Two Scents' Worth: A Wolf Rampant spinoff serial (Bloodling Serial Book 3) (2 page)

I woke with a pounding headache and blurry vision, feeling worse than the last time I'd gone in for the kill on a six-point buck and been pummeled by his antlers.
Whoa.
Despite my silent admonition, the room refused to stop spinning until I closed my eyes and squeezed some sense back into my brain. Perhaps matching Victor drink for drink the night before hadn't been such a bright idea after all.

Luckily, my lupine nature made it relatively easy to compartmentalize what had initially felt like unbearable agony. Stumbling across the room, I turned on the sink full blast and soaked my head beneath the cold water until I felt capable of opening my eyes. Then my gaze settled on the glowing numbers on the alarm clock.

Shit
. I was late for my breakfast meeting with First Ohio's manager.
Not a good start.

Pulling on pants—now wrinkled—and buttoning up the shirt Chase's mother Tia had so lovingly ironed the day before, I felt more like a child than I had in a long time. In fact, ever since tracking down the Chief's younger daughter, I'd been off my game. The woman's brown eyes and sweet scent kept drifting across my thoughts at the oddest moments...like right now, when I should have been focusing on how to apologize for tardiness without entirely shooting myself in the foot.

An intriguing pack princess was so much more interesting than a male human I'd never met, though. So as I headed downstairs on autopilot, I allowed her name to roll off my tongue slowly, like a seductively rich morsel of chocolate melting in my mouth. "Terra," I murmured to myself.

Before leaving the pack, I'd caught Tia in a talkative mood and the older woman had been quite willing to tell the story of the Chief's tomboy daughter and her great escape from the Wilder clan two years prior. Unfortunately for my mental health, the tale had only made the pack princess more enticing in my eyes...and that much more dangerous to the good of my pack. Because we were on precarious enough footing already. We didn't need to get involved in Chief Wilder's family any more than necessary to resolve my debt.

Dangerous.
I sucked in another deep breath through open mouth, almost expecting the woman's aroma to fill the air. But all I smelled was stale human sweat, old cat hairs, and a hint of gasoline as the elevator doors sprang open before me. At least my human feet had been moving forward while my brain was lost in the forest with Terra.

Focus
, I reminded myself one last time as my eyes locked on the dapper, gray-haired gentleman seated at the bar. This would be Bob Pendleton, the man who I hoped to wow with my knowledge of Java and ASP. Unwillingly, my imaginary pack princess turned and waved farewell before evaporating into mist.

And as my senses sharpened, I saw that danger had snuck into even this human meeting. Because even though I was supposed to interview alone,
there on the stool next to my potential boss sat Victor.

With almost lupine awareness of his surroundings, the back-stabber met my eyes while I was still twenty feet away. His name tag, now absent, rose in my vision to replace the more scintillating image of Chief Wilder's younger daughter.
Victor
. That's precisely what my cyber buddy planned to be.

In fact, the smirk on his face proved that my hangover was just the first foray in his march toward victory.

***

"It's no problem, young man. Take a seat."

Mr. Pendleton accepted my apology with restraint, but I could tell he'd already moved my name over from the "potential" column to the one headed "probably a waste of time." Still, the human was polite enough to carry through with my interview, even though I was running a full fifteen minutes behind schedule.

"Victor here was telling me his ideas on improving our customer login," the bank manager told me now, his eyes brightening as they ran over my newly minted frenemy. Yep, my cyber buddy had already roped the older male in. And no wonder since Victor appeared even more put together than he had the previous evening, his hair perfectly combed and his teeth sparkling with the intensity of a dental commercial.

I forced myself not to lift a hand to my own head. No, I didn't need the confirmation of touch to know that messy, wet strands were dripping sink water down the back of my neck.
Humans care so much more about appearances than wolves do.
I'd forgotten...or allowed myself to forget.

It was all I could do not to turn tail and run. Mr. Pendleton had clearly already decided against me and Victor was driving stakes of pain into my heart with his lack of fair play. I'd expected more from a pack mate.

