At 9 PM, the Blackfang Corporation building was supposed to be empty except for security and the cleaning crew. But as I sat at my desk, finishing up the reports Alexander had asked for, I could hear voices coming from the conference room down the hall.
The dinner with his "business associates" had been postponed at the last minute. Something about urgent matters that required immediate attention. Alexander had apologized with that dangerous smile of his and promised to make it up to me later.
I should have left hours ago, but something kept me here. Maybe it was professional curiosity. Maybe it was the way Alexander's scent lingered in the air, making my skin feel warm and tight. Or maybe it was the growing certainty that Vincent had sent me into this mission blind, and I needed to understand what I was really walking into.
The voices from the conference room grew louder, more heated. I caught fragments of conversation - words like "territory," "breach," and "traitor." Business terms that somehow sounded like declarations of war.
I saved my work and shut down the laptop, but instead of heading for the elevators, I found myself moving quietly toward the conference room. The door was thick oak, but there was a gap underneath where light spilled out into the hallway.
I pressed myself against the wall and listened.
"He's been feeding information to the Silver Moon organization for months," Alexander's voice, but colder than I'd ever heard it. "Financial records, security protocols, pack member locations."
My blood went ice-cold. Silver Moon. Vincent's organization. Someone inside Alexander's pack was working for Vincent.
"How do we know for certain?" Another voice, older, with an accent I couldn't place.
"Because I can smell the fear on him. Because when I asked him directly, his heart rate spiked to 180 beats per minute. Because—" Alexander's voice dropped to a growl that made the hair on my arms stand up. "Because he just tried to run."
The sound that followed made my stomach lurch. A scream, high-pitched and full of terror, cut off abruptly by something wet and violent.
I should have run. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to get out of the building, get back to Vincent, report what I'd heard and let someone else figure out what it meant. But my feet wouldn't move. I was frozen, listening to sounds that my brain refused to process.
A low growl echoed through the conference room, deeper than any human throat could produce. Then came the sound of fabric tearing, followed by something that sounded like bones breaking.
The screaming started again, weaker this time, fading into wet gurgling sounds that made bile rise in my throat.
"Alexander." The older voice again, calm despite the carnage. "You're enjoying this too much."
A sound like laughter, but wrong somehow. Too deep, too wild. "Am I? He betrayed us, Marcus. He put every member of this pack at risk. He deserves everything he's getting."
Marcus. Not the Marcus I knew from Silver Moon - this voice was different. But still, hearing that name in connection with Alexander made my chest tight with an emotion I couldn't name.
The sounds of violence continued for another few minutes before falling silent. I pressed myself harder against the wall, trying to become invisible, trying to pretend I wasn't listening to what sounded like a man being torn apart.
"Clean this up," Alexander said, his voice returning to something almost normal. "And double the security protocols. If Silver Moon has one spy in our organization, they probably have more."
I heard footsteps moving toward the door and panic flooded my system. I couldn't be caught here. I had maybe thirty seconds to get back to my desk and look like I'd been working the whole time.
I moved as quietly as I could, my assassin training finally kicking in. Light steps, controlled breathing, no sudden movements that might catch a predator's attention. I'd almost made it back to my desk when the conference room door opened.
"Sarah?"
I spun around, hoping my expression looked surprised instead of terrified. "Mr. Blackfang! I didn't realize you were still here."
He stood in the doorway, still wearing his suit, but something was different. His hair was disheveled, his tie loosened. And there was something dark staining his white shirt that looked suspiciously like blood.
"I thought you'd gone home," he said, walking toward me with that fluid grace that I was beginning to recognize as distinctly inhuman.
"I wanted to finish the Henderson files before tomorrow," I said, gesturing to my computer. "I hope that's all right. I know it's late."
Alexander smiled, and there was something predatory about it that made my pulse spike. "Dedicated. I like that in an employee."
He moved closer, close enough that I could smell copper and something wilder underneath his expensive cologne. Close enough that I could see his pupils were dilated, his canine teeth slightly longer than they should be.
Close enough that I could see the blood under his fingernails.
"Sarah," he said, his voice dropping to that dangerous whisper I'd heard him use with Marcus Webb earlier. "How much did you hear?"
My heart hammered against my ribs, but I kept my expression confused and innocent. "Hear? I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"The conference room. The conversation. How long have you been listening?"
This was it. The moment where my cover was blown and I either talked my way out or died trying. I let my eyes widen with what I hoped looked like genuine confusion.
"I heard voices, but I didn't want to interrupt your meeting. Was I not supposed to be here? I'm sorry, I'm still learning the protocols."
