by Bonnie Vanak
Popping up out of my cube like a gopher, I saw Lavender’s lamp switch on.
Kara wheeled around to my cube. “The princess is back,” she whispered. “Bet she was having a late morning session with the COO.”
“The Chief Operating Officer was operating on her hoo-ha,” I whispered back and Kara laughed.
Then her smile died. Kara stared out the window. “So much for a nice day.”
Unease flickered down my spine, hinting that something felt off kilter. The morning started out bright and sunny. Now clouds scudded across the sky and dull, leaden light filtered in through the clear windows.
Oddly, this seemed to happen more and more lately when Lavender showed up for work. When she bothered to come in. Last week she called in sick three days in a row.
Needing a distraction from the prickle of unease, I asked about her weekend. “Tell me what you did this past weekend, Kara. Any new boyfriends?”
“No. Got two more subscription boxes. Nail art and bath products.”
Kara’s weakness was subscription boxes, especially anything to do with personal grooming.
“That smell,” she mused.
“Please don’t tell me your new bath salts smell like that. I’d demand a refund.”
Her gaze sharpened, became almost predatory. “I’ll be back, Sienna. Don’t go far.”
Focusing on the computer, I resumed my work. And then I heard the unmistakable clomp clomp clomp approaching. Kara had ducked away, maybe to hide in the restroom. She hated our boss. I stared at my computer monitor again. A large shadow fell over my cube.
Damn. I had held out slim hope he’d be absent today, or still at that training seminar. No such luck.
Randall Lewis Jones. The Third. He peered down at me through horned rim glasses. Grease slicked back his hair. But his business suit was Italian weave and those loafers cost more than my monthly salary.
“Have those reports ready yet?”
I kept typing. “I’ll have the first batch finished by lunch.”
“I need them all by ten o’clock.”
Now I did stop typing and stared. “You gave me the last set of criteria Friday at five o’clock. I can’t possibly input it all that quickly.”
“Then you should have come in over the weekend. I thought you were a responsible worker, Sienna.”
“I can’t work weekends here. The company won’t pay me overtime.”
“Simply because they won’t pay overtime doesn’t give you any excuses. Take the work home with you.”
This was crazy. “I don’t have a laptop.”
True enough.
“Borrow or rent one. Show some initiative.”
Showing initiative was buying a laptop on my dime to do company work they wouldn’t pay me for? Randall already ripped me off by asking me for ideas for campaigns, which he passed along to senior management as his own. Not that I cared, because I cared more about keeping a low profile.
Still, the slimy act made me grit my teeth at time.
You’re leaving tomorrow. Just appease him for now, get him off your back and then when you quit you can tell him off.
I nodded, gritting my teeth again. “I’ll do my best.”
He kept yammering on about my future with the company. I grit my teeth. What future? If I were human, this kind of motivational talk would depress the hell out of me.
What future, indeed. Always on the run, never looking back, afraid to see that monster grinning at me, waving cheerfully.
The monster of my past.
“What is that smell?”
Glancing up, I saw Randall wrinkle his nose. “It’s disgusting.”
Funny. I thought that was your new cologne.
Stepping back, he frowned as he looked at Lavender’s cube. “The company forbids incense and aromatic oil diffusers.”
“Don’t look at me. I never bring those in. Lavender does.”
Curious now, because he seemed hesitant to approach her, I flicked a finger at her cube. “If you’re in such a hurry for these reports, I could use some help from Lavender. She’s supposed to be great at inputting data.”
“No, she has enough work.”
Right.
“Really? For who? Doesn’t she report to you?”
“No. I mean, yes.”
Maybe that odd stench was illegal and Randy had been sniffing it too long. “You hired her.”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t think I did.” An odd frown stretched over his tight face. “I can’t remember. How strange is that? Never mind. Get me those reports by the end of the day tomorrow. I’m being generous, Sienna.”
Two days, when I had two weeks’ worth of work piled up. Randall was late with everything, and as a result, he put additional pressure on his staff because of his lack of planning.
“What if I can’t?”
Never had I challenged him before. It had always been right away, sir, yes sir. Randall frowned and pushed his glasses up his thin nose.
“Then I’m afraid it will show you no longer have an interest in working at Williams. You’ll lose all that vacation time you saved up as well. Company policy.”
The threat issued.
Thoughts of where he could shove his precious reports tumbled through my mind. Thankfully, before those thoughts connected with my tongue, he walked off.
I took a long swallow from my water bottle and resumed inputting figures. Boring as hell. But safe. I needed safe.
Grayson and his betas were not safe.
My cell phone buzzed. I glanced down. Cell phones were frowned upon in the office, so most people tucked them into a purse or a drawer.
In my quest to be invisible at Williams Marketing, I obeyed all the rules. I ignored the buzzing.
Yet the entire time I spent plugging in data, and running numbers, my mind drifted to the past weekend and not the image of my future cabin in the forest.
Grayson’s house was much nicer than a plain log cabin. His property offered more space to roam uninhibited, too.
