The Wolf's Call (Two-Natured London) (2 page)

Raphael Green let his body sag
heavily against the wall outside the door to Latimer & Holby Solicitors, his
legs unable to support his weight anymore. He had been about to enter the
premises of his would-be lawyers when he had overheard the battle of wills
between Mr Latimer – judging by his voice – and
her
. An emotion unlike
anything he had felt before had taken control of his body from the first sound
of her voice and he had simply frozen, just standing there holding the
door-handle, unable to push the door properly open or let it close, mesmerised
by her voice, impressed by her strength of will. With her voice gone, so was
his bodily strength, as if drained by her. His listless hand fell from the
handle and the door closed. It didn’t matter. He needed a moment to recover
anyway.

When
was the last time he’d had such a strong physical reaction to anything? His heart
was beating erratically and his breathing was laboured, as if he had run up to
the fifteenth floor instead of taking the lift. Hell, a marathon wouldn’t have
left him this shaky. His clothes felt stifling all of a sudden and he pulled
the tie off so that he could breathe. He had gone rock hard too, adding
to his acute discomfort. It was as if he had been through a battle.

One
thing was sure. He had to have her, and he didn’t mean as his lawyer. He needed
to have her in his bed so that he could bury himself deep into her until that
beautiful low voice like molten chocolate moaned his name in ecstasy. The image
made his cock jerk and he inhaled slowly to gain control of himself. The need
to see her was pulling him forward with an irresistable force of a locomotive before a freight train,
but he was old enough not to let his instincts rule him.

This
wasn’t the first time a woman had excited him during his hundred and
thirty-four years, but for the first time he was aroused by a woman he hadn’t
even seen. It was also a first that he was drawn to a woman so dominant. He
tended to go after docile, submissive creatures that were fun for a while and
then didn’t bother him after he was done with them. Yet it was undoubtedly her
strength that had got him so worked up. A dominant female with a strong alpha
streak, who could have thought he would find one here? There were some dominant
shifter women, but not all of them had the alpha quality that could raise them
to clan leaders over physically stronger males.

To win
such a female, a male had to be truly worthy. It was the notion of being worthy
of her that had him so excited. It was a challenge.

Please,
gods, let her be a wolf.

Rafe
had seldom uttered a prayer more sincere to the twin deities governing the
spiritual wellbeing of the two-natured people. Another predatory shifter would
do as well, but a wolf would be perfect.

Then
he shook himself. He couldn’t stand outside the door all day, dreaming about
her. But he couldn’t go to his meeting with Mr Latimer sporting a raging
hard-on either, and so he forced his body under control with the ease of a
truly strong alpha shifter. Only, he couldn’t control his heart, and it raced
in anticipation as he pushed the door open and entered the office. He was sure
she heard it, but he didn’t care. She should know he intended to have her. That
was part of the chase too, the anticipation.

The
office didn’t match the image he had gotten from the outside. The firm was
located at the London’s newer business district of Canary Wharf, so he had
expected chrome and glass and the energetic atmosphere of making money fast.
Instead, it more resembled the traditional chambers around the Inns of Court,
its décor like a copy of the firm he had dealt with since 1910. The family-run
firm had recently ended its operations when there had been no one to continue
it, putting him on the market for a new solicitor. The hardwood and antique
leather furniture, heavy drapes, and oriental carpets the vast office was
decorated with represented the unhurried excellence to which he was accustomed.

As he
made his way along the aisle towards the back of the room, he took in the six
groups of desks with their occupants, seeking the one he wanted.
Air-conditioning was working against him so he couldn’t get a scent, but as
five desks were occupied by men, his task was easy. His eyes shot to her and
met a gaze exactly as strong as he had hoped.

To his
utter relief, she was a gorgeous young woman. He had been half afraid that she
was an older matron, her strength of will accumulated over a lifetime, but she
looked about his age – the age he seemed to be anyway, somewhere between thirty
and thirty-five.