But I needed this job too much to relinquish even the tiniest possibility of success. So I gave myself a one-second pep talk instead.

I'm an alpha werewolf
, I reminded myself.
Simply pretend the pair of humans are visiting pack leaders who need to be put in their places. Easy peasy.

Following my own advice, I raised my chin and slowly widened my lips into a grin. My older brother had generally turned red and retreated in the face of such a gesture, so I wasn't surprised to see Victor immediately deflate into his seat, the human's body suddenly angling toward the door.

Unfortunately, Mr. Pendleton's response was less expected. The older male took in my expression with a wrinkled brow and I got the distinct impression he thought he was sitting next to a serial killer.

Drat. Not quite what I was going for.

But there was no way out but forward. So I softened my gaze and launched into the spiel I'd practiced. This much, at least, I was prepared for, and Mr. Pendleton and Victor nodded along as I stated the problem. That was the easy part—we all three knew that First Ohio's website was one hot mess. The challenge was convincing the bank's manager that I was the right one to turn that mess around.

Luckily, even though my human persona could use work, I'd definitely done my homework. In fact, I'd spent every waking hour over the last few days poking around the edges of the problem, and in the process I'd come up with several potential avenues of exploration.

Which, by the annoyed expression flitting across Victor's face, was vastly more preparation than my competitor had put into this morning's meeting.

The trouble was, I could tell that Mr. Pendleton was a man who made knee-jerk decisions based on first impressions. And my first impression had been crap.

So when my spiel wound down, I was disappointed but unsurprised to find the manager putting a fatherly hand on my shoulder. "It sounds like you're going to turn into a top-notch programmer one day," he said, letting me down gently. "But I'm afraid Victor here has already turned my head."

Mr. Pendleton chuckled, inviting me to laugh with him at his choice of words, which made him sound like an innocent girl swayed by a man's handsome face.
Would Terra be swayed?
I couldn't help wondering.
And is my face handsome enough to sway her?

I shook my head to remove the uninvited thought, the effort also going a long way toward helping me hold onto my humanity. Because the prey was still in sight, and I wasn't willing to laugh off my rejection if it meant letting the job slip through my fingers.

"Is there anything I can do to change your mind?" I asked. Then, pulling out all the stops: "I know I'm the best man for the job. In fact, I can hack into the site by the end of the conference and prove that there's a weakness present that Victor can't resolve."

I had no clue if my assertion was true, but I also wasn't exactly bluffing. Once on the track of something I really wanted, I'd never been thrown off course before. So I was confident that I could indeed figure out how to invade the banking portal within the next twenty-four hours if that's what it took to prevent this job from evaporating in a puff of smoke.

"You can't hack into First Ohio by tomorrow afternoon," my back-stabbing friend said, speaking directly to me for the first time all morning. I was gratified to see that the human's smirk was fading into annoyance as he realized Mr. Pendleton was actually considering my offer.

After a quick flicker of assessment in Victor's direction, though, my gaze remained trained on the older gentleman. His open body language made his thoughts as easy to read as if he were speaking aloud.
The late one might be crazy, but a challenge is good for employee motivation,
he pondered.
Why not let the boys have their fun and give them an inducement to make my job their top priority?

What he said, of course, was entirely different.
Typical human.

"Well, that does seem fair," Mr. Pendleton conceded. "A contest of skill. Sounds like fun."

And even though I could tell that Victor considered it anything but fun, I accepted the foothold needed to push my way back through the door that had appeared to be closing in my face.

Time to figure out how to hack into a secure banking portal.

I shifted into lupine form behind a dumpster and was careful to hold my tail dog-erect rather than wolf-low as I ran toward the park. The outing was a risk, and not just because I didn't have any time to spare on wolf body. The trouble was, I hadn't planned to change my skin and hadn't brought along my trick collar. Without Chase's number engraved into the tag, I'd be faced with a conundrum if I ended up behind bars at the local pound. Still, I badly needed to clear my head, and four feet was the fastest way to achieve my goal.

