tall with ivory skin and jet black satiny hair, which she wore pulled back from her face in a chignon at her neck, like a ballerina. She had the exquisite bone structure of a dancer, too: high cheekbones, delicate nose, aristocratic forehead. Her eyes were large and gray and deeply fringed with coal black lashes. Eyebrows arched gracefully over her brow ridges in a way that seemed designed to most easily express aloofness or disdain.
She was swathed from neck to ankle in a white fur coat, and she wore it regally. Where the coat opened in the front, I could see black suede boots and a slim leggy figure hugged by a teal-colored jersey dress that left no secrets—flat firm abdomen, the delicate notch of hipbones, the dip of her waist, the rounded swell of her breasts.
I don’t know. I suppose I expected her to be…unattractive.
Instinctively, I got to my feet, and at just that moment she recovered from her own shock and dropped her head, starting to bow. I suppose we both felt foolish.
She said, “Pardonnez-moi, je ne sais—”
And I said, “Non, pas de—”
We both broke off, and Victoria fell into a respectful silence, avoiding my eyes.
I released an impatient breath. There were certain things about my new status I would never get used to. Deference was one thing. Abject subservience was another.
“Are