He
could tell by the long stretch of stocking-clad legs neatly folded under her
chair that she was tall, but that she wasn’t ashamed of her height, judging by
the way she held herself straight even when sitting down, and by the three inch
heels of her black shoes. Standing in them, she would be close to his six foot
five. He usually dated short women, but now he couldn’t understand why. Of course
his woman would be tall.

Suddenly,
an image of the two of them stretched naked on a bed flashed in his mind. He
would be able to kiss her and thrust into her at the same time. The fantasy was
incredibly vivid, transporting him to another place. He could practically smell
the scents of their lovemaking and from a half a floor away he saw her nostrils
flare too. She clearly had the scent of his arousal. Good. Her nipples were
growing hard in response, pressing against the fabric of her expensive white blouse.
The blouse was deceptively modestly cut, but it couldn’t hide the shape of her
nicely-rounded breasts that would more than fill his large hands.

The
only thing missing from her perfect chest was the aura of her beast. The
translucent, full-colour 3D image of her animal protruding out of her like a
figurehead of a ship would have allowed him to see what kind of a shifter she
was from afar, but he wasn’t surprised by its absence. She was a strong shifter
and so able to hide the aura when needed. He had hidden his wolf too; it tended
to dominate everyone.

Then
again, judging by the onslaught of aftershaves that was clogging his delicate
scent receptors, everyone else in the office was human, so hiding the aura was
unnecessary – not to mention that it was illegal to discriminate against those
with second natures; in theory anyway. However, sometimes the aura’s
independent observations were distracting when one needed to concentrate, so
perhaps she had asked it to retreat.

It
didn’t matter. Only a couple of steps and he would be close enough to have her
scent, unhindered by the artificial scents and ventilation. She simply had to
be a wolf. It would be a crime if a woman so gorgeous were, say, a panther,
like her dark colours suggested.

There
was something feline about her though. For a woman so tall she was delicately
built, and very feminine, with only enough muscle tone to prevent her from
looking gangly. Sometimes taller women seemed to lose their curves, which was
why he preferred the short ones. Her features were finely sculpted with refined
cheekbones and a stubborn jaw, a straight nose, and arching black brows over
dark brown eyes. Her cherry-lipped mouth was, in a word, generous. To top it
all, she had a long black hair she had tied neatly in a bun at the back of her
head. He yearned to see it flowing free.

Then
he was within range of her scent and he drew it in deep, filling himself with
it. She wasn’t wearing any perfume – no shifter would – so he got a lungful of
pure her. Her scent was strong yet delicate like he had known it would be, with
a heady mix of fresh, citrusy scents adding sweetness and sharpness to it. And
she was…

Human.

His
disappointment was so profound he couldn’t comprehend what his senses were
telling him. Almost disgusted with her now for causing him such a blow, he
walked past her desk, barely giving her a second glance in his stupor.

Mr
Latimer, he presumed, as he was unable to pay attention, came to meet him and
he shook his hand mechanically before following him to his office. Only one
thing filled his mind. She could not be human. Gods could not be that cruel.

One by one, the lawyers
returned to their tasks after having paused to watch the man cross the room.
All but Charly. She was sitting perfectly still, hoping that no one would
notice how strongly she had been affected by him. She was feigning calm, but
she was squeezing the edge of her desk so hard her knuckles were standing out
in white relief.

She
hadn’t lost control of her body so completely since childhood, when her rages
had made her disregard her physical safety. Yet with a mere scent that man had
managed to override all her careful restraints, releasing sensations she wasn’t
ready to feel. Couldn’t afford to feel. A bone-melting arousal had glued her to
her chair and she could only helplessly watch him cross the room with a
confident stride, his scent growing stronger and more compelling as he drew
closer.