As I loped along, I remembered Chase's confusion when he first slipped into fur a decade earlier. At the time, my milk brother had explained that the yellow, blue, and gray lupine world had appeared grotesque to someone raised with human vision. His paws had covered his ears as those sensitive organs reported more information than the teenager knew how to handle, and he'd spent weeks tripping over his four furry feet.

To me, though, the current absence of reds and greens rested my eyes and focused my gaze. Similarly, the extra scents available to my lupine nostrils relaxed the hairs on the back of my neck, which seemed perpetually erect in human form as I tried and failed to track potential dangers by smell.

Then, as I entered the trees and broke into an all-out run, I experienced my favorite part of wolf brain. The intensity of a full gallop, nothing mattering except the leaves flattening beneath my feet and the breeze whirring past my face. This was pure bliss.

Unfortunately, the run wasn't helping me hack into First Ohio.

I slowed, tongue lolling out of my mouth to expend a bit of pent-up heat as I forced my mind back into the human world of employment. I hated to admit it, but Chase had been right. If he and Wade were present the previous evening, my milk brother would never have allowed me to drink myself into stupidity. And Chase would have remembered to set the alarm, giving me plenty of time to pull myself together into a human-friendly interview package. He'd likely have sat across the room, too, and listened in on my conversation with the bank manager, shooting glances in our direction as necessary to keep me on the right track.

So why had I been so adamant that this would be a solo hunt? The answer was obvious—I'd been hiding my debt from the entire pack, not wanting the other shifters to devolve into the worry that came so naturally to their human brains. Meanwhile, if I was being entirely honest, I'd also admit that I'd kept hush due to shame at letting that wily old wolf pull the wool over my eyes.

Sure, I'd made it clear that the Chief would take his pound of flesh from me alone rather than extracting his due from my pack mates. But Chase and company depended on me in a way that was unaffected by my relative incompetence as an alpha. So my clan would feel nearly as threatened at the sword dangling over my neck as if the danger had been their own.

Unfortunately, my current failure as a human being made it clear that it was past time to worry about my fellow shifters' tender feelings. If I wanted to protect the pack, then I needed to let the pack protect me first.

So I circled back around to my clothing. And as soon as my pads stretched into thumbs, I hit the first number on my speed dial. Because if I was going to make this crazy deadline that I'd set for myself, then I needed the full support of Chase and Wade at my back.

***

"Dinner has arrived."

I could feel the air currents that my pack mates kicked up as they came through the door courtesy of my key card. But I didn't look up. It was 3 am and I'd gotten bloody nowhere with the website so far. Time was slipping away, so food would have to wait.

The worst part? I could
feel
the hole in the site's defenses with my lupine brain. But as soon as I channeled my human self to turn gut feeling into fingers on the keyboard, the wisp of understanding fled.

Access denied
, the computer responded to my latest query. Unconsciously, I growled out my frustration. This wasn't working.

Then pepperoni and grease-covered cheese materialized in front of my nose. My stomach growled and I leaned forward to take a bite, only deigning to look up into my milk brother's eyes after I'd swallowed the much-needed sustenance.

"You can hold your own damn pizza," Chase said, trying to sound grumpy at my lack of manners as I snapped a second chunk out of the hovering food. But I could tell he was actually amused by my behavior. So I waited just long enough for real annoyance to solidify before snagging the slice with my fingers, rolling it into a cylinder, and scarfing half the portion down in one gulp.

"I'm stuck," I explained.

"Never would have guessed it," my milk brother muttered. Then, louder: "Look, I'd offer to help, but the food's really all I've got in me. You know computers and I don't get along...."

I shrugged my understanding. Honestly, I wasn't entirely sure why I'd called in this local contingent of the pack for assistance. Maybe I just felt better having shifters around when I subsumed myself into the problem at hand—no need to exert the energy necessary to watch my own back here in outpack territory. Whatever the reason, my gut had prompted me to hit that button on the cell phone. And I always followed my gut.