Alexander stared at me for a long moment, his silver eyes searching my face for any sign of deception. The air between us felt charged, dangerous, like standing too close to a live wire.
Then his expression softened slightly. "No, it's fine. Just... be careful working late. Sometimes our business discussions can get heated."
"Of course, Mr. Blackfang."
But he didn't move away. Instead, he reached out and touched my cheek with one finger, so gently it was almost a caress. His skin was burning hot, and I had to fight not to lean into the touch.
"You have remarkable self-control," he murmured. "Most people would be running by now."
"Running from what?"
His smile widened, showing those slightly-too-long canine teeth. "From me."
The smart thing would have been to agree, to play the frightened secretary who was in over her head. But something in his expression, something almost like approval, made me lift my chin instead.
"Should I be afraid of you, Mr. Blackfang?"
"Everyone should be afraid of me, Sarah. The question is whether you're smart enough to be afraid... or dangerous enough not to care."
Before I could figure out how to respond to that, a horrible sound echoed from the conference room. Not quite human, but not quite animal either. Like something caught between forms, in agony.
Alexander's head snapped toward the sound, his entire body going rigid. "Stay here," he ordered, his voice sharp with authority. "Do not move from this desk."
He strode back toward the conference room, and I heard him speaking in low, urgent tones to someone inside. The inhuman sounds continued, growing more distressed.
I should have listened to him. Should have stayed at my desk like a good little secretary and pretended I hadn't heard anything. But fifteen years of training had taught me that information was survival, and right now, I needed to understand what I was dealing with.
I slipped off my heels and padded silently toward the conference room. The door was ajar now, and through the gap, I could see inside.
What I saw would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.
The conference room looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood covered the walls, pooled on the expensive carpet, splattered across the mahogany table. And in the center of it all stood Alexander.
But it wasn't Alexander. Not anymore.
The thing wearing Alexander's face was seven feet tall, with muscles that strained against his shredded shirt. His hands had become claws, black and razor-sharp. His jaw had elongated, showing rows of teeth that belonged in a nightmare. And his eyes...
His eyes were the silver-gray of molten metal, but there was nothing human left in them. They held the cold intelligence of a predator and the hot satisfaction of a killer who'd enjoyed his work.
At his feet lay the remains of what had once been a man. I couldn't tell who it had been - there wasn't enough left to identify. Just blood and bone and torn flesh scattered across the floor like abstract art.
And standing over the carnage, Alexander threw back his head and howled.
The sound hit me like a physical blow, bypassing my ears and going straight to some primitive part of my brain that understood, on a cellular level, that I was in the presence of an apex predator. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, to hide, to do anything except stand there watching as the man I'd been sent to kill revealed himself to be something far more dangerous than I'd ever imagined.
But I couldn't move. I was transfixed by the savage beauty of what he'd become, by the raw power that radiated from him like heat. This was what Vincent had trained me to kill? This magnificent, terrifying creature that looked like it could tear apart a dozen assassins without breaking a sweat?
As if sensing my stare, Alexander's head turned toward the door. Those molten silver eyes locked onto mine through the gap, and time stopped.
For a heartbeat that lasted forever, predator stared at predator. I saw recognition in his gaze, and something else. Something that looked almost like hunger, but not for food.
Then his lips pulled back in a snarl that showed every one of those impossible teeth, and I knew I was about to die.
But instead of lunging for me, instead of tearing me apart like he'd done to the traitor, Alexander began to change again. His claws retracted, his jaw shortened, his muscles contracted back to merely superhuman proportions. Within seconds, he looked almost human again - if you ignored the blood covering his clothes and the wild gleam in his eyes.
He walked toward the door with deliberate slowness, like a wolf stalking wounded prey. I stumbled backward, my bare feet slipping on the marble floor, but I couldn't outrun him. Couldn't outrun anything that moved like that.
He stepped through the doorway and I got my first clear look at him post-transformation. His shirt hung in tatters, revealing a chest and arms that were covered in muscle and scars. Blood - someone else's blood - painted his skin in abstract patterns. And his face...
His face was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I'd ever seen. Still recognizably Alexander, but with something wild and predatory that hadn't been there in his corporate mask. This was the real him. The monster Vincent had sent me to kill.
"Hello, Sarah," he said, his voice deeper than before, rougher. "I thought I told you to stay at your desk."
I tried to speak, tried to scream, tried to do anything except stand there staring at him like a deer in headlights. But my voice had abandoned me, along with most of my higher brain functions.