She
had known she was sensitive to scents, but never in her life had she been
attracted to a man based on how he smelled. She more tended to be repelled by
the fashionable products men used that had all her girlfriends in a swoon. And
the oddest thing was, he wasn’t using any artificial scent. Her arousal was
triggered by something that was essentially him. How she was able to tell the
difference, she had no idea.

She
turned the air-cleanser to full blast with the hopes that it would banish any
lingering remnants of him, holding her breath to prevent his scent from
overtaking her body again. But then she remembered what he looked like. She
inhaled sharply for the memory and almost whimpered when a jolt of arousal shot
through her again. She had seen handsome men before, but something about him
just spoke to her.

He had
been a picture of a powerful and self-confident man. He was extremely tall,
around six foot four or five, but he carried himself well; a man comfortable
with his height. His body was visibly strong, but he wasn’t brawny or overly
bulgy. Rather, his trimmed torso indicated stamina instead of empty muscles
acquired by pumping iron. The buttons of his well-cut suit jacket had been
open, hinting of washboard abs, as his broad shoulders narrowed to a waist that
didn’t show an ounce of extra weight. Then there had been his long legs, their
strength obvious in jeans he had worn in deference to custom. But they had
suited him perfectly. A suit represented tame and institutionalised power. His
was wilder, raw power that shouldn’t be restrained by propriety.

His
face had untamed savageness about it too. It was strong and chiselled with a
firm-lipped mouth set in determined lines, and a slightly aquiline nose with
wide nostrils; an arrogant nose for a fierce face. His eyebrows were straight
and sandy, and his deep blue eyes had been sharp as he’d studied the office as
if scanning it for dangers. His complexion was slightly tanned, contrasting
with his eyebrows and sun-kissed dark blond hair, giving her a notion that he
spent a lot of time outdoors. The thick hair was a bit overgrown and tousled as
if he had recently battled with wind or had only run his fingers through it
upon waking.

Watching
him approach, she had imagined him lying in bed just after waking up and
another jolt of arousal had shot through her. His eyes would be drowsy, his
hair even bigger a mess, and his chest would be bare and hopefully dusted with
light hair.

Just
at that moment, he had looked directly at her. More, he had known exactly how
he affected her, judging by the smug quirk of his upper lip. Not a great
surprise there. Men like him aroused women wherever they went and they knew it.

And
then he had simply walked past her as if she were air.

The
shock of it had jolted her to her senses. She was just one of many swooning
women on his path and didn’t even merit a second look. But the impact of him
was so enduring that for once she wasn’t strong enough to control her body.
That brought on a genuine fear that if she failed now, she wouldn’t be able to
control herself the next time she got angry. So she set out to go through every
technique in her repertoire, from meditation to mind games, in order to become
her own master again.

It
spoke volumes of how he had affected her that it took almost a half an hour
before she was calm again and able to concentrate on her work. The loss of time
aggravated her. She had to finish her case by the end of the week and it was
Thursday already. She couldn’t afford to let her mind wander.

And
then Mr Latimer returned. “Miss Thornton, could you come to the meeting room,
please. Mr Green would like to speak with you.”

There
went her equilibrium. Seizing control of herself immediately, she got up to
only slightly shaking legs, her heart pumping wildly. She spent a moment
straightening her pencil skirt, wishing she had worn something less
form-fitting. Then she put on the suit jacket she had wrapped over the back of
her chair and headed to the meeting room.

Gary
shot her a mischievous smile when she passed his desk. “I bet you wish you’d
made the coffee yourself now.”

His
words stunned her. Not because they were an indication of a gender stereotype,
but because they were true. She would have loved to make coffee for that man.
What was wrong with her?

Mr
Latimer was holding the door to the meeting room open for her and she took
courage from him. With his grumpy presence, she would be able to go through the
meeting without embarrassing herself. But then the door closed behind her and
she realised to her horror that Mr Latimer wasn’t in the room with her. She was
alone with that man.