Fresh air, being in the garden and the forest, had awakened my Fae senses. Sitting before a computer screen inside a building stifled me, hurt my head. The political games played made me ill, and I longed for the lack of guile experienced with Grayson and his pack.
The alpha was arrogant, but honest, and honesty hard to come by in the cutthroat corporate world.
My phone buzzed again. Fourth time this morning! I let it go to voice mail and then plugged in headphones and turned on some tunes. Listening to music was frowned upon as well, but management looked the other way if the work was produced on time. To work faster, I listened to hip hop. Not my preference for enjoyment, but I had sheets of numbers to input.
The fast, driving beat of Post Malone’s Wow pounded into my ears as I typed. I flew through the numbers, typed at a record speed.
A faint voice in the background. Kara. I pulled out the headphones. “What?”
“Girlfriend, slow down before you make the rest of us look bad,” Kara joked from the next cubicle.
Ignoring her, I continued to work. Randall was on my case, and I needed to remain off the radar. Attention meant risking exposure.
Kara appeared around the corner of my cube and she rapped on the desk. “I mean it, Sienna, slow down.”
She helped herself to some yellow M&M’s from my glass jar.
“What’s it to you? I have to get this done,” I shot back.
Munching on the candy, Kara frowned and then swallowed. “You work too hard. Sometimes you get so absorbed in your work you forget your surroundings. Never do that.”
Odd. “That sounds like a warning.”
“It’s good advice.” Kara frowned again, and for a split second, I thought her pupils slitted. Like a lizard’s. “I have a meeting with Randall and Lavendar. Slow down.”
Rubbing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Eye strain.
I kept working. But restlessness overtook me after eating lunch at my desk. I longed for the outdoors and fresh
air. After work, I’d visit a park and indulge myself in a long walk.
In the meantime, these reports…
If you do magick, even just a little, they’ll get done.
Hard to ignore the insistent whisper in my mind. I stood up, pretending to stretch again.
Kara and Lavender were in a meeting. The other cubes were empty as well. I was alone.
Common sense screamed at me to stop, but today I had no willpower. Just a little…
Stretching out my hands, I directed a small beam of energy at the computer screen. Numbers instantly appeared and sorted and organized themselves.
Five pages done in less than five minutes. No amount of quick typing could work as fast as my magick.
Keep going.
No!
Angry with myself, I reined in the magick. Power flowed back into me, struggled to be free again. Taking a deep breath, I centered myself and focused on the human world and technology. After a few minutes, the terrible itch to release my power faded and I resumed typing again.
It did not die like previous times when I could almost pretend I was normal, even human.
It remained in the background like a faint headache.
I’d released the power and now it craved freedom, like a wolf breaking away from a cage. Power like mine can be dangerous, like liquor to an alcoholic. There is no such thing as one little bit. Once it’s released, you only want to do more.
This was not good. Not good at all. How long before I released my stronger powers?
And destroyed more innocents?
Chapter 24
I’d spent three years leashing my magick and in the space of three minutes, released it simply to type up data. I’d let my emotions take over. Again.
Damn.
The time I’d spent at the Timber Wolf pack had stirred something deep inside me. I knew how destructive my magick was, what I was capable of.
I could destroy people with a snap of my manicured fingers, but I refused to let power consume me. Absolute power doesn’t make a person formidable.
It doesn’t make a person indestructible or invincible.
It makes you miserable, even when you try to use it for good.
I would rather live in shadow than be forced into making decisions on who lives and who dies based on my damn emotions or if someone stole my parking spot on a busy day at the shopping mall.
Everyone needs something to live for, and someone to die for, and I had no one left. No one to keep me balanced. Grayson, Stephan and Nicolas might have provided that balance, but their pack didn’t want me.
Being this isolated meant I could slide into a downward depression, destroying everything and everyone the moment I got angry or upset with a jerk like Randall.
Two cubicles away came the rasping sound of cellophane crinkling. Lavender, slurping her way through another Twinkie. She went through them like locusts went through a field of grass. My nerves stretched tight, I put on my headphones.
The numbers on the pages began to blur into each other. Rolling back from the desk, I stretched and blinked, taking a break.
Maybe a cup of tea would help my restlessness. But minutes later, sipping hot tea at my desk, I knew it was futile.
Focusing on electronics and grounding myself in the ordinary world of tech always helped keep the magick at bay before. I began playing a game on my phone. Yet magick burned inside me. Teasing me like a lover, whispering how easy it would be to finish that stack of papers piled higher and deeper on my desk.
I took a break and went to the restroom to splash cold water on my face. What I saw in the mirror ground me to an abrupt halt.
Three years ago, I dyed my hair from its natural pale blond to dark brown to disguise myself. Only last week had I touched up the roots.
Now, a streak of pure white blond showed in my dyed hair, like a beacon in the darkness. I touched the streak, my natural color.
Using magick had changed me. It wasn’t a big change, but the change itself was significant. The more magick I used, the more my disguise would fall away.
And then any paranormal could see who I was. What I was.
Including my enemies – those who hunted me.
No more magick. It was too risky. Back at my desk, I found a hair tie and bound it back in a way to cover the telltale blond streak. Then I resumed playing the game on my phone.