Except with Terra.
I flicked the thought away. Just what I didn't need while under deadline—to get sidetracked by a pack princess that I definitely couldn't have.

"You know..."

Chase and I both looked up, surprised that the usually silent Wade had offered words unprompted. The kid was clearly overawed by my alpha presence, and try as I might, I'd so far been unable to get it through his thick skull that I wasn't the replica of my brother that I appeared.

Okay, that wasn't fair. Wade trusted me to protect him with my life. He worshiped the ground I walked on. He just didn't seem to think his own opinions were worth mentioning in the mighty alpha's presence.

Which meant the kid must have something profound on his mind if he'd braved an interruption now. Especially given my current twitchy mood, which I was unconsciously radiating to all and sundry. I clamped down on my inner wolf a trifle to give the kid courage to speak.

"Hmm?" I prompted, taking care to keep my eyes averted. Sometimes Wade did better when he didn't think he had my complete attention. He preferred to assume an alpha's mind was 95% occupied elsewhere and might miss any symptoms of foot-in-mouth disease.

Of course, my interest was piqued, so I wasn't actually ignoring him. Instead, I found that if I turned my head just right, I could catch every expression that flitted across the youngster's face by perusing his reflection on my laptop screen.

My covert appraisal snapped into full alertness as the teenager's gaze met mine. No, that wasn't right. He was instead intent upon the code I'd been struggling with for the last far-too-many hours.

"I think you dropped a line there..." Wade had forgotten himself enough to drift forward so his finger could hover atop a mistake that I'd been glossing over during a multitude of bug checks. I cocked my head to one side. How in the heck had I missed
that
? It was a hole roughly the size of China.

And how had Wade come to understand programming well enough to pick out my mistake?

"I..." The kid stumbled back in distress, attempting to escape my piercing gaze. Only then did I realize that I'd voiced my question aloud.

Chase surreptitiously kicked me under the table, a subtle reminder not to scare the pup. My return blow might not have been quite so surreptitious. Neither was the way I sprang erect and enfolded the youngster in a bear hug to thank him for unraveling my web of confusion.

"Good save," I said, thumping Wade on the back encouragingly. At my first touch, I'd noticed the way he tensed and readied himself to flee. But I ignored the unconscious reaction and was pleased to feel his spine solidify into erect pride mere seconds later. And this time he offered an explanation without further prompting.

"I used the laptop some afternoons. I checked your browser history and got interested in ASP..."

Such a smart shifter. Always follow the trail to the end if you catch a good scent.

Further praise now might make the kid's head explode, though. So I instead walked across the room to snag a second slice of pizza, releasing him from my gaze. "So, what's the next step?" I asked.

The kid had sidled closer to the chair as I ate, and now he leaned over to tap a few keys. Taking the alpha's seat was obviously still too terrifying for the pup, but he couldn't quite hold himself back from the puzzle.

"Well, it seems like if you..." Within seconds, Wade had forgotten himself and sunk down to ease his typing. His shoulders were tight at first as if waiting to be struck down for his impudence. But as he got into the flow of paging through my code, he forgot himself and relaxed fully.

"You fed him?" I asked Chase quietly, knowing that Tia would skin me alive if I kept Wade up all night on an empty belly. The staying-up-all-night part I couldn't do anything about, but the belly part I could.

"Yeah," my milk brother began, but I was already being sucked back into the coding puzzle myself.

"Wait a minute," I said, reaching over Wade's shoulder to hit the up arrow key. "Did you notice here?" My fingers flew faster than my words, and my partner in crime was nodding along.

"And if we..." Now he was typing again, and I spared one quick glance behind me to check on my milk brother.

Chase had shed his clothes, shifted into lupine form, and curled up atop the king-size bed. Opening one eye, his expression clearly stated,
Well, we paid for the room. Someone should use this nice, comfy mattress.

"Knock yourself out, buddy," I murmured. Then, turning back to the chink in First Ohio's armor, Wade and I gnawed at the edges to create a larger and larger hole. Soon, we'd be inside.