The half an hour interview
with Mr Latimer had given Raphael enough time to get over the worst of his
disappointment. He didn’t even know why he had reacted so strongly to her being
a human. In general, he didn’t date humans if he could avoid it; they were so
fragile and he had to hide what he was from most of them so that he wouldn’t
offend their delicate sentiments. Then there were the human women who wanted to
date him only because he was a shifter, which he found even worse. He had had
enough of parties where he was exhibited like a curiosity item to his date’s
friends, or family gatherings where he was used as a weapon to hurt parents’
feelings.

And
that was only the casual dating. Mainly, he wouldn’t date humans because there
couldn’t be a lifelong commitment between them. In the best-case scenario the
relationship would last as long as the human’s pitifully short lifespan,
leaving the shifter to mourn the loss of a partner for who knew how long. In
the worst case, things went the way it had for his brother. That, if anything,
served as a warning against committing to a human. It was best to leave them
alone.

Then
he remembered how she looked and especially how strong she was, and he got
excited again. He might give her a try anyway. Therefore, when Mr Latimer asked
if he preferred to choose his solicitor himself, Rafe implied he wanted someone
like her without asking for her directly. He had a feeling Mr Latimer wouldn’t
react favourably if he had.

“As
you know, our firm is on the lookout for a long-term partnership. However, for
this one I’d like someone with the spirit and tenacity of a pit bull terrier.”
He’d wanted to say ‘with a spirit of a wolf’, but the poetry of that would have
been lost on Mr Latimer who had no idea he was dealing with a shifter. With the
debates that were going on in the Commons, it would be unwise to stir that
particular pond.

To his
delight, Mr Latimer immediately suggested Miss Charlotte Thornton for him.
There was such a smug look on his face though, that Rafe suspected he only did
it to add to her already heavy workload to get even with her for their battle
of wills. Rafe didn’t care. Her mere name stirred him.

“That
is, if you don’t mind working with a woman,” Mr Latimer then added, plunging
Rafe’s estimation of him even lower. If it hadn’t been for her, he might have
ended the talks then and there and looked elsewhere for his representation.
“Miss Thornton is a barrister too, and she is used to winning her cases. She’ll
put her whole attention to solving your problem, I’ll guarantee that.”

Rafe
just bet he would. He hid his annoyance and simply nodded. “Then she’s exactly
who I need.”

He
requested a private meeting with her, and although Mr Latimer wondered about
it, he didn’t want to alienate a possible long-term client. He just escorted Rafe
to a small meeting room across the hall to wait for Miss Thornton.

Left
to his thoughts, the anticipation of seeing her again made the small room feel
caging, and he began to pace it, unable to settle down. He was a tame wolf,
well used to modern housing, but he preferred rooms that were a bit more
spacious than one large enough only for a table for eight. Even the view from
the window was cut by a high-rise across the street, the road between so narrow
that he could see the faces of the people in the office opposite. If his
business hadn’t required privacy, he would have suggested that they talked by
her desk.

Besides,
he couldn’t wait to be alone with her. His excitement baffled him, considering
that he didn’t like human women, and that she was hardly the first woman he had
tried to pursue. However, this time there was a difference to his chase. For
the first time his wolf was showing interest in the woman too, pacing within
him, wanting to be let out so that it could get a proper scent of her. It hadn’t
accepted yet that their quarry wasn’t a shifter.

After
what felt like an eternity but was less than five minutes, the door opened and
she came in. Rafe paused in mid-stride and turned to face her. His brain ceased
to function for a painful moment as all his blood flowed downwards, tightening his trousers again,
indicating that his body hadn’t accepted reality either.

She
was magnificent standing up, her posture straight and her well-formed calves
showing to their advantage in a knee-length skirt that hugged her curvy hips.
She paused at the door as if offering him a chance to look his fill, and he
obliged. He ran his eyes slowly upwards, not wanting to spoil the moment by
being hasty.