Alexander took another step closer, and I could smell him now - blood and sweat and something wild that made my mouth water despite the terror coursing through my veins.
"You saw," he said. It wasn't a question.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"And what did you see, Sarah?"
The question was soft, almost gentle. But there was steel underneath it, a promise of violence if I gave the wrong answer.
I forced myself to meet his eyes, those impossible silver eyes that seemed to see straight through me. "I saw..." My voice came out as barely a whisper. "I saw what you really are."
Alexander smiled, and it was nothing like his corporate smile. This one was all teeth and shadows and barely contained wildness.
"And what am I, Sarah?"
The honest answer - werewolf, shapeshifter, monster - would probably get me killed. But something in his expression told me that a lie would be even worse.
"Dangerous," I whispered.
His smile widened. "Very good. And what does that make you?"
"I don't understand."
"You saw me kill a man with my bare hands. You saw me transform into something that shouldn't exist. You saw enough to send most people screaming into the night or straight to the nearest psychiatric ward." He moved closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin. "But you're still here. You're still standing. You're still looking at me like..."
"Like what?"
"Like you're not afraid."
He was wrong. I was absolutely terrified. But not in the way he probably expected.
I wasn't afraid of dying. I'd been prepared for that possibility since I was eight years old. I wasn't afraid of monsters - I'd been trained to hunt them.
I was afraid because looking at Alexander like this, covered in blood and radiating lethal power, I didn't want to kill him.
I wanted him.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. Somewhere between his predatory smile and the way his muscles moved under his shredded shirt, my body had decided that the apex predator in front of me wasn't a threat to be eliminated.
He was a mate to be claimed.
"You should be afraid," Alexander said, misreading my expression. "You should be running. You should be calling the police, or your priest, or whoever it is normal people call when their world turns upside down."
"I'm not normal people," I said before I could stop myself.
Something flashed in his silver eyes. Surprise? Interest? "No, you're not, are you?"
He reached out slowly, giving me plenty of time to pull away, and touched my face with one blood-stained hand. I should have been disgusted. Should have recoiled from the touch of a killer.
Instead, I leaned into it.
"What are you, Sarah Collins?" he murmured, his thumb tracing my cheekbone. "Because you're definitely not just a secretary."
The smart thing would have been to stick to my cover story. To play the traumatized innocent who'd stumbled into something beyond her understanding.
But there was something in his voice, something almost like recognition, that made me think he already knew the answer.
"I'm someone who understands dangerous," I said quietly.
Alexander's eyes flared with an emotion I couldn't identify. "Are you now?"
"Yes."
"Then you understand that this conversation never happened. That what you saw in that room never happened. That as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I'm just a businessman who works late and you're just a secretary who's very good at her job."
I nodded. "I understand."
"Good." His thumb traced my lower lip, and I had to bite back a sound that was definitely not appropriate for the situation. "Because I would hate to have to kill you, Sarah. I'm beginning to find you... interesting."
"Just interesting?"
The question slipped out before I could stop it, and I immediately wanted to take it back. This was not the time for flirting with the apex predator who'd just committed murder ten feet away from where we were standing.
But Alexander's smile turned predatory in an entirely different way.
"Oh, you're much more than interesting," he said, his voice dropping to a rumble that I felt in my bones. "You're fascinating. You're unexpected. You're..."
"What?"
"Mine."
The word hit me like a lightning bolt, sending heat racing through my body in ways that definitely weren't appropriate given the circumstances. But before I could figure out how to respond, voices echoed from the elevators.
"Security," Alexander said, stepping back abruptly. "You need to go. Now."
"But—"
"Now, Sarah. Use the stairs. Don't let anyone see you leaving."
I grabbed my purse and shoes, my mind still reeling from everything I'd witnessed. "What about you?"
"I'll handle security. This isn't the first time I've had to clean up a mess." His smile was sharp and cold. "It won't be the last."
I headed for the stairwell, but paused at the door. "Mr. Blackfang?"
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow... do we pretend this never happened?"
Alexander looked at me for a long moment, his silver eyes unreadable. "Tomorrow, we see how good you are at keeping secrets."
I left him standing there, covered in blood and radiating lethal power, and took the stairs down fifty-eight floors. With each step, my mind processed what I'd seen, what it meant, what I was going to tell Vincent.
By the time I reached the street, I'd made my decision.
I wasn't going to tell Vincent anything. Not yet.
Because whatever game Alexander Blackfang was playing, I wanted to understand the rules before I decided whether to kill him or join him.
And deep down, in a part of myself I didn't want to examine too closely, I already knew which option was winning.