I’d barely started the game when I felt an odd prickling down my spine.
A nice one. Anticipation. The magick inside me tingled, and responded to the warmth surging through me.
Voices sounded near my cube. A high-pitched, giggling female voice I recognized as Stephanie, a 19-year-old Instagram influencer we used to sponsor products. The offspring of two celebrity designers, Stephanie had more than a million followers on Instagram and YouTube, and vlogged about sexy lingerie and women’s items. It sounded like a tour of our office.
I tended to ignore her, and she seldom came to the working area of the cube farm. I was the rank and file and no one ever paid attention to me.
But the other, deeper male voice alarmed me.
Aroused me.
Angered me.
Heat in my body began stoking up to a slow boil. I glanced down.
My hands glowed red.
They trembled as sensual need increased inside me. Only one male was capable of doing this to me, and he’d been texting and calling all day.
Grayson. My breath hitched and my chest grew tight with desire and anticipation.
But my hands…
Good thing I carried an extra pair of magick leather gloves in my tote. I drew them on. They were lightweight, flesh-colored and unless you looked closely, you couldn’t tell I wore them. Resuming my typing, I hoped the tour would not include my area of the cube farm.
Alas, it wasn’t my lucky day.
The voices drew closer. Stephanie was introducing him to everyone in cube land. I knew this was on purpose, and Grayson directed her on the tour.
Too late to make a dash to the ladies room, or hide in the cafeteria. They stopped by my desk. For the first time, I wished I’d been stuck in that boring meeting that trapped Kara and Lavender.
“And this is Sienna, one of our top notch computer programmers,” Stephanie burbled.
Oh, how I wished he could remain in my life, but it was impossible. Why did he torment me like this, when we could never have a life together?
I nodded at him, barely looking up. “Senior data entry clerk.”
He smelled so good, like cedar and freshly mown grass and spring rain. Grayson was like the outdoors, beckoning to me, pulling at me in a siren song. I wanted to run wild and free, break the chains of the cube farm.
Run into his arms and stay there forever, like we had in our dreams.
Dreams were foolish things.
“Good day,” I muttered, not looking up. Not daring to see his face and those eyes burning with desire.
“Nice to see you, Sienna. Perhaps you’ll be one of my clients soon,” he murmured in his sexy, smooth velvet voice.
Now I did glance up.
Dressed in a charcoal gray business suit, with a powder blue shirt and navy tie, Grayson was polished and urbane. He looked so different from the rugged, wild wolf I’d tussled with in bed over the weekend that I blinked and looked closer.
And saw the passion flare in those deep blue eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
A small smile tugged his mouth upwards. “Business.”
Oblivious of the byplay between us, Stephanie pressed his arm and leaned forward, her silicone-enhanced breasts threatening to tumble out of her Oscar de la Renta peplum blouse like a waterfall spilling over a dam.
“Mr. Smith is looking for a social media rep for his company’s new ad campaign. He has a new product on the market.” Stephanie gushed and batted her lashes at Grayson.
I stared coolly at the shifter. “Oh? Specifically what kind?”
Stephanie blushed. “A power mas
sager for women.”
“Vibrator.” He had the arrogance to sport a wide grin.
Narrowing my eyes, I refused to lower my gaze at the alpha. “And you need help with those massagers? To reach more women?”
“My company has a unique prototype that guarantees satisfaction. I can give you a free sample,” he offered.
At that moment, something buzzed loudly in my purse.
“Unless you’re already satisfied with your current model,” he added.
Indignation crested in a huge wave. “That’s my phone.”
“Ah.” He leaned on my desk, his blue-green gaze heated. “So you are in the market for feminine pleasure? Tell me, Sienna, any advice on how to get to the right target? Reaching the correct… spot … for what I require?”
Grayson was being an utter twatwaffle, a charming one, and he knew it. He had me cornered, because now images of how we’d spent the week scrolled through my mind like a slideshow. His special talent, indeed. How many times had he hit my G-spot?
“Excuse me. I have to get these figures done for my boss.” I turned back to the computer. “Good day, Stephanie, Mr. Smith.”
He didn’t leave, but had the utter arrogance to park a lean hip on my desk. “I’ve heard you are a creative person, Sienna. Seems a waste to be shut away back here with a computer and numbers.”
“I like computers better than people. People around here are basically selfish and care only about themselves.” I bit my lip. Not a good admission when you worked at a client-based business like Williams.
Stephanie’s eyes widened, as if I’d admitted I shot up heroin at my desk. She muttered something about meeting Grayson in the hallway.
I tried to make a joke of it to diffuse the sudden silence. “I suppose that’s why they put me back here with a computer. It’s my friend, except when I’m on deadline and it doesn’t work as fast as it could.”
Grayson’s expression shuttered. “You could have plenty of friends, if you really wished. Friends who understood you.”
For a moment I was sorely tempted to push back from my desk, take his hand and walk out of there for good. Leave Williams and the ruse I’d played, pretending to be someone else. Someone who was human, without power, without enemies pursuing her.