She
had put on a form-fitting jacket that was probably meant to make her look
professional, but as it was cut to bring out her narrow waist and emphasise her
breasts, the effect on him was something quite else. Her face, once his eyes
reached there, was as beautiful as he remembered, and slightly flushed for his
slow study, as if she wasn’t used to being admired by men.

He
wondered about it, but then again, human men, especially Englishmen of her
class, weren’t known for openly showing appreciation for women of their
species. He couldn’t understand such reticence. Shifters were creatures of
emotions and instinct. When a shifter man was drawn to a woman, she knew it.
And Charlotte was starting to know it too. Her heart was beating fast, making a
pulse throb wildly at the base of her throat. He longed to sink his teeth into
it and mark the slender white column so that everyone would know she belonged
to him.

He
closed the small distance separating them in a stride or two, noticing that her
femininity became more pronounced next to his much larger body. She stiffened,
but she didn’t retreat. She simply drew herself straighter and met his eyes
calmly when he paused in front of her. He kept their gazes locked as he leaned
towards her, and she tensed. Stifling a smile, he reached around her and closed
the door Mr Latimer had left slightly ajar. She startled at the sound it made
when it hit home.

Nervous,
are we?

“There.
Now we can be more comfortable,” he said, watching, fascinated, how she
struggled to appear cold and unaffected by him. He wanted to prop his hands
against the door, close her between them, and pin her down with his body simply
to see her flush again.

But
some civilised part in him made him gesture towards the table instead. “Shall
we?”

For
further measure, he walked to the table and held a chair for her. After only a
brief hesitation, she walked to him, her hips swinging enticingly, and sat
down. He got a good whiff of her scent again and she was still human. It didn’t
matter to his body.

He
took a seat at the end of the table, diagonally to her, setting the chair
sideways so that he could face her. He rested his forearm on the desk and
stretched his legs before him. Long as they were, they reached all the way to
her chair, right up to her legs. He wanted to lean his legs against hers, but
resisted. “I’m Raphael Green, but please call me Rafe.”

She
frowned. “I’m afraid that is not very professional.” Her velvety voice had the
same effect on his body as earlier, adding to his arousal. This promised to be
a very painful conversation for him. “You’ll just have to deal with being
called Mr Green.”

Her
refusal delighted him, even though he didn’t generally hold to such
formalities. “May I at least call you by your given name?”

She
gave him a stern look. “No.”

He
grinned, he couldn’t help it, and to his satisfaction her mouth quirked into a
brief smile too. He had known her stiffness was only surface deep. He liked her
name, but he needed to give her a name only the two of them would use anyway,
so he nodded.

“Very
well, we’ll be professional then. Here’s the deal. My family owns a fairly
large development firm that operates mainly in the greater London area. For a
couple of years now, we’ve been buying land in one of the villages south of
M25, which we believe will be the next Epsom in popularity for London
commuters. The plan is to build an exclusive community of more-expensive
cottages. These plans are never popular with locals, however, so we’ve been
buying in secret.” He paused and she nodded, indicating that she had been
listening, even though her gaze kept dropping to his chest.

Stifling
a satisfied smile, he shifted in his chair as if seeking a better position to
sit in, offering her a better view. He didn’t mind her looking at his chest.
For further measure, he let his wolf peek out too. The aura stretched well out
of him towards her, studying her with its better sense of smell. It agreed that
she was human, but that didn’t seem to deter it one bit.

Charlotte
didn’t react to the wolf at all. She couldn’t see the aura. Humans couldn’t,
which in general made living side by side with them a great deal easier,
because they could pretend everyone was human. If it bothered the one-natureds
that generation after generation dealt with the same client, or that a CEO of a
vampire-owned company stayed the same for a hundred and fifty years without
growing older, they didn’t let it show. But now Rafe couldn’t help being
disappointed. He wanted her to see his wolf, and his beast wanted to be seen in
turn.

“Someone
found out about it though,” he continued, not letting his upset show. “It could
be a coincidence, but I think it’s deliberate.”

“What
is?” she asked, lifting her beautiful brown eyes to meet his. Her gaze didn’t
waver at all, although humans tended to react to the alpha in him by lowering
their eyes pretty fast. His wolf definitely expected it as its due. She just
gritted her teeth when the impact of him hit her, and refused to submit.

Rafe
was pleased by her show of strength. “Someone sold us a piece of land that
wasn’t theirs to sell and then disappeared. We’ve got a long list of previous
owners for the land, all of them fake.”

“Have
you gone to the police?”

“No,
and we’d rather not. We don’t want to draw any attention to our project until
we’ve purchased all the land we need.”

“So
you want me to do what?” She straightened in her chair, perfectly professional
now, his chest forgotten. He felt ridiculously upset for it.

“We
want you to find out who sold us the land and also who actually owns it. We’ve
been unable to do either with the means we have.”

She
nodded. “I’ve got an access to official records. Also, I’ve got contacts that I
can use.”

He was
intrigued. “What sort of contacts?”

She
gave him a sly smile that he took as a challenge, his blood heating all the way
down. “Secret contacts.”

He
flashed a wolfish grin and, in a fluid move, got up from his chair to sit on
the corner of the table. He was on a higher ground now and she had to lift her
face to keep looking at him, which pleased his wolf. “Tell me more,” he urged
with a smile, leaning towards her, but she wouldn’t budge.

“Are
you trying to intimidate me, Mr Green?” she asked calmly, refusing to lean
back.

“Call me Rafe.” But she just stared at him quietly, her
arched brow challenging him to answer her question. It agitated his wolf, but
he was so aroused he could barely breathe. He had never met a woman like her.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, his every word deliberate. He pressed his hands on
the armrests of her chair and leaned closer to her face, never breaking the eye
contact. “Is it working?” Closing in the short distance, he kissed her.

For a long, delicious
heartbeat, Charly forgot how to breathe. She forgot how to think too. She could
only feel, and the only thing she felt was the firm mouth of the sexiest man
she had ever met against hers, softly urging her to deepen the kiss. With a
sigh, she complied and leaned into his kiss, opening her mouth for him to
explore.

His
tongue dipped into her mouth. The sensations it evoked ignited her entire body,
snatching it violently out of her control. It was such a shock that she returned
instantly to her senses. She broke the kiss with a small shriek she was
instantly ashamed of, and stumbled backwards in her chair. “What the hell do
you think you’re doing?” she demanded angrily. She wanted to get up and put
some distance between them, but his hands were still holding the armrests and
she knew there was absolutely no breaking their hold until he allowed it.

“Kissing
you,” he answered simply and leaned back in.

She
would not have it. He was all too easily able to override her restraints and
she knew what would happen if she lost them completely. Not to mention what
would happen if someone came in and saw them kissing. Right after the fight
with her boss, it would get her fired. Furious now, as much for his behaviour
as for her easy assent to it, she was determined not to let him compromise her
standing with the firm.

Her
self-control already weakened, she wasn’t surprised when her anger manifested
physically, something that hadn’t happened in ages. Unable to prevent it, her
upper lip curled as if in a snarl, baring her teeth, and she growled, the sound
guttural but perfectly human.

She
knew her feral expression twisted her face to something so ugly it made normal
men back down, if only in disgust, and the humiliation of it finally curbed her
anger. Breathing hard for the effort of seizing back control of her body, she
stared at Mr Green defiantly. Let him deal with that.

But he
didn’t back off or look disgusted even. He looked positively intrigued. He
leaned closer again, braving her anger and her teeth, and took a long, deep
breath. Then he closed his eyes, as if savouring her scent.

When
he opened them again, he shook his head, a curious look in his eyes. He pulled
back, but kept looming over her on the edge of the table, studying her. Annoyed
that it more aroused than angered her to have his huge body crowding her, she
sat straighter.